Ephesians 2:4-9

Sisters and brothers in Christ,

This evening’s Bible passage is Ephesians 2:4-9:

⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

In v. 6, Paul writes “seated,” not “will seat.” The tense is significant. What happened on the first Ascension Day involved us no less than Christ.

 How can this be? Only because we are “in Christ” (vv. 6-7). This is not an easy concept to get our heads around, but it’s central to Paul’s teaching. Martin Luther, like Paul later in this same letter (5:25-32), used the analogy of marriage to explain what it means for Christians to be “in Christ.” In a marriage, some things are true of the couple as a couple: if, for example, one partner incurs a debt, then the couple may be liable as a couple for the debt. If the other partner pays the debt, the couple is free as a couple. So we incurred the debt of sin, and Christ was liable for the debt. Christ paid the debt of sin at the cross, and all those who are in Christ are now free of that debt, once and for all. Free of debt and, after the resurrection, alive in Christ. Free of debt and, after the ascension, seated in the heavenly places in Christ. Christ pays our debt; we share in his blessings. That’s the way God’s grace works.

 Trying to be literal about all this won’t help us understand it any better. How can every one of us who is in Christ be seated with Christ? It was crowded enough at the Last Supper. Drawing up a tentative seating plan for “the heavenly places” won’t help either. Nor will misunderstanding the idea of sitting. For some, sitting conjures up restraint as a child, when we’d much rather have run around, or even being made to sit in a corner as punishment for misbehavior. That’s not the sitting that Paul has in mind. To be seated with the exalted Christ is to enjoy a position of privilege. You’ll remember that James and John asked to sit, one at the right hand and one at the left hand of Christ in his glory (Mk. 10:35-37). Paul tells us that every last one of us who is in Christ, however insignificant we may think we are, gets to enjoy this privilege, not just in some distant future, but now.

Nor is this just a privilege in word only. Some wonderful things flow from it. Paul says that God’s purpose in seating us in the heavenly places was so that “he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (v. 7). We are not at a vast distance, waiting for some promised kindness that has yet to materialize. We’re not waiting for a blessing that, like the legendary check, is always “in the mail” but never arrives. In Christ, we have already been welcomed into God’s immediate presence; we have already been seated at God’s table like a son or daughter; we have already been given a place of honor; and God’s purpose in all this is to shower us, even as we complete our lives on earth, with his immeasurable kindness.

Privileged to be seated in this way with the ascended Christ, we enjoy immediate access to God in prayer. We’re not speaking from our small place on earth into a distant silence in the hope that God might perhaps hear. We’re speaking to the God who has already seated us beside him in Christ and now waits to hear what we have to say. The writer to the Hebrews puts it this way: “Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, … let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:14-16). In the ascended Christ we are already seated in the very presence of God, and need only turn to God and speak.

This privilege of intimacy with God is irrevocable. We enjoy it not because of anything that we have done, but only and entirely because of what Christ has done on our behalf: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (vv. 8-9). None of us is seated with the ascended Christ because, like James and John, we think we’d make great chiefs of staff, or because we won a competition for godliness or goodness, or because, for all our failures, we’ve at least tried harder than other people. We are there because we are in Christ. Christ alone enjoys his position of honor (and cosmic responsibility) because of what he has done. Loving us, he shares this honor with us because all that he has done and all that he does is on our behalf. The ascended Christ will never be driven from the Father’s presence; nor will we who are in Christ.

When church bells sound on Ascension Day, they celebrate not only Christ’s ascension on our behalf to a seat at the right hand of God. They ring, too, for the extraordinary news that each of us for whom Christ died and for whom he rose is now and forever seated with the ascended Christ in the very throne room of heaven. One day, we’ll get to see it for ourselves. Alleluia!

Your brother and sister in Christ,

Max and Ann