Facing Prometheus — Week 10 (Easter Sunday) | “Alive, Raised, and Seated” | Pastor Jason Parrish
Every year we arrive at Resurrection Sunday and declare the most important truth ever told: He is risen. And yet, if we’re honest, by the time most of us reach this moment again next year, we’ve forgotten more than we’ve kept. The truth has dimmed a little. The weight of it has settled back into the background.
What if this year was different?
In this Easter Sunday message — Week 10 of our series Facing Prometheus: A Letter to the Ephesians and the Future Church Dilemma — Pastor Jason Parrish doesn’t just take us to the empty tomb. He takes us to a question that’s even more personal: What changes Monday morning if I have been made alive, raised, and seated with Christ?
The Text — Ephesians 2:4–7
“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
— Ephesians 2:4–7 (CSB)
Theologian Charles Simeon captured the weight of this passage when he wrote:
“What an accumulation of sublime ideas is here presented to our view… the text requires us to fix our attention on that most delightful of all subjects, the riches of divine grace.”
— Charles Simeon, Horae Homileticae
Paul says we have been made alive, raised up, and seated in the heavens. Traditionally on Easter, we go to the empty tomb — and rightly so, because the empty tomb is the crux of everything we celebrate. But Paul focuses on an aspect of the resurrection that, if we’re honest, doesn’t get talked about nearly enough. Something so important that Peter would anchor his very first sermon around it at Pentecost.
The Language of Resurrection Across Scripture
This isn’t language unique to Ephesians. The realities Paul describes here are woven throughout the New Testament. At Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the 120 gathered in the upper room, Peter stood up and preached:
“God has raised this Jesus; we are all witnesses of this. Therefore, since he has been exalted to the right hand of God and has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, he has poured out what you both see and hear. For it was not David who ascended into the heavens, but he himself says: The Lord declared to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’ Therefore let all the house of Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”
— Acts 2:32–36 (CSB)
Paul returns to the same themes in Colossians:
“When you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.”
— Colossians 2:12–13 (CSB)
“So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
— Colossians 3:1–4 (CSB)
The Old Testament Roots
This language isn’t only New Testament — Ephesians 2:5–6 has deep roots in the Old Testament in two specific ways:
A. Spiritual Death and Resurrection Imagery
In Ezekiel 37 — the vision of the valley of dry bones — we see the concept of dead things returning to life. Paul uses this imagery to describe Gentiles who are “excluded from the life of God” and therefore spiritually dead. In Christ, they are made alive, just as the breath of God restored life to the valley of dry bones.
B. Royal Enthronement and Messianic Typology
Paul’s language of seating Christ “at his right hand in the heavenly places” directly echoes Psalm 110:1:
“This is the declaration of the Lord to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.'”
— Psalm 110:1 (CSB)
Theologian Joshua Jipp writes:
“The three σύν- prefixed compound verbs in Ephesians 2:5–6 recall Paul’s use of Psalm 110 in Ephesians 1:20–23, but here he applies the royal notion of resurrection and enthronement to all who are in Messiah Jesus, thereby royalizing the king’s subjects.”
— Joshua W. Jipp, The Messianic Theology of the New Testament
This is not symbolism — and it has too often been reduced to that. For Paul, this was not poetic theology or spiritual metaphor. These are the actual riches of divine grace that we have received in Christ. As the early church father Ambrosiaster put it:
★★ “God made us in Christ. So it is through Christ once again that he has formed us anew. We are his members; he is our Head.” — Ambrosiaster, Epistle to the Ephesians 2:5
★★ Paul is giving the Ephesians — and us — a new way to understand our lives in Christ.
The question that must be asked is this: What changes Monday morning if I have been made alive, raised, and seated with Christ?
Three Truths About Your Life in the Risen Christ
1. If You Are Alive in Christ, You No Longer Have to Live Numb
When Paul says we are alive, he means we have a new sensitivity to Christ and his work in every area of our lives. Too often, people come to Christ but continue to live as if they are still dead. Resurrection Sunday reminds us that Jesus — through his resurrection power — reanimates our lives so we can live a new way: fully alive.
Spiritual things that were once background noise become personal. Conviction settles differently. Worship feels genuine. Scripture speaks in a way it never has before.
The Greek word Paul uses here is important:
★★ συζωοποιέω suzōopoiéō — to make alive together with. Your aliveness and mine depends on what only God can create. It is stamped with creation fingerprints. True life is only given in and through Christ. God is the one and only who can breathe life into man.
Being alive isn’t just a Sunday morning thing. It’s a Monday morning thing.
★★ Resurrection Sunday reminds us that there is new life on Monday morning.
Too many people are living numb, plastic lives — either because they have yet to surrender to Christ and receive new life in him, or because they haven’t fully embraced the alive life that is already theirs in Christ.
2. If You Are Raised with Christ, You Don’t Have to Live Stuck
Paul does not simply say that Christ is risen. He says that we have been raised with Christ. This is not just a future hope regarding the resurrection at the end of days — it is a practical truth of our life in Christ right now.
The Greek word Paul uses here is found nowhere else in the New Testament — only here in Ephesians 2:6:
★★ 4891. συνεγείρω sunegeírō — to raise together. The sún (together) is not to be understood as mere similarity — as though it only meant “like.” Rather, it points to a condition or work effected by union with Christ in his resurrection, taking place in and proceeding from it. Practically, the meaning coincides with being justified (Rom. 4:25; 5:1; Col. 2:12–13).
Paul expands this to the believers in Rome:
“Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin… So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
— Romans 6:4–6, 11 (CSB)
This is a vital truth. Too many of us stay stuck — never moving forward or allowing the resurrecting power of Christ to reshape and reform us. To live from this raised position means:
- You are not trapped in your worst moment.
- You are not stuck in your deepest failure.
- You are not defined by your old identity.
There is a power that reshapes, reforms, and re-identifies you. John Chrysostom wrote of this text:
★★ “If then He hath raised us up with Him, let us not again cast ourselves down… let us not grovel on the earth.” — Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians, Homily 4
To be raised with Christ is to be invited into an entirely new life. This is what Jesus did with Peter after the resurrection. This is what he did with Thomas. This is what he did with the disciples. To be raised is to have new life.
Paul makes clear that the resurrection carries implications both now and in the age to come:
“For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep.”
— 1 Corinthians 15:3–6 (CSB)
“But as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man. For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”
— 1 Corinthians 15:20–22 (CSB)
3. If You Are Seated with Christ, You Don’t Have to Strive
Here is the big idea:
★★ You are not living for acceptance. You are living out of it.
This is where people most often miss it. We understand forgiveness logically, but we struggle with what it means to be in Christ. One of the most powerful post-resurrection moments in all of scripture illustrates this exactly. Jesus is sitting with Peter on a beach, dealing with the very thing striving had done to Peter’s heart:
“When they had eaten breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ he said to him, ‘you know that I love you.’ ‘Feed my lambs,’ he told him. A second time he asked him, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ he said to him, ‘you know that I love you.’ ‘Shepherd my sheep,’ he told him. He asked him the third time, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was grieved that he asked him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ He said, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ ‘Feed my sheep,’ Jesus said… After saying this, he told him, ‘Follow me.'”
— John 21:15–19 (CSB)
Jesus was reorienting Peter’s heart, perspective, and life. He took Peter back to where they began — follow me — telling him that his life does not have to be driven by striving. If there was anyone tempted to strive, it was Peter: the man who said he would never deny Jesus, and then did it three times.
★★ There is a propensity in all of us to prove that we are worthy of God’s love rather than accepting it — and we do this through striving.
★★ To sit with Christ is to share in his finished work and to live from it.
The early church father Origen wrote:
“If you believe that Christ is risen from the dead, believe also that you too have risen with him. If you believe that he sits at the Father’s right hand in heaven, believe that your place too is amid not earthly but heavenly things.”
— Origen, Commentary on Romans 5:8
What this means practically:
- You stop performing for God and start abiding in him.
- Obedience is no longer driven by fear but by love and identity.
- You don’t pray to be accepted — you are already accepted and loved in Christ.
- You no longer fight sin from a position of weakness, because to be seated means to have authority over.
As theologian John Stott writes: “Christ has given us a new victory, with Evil increasingly under our feet.”
Closing: Stop Visiting — Start Living
Every year we reach this moment. We declare the most important truth ever told. And yet — by the time we reach it again next year, many of us have let it dim.
★★ What if this year was different?
★★ What if you stopped visiting Resurrection Sunday once a year and started living from it every day?
Resurrection Sunday is not just a day you observe, a message you listen to, or a truth you affirm. It is a complete shift in the reality in which you live.
In Christ, you are not trying to get out of the grave. You already have.
You are not trying to climb your way up. You’ve already been raised.
You are not trying to earn a seat at the table. You’re already seated.
Alive. Raised. Seated.
He is risen. And because he is — everything changes. Even Monday morning.
References
- Edwards, M. J. (Ed.). (1999). Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. InterVarsity Press.
- Jipp, Joshua W. (2020). The Messianic Theology of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
- Simeon, C. (1833). Horae homileticae: Galatians–Ephesians (Vol. 17). Holdsworth and Ball.
- Stott, J. R. W. (1979). God’s new society: The message of Ephesians. InterVarsity Press.
- Zodhiates, S. (2000). The complete word study dictionary: New Testament (electronic ed.). AMG Publishers.
