It was in spite of
all of this that the love of the Creator God broke on and in to the scene of
history, was demonstrated through the Christ’s self-sacrificial crucifixion,
and unleashed into a fallen world as part of the power that raised up Christ
from the dead. The Apostle seems to insist that Resurrection power, which
includes the love of God that makes one alive together with Christ, is
contained in the message of the Gospel, and is made manifest in the Gospel
proclamation that Jesus is Lord.
Those who adhere to
this grand statement, holding to this confession as the covenant marker of
faith, have been exodus-ed from out of the realm of death, delivered from the
exile attendant upon their transgressions, and now share in the eternal life
(the life of the age to come) embodied in the resurrected Christ in the
inaugurated kingdom of God, in full expectation of a coming consummation of
that kingdom, along with the renewed physicality of a bodily resurrection (just
like Jesus) in a renewed and restored creation (just like the one that God
pronounced very good) upon Christ’s return.
Because of that
hopeful expectation which exists because, as Paul says, “by grace you are
saved” (2:5b), meaning that his readers/hearers have been redeemed from exile
and delivered from death into eternal life (here and now and in the age to
come) as God’s gracious gift, there is an obligation to continue in
demonstration of the same type of love revealed in and through Jesus, to bless
all peoples through sharing the message of the Gospel, continuing the powerful,
onward, life-altering march of the kingdom of the Creator God through the
simple affirmation that yes, Jesus is Lord.
Though all of God’s
people had been dead in transgressions and sins, in exile from God’s promises
because of that fact, that exile is ended, life is gifted, and death is
overcome through the power that was set forth in the Resurrection. This
salvation, this being saved, which is a sharing in the gift of eternal life in
union with Christ (confessing Jesus as King and living accordingly) because of
the Gospel, while in the hopeful expectation of the Resurrection to come, is a
gracious gift of God.
Paul makes a further
elaboration on this idea of being “saved,” writing that “He raised us up with
Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians
2:6). Not only would this be taken as a statement of honor within the
culture, as being seated with a king would have significant implications, this
raising, being made alive together (2:5) as Paul says, is the exile-ending resurrection
from death into Christ’s kingdom, as the people of God in Christ. Does
this mean that the point of the salvation is a dis-embodied existence in a
far-away place, having escaped the evil world and the chains of mortal
flesh? If we want to be consistent with all of the Apostle Paul’s
writings, we must understand the “heavenly realms” as yet another way in which
he makes reference to the kingdom of God on earth that was inaugurated by
Christ’s Resurrection (not to mention that heavenly realms can also be thought
of as temple-related talk, which fits well with Paul’s broad insistence that
believers are the temple of God---the place where heaven and earth overlap,
which was also the way upon which the Temple itself was looked).
Being raised and seated
with Jesus, with its component of elevation to honor from a lower place or a
place of shame (though the Christian, like his or her Lord, willingly embraces
shame and takes the lowest spot---in this case, Paul seems to be speaking
metaphorically), would appear to include the idea of being delivered from the
exile of death that is an existence apart from the kingdom (and service to the
kingdom) of the Creator God, and delivered into the kingdom of heaven that has
been established on earth, enjoying a measure of eternal life as the Gospel is
believed and proclaimed, and experience its power for salvation (eternal
life).
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