4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, 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 ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Vs. 4 - “ But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,”
“But God, being rich in mercy" - See: Rom 5:8; 1 John 4:10, 16, 19; Eph. 1:7; Titus 3:5. Despite our rotten condition, our rotten attitudes and our sinful nature God loved us enough to send His Son! “It is a hard saying, who can understand it!” It baffles why He would do it.
Vs. 5 - “ even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),” -
“Even when... dead... transgression” - See: Col 2:13-14; Rom 5:6-10. Because of God’s love (v. 4) He has taken our sin upon Himself, the whole burden. There is no penalty we need to pay for. We were dead, or doomed to the second death (eternal separation from God) because of that nature. Now we have eternal life in Christ (Gal 2:20; Col 1:13, 2:4) when we believe and confess Him as our savior.
“Alive together with Christ” - See: Col 1:18, 2:13, 3:1, 5; 1 Cor 15:4, 12-17, 20; Heb 1:3; Rom 8:11. Paul is setting the stage, previously and now:
(1) There Christ is - exalted (vss. 1:19-23).
(2) Here we are - debased (vss. 2:1-3).
(3) We cannot get there from where we are (v. 3).
(4) God has done it all - (vss. 2:4-5) - in Christ.
The verses from 1 Cor 15 and Col 1:18 stick in my mind - If Christ is not alive, in heaven, we have no hope.
Christ is alive, the first of many to be as He is. Our death was our transgression; our life is Christ.
“By grace” - It is not pity that God shows toward us. It is His love; it is His concern. Most likely we will see grace as God’s mercy in place of God’s judgment against us. (I will have to do a word study on “grace”)
Vs. 6 - “ and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” -
“raised us up with Him” - See: Col 2:12; John 12:32, 3:18. In verse 5 we see that we’ve been given life. In verse 6 we begin to see our spiritual heritage. Verse 6 may not mean we have been resurrected as Jesus was, many of us have not died, and yet we have eternal life.
The problem we have in trying to understand this is that we are temporal creatures - our lives are lived out in a time-line. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are eternal. In God’s economy, when Christ died on the cross we died with Him. When Christ raised from the dead, we also (those who believe in Him) were resurrected. “It is finished!” Our life is hidden with God in Christ!
Paul was writing to living people, and is helping them see they are in Christ, and His power and glory protects and saves them. And, since this is the Bible, God’s word to us, we in the 21st century A.D., are included in His death and life. We were all ‘future’ when He was crucified. It is as though we were standing on Calvary that day - we died when He died.
We are “raised up” - our lives and our inheritance is in Christ. Christ is in heaven, “raised up”, incorruptible, and waiting there for us. We too are to reckon our selves as dead to this world and raised up out of it.
“Seated us... in Christ” - Again the key - in Christ. We are next to God the Father in heaven. We are there in Christ. The the book “Sit, Walk, Stand” by Watchman Nee, we see the key word is “seated” - a position of rest and symbol of power. Note that Christ’s atoning work is finished and He is now ‘resting’ in the presence of God, with all authority vested in Him.
Note: the Christian starts from the position of rest in Christ.
We do not start with Christ in order to go to something better.
We start in Christ.
We walk in Christ.
We end in Christ. (See: Col 3:34).
Christ is the author and authority in our lives.
Vs. 7 - “ so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” -
“...the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” - Now we begin to see how verses 4-6 tie together. In fact, vss. 1:19-2:6 all fit into a pattern:
(1) So that God could demonstrate for all time to come how unlimited his love, mercy and grace are;
(2) He sacrificed Himself in Jesus Christ in our place;
(3) And raised Jesus from the dead, and raised Him up to heaven;
(4) And gave us every spiritual blessing in and through Christ;
(5) Despite the fact we were totally undeserving.
Again we see a key word and a key phrase. (1) The phrase: “in Christ Jesus”. (2) The word: “grace”. They are key to these thoughts - we received God’s grace in Christ and no where else. This emphasizes that our life is in Christ Jesus and we can do nothing to earn it - it is a gift. See: "It is a true saying, in which all may put their faith, that Christ Jesus came into the world to give salvation to sinners, of whom I am the chief: But for this reason I was given mercy, so that in me, the chief of sinners, Jesus Christ might make clear all his mercy, as an example to those who in the future would have faith in him to eternal life." (1 Tim 1:15-16)
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