AND RAISED US UP WITH HIM: kai
sunegeiren (3SAAI): (1:19,20;
Romans 6:4,5;
Colossians 1:18;
2:12,13;
3:1-3)
Paul speaks here
of our spiritual resurrection with Christ (our blessed hope is of a
bodily bodily is yet future) (See related topic
Order of Resurrection).
In Colossians Paul repeats this truth at the beginning of his charge to
walk in the light of the truth in the first two chapters...
If (since = fulfilled condition) then
you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things
above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind
on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. (See notes
Colossians 3:1;
Colossians 3:2)
Raised up with
Him - Believers are in a solemn, binding, indissoluble covenant with
Christ and so are eternally in union with Him and identified with Him.
When He died, we died. When He was buried, we were buried. When he was
raised up, we were raised up. When He was seated at the right hand of
His Father, we were seated at the right hand of our Father in heaven.
These great truths of the believer's identification with Christ are more
thoroughly expounded by Paul in Romans 6, using the figure of baptism
(not speaking of water but of identification)...
Or do you not know that all of us who
have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into
His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through
baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of
life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His
death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His
resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified
with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we
should no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from
sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall
also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised
from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over
Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but
the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves
to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (See
notes
Romans 6:3;
6:4;
6:5;
6:6;
6:7;
6:8;
6:9;
6:10;
6:11) (See parallel
discussion in
Colossians 2:11-13)
Raised up with
(4891)
(sunegeiro from sun = with, speaking of an intimate
relationship or intimate union + egeiro = raise) is more
literally "raised up together", the pronoun "Him" being added to
indicate it was with Jesus we were raised up. Obviously this is a
spiritual resurrection that follows our crucifixion with Christ and our
entombment with Christ. Christ's resurrection was physical while ours
was a spiritual resurrection. On the basis of the believer's past
spiritual resurrection, there is the guarantee of a future physical
resurrection and transformation (glorification) when
we shall all be changed, in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will
sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be
changed. For this perishable (earthly body) must put on the
imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. (1Cor 15:51b-53)
Sunegeiro means to be roused
(from sleep but here used figuratively as a reference to death) in
company with and figuratively as used by Paul means to revivify
spiritually. Plutarch has a writing which uses sunegeiro in a
secular sense meaning "waking up together".
Believers don't
just receive life (see note
Ephesians 2:5), but
experience resurrection life in Christ!
Practically this truth means that we now can walk in His resurrection
power as discussed more below. The
aorist tense
indicates that this co-resurrection is a past completed event.
John Brown
wrote...
Christ rose again, but our sins did
not; they are buried forever in his grave.
It bears
re-emphasizing that each of the verbs made alive with, raised
with, seated with has the identical prepositional prefix "sun"
(syn) which means with in Greek but is significantly
different than the other Greek word for with (meta)
which conveys the of beside, whereas sun speaks of an intimate,
indissoluble union. Let's illustrate using a well known event, the
crucifixion. Two criminals were punished with Jesus and both were
crucified with (metá) Him, i.e., in His company, but only
one was spiritually crucified with (sún) Christ, i.e.,
bound up or in union with Him while the other thief was not. The first
thief entered paradise, while the second entered hell. And so we get a
glimpse of the significance of Paul's three combination verbs used to
explain our salvation. Clearly, he is driving home not only these basic
truths of our salvation but also emphasizing with the use of sun-
that this salvation is irrevocable. The believer who has been made alive
with Christ, raised with Christ and seated with
Christ is eternally secure in Christ! Christ is our covenant
partner and the "covenant Head" of the redeemed family. What Christ
does, He does for us. What we do is done because we are in Christ. We
are eternally identified with Him.
On the basis of
our past resurrection with Christ, we have the sure "hope of our
calling", of a future physical resurrection and transformation of our
bodies into conformity with His glorious body. (See related topics
The Two Resurrections -
"First" and "Second" - on a timeline
and
Order of Resurrection)
J Vernon McGee
comments that
"Lord Lyndhurst was the Lord
Chancellor of Great Britain and possessed a sharp legal mind. He made
this statement: “I know pretty well what evidence is; and I tell you,
such evidence as that for the Resurrection has never broken down yet.”
The death and resurrection of Christ is an historical fact. When Christ
died you and I died with Him; He took our place. And when He was raised,
we were raised in Him, and we are now joined to a living Christ. It
is so important for us to see that we are joined to a living Savior.
(Ed note: italics mine) It is so important to keep in mind that
no outward ceremony brings us to Christ. The issue is whether or not we
are born again, whether we really know Christ as Savior. If we do know
Him, we are identified with Him. Identification with Christ is “putting
off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ,”
which is a spiritual circumcision. When you put your trust in the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit baptizes you into the body of Christ. It
is by this baptism that we are identified with Christ, and we are also
“risen with him”—joined to the living Christ." (McGee,
J V: Thru the Bible Commentary: Thomas Nelson)
In the epistle to
the Colossians Paul explained to the saints the grand truth that they
had
been buried with Him (Christ) in
baptism (a spiritual baptism, an identification and union with His
death), in which you were also raised up with (sunegeiro) Him through
faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. (see note
Colossians 2:12)
Paul emphasizes this truth of our co-resurrection as he begins
his exhortation to live a new style of life, a supernatural life enabled
by resurrection power...
If then (since) you
have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where
Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things
above, not on the things that are on earth. (see note
Colossians 3:1;
3:2)
MacDonald has some interesting
thoughts:
"Baptism is burial, the burial of all
that we were as children of Adam. In baptism we acknowledge that nothing
in ourselves could ever please God, and so we are putting the flesh out
of God’s sight forever. But it does not end with burial. Not only have
we been crucified with Christ and buried with Him, but we have also
risen with Him to walk in newness of life. All of this takes place at
the time of conversion." (MacDonald,
W & Farstad, A. Believer's Bible Commentary: Thomas Nelson)
Earlier Paul had
explained to the saints that he was praying for them to experience the
"surpassing greatness of His power" (see note
Ephesians 1:19)
and that this power was...
in accordance with the working
of the strength of His might (i.e., that power was the same mighty
power) which He (God the Father) brought about in Christ, when He
raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the
heavenly places.
It follows that we
too were raised with "resurrection power" and in Romans 6 we now
have the privilege to life our daily life enabled by that same
inestimable resource, Paul asking...
Or do you not know that all of us who
have been baptized (he is not speaking of water baptism but of a
spiritual baptism, an identification with) into Christ Jesus have been
baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through
baptism into death (this cannot refer to water baptism, but has to be a
figurative usage, reflecting our spiritual emersion so to speak with
Christ when He experienced the "baptism of death" on the Cross), in
order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the
Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (see notes
Romans 6:3;
Romans 6:4)
Let me ask you,
beloved of the Father, would you say that your life is a living
testimony to His supernatural resurrection power? Repeatedly in the New
Testament, the writes emphasize that this is every believer's potential
in Christ because of the fact that the Father has raised us up with Him.
Wuest
explains that
we were not only placed in Christ by
God the Holy Spirit in order that we might share His death and thus be
separated from the evil nature, but we were placed in Him in order that
we might share His resurrection and thus have divine life imparted to
us. (see note
2 Peter 1:4)...The
newness of life does not refer to a new quality of experience or
conduct but to a new quality of life imparted to the individual. Romans
6 does not deal with the Christian’s experience or behavior. Paul treats
that in Romans 12-16. In this chapter the key word is machinery, the
"mechanics" of the Spirit-filled life being Paul’s subject. The newness
of life therefore refers, not to a new kind of life the believer is to
live, but to a new Source of ethical and spiritual energy imparted to
him by God by which he is enabled to live the life to which Paul exhorts
in Romans 12-16... we shared Christ’s resurrection in order that we may
order our behavior in the power of a new life imparted.
Here we have then the two-fold result of the major surgical operation
God performs in the inner being of the sinner when he places his trust
in the Saviour. He is disengaged from the evil nature, separated from
it, no longer compelled to obey it. He has imparted to him the divine
nature (see note
2 Peter 1:4)
which becomes in him the new Source of ethical, moral, and spiritual
life, which causes him to hate sin and love righteousness, and which
gives him both the desire and the power to do God’s will. Paul, speaking
of the same thing in (see notes
Philippians 2:12;
2:13).
The Christian’s will has been made absolutely free. Before salvation it
was not free so far as choosing between good and evil is concerned. It
was enslaved to the evil nature. But now, it stands poised between the
evil nature and the divine nature, with the responsibility to reject the
behests of the former and obey the exhortations of the latter. To
constantly say no to the former and yes to the latter becomes a habit,
and then the victorious life has been reached. (see notes
Romans 6:12;
Romans 6:13)
(Wuest,
K. S. Wuest's Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: Eerdmans
AND SEATED US WITH HIM IN THE
HEAVENLY PLACES IN CHRIST JESUS: kai sunekathisen (3SAAI) en tois
epouraniois en Christo Iesou:
(Matthew
26:29;
Luke 12:37;
22:29,30;
John 12:26;
14:3;
17:21-26;
Revelation 3:20,21)(1:3)
Seated us with
(4776)
(sugkathizo from sún = with speaking of an intimate union
+ kathízo = to set or sit down) means to cause to sit down with.
Paul uses the
aorist tense,
which here speaks of a past completed action. Paul is so certain of this
grand truth, that he records it as if it has already occurred! So
certain is every word of God, every promise! Why are we so often, so
prone to wonder, so little in our faith? And so with the eyes of faith
we see that this seating with Christ has occurred, even if we from our
finite human perspective cannot fully comprehend its practical import.
How incredible the contrast with the other NT use of sugkathizo
describing Peter just prior to denying His Lord, Luke recording...
And after they had kindled a fire in
the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter was
sitting among (sugkathizo) them. (Luke 22:55)
We don't sit in
the heavenly places with Christ Jesus (yet) but we do sit in
the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Since our life and
identity is in Christ, as He sits in the heavenly places, so do we. And
even though we are not yet in possession of all the inheritance that God
has for us in Christ, to be in the heavenly places is to
be in God’s domain instead of Satan’s ("For He delivered us from the
domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son"
Colossians 1:13 [note]
and we were turned "from darkness to light and from the dominion of
Satan to God" Acts 26:18). Now, we are in the sphere of spiritual
life instead of the sphere of spiritual death. "In the heavenly
places" is where our blessings are (see note
Ephesians 1:3)
and where we have fellowship with the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit,
and with all the saints who have gone before us and will come after us.
"In the heavenly places" is where all our commands come from and
where all our praise and petitions go.
Warren Wiersbe
gives an illustration writing...
While attending a convention in
Washington, D.C., I watched a Senate committee hearing over television.
I believe they were considering a new ambassador to the United Nations.
The late Senator Hubert Humphrey was making a comment as I turned on the
television set:
“You must remember that in politics,
how you stand depends on where you sit.”
He was referring, of course, to the
political party seating arrangement in the Senate, but I immediately
applied it to my position in Christ. How I stand—and walk—depends on
where I sit; and I am seated with Christ in the heavenlies!
The Queen of England exercises
certain powers and privileges because she sits on the throne. The
President of the United States has privileges and powers because he sits
behind the desk in the oval office of the White House. The believer is
seated on the throne with Christ. We must constantly keep our affection
and our attention fixed on the things of heaven, through the Word and
prayer, as well as through worship and service. We can enjoy “days of
heaven upon the earth” (Deut. 11:21) if we will keep our hearts and
minds in the heavenlies. (Wiersbe,
W: Bible Exposition Commentary. 1989. Victor)
Heavenly places
(2032)
(epouranios from epí = upon, in sense of pertaining to
above + ouranos = heaven) encompasses the entire supernatural
realm of God, His complete domain (it is the supernatural sphere where
God rules) and the full extent of His divine operation. The true
citizenship of every saint is not this present earth (which is passing
away) but is heaven, Paul explaining to the saints at Philippi that...
our citizenship is in heaven, from
which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ who will
transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of
His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all
things to Himself. (see notes
Philippians 3:20;
3:21)
Because our new
citizenship through Christ is in heaven, God seats us with Him in the
heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. We are no longer of this present world
or in its sphere of sinfulness and rebellion. We have been rescued from
spiritual death and given spiritual life in order to be in Christ
Jesus in the heavenly places.
Spurgeon
once said...
Little faith will bring your soul to
heaven; great faith will bring heaven to your soul.
In Christ Jesus
- all of the glorious truths are predicated on this powerful phrase
"in Christ Jesus". Marvin Vincent agrees writing that "in Christ
Jesus" is to be connected with...
raised up, made us sit, and in
heavenly places. Resurrection, enthronement, heaven, all are in Christ.
><> ><> ><>
John Piper has some
interesting thoughts on what "seated with Him in heavenly places"
means writing...
Now what does that mean? We are all
right here in this room, aren't we. Or are we? What did Tony Bennet mean
twenty years ago when he sang, "I left my heart in San Francisco"? Well,
he meant that San Francisco still holds his affections. San Francisco is
always pulling him back. San Francisco governs his tastes. He may look
like he is in Chicago. But Chicago has no claim on his affections. It's
a foreign land. He is not interested in being like the natives of the
windy city. That is the way it is with us when we are converted. God
takes our heart and puts it in heaven with Christ. Colossians 3:3 says,
"For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God." So just
like it is with Tony Bennet and San Francisco, so it is with us and
heaven. It's heaven that holds our affections. It's heaven that's always
pulling us upwards, its heaven that governs our tastes. We may look like
we are in the world. But the world has no claim on our affections. It's
a foreign land. We are exiles and aliens.
In a word, when we are converted God
frees us from the spirit of the age and the god of the age. It's as
though we had been kidnapped and brainwashed and made to think we were
really citizens of the enemy territory. And then the king's intelligence
finds you and shocks you out of your stupor, and you suddenly realize
that what the enemy has to offer would never satisfy the deepest
longings of your heart. Your heart is in the homeland. But the king says
stay for now, and, though it may be dangerous, live like an alien in
love with the homeland, and when you come home bring as many with you as
you can. Don't you really want to be FREE from the spirit of the age.
Why would anybody want to be jelly fish carried around by currents in
the sea of secularism? You can be a dolphin, and swim against the
currents and against the tide. Jelly fish aren't free. Dolphins are
free. (Full sermon
Ephesians 2:4 But God...)
><> ><> ><>
F B Meyer
once said...
THE PSALM OF ASCENSION - "But God,
being rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when
we were dead through our trespasses, quickened us together with Christ,
and raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly
places, in Christ Jesus."-- Eph 2:4-6.
THIS 24th Psalm is apparently in two parts, and yet there is one theme,
the ascent of the holy soul and the triumphant Saviour into the presence
of God. For us, the ascension of our Lord precedes our own; but in the
days of the Psalmist that order was reversed.
Our Lord's Ascension. In an outburst of poetry, kindled by the Divine
Spirit, the Psalmist anticipates the coming of the King of Glory to the
doors of the Eternal City--that ideal City which through the ages has
beckoned forward the hearts of saints and patriots, and which in Rev.
21. is seen descending to our earth. It was as though the doors of the
Unseen barred His entrance. They had opened to God, but never before to
"God manifest in the flesh." It was a new thing that He should take our
nature with Him into the unseen and eternal world.
The soul's ascension (Ps 24:3-6). In Christ we have ascended and are
seated at God's right hand. No change in your emotions, not even the
being overtaken by a fault can alter that. But we have to make our
calling sure. What is ours in the divine purpose must be claimed and
appropriated as a living daily experience. There are certain qualities
of character which are requisite to those who should be accounted worthy
to stand before the Son of Man, not hereafter only, but now and here and
always (Lu 21:36).
We must have clean hands. The money
that we earn must be clean money. If we are writers, artists, mechanics,
professional or commercial men or women, we must never produce anything
which would defile the imagination or heart. We must have a pure heart.
In Isa 33:14-17, which is a parallel passage, the Holy Spirit is
compared to a devouring fire, in the presence of which no evil thing can
five. Let us ask Him so to possess us, and to cleanse the thoughts of
our hearts by His inspiration. We must not lift up our soul to vanity,
i.e., we must not allow ourselves to be inflated with the applause or
rewards of the world. Many sell their souls for these, and only at the
end of life awaken to discover how worthless they are. We must not swear
deceitfully, i.e., we must be absolutely transparent and sincere, for
only the true can stand in the presence of the King of Truth.
PRAYER - May we live as those who have been raised with Christ, and who
are seated with Him. AMEN. (Meyer, F B. Our Daily Walk)
><> ><> ><>
A devotional from
Our Daily Bread -entitled "Heavenly People"
If then you were raised with Christ,
seek those things which are above (Colossians 3:1).
Christians are a "heavenly" people. That's what Paul meant when he told
the Ephesians that God has "raised us up together, and made us sit
together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph 2:6). We live on
earth, but "our citizenship is in heaven" (see note
Philippians 3:20).
We should therefore "seek those things which are above," and store up
treasures in heaven.
We see a graphic difference between an earthly minded person and a
heavenly minded person when we look at two Middle Eastern tombs. The
first is the burial place of King Tut in Egypt. Inside, precious metal
and blue porcelain cover the walls. The mummy of the king is en-closed
in a beautifully inscribed, gold-covered sarcophagus. Although King Tut
apparently believed in an afterlife, he thought of it in terms of this
world's possessions, which he wanted to take with him.
The other tomb, in Palestine, is a simple rock-hewn cave believed by
many to be Jesus' burial site. Inside, there is no gold, no earthly
treasure, and no body. Jesus had no reason to store up this world's
treasures. His goal was to fulfill all righteousness by doing His
Father's will. His was a spiritual kingdom of truth and love.
The treasures we store up on earth will all stay behind when this life
ends. But the treasures we store up in heaven we'll have for eternity.
When we seek to be Christlike in thought, word, and deed, we will live
like "heavenly" people. —PRV. (Our
Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by
permission. All rights reserved)
Wise are those who gear their goals
to heavenly gains.
><> ><> ><>
A devotional from
Our Daily Bread -
As Charles Simeon (Click
John Piper's deeply convicting overview of Simeon's life and work), the
great nineteenth century English preacher, lay mortally ill in his
Cambridge home, he realized that his time on earth was fast slipping
away. He turned to those at his bedside and asked, "Do you know what
comforts me just now? I find infinite consolation in the fact that in
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." His friends asked
how that thought could give solace as he faced death. He answered with
the confidence of one about to meet the Lord, "Why, if God can bring all
the wonder of the worlds out of nothing, He may still make something out
of me!"
To think of the glory that awaits God's children—to have a spirit
perfectly pure and a resurrected body that will enable us to enjoy
eternity to its fullest—staggers the imagination. The great changes we
will experience in glory are beyond our understanding.
Even now God's transforming power is at work in us. At conversion we
became children of God and were made "alive together with Christ" (see
note
Ephesians 2:5). But
that is not all. Paul said that in the future God will "show the
exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus"
(Ephesians 2:7). No wonder the apostle John exclaimed with astonishment,
"It has not yet been revealed what we shall be."
Glorious prospects await those who have trusted Christ for salvation.
God is not done with us yet. The best is yet to be. —PRV (Ibid)
While you prepare a place for us, Lord,
prepare us for that place.
