“God . . . raised us up and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6).
“Throne Life,” as called by classic Higher Life writers like A.B. Simpson and John MacMillan, is life seated with Christ on the throne of God in the heavenly places. They understood that we cannot lift ourselves up; it is God who raises us up through what they insightfully called the “law of lift.”
We Are Lifted into the Heavenly Places by Faith Like the Law of Lift Overcoming the Law of Gravity. The ancient church father Chrysostom, commenting on this verse, asserted, “Your faith is what lifts you up.” Our faith is what enables us to go higher. He uses the Greek term anago, meaning to lead up to a higher place. This is just as the Apostle John declared that faith “is the victory that has overcome the world” (1 John 5:4).
Long before the age of the airplane, Higher Life leaders envisioned faith as the “law of lift” spiritually. Puritan Thomas Watson declares that grace through faith mounts us up on wings like eagles : “You who lie groveling on the earth—feeding like the serpent, on dust—or like eels wrapping yourselves in the mud and slime of the world, had you that new and holy principle of grace infused, your souls would sparkle upwards—you would “mount up to heaven as eagles,” Isaiah 40:31. Had you the sharp eye of faith to see Christ, you would soon have the swift wing of desire to fly to him.”
Hannah Whitall Smith likewise illustrated this vividly: “Birds overcome the lower law of gravitation by the higher law of flight; and the soul on wings overcomes the lower law of sin and misery and bondage by the highest law of spiritual flying. The ‘law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus’ must necessarily be a higher and more dominant law than the law of sin and death; therefore the soul that has mounted into this upper region of the life in Christ cannot fail to conquer and triumph.”
We Are Lifted by the Life of Jesus Within Us. Jesus Christ has become a priest “according to the power of an indestructible life,” the author of Hebrews declares (7:16 ). Andrew Murray comments on this verse: “These precious words are the key to the higher life. . . . His priesthood acts as an inner life within us, lifting us up. . . . Our High Priest by His life-power enters our life, and renews it, and lifts it up; His heavenly life becomes our actual life, and the presence of God surrounds and shines on us as the sunlight shines on our bodies.” F.J. Huegel describes this identification with Christ as “swept forward by the tide of divine life, . . . spontaneously from the inner surgings of a heavenly life.”
If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, because you are in Him and He is in you, you are seated in the heavenly places with Jesus on the throne of God. You have been lifted beyond yourself. Begin to realize your position with Christ and enjoy throne life with HIm! Experience the “spontaneous inner surgings of a heavenly life!”
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