Already…Seated With Christ in the Heavenlies?

By Neil Earle

Ruins of once-mighty Ephesus to whom St. Paul explained the fabulous rewards awaiting faithful Christians.

A shocking title?

Well, yes, it is but it is almost a direct quote from St. Paul’s Letter to the Christians in the city of Ephesus (in Western Turkey today). It’s listed in your New Testament as “Ephesians.” Here is the text: “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:8).

That is quite a provocative statement. It dramatizes how good the good news of the Gospel really is. Let’s let respected Bible teacher John Stott explain this further:

“Fundamental to New Testament Christianity is this concept of the union of God’s people with Christ…Not just that they admire and even worship Jesus, not just that they assent to the dogmas of the church, not even that they live by certain moral standards…No, by virtue of their union with Christ they have actually shared in his resurrection, ascension and session (ruler-ship). In the ‘heavenly places,’ the unseen world of spiritual reality in which the principalities and powers operate (3:10; 6:12) and in which Christ reigns supreme (1:20) there God has blessed his people in Christ (1:3), and there he has seated them with Christ.”

Heaven: Rest not Reward

As Stott says, it is easy to dismiss this as a fancy piece of Christian mysticism but it is not. Christ has indeed given his people new life – we were baptized into Jesus Christ (Romans 6:1-3) – and when he rose from the dead he paved the way for all his people to be taken with him into the heavenly realms as a spiritual reality in the here and now.

St. Paul used the analogy of a Roman triumph to depict Jesus leading his people into the heavenly places.

Revelation 6:9-11 gives another camera angle on this. Here the newly martyred saints in St. John’s churches are shown arriving in heaven fresh from their trials on earth and being given white robes as symbolic of their victory here below. They are then told to rest till the fulfillment of the things on earth has occurred.

Most Christians are quite familiar with the idea of “going to heaven when they die” and “heaven as the reward of the saved” but this concept needs to be expanded and bolstered. John Calvin explained to all who would listen that heaven is not the final reward of the saved but it is the place for our spirits to rest while waiting for Jesus to reunite us with a newly glorified body at the resurrection of the just (“God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him” – 1 Thessalonians 4:14). This has been Presbyterian doctrine for hundreds of years and recently Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright has been writing and speaking of the same thing, what he calls “life after life after death.” But another facet of this wonderful hope in Ephesians 2:8 is that the best part of us, our spiritual selves, already has access to the heavenly places opened up by Jesus. It was Jesus who in his glorious ascension “led captivity captive” as it says in Psalm 68 and which St. Paul reinterprets to mean “he led captives in his train.”

Paul is using an analogy here to his own times. In the ancient world Roman generals led chained captives and luxurious booty through the city of Rome in an official triumph to show off the might of Roman arms. Paul reworks this idea to show how Jesus led captive the very fact of death itself as well as the principalities and powers he triumphed over by his resurrection from the grave. It is like the mini-parable wherein Jesus described himself as entering the realm of the strong man (Satan) as the Stronger One who despoiled Satan of all his goods (Luke 11:21), including we lost sinners whom he had most definitely held captive, so to speak (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Anglican Bishop Wright has tried to explain the two-fold nature of the Christian life after death.

Another level of thinking

These are truly exalted concepts Paul is introducing here and as we are dealing with interplay between the heavenly and earthly realms it is bound to stretch our more mundane thinking. These statements challenge us because Paul is speaking of our entrance into the heavenlies made effective by Jesus’ ascension. Many scholars interpret the captives here to mean all those saints who had departed this life subject to death but have now been led by Christ into the heavenly realms (Revelation 13:13-14).

It was a common belief in the early church and still is among the Greek Orthodox churches that 1 Peter 4:6 – with its reference of the gospel being preached to those who are now dead – means that the righteous departed are now able to “live according to God in regard to the spirit.” Wayne Gruden reinforces this teaching when he says the reference is here to physical death of the body but continuing spiritual life for those believers who have passed on (1 Peter Commentary). Gruden concludes: “We are assured here that believers who have died are none the less living and enjoying blessings in the unseen ‘spiritual’ and eternal realm which is characterized by the Holy Spirit’s activity.”

This does not negate the vital need for our bodily resurrection to complete the work of God in us when the body and spirit are joined once again in a glorified body. This is why post-mortem life in heaven is the “rest” or “respite” of the saved from troubles here on earth but the far greater reward comes at the end when God judges all things: life after life after death!

Natan Sharansky – the Psalms were his secret escape route into the heavenly realms. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

“Escaping” into the Heavenlies

Yet even now, amidst our shocks and setbacks here below, our spirits, when touched and animated by the Holy Spirit we receive at baptism, are able to penetrate and experience some of that peace with God we will enjoy undiluted by physical hindrances once in the heavenly realms. This is all due to Christ’s victorious death, resurrection and ascension. Paul clearly believed that neither life nor death could separate believers from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). Thus we return to the theme of the heavenlies in its most personal and intimate dimension. Devout Christians believe that there are times in prayer when the heavenly realm and God and Christ feel very close indeed. If indeed our spirits have access in anticipation of our full arrival when we depart this life, then Stott’s point is well made. We are already seated in the heavenly realm.

It even reaches a point where what the old hymn calls our “sweet hour of prayer” conveys to us an experience not unlike Moses coming down from the mountain when his face shone from prolonged contact with God. We get to experience the spiritual side of that. Every sincere Christian knows what it is like to enter her prayer closet “bewitched, bothered and bewildered” and to emerge in a short while calm, confident and trusting in God for our deliverance. This is how the saints of old endured long suffering in dank prisons and why even today there are people who have the experience of “feeding on God” in the midst of their tribulations. Through prayer the Spirit in us which is joined to our spirit reaches upwards towards the total peace and serenity and calm we would expect from even a brief sojourn in the heavenly realm.

Yes. Indeed. Why should we not? For God’s Spirit is powerful beyond belief.

Phillip Yancey tells the story of the imprisoned Russian dissident Natan Sharansky locked 13 years in a Soviet Gulag reading and studying the 150 Psalms of David over and over again. “Gradually, my feelings of great loss and sorrow changes to one of bright hopes,” he wrote in a letter. His wife commented at the times: “In a lonely cell in Chistopol prison, locked alone with the Psalms of David, Anatoly found expression for his innermost feelings in the outpouring of the King of Israel thousands of years ago.”

The psalms were Sharansky’s secret escape route to the heavenly realms. It is an experience believing Christians also enjoy in their time of need. Are you one of them?