How can we already have been seated at his right hand? What does Ephesians 2:5-6 mean?
QUESTION:
“even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,”
Ephesians 2:5-6 ESV
Have we already been seated at his right hand? Notice this is in the past tense! It doesn’t say, “and WILL seat us at his right hand
ANSWER:
This whole section 2:1-10 is a great example of how Paul would write on the doctrine of salvation and establish a bedrock of truth that everything else stands on. Everything we need to know about how we are saved and why we where saved. These verses don’t tell us everything we need to know (like Romans 1-8 and 1Cor 1-2) to totally establish a great foundation of truth that every single Christian has to understand if they really want to understand the meaning of the word “Grace”.
I’m a fan of ripping this apart verse by verse to see what he's saying:
Eph. 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
Eph. 2:2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Eph. 2:3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
1. The folks in Ephesians are literally Dead (and so were we)
The Greek work for “dead” is “nekros”. This means literally a corpse or dead body. We can know through the context that Paul is referring to spiritual death not physical death. We have to understand he is referring to spiritual life. To the people in Ephesus where physically alive but spiritual dead. Paul chose this word picture to best teach the readers of their current state of life as an unbeliever for sure. However it also denotes the the impossibility for someone who is dead to recognize their “deadness” and correct the problem. Just like a corpse, no-one is able to revive their own dead body from the grave simply by willing it. Likewise unbelievers are unable to revive their dead spirit back to life.
2. Spiritual deadness is a result of God’s curse on the world. The word “Course” in Greek is Aion. It literally means “Age” or “Space of time”. So Paul is explaining that the state of every man or woman in this age or time is spiritual deadness. This is normal for us and our experience and universal for everyone. Doesn’t matter who you are. Paul explains that this of course (Romans and Genesis) that this was put into effect because of mans sin in the garden. As a result every man or woman begins their life on earth in a state of spiritual deadness. Apart from God doing something crazy and revive our spirt this state will continue without interruption until our physical death.
3. This “Dead” state is in accordance to the “prince of the power of the air” and he’s at work in the unbelieving world.
Satan is the source of spiritual deadness. He was the first to fall… not man. His deception influence added to mans fall in the Garden. Today, he still rules the hearts of those bound in this spiritual deadness. He can even exert his controlling influences through the fear of dying (death). (Hebrews 2:14-15) Basically, all unbelievers are slaves to Satan the devil.
4. We where once like that
Every christian should totally get that their original state was no different than an unbeliever. No one is or ever will be “born a christian”. Every human baby starting point is the same… children of wrath…God’s wrath.
Eph. 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
Eph. 2:5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ ( by grace you have been saved),
Eph. 2:6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Eph. 2:7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
THEN… Paul lays it down! Explaining the why and how behind us being saved from this state of spiritual deadness.
Verse 4 - In this single verse, V4. Sums up why we were rescued from this horrible state. AND totally negates any argument on works based salvation. He acted to save us by himself and that’s it! Being rich in mercy and abounding in love God determined to save us.
Verse 5 - Paul then says How. the Bible is totally clear on the sequence of events when someone is saved. God must act first because Man does not naturally seek God (Romans 3:10-11) God HAS to act on our behalf first. Because we were a dead corpses unable to do a darn thing for ourselves. If you even look at this verse in greek and see the verbs construction… we share NOTHING in the action being presented. It’s ALL him. We where dead… he made us alive.
Verse 6 - Paul adds one more thing about the How. He says that we our new spiritual life is resulted by us being raised with Christ to be seated in heavenly places. Although we are presently still on earth physically, we have been assigned a place spiritually at the right hadn’t of the Father God IN Christ. Pauls trying to say…. salvation shouldn’t be approached as sticky intellectual thought (being save is not a matter of agreeing with the Gospel message)
Salvation is a serious change of spiritual position before God. Because of what Christ did we went from a son of the devil and totally dead to a new state of being a real son of God alive in Christ! THIS is the exact reason why you can encourage brothers and sisters you know that our salvation is totally permanent!- not reversible.
Verse 7 - We are the appointed audience of his grace and mercy! And total kindness. So that… in the age to come we might glorify Him for it.
The outplaying of this whole thing ties into good works for the purpose of allowing the world to see a display of God’s handiwork. NOT to produce salvation. Those works don’t produce our salvation but they result from our salvation.
Verse 9-10 - The last thing Paul says in V. 8-10 is that our good works are prepared in advance - before hand by God. When we strive to please God by our works, we have to accomplish the work He appointed for us to do. If we choose to accomplish the works fo our own choosing, we labor for nothing and labor in our flesh and do not please God. Good works are only those things that he has purposed before hand for us to do.