Ephesians 1:20

From the dead, and set him, &c.— From the dead: and he set him, &c. Instead of heavenly places, both here and Ephesians 1:3 the margin of our bible reads things, which, perhaps, will be thought better, (as we have there remarked above,) if we compare the 22nd verse. He set him at his right hand,— that is, transferred on him his power as Mediatorial king;— εν επουρανιοις, that is, in his heavenly kingdom.—"He set him at the head of his heavenly kingdom." See Ephesians 1:22. This kingdom is called in the gospel indifferently the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of heaven. God had before a kingdom and people in this world; namely, that kingdom which he erected to himself, of the Jews, selected and brought back to himself out of the apostatized mass of revolted and rebellious mankind. With this his peoplehe particularly dwelt; among them he had his habitation, and ruled as their king in a peculiar kingdom: and therefore we see, that our Saviour calls the Jews the children of the kingdom, Matthew 8:12. But that kingdom, though God's, was not yet the kingdom of heaven; that came with Christ. See Matthew 3:2; Matthew 10:7. The former was but επιγειος, of the earth, compared to this επουρανιος, heavenly kingdom, which was to be erected under the Lord Jesus Christ. In short, the whole drift of this and the two following Chapter s is, to declare the union of Jews and Gentiles into one body, under Christ, the head of the heavenly kingdom.