The Risen and Exalted Christ – Ephesians 1:20–21
In Ephesians 1:20–21, Paul shows that the immeasurable power of God toward believers is displayed most clearly in the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Christ. God’s power is not an abstract idea or vague spiritual force; it has been shown in history through the person and work of Christ. The same God who raised Jesus bodily from the grave is the God who works on behalf of His people. The resurrection proves that Jesus is righteous, victorious, and accepted by the Father as the perfect sacrifice for sin. It also gives believers certain hope beyond the grave, because the God who raised Christ will also raise all who belong to Him. Christian confidence, then, is not found by looking inward to our own strength, but by looking outward to the empty tomb and the risen Lord.
God not only raised Christ from the dead, but seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, showing that Christ’s saving work is complete and His reign has begun. Jesus is not waiting to become Lord; He is Lord now, reigning as King of kings over every rule, authority, power, dominion, and name in this age and the age to come. No spiritual power, earthly government, cultural pressure, or enemy of the church is His rival. Because Christ is risen, exalted, and reigning, believers have no reason to fear the powers of this world or place ultimate confidence in earthly kingdoms. Our loyalty, trust, and obedience belong to Christ alone, because His reign is supreme, eternal, and unshakable. The same power that raised and exalted Him is the power at work in His people today.
FULL TEXT SERMON:
Go ahead and turn in your copy of God’s Word to Ephesians chapter 1.
The title of my message this morning is The Risen and Exalted Christ.
We’re picking up where we left off last week. Last week we looked at verse 19. As you know, Paul has been praying in this section where we are. Last week we looked at his prayer that believers would know the immeasurable greatness of God’s power towards us who believe.
And at the end of last week I told you that verse 20 is connected to it, but we wouldn’t have a chance to get to it till this week, so that’s where we pick up.
In verses 20 and 21 this morning, Paul shows us exactly what that power, God’s immeasurable greatness of His power, looks like: that God raised Christ from the dead, that He seated Him at His right hand, and that He exalted Christ above every power and authority.
And this is the foundation of all Christian confidence.
Brothers and sisters, we do not serve a dead teacher. We don’t serve a bygone guru. We don’t serve some statue, some figment of our imagination. We serve a risen and reigning Lord, and the power at work for believers is the very power that raised this Lord Jesus Christ from the grave and enthroned Him in glory.
Will you stand with me this morning for the reading of God’s Word?
I’ll begin in verse 16 and read through verse 21 this morning.
Paul says:
“I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us who believe, according to the working of His great might that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.”
Father, this morning as we open Your Word and as we take up these next verses, Lord, last week we looked at Your immeasurable power, but now we look specifically at how that power is worked out towards us.
Lord, it is in and through Christ. It is through our risen and exalted Lord.
And so this morning, Father, help us to see Christ more fully, more clearly, more gloriously.
Lord, through Your Word this morning, teach us, reprove us, correct us, and train us in righteousness that we may be perfect, equipped for every good work.
Lord, do this by Your Spirit. Illuminate Your Word to us. Hide it in our hearts. Do this for the glory of Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated.
So our main idea this morning is that God’s immeasurable power, what we talked about last week, God’s immeasurable power is displayed most clearly and most prominently in the resurrection and the exaltation of Christ, who now reigns with sovereign and supreme authority over every power, name, and age.
The first phrase here shows us how God’s power was worked in Christ.
It says, “that He worked in Christ.”
Paul connects God’s power directly to what He has accomplished in Jesus Christ. The power that he mentioned in verse 19 is not just an abstract force. It’s not a vague spiritual concept that makes us feel good about the fact that He has power.
No, it is power that has actually been displayed in history through the person and the work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
It’s not just something that’s out there. We actually saw it at work when we saw Jesus. When we see Jesus through His Word, when the apostles walked with Jesus, they saw the Lord. They saw God in the flesh. They saw God’s power demonstrated in Christ.
So if we want to understand God’s power towards believers, we need to look at Jesus.
God’s power is not measured, again, by our feelings. We don’t measure whether or not God has power and how much He has by the circumstances that we find ourselves in. And we definitely don’t measure His strength by our strength.
“Well, if I’m making it through the day, then that must mean God’s powerful, because I’m strong enough to make it through the day.”
Well, no, it’s bigger than that. Amen.
We don’t measure it by any of those standards. We measure God’s power by what He has done in His Son.
And that is why Paul connects it directly. He moves immediately from speaking about God’s power to speaking about Christ’s resurrection and exaltation. Those are connected concepts.
In Colossians 2:11–12, Paul reminds us of this. He says:
“In Him,” that is in Christ, “also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ,” listen, “having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”
Every time He’s displaying His power towards us, it is always through Jesus.
The same God, then, who acted and worked in Christ is the God who works on behalf of His people.
So when we struggle with doubt, when we deal with the various weaknesses that we have in our lives, when discouragement comes, the answer is not found by looking deeper within ourselves.
You don’t find the power within. You don’t look for your answers inside yourself. The power’s not there. It’s in Him.
We don’t look inward. We have to look outward. Now, I don’t mean outward in a sense that God’s not with us, He’s out there. God is with us, but it’s not within ourselves. It’s in Him.
Looking at ourselves only reminds us how limited we are, reminds us how big of a failure we are, and we are.
Paul tells us not to look at ourselves. He says, “Look at Jesus.” Look at the empty tomb, believer. Jesus isn’t there. He’s on the throne.
Look at what God has already accomplished in His Son. That is the power that is at work within you.
The Christian life that we live is not confidence in ourselves, but confidence in the God who has worked powerfully in Christ.
“That He worked in Christ.”
Second, God raised Christ from the dead.
“When He raised Him from the dead,” that’s the first display of God’s power. It’s the resurrection of Jesus.
I know we know this, beloved Christian in this room. You know Jesus died and was buried and rose again. That’s the gospel. But I think because we’ve heard it so many times, I think we forget He died.
He was not alive anymore and came back to life. It wasn’t like He had died on the gurney, and He was passed out for a few minutes, and then He came back to life. No, no, no. He was dead for three days, and God powerfully raised Him from the dead.
Again, I don’t think we grasp the weight of that, that He raised Him bodily from the grave.
We’ve got too many movies, and we’ve got too many different things that make the miracle of resurrection kind of like, eh.
My goodness. Can you raise anybody from the dead?
I think the closest we can get is Frankenstein’s monster, and that’s not even real, obviously.
Listen, God raised Jesus from the dead.
So the resurrection is not just symbolic for us. It is a reality. It’s an historical act of God. Jesus died on that cross. He was buried, sealed in that tomb, like they do with dead people, and He resurrected from the dead. God brought Him back to life.
Listen to Peter’s sermon at Pentecost. Acts 2:23–24 says:
“This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”
First of all, bold move there, Peter.
“God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”
Did you catch that?
God raised Christ because it was impossible for death to keep Him dead.
That’s the kind of power He had. That’s the kind of power God has.
None of us, by our will, can make us alive again after we die, and none of us, by our will, can make our loved ones come back to life after they die.
But God can. And He did in the resurrection of Jesus.
And this resurrection, then, is God the Father’s vindication of His Son.
He’s saying, “This one who was rejected, this one who was crucified and buried,” in His resurrection, He publicly declared that Jesus was righteous and that He was victorious.
The resurrection confirms that Jesus is all that He claimed to be, and that His sacrifice for sin was an acceptable offering as payment for our sin, and that even death itself has been conquered.
And this is why Paul, not just here, but he speaks of this in other places. In Philippians chapter 3, he uses the phrase, “the power of His resurrection,” because the resurrection is the clearest demonstration to us that God’s power is greater than any of humanity’s greatest strengths and is even greater than humanity’s greatest enemy, death itself.
And because Christ has been raised, then, believers, we have hope beyond the grave.
If Christ has been raised, then we also have hope beyond death.
1 Corinthians 6:14 says that “God who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise His people by that same power.”
Because He was resurrected, because God in His power resurrected Christ, we too shall be raised from death to life.
So the resurrection of Christ, then, is not only proof of God’s power and of His victory over death, but it’s also a promise for us.
As we mentioned a couple weeks ago, Christian hope, then, is not just being optimistic about the future. Optimistic people just tend to think everything’s going to work out okay, just kind of a blind hope.
But Christian hope rests on the fact that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. That actually happened, and because that happened, He will also raise me and all who believe.
Because Christ is risen, sin, death, and Satan do not get to have the final word for us.
So when we struggle, when we suffer, when we face uncertainty in our daily lives, we can once again look to the empty tomb and remember that God raises the dead, and His power is towards His people.
“That He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.”
Third, “and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.”
You see, God not only raised Jesus from the dead, He exalted Him in the heavens, in the heaven of heavens.
After the resurrection, you remember 40 days later, there was an ascension. Christ literally floated up in the air, out of the disciples’ sight.
Where did He go?
Is He just kind of floating in the air in an orbit around us somewhere?
No. He went to heaven. Heaven is a real place. It’s a spiritual place, but it’s a real place. He went to heaven.
And when He got there, because of the work that He accomplished here, God put Him on the throne. He put Him on the throne as King of kings and Lord of lords.
It said that He seated Him at the right hand of God. That doesn’t mean He’s second in command. The right hand is the place of highest honor, authority, and privilege, which fulfills one of the prophecies of Psalm 110:1:
“Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.”
Because guess what? One day He’s coming back, and He’s going to make His enemies His footstool.
Christ seated at the Father’s right hand teaches us two glorious truths.
First, Christ’s saving work is complete.
Hebrews 1:3 says that, “After making purifications for sin, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
So there’s a significance in His sitting. We kind of gloss over that. Well, it’s a throne, you sit on it, right? Well, that’s true, but there’s more to it than just that He’s sitting down on the throne.
You see, Jesus was not just King, He was Prophet, Priest, and King. He fulfilled everything we needed Him to fulfill.
If you remember in the Old Testament, the priests, when they were doing their work under the old covenant, they were to continually stand. Why? Because their work was never finished. They had to continually offer sacrifices, and offer sacrifices, and offer sacrifices, and offer sacrifices.
Their work was never done. So they had to stand.
Christ sat down because His work was complete.
Nothing can be added to His sacrifice, and nothing needs to be added to it. Our salvation rests on the Redeemer who finished His job. He did what was necessary. He fulfilled all that was necessary for our salvation.
Christ does not need, then, our efforts to complete what He accomplished. He doesn’t need your good works in order to fulfill what was lacking in His service, because He wasn’t lacking.
He has fully secured redemption for His people. There is nothing left to be added. That is why salvation is by faith in the finished work of Christ.
Him being seated means that His work is complete.
But His being seated also means, then, being seated at the right hand of the Father in that heavenly place, that His reign has begun.
When Christ sat on the throne, when He was enthroned in heaven, God declared His kingly authority.
Acts 2:33 speaks of His exaltation to the right hand of God.
Colossians 3:1 reminds us that Christ is presently there. He is seated on the throne right now. He is reigning as King of kings and Lord of lords currently.
That’s not something that is ahead. That’s not something we’re waiting for.
Christ is Lord now. He’s on the throne at the right hand of the Father at this moment.
So that gives us confidence, then, but also humbles us, that we need to submit ourselves to this Lord.
Confidence because Christ rules His church. He is our Lord.
Listen, and if He is in charge, if He is Lord over His church, then nothing can overthrow us. There’s not going to be another power that comes up to Christ and says, “No, no, no, I get to be the head of the church. Your people are my people now.”
No, no, no. He’s done with that. He’s already won. He’s already reigning.
Nothing can take us away from our Lord.
But it also means we’ve got to submit ourselves.
That’s an ugly word. Don’t say that word. We can’t say submit.
We have to submit ourselves.
He is Lord, not just over the church generally, broadly speaking. He is your Lord. He’s in charge of you.
Guess who’s not Lord of your life? You.
“Well, I’m master of my own life.”
No, you’re not. You’re going to trip over those words, buddy.
He is Lord. He is Master. He’s Commander. He’s in charge.
That means when He speaks, we obey. His Word then is not optional in our lives. It is what He has commanded us. They’re commands, not suggestions.
There’s different movies and shows that say, “Well, those are the laws. And well, they’re not really laws, they’re more guidelines.”
No, no. Not when it comes to God’s Word. Not when it comes to Christ.
When He commands, these are His commands. These aren’t His suggestions.
The risen and exalted Jesus deserves then both our trust, our confidence in Him, and our submission, our obedience.
It says that He “worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at His right hand in the heavenly places.”
Number four, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.”
So now Paul takes it a step further. Now he doesn’t just say where He is and what He is. Now he emphasizes the extent of Christ’s sufficiency, of Christ’s supremacy, of His preeminence, as it says in Colossians.
Christ is not just above some authorities. He’s not just a really high authority. He’s the highest.
He is over, it says, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.”
Think of the person or the thing in this universe that has power and authority and dominion and rule. He’s greater.
I even think, not just in terms of humanity, but I think in terms of like the laws of gravity. That’s a rule. But guess who made it a rule? The one who’s above that rule. Jesus.
He’s above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion.
These terms are talking about spiritual kinds of power and dominion, but it’s not limited to just spiritual things. It is everything. It is authority over everything that exists.
There is nothing that exists that has a higher authority than Christ.
Later on in Ephesians, when we get there, Paul acknowledges that there is the reality of spiritual warfare. We do have constantly spiritual warfare taking place within our lives. He says that “believers wrestle against the rulers, and authorities, and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
But listen to me. Those powers and authority, those spiritual forces of evil, don’t exist as God’s rival.
There is not this cosmic yin and yang of good versus evil happening in the cosmos, where God’s on this side, and Christ is on this side, and they’re working really hard to overcome all the evil over here.
No. Christ is over all things, and all that evil is able to do is kind of nip at the heels while He’s crushing the head.
He’s over all things.
He has no rival.
All things, all people, all things that we see and we cannot see, spiritual and physical, all things are subject to Christ.
Colossians 1 teaches us that all rulers and authorities were created through Christ and for Christ. If He created them, He’s over them. They exist because of Him. They exist under Him.
Colossians 2:15 takes it even further, saying that Christ disarmed the rulers and authorities through His triumph on the cross. They don’t even have anything to fight against Him with.
1 Peter 3:22 adds that “angels, authorities and powers have been subjected to Christ.”
The message is plain. It’s clear here. Christ reigns over every spiritual and earthly power.
What does that mean then for us?
Well, first of all, this clearly means for those who put too much emphasis on, “The devil did this in my life. The devil made me do that in my life. The devil is hard at work against me in my life,” listen, you don’t need to be fearful of the devil. You don’t need to obsess over his work in your life.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the devil’s real. He’s not a figment of our imagination. He’s not a fake being, but he’s not the sovereign Lord.
And evil is clearly active in our life. Evil is clearly active in our world, but it’s not the ultimate authority. It won’t win.
As bad as it gets, the devil is not Lord. The culture is not Lord. The governments, praise the Lord, are not Lord. Christ is Lord. He is Master of the universe.
And because He reigns over every power, then that means for you and I, beloved, that we can live and serve and do all His holy will courageously, boldly, not holding anything back, not worried, not afraid of what the world will say or how somebody will react or what’s going to happen to me if I do this.
We work. We engage in ministry. We go on mission. We fight the spiritual warfare that is at work.
And we do so not because we think those things are weak, but because we know our Jesus, our King, is strong.
“That He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.”
So Paul isn’t even done yet. He continues to expand Christ’s supremacy even further.
Like, how can it get more than that?
Because it’s not just the people. It’s not just the things. He is above every name that is named, every title, every authority, every reputation, every office, every power.
If you can name it, Christ is greater.
You’re like, “Well, that doesn’t even exist in this world, but it exists in my heart.” Well, if you can name it, Christ is greater.
How wonderful.
Philippians 2:9–10 gives us this reminder. We went through this when we went through Philippians. It declares that God has highly exalted Him, Christ, and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
And furthermore, this also explains to us that Christ’s supremacy, His reign, His rule, His sovereignty is not a temporary one.
Christ wasn’t reigning while He was on earth. Christ wasn’t reigning just for like, like we talked about this morning. We’re talking about David, and he died. He had 40 years reigning.
Jesus didn’t have a 40-year reign. He is reigning. He has reigned. He’s still reigning. He will reign forever and ever and ever.
Paul says it’s not only in this age, but also the one to come.
And that doesn’t mean like age as in, “Well, within this thousand years, Christ is reigning, and then He’ll do the next thousand.” No, no, no.
This age is this time period between when He left and when He comes back, whenever that is, however long that is, and the one to come.
Well, what’s the one to come? There’s no limit to the one that’s coming. It’s the eternal one, the eternal age, meaning not just in this temporary span of time while the earth is and we are the way we are now until it comes to an end, but even beyond that.
He will reign not just in this life, but in the one to come.
So while this present age that we live in now has all this sin and suffering and evil and all the opposition to God in it, yet even now Christ reigns.
But in the age to come, that will reveal His reign in its fullness and in its glory. He will be fully over all things in perfection. Right now He’s fully over all things even in its imperfection. It’ll be even more glorious reign as we see Him as He is.
Isaiah 9:6–7 promises that His government and His peace will never end. Luke chapter 1 declares that His kingdom will have no end.
So even though right now we don’t see all of His enemies defeated, Christ is already reigning. His kingdom, His church, His people is already advancing towards, like what we talked about back in chapter 1 verse 10, when the fullness of the time comes and He unites all things in Himself, things in heaven and things on earth.
It will continue to advance until that time, and then He will continue to reign beyond that.
So once again, this gives us confidence, not just for today, but for the future.
As things get worse, as the governments change, as the presidents change and you get a guy you don’t like, just to get the next one that’s even worse and worse and worse, your confidence is not in that guy.
Your confidence is not in kingdoms of this world.
When everything else shifts, Christ will still be Lord. I mean, kings and kingdoms will pass away, but Christ will still be Lord.
And even in our own lives, when death itself gets near, death has been defeated. Christ is Lord.
So church, give all your ultimate loyalty, trust, and obedience to Christ alone. Because His reign is the only reign that will extend through every age and on into eternity.
Nothing else deserves your loyalty. Nothing else deserves your trust or your obedience but Christ and Christ alone.
So here in these two verses, Paul wants believers to know the power of God, but specifically he wants you to know that power, to see that power, to understand that power, to experience that power as it was displayed when God raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand.
To see that God’s power is displayed in the fact that Christ is supreme, that He is reigning over every ruler, authority, power, and name.
So, beloved, take heart. You and I, church, belong to the risen and reigning Lord.
And the same power that raised Him is the power at work within us.
So we have no need to fear the powers of this world. And we definitely don’t need to look at the church and judge what we can see about the way things are and judge Christ’s power based on what we see in ourselves.
It’s far above that. Christ is Lord.
And He will reign forever and ever.