“… how tremendous is the power available to us who believe in God. That power is the same Divine energy which was demonstrated in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and gave Him the place of Supreme honor in Heaven – a place that is infinitely superior to any command, authority, power, or control, and carries with it a name far beyond any name that could ever be used in this world or the world to come.” (Ephesians 1: 19 – 21 Phillips)
Wow!
This is lofty language! Especially for a guy who’s been chained to a guard; a soldier who could, very soon, escort him to a sordid execution.
What’s he thinking?
He’s thinking in a different dimension. Modern day physicists talk a lot about a multi-dimensional universe. They’re even suggesting that realities discernible only to mathematical formulae could answer the unanswered questions surrounding our existence. Such thinking is not new. Paul, living in the First Century, believed that “unseen dimensions” of our existence are just as real as those we can see, smell, hear, taste, and touch. He’s thinking about such things here.
Christ’s teaching is largely about a Kingdom; the “Kingdom of God;” the “Kingdom of Heaven.” Dallas Willard, in his book, “The Divine Conspiracy,” explains the broader meaning of “Heaven.” It is, he says, “the cosmos environing us.” This Kingdom Jesus teaches about is the “Kingdom of the Heavens all around us.”
We are surrounded. A real dimension of people, places, and things exists just beyond the reach of our senses. Jesus of Nazareth is there and He is the Supreme Commander. We are citizens of that kingdom. Though our senses provide us with very little information about it other than what Jesus and His followers, like Paul, tell us, our lives are powerfully influenced by what’s going on there.
In order for us to see ourselves as God sees us we must believe, despite hard 5 senses evidence to the contrary, that invincible power and irresistible authority exist in this “real unseen world.” We must realize that its agents are at work on our behalf, tirelessly bringing about things the Master has planned; things that are to our greatest and best advantage.
Paul could speak such lofty language because He saw – with Faith eyes – a different Kingdom. He could say, like Jesus, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” in the moment of his death, and know, with absolute certainty, that the power of God uses death and darkness as the raw material from which to create life and light.
In the eyes of God you are immortal, irresistibly influential, and, ultimately, invincible.
