Ephesians 2:5,6 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

The thought in these verses follows exactly the same course as in Ephesians 1:19-20. There the type and earnest of the working of God’s mighty power are placed in the resurrection, the ascension, the glorification of Christ Himself in His human nature. Here what is there implied is worked out — (1) All Christians are declared to be quickened (or, risen again) to spiritual life with Christ, according to His promise, “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19). (See the exact parallel in Colossians 2:13.) But there is a promise even beyond this: “I am the life: whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die” (John 11:25; comp. also John 5:24; John 17:2). Hence, even more emphatically, and in full accordance with this latter promise, we have in Colossians 3:4, “Christ who is our life;” as in 2 Corinthians 4:10-11, “The life of Jesus is made manifest in us.” What this “life eternal” is He Himself declares (John 17:3) — “to know the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent.” (2) Next, this partaking of the life of Christ is brought out in two striking forms — as a partaking, not only of His resurrection (as in Romans 6:5; 1 Corinthians 15:20-22; Philippians 3:11), but also (in a phase of thought peculiar to these Epistles) of His ascension “to the heavenly places.” This is “in Christ Jesus,” in virtue of a personal and individual union with Christ. It implies blessings, both present and future, or rather one blessing, of which we have the earnest now and the fulness hereafter — for the resurrection and ascension of Christ are even now the perfection and glorification of humanity in Him. (3) So far as we are really and vitally His members, such perfection and glorification are ours now, by His intercession (that is, His continued mediation for us in heaven) and by His indwelling in us by the Spirit on earth. The proof of partaking His resurrection is “newness of life,” “death unto sin, and new birth unto righteousness” (Romans 6:5-11), which is in Colossians 3:12 expressly connected with the entrance upon unity with Christ in baptism. The proof of having “our life hid in Christ at the right hand of God,” is “the setting our affection on things above” (Colossians 3:1), by which “in heart and mind we thither ascend, and with Him continually dwell.” (4) These proofs are seen only in measure here. Through the change which we call death, we pass at once to a still higher stage of life, by fuller union with Christ (2 Corinthians 5:6-8), and at the great day we shall have both in perfection — perfect newness of life in “likeness to Him” (1 John 3:2), and perfect glorification in Him in that communion with God which is heaven (John 17:5; John 17:10; John 17:24). The one thing which St. Paul does not attribute to us is that which is His alone — the place “at the right hand of the Father.”