Chapter 2, Verses 6, 7 “and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Wow! Look at what happened to the Ephesians and to all who obey the teachings of the Holy Spirit. Not only are the faithful saints made alive in Jesus, they are raised up with Him and seated with Him in the heavenly places. What does that mean?
When the redeemed person is baptized they arise to walk a new life. They are raised with Jesus and not only that but they are seated with Him in the heavens. Where was Jesus seated? At the right hand of God. This signifies that Jesus is ruling the kingdom. He said he would reign in God’s kingdom and so He is. And, look who’s reigning with him. All those who were raised to walk in the new life. Those forgiven of their sins through the blood of the Christ. They reign with Christ.
This reign is spoken of in the book of Revelation, written by the Apostle John. In this book of signs and symbols John is all about the reign of Jesus over His kingdom and the defeat of the kingdoms of this world. In 20:4 John talks about the thrones of those reigning. These faithful saints came to life (reread our text) and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. This is John’s symbolic take on Ephesians 2:6, 7.
I know that many today believe this thousand-year reign is in the future and is a literal period of time but Paul plainly states the reign is going on now. After the reign is over there will be the ages to come where the reigning saints will experience surpassing riches of grace. We know that as heaven.
As a side note I wish to mention that the book of Revelation is unlike any other book in the New Testament in that it uses symbolic language rather than plain speech. It is difficult to make things like the perfect number, 1,000, literal any more than Jesus’s statement to Peter about 70 times 7. In both cases, multipliers of perfect numbers create a complete but not counted number.
All spiritual blessings are in Christ and to be raised up with Him and seated with Him is to be in the position of receiving all the spiritual blessings that God gives through Him. Eye has not seen nor has ear heard…
Task for Today: Make sure you have been raised with Christ so that you can reign with Him. Make no mistake about it, Christ reigns over His kingdom today and if you are a part of that kingdom you are reigning too. He is the King of kings. You are one of those kings He is king over. Reign under the grace of God.
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