<p>2:6 <i>And raised us up with him; and in Christ Jesus, has made us sit with him in the heavens</i>- The two stages of resurrection are laboured; we were made alive with Him (:5), and raised up with Him. And just as He is in Heaven as a result of the ascension, so are we, in spiritual terms. All that is true of Him becomes true of us if we are &quot;in Christ Jesus&quot;. The term &quot;Christ Messiah Jesus&quot; may be a reminder that the Jewish Messiah was Jesus of Nazareth- another hint that as in every church founded by Paul, there was Jewish opposition to his work, and so he addresses Gentiles in terms appropriate to Judaism.</p><p>Our difficulty in believing &lsquo;we will be there&rsquo; is perhaps related to our difficulty in believing that in prospect, we &lsquo;are there&rsquo; right now, through being &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo;. This most basic truth, that we are &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo; through baptism, carries with it very challenging implications. We are well familiar with Paul&rsquo;s reasoning in Romans 6, that through being immersed in water at baptism, we share in the Lord&rsquo;s death and resurrection. As He rose from the dead, so we rise from the waters of baptism. But what happened to Him next? He ascended to Heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God in glory. And each of those stages is true of us right now. We are now in &lsquo;the heavenlies&rsquo;; and not only so, but we <i>sit together</i> there with Christ. And He now sits upon His throne of glory. Even now we in a sense sit with Him in His Heavenly throne, even though in another sense this is a future thing we await (Lk. 22:30; Rev. 3:21). No wonder Paul goes on to make a profound comment: &ldquo;That in the ages to come the aions of future eternity, He might show Gk.- to indicate by words or act the exceeding riches of his grace which was shown through his kindness toward us through Christ&rdquo;. Throughout the ages of eternity, God will demonstrate how pure and wonderful His grace was to us in the few brief years of this life- in that, He will demonstrate, He counted us <i>right now in our mortality</i> as having resurrected, ascended to Heaven, and reigning / sitting with Christ in glory. The wonder of what we are experiencing now, the height of our present position, is something that will be marvelled at throughout eternity as an expression of God&rsquo;s grace and kindness. And we will be the eternally living witnesses to it. And we can start that witness right now.</p><p>So often does Paul speak of life &quot;in Christ&quot;. We become &quot;in Christ&quot; by entering into the body of Christ by baptism; yet the &quot;body of Christ&quot; refers to the body of believers. A fair case can be made for interpreting Paul's phrase &quot;in Christ&quot; as very often having some reference to life in the community of believers. &quot;In Christ&quot; appears to be often a shorthand way of saying &quot;in the body of Christ&quot;. It's because we are of &quot;the same body&quot; that we are sharers in all that is &quot;in Christ&quot; - whatever is true of Him becomes true of us. If He is the seed of Abraham, then so we are we, etc. (Eph. 3:6; Gal. 3:27-29). Salvation was &quot;given <i>us</i> in Christ Jesus&quot; (2 Tim. 1:9) as a community, just as Israel were saved as a body, &quot;the body of Moses&quot;, when they were baptized at the Red Sea. This is why we usually read about &quot;you&quot; plural as being &quot;in Christ&quot;, rather than of an individual alone being &quot;in Christ&quot;. <i>We </i>were created &quot;in Christ&quot; (Eph. 2:10); &quot;<i>all you</i> that are in Christ&quot; (1 Pet. 5:14); <i>you</i> are now <i>all</i> made near &quot;in Christ&quot; (Eph. 2:13); <i>we</i> are in heavenly places &quot;<i>together</i>... in Christ&quot; (Eph. 2:6); <i>all </i>God's children are gathered <i>together in one</i> &quot;in Christ&quot; (Eph. 1:10; Gal. 3:28). God's whole purpose is &quot;in Christ&quot; (Eph. 3:11); His plan to save us was through our joining a community, the body of Christ, headed up in the person of Jesus. It can't really be so, therefore, that a believer can live &quot;in Christ&quot; with no association with the rest of the body of Christ. This is how important fellowship is</p>