DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION IN CHRIST
Transcribed from an audio message by David A. DePra
Once again we are going to be taking our message out of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. The subject will be the death, resurrection and ascension in Christ. I think many Christians, to one degree or another, realize that we are baptized into the death of Christ and because we are, we are raised with Him, but I don’t think that many of us also realize that we are also united with Him in His ascension. Other than the direct message of the scriptures, the reason I am able to say this is that it goes back to a core truth of Christianity. It really goes back to the reality of Christ in us and how it is that He does dwell in believers. The Bible says, “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” The believer is joined to and made one with Jesus Christ, spiritually. This occurs at salvation and if you break this down, it means that we are joined to Him in His death. It means that we are joined with Him in His resurrection. Do we think that it ends there? Do we think that the ascension is something other? No, if we are joined with Christ, then we are joined with Him in every way. So, we are joined to Christ in His death, in His resurrection and in His ascension because we are joined with the Person who fully embodies all He accomplished in those redemptive acts.
I want to read here from Romans about our spiritual oneness with Christ., which is where I want to begin this message. But first, just to cut to this issue of His ascension and the fact that we are joined with Him in it, we need only read out of Ephesians, chapter one, verse seventeen, in the prayer of Paul. He prays there that God would give to us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Himself and how that will enlighten the eyes of our understanding, which will enable us to know what is the hope of His calling and of the riches of His inheritance in the saints. But, here is something else we will know if we see and have a revelation of Jesus, and that is to know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe. This is the same power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenlies. So, God is saying right here that He wants us to see and to know that the same mighty power that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenlies, is for us who believe. The result of it is that it will be the same as it is for Christ because in Ephesians 2:6, it says that God has raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Paul, right here is saying, through the inspiration of the Spirit of God, that God wants us to know and to see and to realize that the same power of the Spirit of God that raised Jesus Christ from the dead and set Him at His own right hand, has likewise, because we are in Him, raised us up together with Christ and made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
How many see, therefore, that the spiritual union with Christ that we have as believers extends to the ascension? Because we are joined to the Lord and made one spirit with Him, 1 Corinthians 6:17, that we are made one with Him in His death and resurrection but also in His ascension. Indeed we are one with Christ right now as those seated with Him in the heavenlies. If you think about it, it would be nonsense to imagine that all three of these dimensions are not a reality for the believer or that you could exclude the ascension. or minimize it. No, it is all one reality and truth of Christ in us which is our union with Him. Therein, not excluding any of the three, you have a finished redemption, complete and total for the believer. It is victory in every way. If we are seated together with Christ in the heavenlies, at the right hand of God, far above all principalities and powers, which can only be possible as we enter into His death and resurrection, we are then seated over the very enemy, death, and we have ascendancy over the very forces of the devil. We do. We have to learn this and we have to live it, but it is an absolute fact.
Being seated with Christ in the heavenlies is not something extra tacked on to what a Christian is. It is not a higher Christianity or some sort of nonsense like that. It is what a Christian is and what Christianity consists of, which is life from the throne in the heavenlies. I think one of the biggest mistakes in the church today, certainly represented by the Word of Faith heresy more than any other heresy, is that they often preach about being seated with Christ in the heavenlies and about the authority of the believer. Stemming from this, you get the ‘name it and claim it’ and that you have power to do this and that. You have people on TV bragging that they never get sick and also that you should have riches and perfect health etc. They preach being seated together with Christ in the heavenlies as the means by which all of these things are achieved. But, how often do they ever even mention the need to be crucified with Christ and to carry your personal cross? How often do they really mention that it is in and through the Person of Christ that all of these things operate and function. There is no such thing as authority that is handed to a believer. No, Christ is the power of God. It is only as He does things through people and He would not do half of what they claim He does.
I don’t want to turn this into a message on the WOF, but what I do want us to see is that when it says that we are joined to the Lord and made one spirit with Him, that this includes ALL. It includes everything having to do with His death, everything to do with His resurrection and everything to do with His ascension and the fact that He is seated in the heavenlies. We are one with Him there, now, because we are one with Christ now. This means victory if we would just believe it, embrace it and begin to walk in it. It is not victory to name it and claim it and get rich. or to banish out of your life any problems, but it is victory in the sense that God will have you and have victory in you. God will have victory through trials and tribulations. There is no victory unless you face the enemy, stand in Christ and see the glory of God. This is the only thing that will defeat the Enemy. It is not victory to be spared trials just because you can confess them right out of your life. There is no victory in name it and claim it and get everything that you want. No, there is victory only if you face the worst forces of darkness in Christ and stand in Him to see His glory brought through. You do not hear this preached very often.
Now if there is one thing I want to establish here before I get a little more heavily into this, is the absolute spiritual unity of the believer with Jesus Christ. You know, we are called His Body and this is not just speaking of a group of people. or a church you join or attend. Believers are called the Body of Christ as He is the head and we are the members. We are to be extensions of Him. We are, as His Body to be doing what He would do because if He is the head, He is doing these things through us. I have mentioned many times that God does not need any one of us and can do whatever He chooses without our help. That should be obvious. But because of the purpose of God to live and move through a body in the eternal ages, He has chosen, not to the exclusion of doing things without us, but by and large He has chosen to do His will through His people in this age. This is part of our training and is unto the purpose of the eternal ages.
Now, a little bit of an explanation before we get into Romans, six, regarding God using us and doing what He wants to do. If you look at the church age, you will not find much of the glory of God. This is really the truth and the sooner we admit that it is, the better. In the public eye, especially, God has been misrepresented and what has come forth in the last two thousand years is to disgrace God and reduce things down to not being Christian at all. Look at the Roman Catholic church in the Middle Ages, was that Christianity? God was not in any of it. So, when we talk about God using us, we need to come to some conclusions here. The Roman Catholic church was not the Body of Christ that God was directing any more than a lot of Protestantism has been ever since. By and large, and this is a general statement, but it goes back to the fact that God wants to work through people. For the most part, this church age has been what people have made it to be. Do you think God has done this? Do you think that god is responsible for the abomination that you see on ‘Christian’ TV today? Do you think that is His will? Do you think that any of it reflects God or that He is in it? Do you think the Roman Catholic church had anything of God in it in the middle ages or even now? They teach error. They do not teach the true gospel.
I could go on and on and list all of the cults which are called offshoots of ‘christianity’. They claim to be Christian but teach false doctrines. Down through the last two thousand years, almost from the first century, there has been nothing but heresy, abomination and misrepresentation. God did not do that. People did that! Oh, they did it in the name of Jesus, but they did it. Do you know something? God let them. God has never come down, at least not yet, and wiped the whole slate clean and told us how to do it, how to live in it and to give us a new start. Has He? No, His word has been there from the beginning. It has been ignored. God has not interfered with what men have done. In fact, we see all of this prophesied by Jesus Himself. In the parable of the wheat and the tare, someone came along and planted tares along with the wheat. Some representatives wanted to go and weed the garden and the parable has Jesus saying, “No, let them both grow until the end.” There will be a day of reckoning.
So, this church age is what people have made it, but, in that same vein, along the way God has savaged people out of it. Down through the church age, not publicly or through media of any kind, though hundreds of thousands of years have passed, there is little record today in ancient writings of large numbers of Christians whose hearts wanted God and truly became dedicated to Him. These are people we do not know anything about. or have ever heard their names. They have passed on into history but they were members of the Body of Christ. Along the way, God, despite the public church and the big movements, has salvaged people out of that and has built a body. We do not see this or know it. We think the body of Christ is Christian TV or local churches and all else we see today. We go back in history and think that is the Body. We don’t know who was really in Christ, do we? We only know those who became famous, such as John Calvin. He could not have taught what he did if he had really known Christ. I am not judging his heart but I am saying that what he taught was rank, abominable heresy. I do not apologize for saying that.
Some of the famous church fathers such as Augustine in the second and third century were used by Calvin. He was not a true teacher of God and the Roman Catholic church obtained much of the stuff they began with from his writings, such as, “The City of God.” This book is where all the sacraments were begun and the church made to be an icon to be worshipped. These are the people we know about in church history and the people who had a large part in making the church age what it is. We don’t know about the people who were called out of that. God is still doing this and we can say that this church age, concerning those who are walking with Christ in the truth, have become not what people make it but what God makes it. This is the difference. People have built a great many things for God, such as churches and ministries, all in the name of Christ which have the appearance of being holy and wonderful but all of it is going to be brought to the ground and burnt because it is not for God. It is what people have built for God and when that happens, it really isn’t for Him, it is for us, every time.
But along the way, God has called people some of whom have answered and come into the reality of Christ as God revealed Him to them and gave them grace. It is they who constitute the Body of Christ as much as anyone. That section of the Body of Christ is what God has made. So, we need to understand that even though God can do anything He chooses, He has chosen to call people in this age. Many have responded to Him and gone on to please Him, as far as giving themselves to Him. Many others have perhaps responded to that call or else rejected it and have allowed themselves to be swept into a deception. They then become, not part of the Body of Christ but of the body of antichrist. What I mean by the term, body of antichrist, is the body of religious man, of the Adam race exalted as a Christian. It is a body which pretends to worship Christ, but is in reality the worship of man which is 666. This really is the separation, isn’t it, of the wheat from the tares; the wheat being the Body of Christ and the tares, the body of antichrist. In the end it comes down to those two groups. because God always divides and separates by the truth of Himself in Jesus Christ. It is the way He judges. So, God can do anything He chooses and has permitted humanity to do what they want to do and desire to make of this world, in the time since Adam. By and large, He has allowed professing Christians and religious people to make whatever they wish out of this Bible, out of the name of Christ, and out of this church age. He has permitted it and it has been done and religious people have produced awful things.
There seems to be this mentality that if ministry, in the name of Jesus, is highly successful that surely God is in that and blessing it. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, history has shown that the huge ministries are the biggest heretics. Would I say always? I would never say always to anything like that but it has pretty much been 100% at this point. Even when Jesus, who never preached anything but perfection, had a very large following for the first year, but when He got down to ‘brass tacks’, it began to ‘weed the garden.’ In the end, He did not have that many people at all, seventy or one hundred twenty. We know the story of the apostles, where everyone of them forsook Him. What God wants is individuals. He wants individuals, in whom Christ can be Lord. If God gets that in one person, He has His will. If He gets it in two or three people, He has a body which He can call the ‘ekklesia’, His church. By and large, it has never been in the thousands, millions or hundreds of millions. Would that it could have been that! But this is not the age where that was ever promised of predicted. To this day, this age has been subject to the forces of darkness. It is the ones in Christ, who are seated with Him, who have been given ascendency and authority over those forces. If we are not seated in Christ and have not given ourselves to Him, it does not matter what we say or do, we have no authority in Christ. It is nothing but words!
I had to give this background because I want to talk about the absolute oneness of the believer with Christ. We must understand that this has to be established and has to be experienced. It has to mean something. It has to have an incredible spiritual impact in a person in order for it to be real and for that person to be one in whom God has gotten His way. As I said, you cannot claim that you are seated with Christ in the heavenlies if you are living in the denial of the cross. Yet God will let you do that if you ignore His word. Oneness with Christ is the only way for God to accomplish His will. Any less than this is not going to be His will but He will let you do it, whether it be starting a church, a revival or a movement. You can become a big heretic and God will let you do it. The word is here and He has promised to guide people into all truth and He is always there and you can always turn to Him. The fact that folks will not is how it becomes a big problem.
Let’s look at Romans 6, here, as I want to establish clearly the unity in spirit between Jesus Christ and the believer. I also want to talk about what that means. You have the fact and then you have the spiritual reality of that fact and what that means. In Romans six, beginning in verse 3. we have a very profound statement that we need to get into and recognize what Paul is revealing here. He says, “Don’t you know that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death?” Incidentally, before I go on, I want to add that in the New Testament, and I think I am right in saying this, one hundred percent of the time where it says, ‘baptize people into the Name of Jesus Christ’, it always uses the word, ‘into.’ It isn’t just that you baptize people and speak words over them saying, “You are baptized in the Name of Jesus.” We say that as if it were a magic potion or something. No, when Jesus said to baptize people in His Name, the Greek says to baptize people INTO His Name. Now water baptism does not do that. Water baptism is just an outward testimony. When Jesus said to baptize people INTO His Name, He was saying the same thing it says here in Romans six. Paul is speaking of being joined to the Lord and made one spirit with Him. This is what being baptized into Jesus Christ is. You are becoming one with Him. Baptism is immersion and again, water is a symbol of that. When you go down into baptismal water you are covered up. It is likened to a watery grave, as some say, and it is very true. It is possible to typify being baptized and joined with Christ in spirit, as you can do physically by the use of water as you are immersed in it. That is a picture of the fact that we, when we are baptized into Christ spiritually, are immersed in Him and become one with Him spiritually. First Corinthians 6:17, says “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” That word, joined, means to glue or cement and is really talking about a oneness.
So, when we were baptized into Christ, which took place at salvation, we became one with Him. This is how Christ dwells in the believer. It is, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” When that happened at salvation, Paul says in Romans 6:3, that we were baptized into His death just as we are baptized into Jesus Christ. Again, how many see the oneness. Now, here is where we have to get something straight. If you miss this, you will not see Christianity clearly. You really won’t be able to understand redemption clearly unless you see the following point: Yes, Jesus Christ died for us. “He tasted death for every man.” This means that He experienced death in a way that we will never have to experience if we come to HIm. Absolutely! But, it is absolutely because Jesus died for us that we can die in Him. Christ died for us so that we could be baptized into His death and die in Him. That is what Paul is going to be teaching here in Romans six along with many other things.
So, the Christian person never tastes death the way that Jesus did. But our man in Adam, our old nature, does die. It doesn’t die in the sense of ceasing to exist. It dies in the sense that we die to it. When we are baptized into Christ, joined with Him in His death, just as He died to sin, so do we. It says that in verse ten of Romans six. “For in that He died, He died unto sin once; in that He lives, He lives unto God.” That is our experience as well. So, sin does not die but we die to sin and are raised up a new creature out all of that, if you will. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Sin does not have power where we are joined to the Lord and made one spirit with Him. No, that is victory. But sin does have power over that dimension of humanity which is not joined to the Lord, namely our soul dimension which includes our emotions, natural components that you can’t see and also over our physical bodies. We are spirit, soul and body. Our spirit is joined to the Lord and made one with Him. Our soul and body are not, but are outside of that union and that is where sin has power. It is the point of access of Satan over a human being.
Well, we are joined to the Lord in His death and are raised up to a place of ascendency over Satan and over the power of that psychic realm and body. Now, it is a fact that as we grow in Christ to the place where we live in and out from Him by faith, it grows to be livable. But it, nevertheless, is a fact. So, we are baptized into the death of Christ. Again, we need to take note of words here. Romans 6:3 says that we are baptized into HIS death. In other words, His death is the death which is our death, if I can put it that way. Because He died, we can die IN Him. So we are in Him and we die in Him. The Adam person dies. Then because we are one with Him, at that point, in His death, we remain one with Him, pass through that death in Christ and are raised in Him. How many see that that oneness, that joining, is maintained all the way through?
I like to think of the story of Noah as a good picture of this. Noah entered into the ark and it was a death likened to a baptism as Peter says. The waters of death encircled all the planet and in a very real sense, Noah was baptized in that. He was able to pass through it because he was in the ark, Jesus Christ, but everything that he knew of the old life was washed away. That is what this is all about. When he came out of the ark, it was a whole new world. So, as it were, if we are baptized into the death of Christ, the waters of death wash over all of us but cannot touch our union with Christ. But it washes away our sin, as it says, and really washes away the old Adam creature as far as it is our life. We emerge from out of this, not without a sin nature, but into a world which is above it. Of course we are talking about type and shadow here.
So, the believer has a sin nature still present with himself but because of union with Christ and being raised with Him, is above all of it and needs to learn to live above it. It says , in verse four, “Therefore we are buried with Him,,,” There’s the buried with Him again. “We are buried with Him, by His baptism into death that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of Hie resurrection.” The words, planted together, in the Greek mean, to grow together as in an ingrafting into Jesus Christ. I like to say it this way, we were planted in Adam by natural birth and the death of Christ severs us from Adam as far as the power of that life is concerned, and plants us in Jesus as the source of our life. It is a matter of being joined to the One who now is our life, while the old life remains but does not need to have power over us
It says in verse six, “Now our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed.” Now to some, the word, ‘destroyed’. might be confusing. because it sounds as if it was completely annihilated. Well, in this age it is not and the word, destroyed, there means to come into a worse and worse condition. So, it is again talking about our being raised from above as new creatures and being dead to sin but alive to God. Because of this, the body of sin is deprived of more and more air, if I can put it that way. You pull the plug on it to the extent that you walk with Christ by faith. Paul says that here, “That the body of sin should be destroyed that we should not serve sin.” We can walk with God. Now, unless this is true; unless we have died in Christ, and have been buried with Him, we are not freed from sin. It clearly says here that he who is dead is freed from sin.
As I noted earlier, what I want us to see here is the fact that we are joined together with Christ spiritually. Joined together, planted together in the likeness and so forth… Multiple times in Ephesians, perhaps five times, it speaks of being together with Christ in His death, burial and ascension, whatever the topic at that point might be. There is a oneness there. Christ did die for us, as I noted, but as Paul says in Galatians 2:20, we are crucified with Him. and this being the case, if we walk contrary to this, how many know that we are going to be deceived? The way we walk in harmony with the fact that we are crucified with Christ is by picking up our cross daily. Picking up our cross daly is not a matter of our being crucified with Christ all over again. It is a matter of our being dead to sin and alive to God. It is a matter, as Jesus says, of denying yourself, denying self possession and self ownership. When you pick up your cross dialy, you are living out the truth that you are dead to sin. Do that and a lot of other sins will begin to fall away. It is just a fact.
So, the believer is joined to the Lord, crucified in and with Christ. Likewise that same union with Christ which is maintained all the way through the ascension comes through being crucified with Christ such that we are raised up with Him from the dead. Then, as we read, as those who are risen from the dead, we are seated together in Him in heavenly places. How many see again, that the spiritual union in Christ is maintained all the way through? This is absolutely the truth now. Right now, if you are saved and have been crucified, baptized into Christ and raised with Him, you are raised up together and made to sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:6)
Now, to do a little bit of an elaboration on this, I am going to a couple of other places here in Ephesians where Paul speaks of the immensity of God’s calling and of our union with Christ. If we do not understand that we are joined to the Lord in all of its meaning and ramifications, we will not know very much about God’s plan. Everything comes back to Christ in us. He is called the hope of glory. That is who He is and we must see this. In Ephesians 3:14, we encounter another prayer of Paul’s, in addition to the one in Chapter one, which we have discussed at length above. In this passage in chapter three, it seems as if Paul gets carried away again in worship and in giving God glory for all of these things which are meant by being seated with Christ, all that God has done for humanity and all that Jesus Christ is in God’s plan and purpose. In Ephesians 3:8, he says that he preaches among the gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ to make men see… Isn’t that the purpose of ministry and what believers ought to be doing? It is what churches ought to be doing, not by launching campaigns and ‘doing stuff for God’ to make something out of ourselves. But just live in Christ and be available. and men may see. through you, if God chooses to use you that way. He also says, “Now unto the intent that the principalities and powers in the heavenlies might be made known through the church, the manifold wisdom of God.” This is an incredible statement that God is obviously proving something even unto the forces of evil. I think really it is through the church and what He is doing in people who constitute the church, which really is judgement against the forces. The church is given, by living in Christ in the heavenlies and standing in Christ, to live in victory over and outside of those forces. Christ is the power of God and we are to live in Him. We are to bring victory over those forces of evil, which, I think constitutes a judgement over the evil that they are in and promote. He says that it may be known by the church, the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus.
Now, I went over all of that to get to this prayer in verse fourteen of chapter three. He begins with the words, “For this cause…” Well, what cause? Everything I just talked about and more. “For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” What family is he talking about? You could speculate but ultimately it is the Father, the only begotten Son and all of the sons and daughters who are in the Son, regardless of male or female, Jew or gentile, slave or free. That is God’s family, Father, Son and all who are in the Son. Paul bows his knees before the Father of Jesus. Then he makes these requests. Notice how much they mirror the prayers of chapter one. He says, “That God would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by His spirit in the inner man.” What is the inner man? It is the same as the new man and the new creation. It is the union of the believer spiritually with Jesus Christ. That is the new man, the inner man. He wants us to be strengthened with might by His spirit there. This is a matter of abiding in and living out from the One with whom we are joined. How many know that this would strengthen us in the inner man?
Then he says, in verse 17, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” It isn’t that He already is not in there, He is, but he is praying that we, by faith continually turn, rely upon and believe Him. In other words that we abide in Him as He abides in us as Jesus says in John, fifteen, where he talks about abiding in Him as He abides in us as the branches abide in the vine. He says, “That you be rooted and grounded in love.” This is not a fuzzy feeling kind of emotional love but a love which is unconditionally committed to God’s purpose and glory regardless of cost. This begins in us and then translates into works. Then he says, “That you might be able to apprehend with all the saints what is the height and depth and the length and the breadth…” Let’s talk about this for a bit here. How many of us actually comprehend what is the height and the depth and the length and and the breadth of God’s plan and purpose here and now and in the eternal ages in Jesus Christ? I would say that most of us don’t even think about this as a possibility. We are all thinking about something else. People are thinking about how they can get more people to join their church or how they can keep the people happy who are already there. They are worried about how they are going to raise money for their ministry. They are wondering what they ought to do in life, what job they ought to have etc. I am not saying that these things are unimportant as we all face these things. But how many understand that this is where the rubber meets the road? This is what we need to be concerned about and God will take care of the rest. Didn’t He promise to do that? “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be given to you.”
Paul is praying that we might be able to comprehend what is the breadth and length and depth and height . My goodness, if we could do that; if God would do a work in us that would make us able to do this. He is only going to be able to do this, as we read in chapter one, if we have a spirit of wisdom and understanding in the knowledge of Christ. It is only in Christ that we could comprehend, but if we will, it will renew our minds and change our perspective on everything. It would set us free because we would be seeing the truth. This is quite a prayer. And he says that to know the love of Christ, is far beyond knowledge and unto being filled with all of the fulness of God. This brings me back to verse 23 of chapter one, where Paul describes the Body of Christ as the fulness of Him that fills all in all. Now we are seeing in the scripture how that happens. He says that you may be filled with all the fulness of God. How do you get there? Well, by being strengthened in the inner man and living i Christ in faith; by comprehending the plan and purpose of God in all its dimensions; to know the love of Christ. In short, to be filled with all of fulness of God is to be filled and to be living in and out from Jesus Christ for God’s purposes. Then he says, “Now unto Him who is able to do abundantly above all the we ask or think according to the power that works in us. Unto Him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ throughout all the world without end, in Him. Amen
This is an encouragement to believers that we should never think that to know God in this way is reserved only for a few. We should never think, that because we may not be preaching sermons or pastoring a church, that this could not be for us. Read it! He is praying for the church. It is commonly known that the Ephesian letter was passed around among many churches. This is what God wants for us, as is the prayer in Ephesians one. Read these two prayers and recognize that this is God’s will for you and for me as individuals. It’s not maybe. It’s not if we are good enough. It is not if we succeed. It is not a higher calling, it is the only calling there is. It’s what happens if we give ourselves to Christ and believe Him. If you com-pare all of this to the promised land, God is essentially saying, “Go in and take possession.” It will take you a lifetime to discover and to live out but do not stand outside of these things thinking there is something you need to do to enter in. God would say, “You don’t need to do anything to enter in, it is already entered into in My Son.” In Him are all of these things. He is saying, “Apprehend it, take possession of it as yours by faith.” That does not mean to try to get emotional or talk yourself into it. No, just believe because He said so. That is all that it means.
You may not be able to make anything happen because of those things but you have to start by believing and by faith apprehending them. Then say, “OK, I don’t know where any of this is going to go but I believe this because God said it and He is faithful.” Then you say, “God, do whatever it takes to answer Paul’s prayer for me, that I may comprehend all of this and know it. Because You have already said that you want me to comprehend it, that You want me to know. I want to give you myself that You may do whatever it takes to reveal it to me.” God is going to answer that prayer for anyone.
Now He prays this here in Ephesians three. So, we have these two places where Paul prays this fervently for the church at Ephesus. You can see his love for the church in this. He has already said that he wants to make all people see and wants to be used unto that end. He has this tremendous desire that God may make the Christian believers see and to know. To see Christ and to come into an inward realization of Him and because of that, to see and to realize the eternal purposes of God in the individual. Of course, because the individual is part of the Body, in the Body of Christ or the church as well. This is God’s desire so we are on the right track praying it for ourselves and for others.
Certainly fundamental to all of this is that we may recognize the meaning, the magnitude and the depth of having been planted into the death of Christ; of having been raised with Him from out of that death into newness of life. Then, He made us to ascend with Him and to be seated with Him at God’s right hand. Those are positional things and certainly can be considered as such,, of course, in the sense that they are facts and they do speak of a spiritual reality of being seated with Him. But to relegate all of this to a system of positional truth, deadens it to me. It is living truth. We are speaking again about a oneness in spirit with the living Son of God. We are joined with Him and seated together with Him in heavenly places.
As I noted earlier, God has purposed in this age that the church live from out of the throne. That begins by letting Jesus Christ be Lord of us. Without that brokenness, we are not going to get anywhere. But, if it does happen, and Jesus Christ is Lord over us, He may use us as one living from the throne, as an extension of Himself. For some, in very small ways but it could have a great spiritual impact in ways we never see or perhaps, in bigger ways that we can see. But He wants us to be as His Body in standing against and bringing victory over the powers of darkness. Incidentally, if that is happening, everything else will fall. We minimize and compartmentalize these things and say, here’s a problem and there’s a problem and there’s the devil. How many understand that in a very real sense of the word, those things are all one as well, because those people and those places are outside of Christ? God may use us. He may also use us within His own church among His own people and this can happen in a small way or a big way, as well. But God wants people who are extensions of Jesus Christ to take authority over the powers of darkness and the enemy. We are seated with Him far above all principalities and powers and in the Name of Christ; bring Him glory.
So death, resurrection and ascension in Christ is the very thing a Christian is. and we are to live from out of those realities. This really speaks of a total union with Jesus Christ and total victory over all in His Name.