Ephesians2:5,6. (KJV) Even when we were dead in sins [God] hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
God loved us when there was nothing in us to love. His love not only found us; He cared enough for us not to leave us in the condition (dead sin) in which He found us. He gave us life and then raised us up out of the mess and gave us a seat with Himself in heaven. “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory” (1 Samuel 2:8).
I want you to notice all of the “together” in the text: “quickened us together,” “raised us up together,” “made us sit together.” God accomplished the work of redemption through His Son. In Jesus, God became a man and took our place. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), but God could not die to take our place. How would you kill God, if He could die? How would you drive a spear through God? How could you put nails through Him or hang Him on a cross? The only way God could take our place, our sin, and our sicknesses, etc, was to become a man. This also was part of the divine plan because God knew the work of the cross would have to be substitutional. God could not substitute for man. Man would have to substitute for man. Jesus became sin for us in God’s place. Jesus died and rose again for us in God’s place. Since Jesus had no sin of His own, God could raise Him from the dead. We became identified with the work of Jesus on the cross and in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.
I want you to get the picture. When God found us, we were dead. He wanted us to be alive and to sit with Him in His home, heaven. Getting us from the point of death to a seat in heaven with Him took the work of our mediator, Jesus. Since God could raise Jesus from the dead, He could then bring us into heaven to be seated with Him. Jesus could take hold of us. When Jesus was raised from the dead, we were raised up also. When Jesus ascended to heaven, we ascended also. When Jesus was seated in heaven, we were seated there too. Jesus and all believers were made alive together, raised together, and made to sit in heavenly places together. “For in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28)
Go into today knowing that as a member of His church, you are now seated with Christ in the heavenly places because of the substitutionary work of Jesus on the cross.
Prayer: Lord, help me to live in the consciousness of who and where I am in Christ Jesus.
—George Evuarherhe Djorhogba
Bible In One Year: Revelation 18-22 (In Devotional Audio)
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