And has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
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Gaius Marius Victorinus
AD 400
He did not make us deserving, since we did not receive these things by our own merit but by the grace and goodness of God. … But all this, as he often asserts and I insist, is in Christ. For in him is the whole mystery of the resurrection, both ours and of all others. .
Above he said that God raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand…. Some may ask how God who has saved us and raised us with him has also made us sit with Christ. A simple response would be indeed that, in the light of God’s foreknowledge, Paul is speaking of what is to come as though it had already been done. … One who understands the resurrection and the kingdom of Christ spiritually does not scruple to say that the saints already sit and reign with Christ! Just as a person may become truly holy even in the flesh, when he lives in the flesh and has his conversation in heaven, when he walks on earth and, ceasing to be flesh, is wholly converted into spirit, so he also is seated in heaven with Christ. For indeed “the kingdom of God is within us.” .
How abundant is his grace and how multifaceted is the glory in which God has caused us to be seated and reign with Christ, after freeing us from the tribulations of the age! This is shown above all by the fact that in the ages to come he will shed his glory upon us in the sight not of some but of all rational creatures…. But an attentive reader might inquire: “Are you saying then that the human arena is greater than the angels and all the heavenly powers?” No…. Some might conceivably argue that “he made us sit with him in heavenly places” refers not to the good angels but to the bad angels, the banished angels and the prince of this world, and Lucifer who rises in the morning, over whom the saints will be enthroned with Christ…. But a better argument will translate [the reference to Christ’s grace] as meaning that we are saved not by our own merit but by his grace and that it is a proof of greater goodness to die for sinners rather than for the just. .
Beholdest thou the glory of His inheritance? That He has raised us up together, is plain. But that He has made us sit with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, how does this hold? It holds as truly, as that He has raised us together. For as yet no one is actually raised, excepting that inasmuch as as the Head has risen, we also are raised, just as in the history, when Jacob did obeisance, his wife also did obeisance to Joseph. Genesis 37:9-10 And so in the same way has He also made us to sit with Him. For since the Head sits, the body sits also with it, and therefore he adds in Christ Jesus. Or again, if it means, not this, it means that by the laver of Baptism He has raised us up with Him. How then in that case has He made us to sit with Him? Because, says he, if we suffer we shall also reign with Him, 2 Timothy 2:12 if we be dead with Him we shall also live with Him. Truly there is need of the Spirit and of revelation, in order to understand the depth of these mysteries. And t...
