Friday, February 12, 2021

Raised with Christ

"And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6).

Yesterday we concluded our study of the doctrine of man, and it led us right to the point we left in Ephesians 2. Man is dead. He is separated from God and under God’s judgment. Man’s rotting heart pours forth corruption, with the result that everyone continually walks in sin. In order for anyone to be saved, there must be a resurrection from this dead condition.

God tells us to love our enemies because He has chosen to love His. Even though He was angry with us, and we were objects of His wrath, yet He decided to love us. His love was so great that He sent His Son to pay the price for our sins. This enabled Him to grant us resurrection life even though we were still living in transgressions and sins. This means that it is only through grace that we are saved. We were dead and were unable to do anything good until we were made alive again by God’s sovereign act.

This resurrection of the heart is only the beginning. God had created Adam to have dominion over all the earth, and it is His intention to follow through on His design. Christ, the New Adam, has now been given dominion over all things, and we have been taken up into heaven and seated with Him.

According to Ephesians 2:6, this is already the case. It is not some future event. Christ is seated on the throne now. He rules the world. We are coheirs with Him. Because we are coheirs, we do not have dominion over the world by ourselves. We rule in union with Christ. Through prayer, we make petitions to Him that we may be faithful in our responsibilities; but the final decisions are always His.

Paul goes on in verse 7 to say that our station in the heavenly realm is only the beginning because the reign of Christ and His people will go on forever. In the “coming ages” God will show forth His incomparable riches. The first of these coming ages was the age that was coming into being in Paul’s day and which stood forth clearly once the counterfeit Old Jerusalem was taken away in A.D. 70. It is the Gospel age. But then there is the age of the new heavens and earth, which will be inaugurated by Christ’s second coming, during which the glories will be shown forth even more.

Have you ever thought of prayer as a part of your sonship in Christ? Because we are adopted children, we have access to the kingdom of heaven. Meditate on this privilege and strive to be faithful in your prayer life as a coheir with Christ.