The Summation of All Things in Christ

Studies in Ephesians with a Local Church Emphasis

Lesson 78 : The Descent of Christ part 3 : Christ Descended in His Incarnation  (4:8-9)

THEORY: Christ descended in His Incarnation from Heaven to Earth  –  the reference to earth could be understood as ‘He descended into the lover regions, the earth’  –  Paul uses that same grammatical syntax six other times in Ephesians  –  Ephesians uses a two-story cosmology, not a three-story cosmology  –  in Ephesians the warfare with satanic hosts is not in hades but in the heavenlies  –  victory over evil was accomplished on the cross, not in hades  –  the emphasis in Ephesians of Christ conquest of the powers is in His ascension, not the descent to hades  –  the contrast in these verses is between an ‘ascent into heaven’ and a ‘descent from heaven’  –  ‘the earth beneath’ is used elsewhere in Scripture in contrast to heaven  –  the gospel of John refers to the descent as the incarnation  –  since the NT already speaks of a descent, another descent into hades would be a second descent  –  if Paul had intended hades, he would have used ‘lowest’ rather than ‘lower’  –  the LXX uses the term ‘lowest’ to describe hades  –  Jesus did not ascend from hades but from the earth  –  the incarnation was important to the early churches  –  Paul could have more easily referred to hades than this mysterious reference  –  Paul references Christ’s descent and ascent to associate Him with the Psalm 68 passage  –  Paul’s emphasis would not be logical if he were not highlighting the incarnation  –  when Christ told the thief he would be in paradise, Jesus was speaking of heaven (the meaning of paradise in the Scriptures)  –  synopsis: Paul was drawing attention to the pre-incarnate glory of Christ