deeply into the very nature of the Gospel, that Paul brings it forward on every fit occasion. And if the mode in which he speaks of our deliverance, does not of itself show it to be gratuitous, he introduces the de- claration parenthetically, lest it should be for a moment forgotten.
Υ. 6. And hath raised us wp and caused us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. This is an amplification of what precedes. In its widest sense the life, which in v. 5 is said to be given to us, includes the exaltation expressed in this verse. It is, therefore, only by way of amplification that the apostle, after saying we are made partakers of the life of Christ, adds that we are raised up and enthroned with him in heaven. To understand this we must know what is here meant by “heavenly places,” and in what sense believers are now the subjects of the exaltation here spoken of. Throughout this epistle the expression “heavenly places” means heaven. But the latter phrase has in Scripture a wide application. It means not only the atmospheric heavens in which the clouds have their habitation ; and the stellar heavens in which the sun, moon and stars dwell; and the third heavens, i. e. the place where God specially manifests his presence and where the glorified body of Christ now is, but also the state into which believers are introduced by their re- generation. In this last sense it coincides with one of the meanings of the phrase “kingdom of heaven.” It is that state of purity, exaltation and favour with God, into which his children are even in this world intro-