Ephesians 1:20
This power he exercised in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms
This power he exercised in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms
Verses 19, 20, and 21 each mention power. Verse 19 mentions the power, verse 20 gives you a taste of that power, a case study, if you will, and verse 21 recognizes counterpowers.
So God's power raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at the right hand of the Father, which means this power is above every other power.
And the decision to exercise the people belongs to God.
- No one told God to create the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
- No one told God to give Abraham a seed that would become a nation. (Genesis 12:1-3)
- No one told God to, with power, bring forth the children of Israel back from the grave where they were in bondage in the land of Israel, to the promised land. (Exodus 3:7-8)
- No one told God to divide the Red Sea. (Exodus 14:21-22)
- No one told God to choose Mary and use her as a vessel to bring forth the Son of God. (Luke 1:30-35). There was power at play in Christ's incarnation. We are told that the power of the Most High will overshadow Mary.
In the same way, no one told God to raise the Son. He did it all by Himself.
And when some people wanted Jesus to perform a miracle for them, He did not indulge them. (Matthew 12:38-39) The power is not for entertainment. God does not need to prove Himself; He does not have the need to impress.
Again, God's exercise of His power is a matter of His choice. He uses us; we do not use Him. What we have is a God who has a will and makes decisions.
So, raising Christ from the dead shows that no realm is beyond the reach of God's power.
David confessed that there is nowhere He can hide from God, meaning God's power is not limited by space. (Psalm 139:7-10)
God's power can also reach beyond time. God knew that Ahab would be checking out Naboth's vineyard before he himself knew he would, and sent Elijah to the exact spot to deliver a message. (1 Kings 21:17-19)
And when Jesus was told that He needed only to say the word and a servant far away to be healed, He did so. (Matthew 8:5-13) It shows that God's power is not limited by space.
Raising Jesus from the dead also means that God's power traverses realms. In addition, God's power goes inside us.
God wants us to focus on the resurrection of Jesus as the main event of history. It is the definitive way that God displayed His power. Everything hinges on it.
It is what everything led to, and everything is now flowing from that pivotal moment where the offspring of the woman, Christ, struck the head of the serpent, and the serpent struck His heel. (Genesis 3:15)
As mentioned before, we see the power of God at play in the rescue of Israel. That was also an epochal moment in history, where God rescued a people from bondage.
But the power displayed in Christ is of a greater scale, because, while Israel was rescued from strongman Pharaoh, we are rescued from strongman devil, who has the whole world in his grip (1 John 5:19). We have been pulled, rescued from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. (Colossians 1:13)
There were different locations (the place of the dead, the heavenly realms, the right hand of the Father) and states (dead and raised up), but believers were not mentioned in this verse.
Nevetheless, we must not forget that we are in Christ, and whatever happened to Christ was happened to us; that is the divine genius, divine wisdom at play, where our faith in Christ is indicative of the fact that we died with Christ and have been raised with him, and in one fell swoop, we have been resurrected to the heavenly realms with him. (Ephesians 2:6)
That is the point Paul wanted us to grasp: that we should know God's incomparable power towards us who believe. (Ephesians 1:19)
The point is, God is not waiting for you to activate His power; His power is already active and more than you can imagine. It worked in Jesus to raise Him from the dead, and, by extension, in you to raise you from spiritual death.
And in the future, because of that power, there would be the resurrection of the dead and the creation of a new earth and a new heaven. (Revelation 21:1). In my opinion, because of the exercise of that power, everything will become new. (Revelation 21:5)
The power that is at work in you cannot be improved, but our understanding of it can be improved, and hence this prayer.
We would then begin to shift our thinking about this power. We are not waiting for the power of God to work; it is working, it is working towards us, not because we have fasted, etc, but because we believe. Hallelujah!
