Weird Stuff in the Bible

Exploring the Heavenly Realms of Ephesians
The Book of Ephesians

Introduction
We’re going to be in the book of Ephesians for the next couple of weeks, really centering around this famous verse at the end of the book:
Ephesians 6:12 (NIV)
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Next week, we’ll be looking at what these rulers, authorities and spiritual forces exactly are. All you need to know is that these refer to the hierarchy of Satan’s kingdom. Rulers and authorities, powers and spiritual forces, these are demons and fallen angels.
For this week, I want to just explore this concept of “the heavenly realms.”
We read that and we’re like, “well I know what that is: the spiritual realm. The supernatural realm. The unseen world. Behind the veil. The upside down. The Quantum Realm. Narnia.”Whatever you want to call it. It’s that spiritual plane of existence that angels and demons inhabit.
But wait: what if I told you that “the heavenly realms” is a phrase that’s been used throughout the book of Ephesians- and not only that, it says we’re already there.
Ephesians 2:6 says
God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus
So how can we be there if we’re here?
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to Ephesians 1, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]

Epouranios
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about the heavenly realms in the book of Ephesians.
You might remember that I gave you an overview or primer on Ephesians a couple of months ago. I was actually thinking of digging into Ephesians in a mini-series with you all back then, and then I went on vacation, and then I realized that there was some more groundwork which should be laid first before I get into this stuff in Ephesians, and so this information somewhat builds on what we’ve been looking at for the past several weeks.
So let’s talk about the Heavenly Realms. That’s what the NIV called them.
Here’s the ESV for Ephesians 6:12
12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
So ESV says heavenly places; NIV says heavenly realms. The NKJV says the heavenly places. The KJV says the high places. I’m going to go with the NIV today because I think that communicates to us the most clearly what this is. It’s the spiritual dimension, but especially where it is “heavenly” or above us.
The Greek word used here in Ephesians 6:12 for heavenly realms is Epouranios (ep - poo - RON - ee - oss). It means: “existing in heaven,” “things that take place in heaven,” “the heavenly regions.” So it sounds like heaven as in God’s home, but then we have to understand what heaven can mean.
I’ll probably do a whole episode about this soon, but there are essentially three things that heaven can mean, and it can refer to just the atmosphere above our heads, or the spiritual atmosphere above us. There is a lot of spiritual warfare going on above our heads. That’s what Ephesians 6:12 is especially talking about here. So Epouranios can be used to refer to this whole region.
So what happens in Epouranios? Well, Epouranios is used 18 times in the New Testament, and 5 of those times are right here in Ephesians. So if we want to understand what Epouranios (or “the heavenly realms” means in Ephesians 6:12, I want to look at the other ways Epouranios is used in Ephesians; then if we have time, we’ll look at how Epouranios is used by Paul in other books of the Bible; and if we have any more time, we’ll look at how Epouranios is used in the rest of the New Testament.
That’s how you should do Bible interpretation, by the way. Start with how the word is used within the same book. Then look at how that same author uses that word in any other books he has written. And then look at how it’s used in the rest of the Bible. That’s how you make sure you understand the word. I don’t know if we’ll have time in a 30-minute episode to look at all the other 17 times that Epouranios, but we’ll see how far we get and if we need to do anymore digging beyond that, we can go into it in a Rabbit Trails newsletter this weekend.

Ephesians 2:6
So let’s start looking at all the places where Epouranios comes up in Ephesians. Like I said, it comes up 5 times. I would really like to go through them chronologically, but I think the best place to start is
Ephesians 2:6
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus
Notice that that is past-tense. We have been seated with Christ in the heavenly realms. And yet, as Paul wrote this, he was down here on planet earth, writing to other people on planet earth, and we’re reading it today down here on planet earth.
And if you were seated in heaven, would you really need a letter telling you that? Wouldn’t you be able to just look around and say, “oh, I’m in heaven right now”? So why is Paul saying this in past tense, as if it’s already happened?
Key point today: we exist down here on earth physically, but in the spiritual realm, we have a throne that’s above angelic beings. You have a seat in heaven with your name on it, if you’ve been saved. You have a throne, a place of authority, with your name on it.
We’ve all seen pictures of a president siting at his desk in the Oval Office, right? This is where he signs bills into law, where he may be sitting when he calls other foreign leaders, where he holds his staff meetings and daily briefings. It’s a location of great importance and authority.
Now, the president may leave the White House, get in his limo, and drive to your house. He and his Secret Service guys get out and walk up to your front door. Let’s say you invite him in for coffee- or if it’s the current president, you invite him in for a Diet Coke. He and his guys come in. He sits down at your table.
Is he still the president? Does he still have power and authority? Of course! Because regardless of what seat he is sitting in, he still has the power and authority of being the leader of the United States. He’s just in a different location than where his seat of authority is.
Likewise, you are down here on earth, but once you’ve been saved, redeemed, made a child of God, you receive the inheritance of a heavenly throne. We have a spiritual status of great authority. We may not be up there in heaven, but we have a seat with our name on it, and that’s the spiritual authority we now have.
The authority that Adam lost- as we covered the past few weeks- Jesus got it back and He shares it with us.
Matthew 28:18-19
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
We can literally walk in the authority that Christ has. Last week, we went into discussion of how we outrank angels. We have a higher authority than any angelic being because we have been seated in Christ. It still blows my mind! Ok, let’s move on.

Ephesians 1:3
The first use of Epouranios is in:
Ephesians 1:3
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
This begins a huge prayer that actually ends up being the longest sentence in the whole Bible. Just something I thought you bible nerds out there might find interesting. Lots of Pauls’ letters open with a prayer. This one says that if you are “in Christ,” then you have been blessed with spiritual blessings “in the heavenly realms,” or Epouranios.
I want to focus on that word “every” there. It said we’ve been blessed in the heavenly realms “with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”
So there is no deficiency in your power. So if you ever feel like you don’t have enough spiritual power to oppose the devil or do great things for God, I just want you to know, you have every spiritual blessing. Don’t look at what other Christians do and say, “I could never do that.” You have the same spiritual blessings they do!
Doesn’t mean you’re called to do the exact same things that they do, but you have enough spiritual power to be successful in whatever God HAS called you to do.
And this might sound obvious to some of you, but frankly, most Christians don’t want to fight the devil. They’ll tolerate a certain amount of his activity in their world but if he’ll leave them alone, they’re content to leave him alone. They don’t have an interest in deliverance or spiritual warfare or doing these things Jesus and Paul told us to do. And if a dark presence ever does show up in their life, they’re hiding like they got caught with their HR Director at a Coldplay concert.
Well guess what: you’ve got to be ready to throw down when the enemy tries to intimidate you. And you really ought to be taking the fight to him. We’re not supposed to be waiting for the gates of hell to attack us. We’re supposed to shut the gates of hell. And you have everything you need to be able to do that, because you have every spiritual blessing from your seat of authority in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 1:20
The next use of Epouranios comes up later in the first chapter in verse 20. Lemme start at
Verse 18 (and continue from here)
18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe.
(And for those of us studying this, I hope we have our eyes enlightened as well!)
That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
So that finishes out chapter 1. I just had to read the whole thing.
So Christ is seated in the heavenly realms. Well, duh. That’s obvious. He is far above all rule and authority, power and dominion. Again, next week, we will be explaining the meanings of those words, because Ephesians 6:12 says we wrestle with those powers and authorities. So we’ll be digging in to what those Greek words mean.
But let’s put some of these thoughts together. We don’t outrank Jesus, obviously. We aren’t even equal with Jesus. He is our head. Jesus has all authority. Then under Jesus is us. And under us are all the spiritual beings. Good and bad. We outrank all of them.
We don’t even know as much about the spiritual realm as they do. And yet in the spiritual realm, we outrank them. It’s crazy! They are those things that are under Christ’s feet- and ours, because we have been given this inheritance. I hope the eyes of your heart are being enlightened to the glorious inheritance and incomparably great power we have.
I mean, think about it: we’ve been talking about opening spiritual gates this year. How witchcraft practices and paganism would open gates of hell. The demons and fallen angels can’t open those gates on their own. They need our help- the help of us humans- to do those things. Man is who has been given dominion on planet earth, and those spiritual beings are trying to get us to sign away our rights to dominion over to them. But Jesus died to purchase those rights back. So we can take dominion and authority over our earthly realm because we’ve been given authority in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 3:10
Now perhaps you’re saying, “OK, I have all this power; what am I supposed to do with it?”
Ephesians 3:10-11
10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The last use of Epouranios until 6:12 is right there. We are to declare the manifold wisdom of God to the beings who inhabit the heavenly realms. What in the world does that mean?
Wisdom is the Greek word Sophia. It means wisdom or intelligence or skill in the truth.
Manifold is Polupoikilos (poe - loo - POY - kill - oss). It means a great variety. Now, if you’re like me, manifold is not a word I use all that often. And I checked the other translations and guess what: all of them translate this as the manifold wisdom of God.
So manifold must be a pretty good word for it here. Manifold, according to Merriam-webster, means “marked by diversity or variety.”
So we are to declare the great variety of truth or wisdom to the spiritual beings. Or another way to look at it: everything that is true. All truth. We are to put the spiritual realm on notice. On check.
Before you’re saved, you have no defense against spiritual beings. After you’re saved, they have no defense against you.
If I’m saved, there’s a new sheriff in town. This town ain’t big enough for the two of us. You have no authority in my life, in my home, in my marriage, in my health, in my finances, you’re evicted. There is not one single area of my life where you are allowed to have reign, because I’m declaring the manifold wisdom.
Now let’s go back to Sophia, or wisdom. I’m not sure if wisdom is the best translation of this word; again, it can mean “wisdom or intelligence or skill in the truth.” So I think of how it’s being used here as “the facts.” When the devil tries to invade your life, you can come back to him with “the facts.”
This is a legal decree. Think of like a lawyer’s office, and you know how they have all these books behind them with all of the various legal codes. They study these books because if they are prosecuting someone, they need to know exactly what the law says so they can dig into the legal framework and say, “you violated statute number 2817.1138.”
Or if they’re a defense attorney, they scour the books, looking for how you’re actually innocent because of a precedent from 1969 in this or that case, or a provision over here. You see, all this legal jargon and data, this is the manifold wisdom- the great variety of facts and information and intelligence of the legal system. If you have a lawyer who is very good at knowing their case, very sharp on the details, then you might say that they are skilled in the truth.
That’s what Sophia means in the Greek. To be skilled in the truth. So if the word “wisdom” doesn’t get you there in understanding this phrase “the manifold wisdom of God,” then just think of it like a really good lawyer. Someone very skilled in legal defense.
That’s what we are to declare to the beings who inhabit the heavenly realms. We are to tell them that they have no legal rights to our lives any longer. We outrank you, and we’re sending you somewhere else.
And we can do that because of the sacrifice of Christ to cover our sins and make us children of God.
And it’s honestly mind-blowing that Jesus gives us this much power and authority. And maybe you hear this and you say, “yeah, do we really have that much spiritual power? This sounds like a stretch.”
I know it sounds like a stretch. I think that’s why every time Paul tells us this in Ephesians, he emphasizes God’s goodness as He does so.
Ephesians 1:3
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
Ephesians 1:18
the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people
Ephesians 2:4-7
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
Every time Paul talks about our spiritual authority, notice how Paul emphasizes God’s mercy, God’s love, God’s grace, God’s kindness. Paul knows we don’t deserve it. We know we don’t deserve it.
Verse 8
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
I hope you never read that verse the same way again. That verse is not just about how God saved us from our sins by grace. It’s also about how God gives us all this spiritual authority by grace.
So let’s use that authority we’ve been given over the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.

Next Time & Closing Thoughts
Now, who exactly are these rulers and authorities? That’s what we’re going to dig into next week. And make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it!
I guess I didn’t ever get outside of the book of Ephesians today. So for this week’s newsletter, let’s look at a few more of the New Testament’s locations where it uses the phrase “heavenly realms” or this Greek word “Epouranios.”
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Closing Thoughts
The thought that’s been running through my mind a lot this week is that we don’t want deliverance without discipleship. And here’s what I mean by that.
You have authority to cast the enemy out. But sin gives the enemy the rights to have access to our lives. So you can kick him out, but when we sin, we give the enemy legal rights to have access to our lives.
For example, Ephesians 4:26-27 say
26 “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.
So anger is a sin that can give the devil a foothold. And as we’ll learn in the weeks ahead, I’d say just about any sin can give the devil a foothold. It just uses anger as an example here because it’s a common one.
You can declare the manifold wisdom of God all you want. But if you declare the manifold wisdom and get free of the devil on Tuesday, and then you go to bed Tuesday night with some anger in your heart, you’re inviting the devil right back into your life to cause problems on Wednesday.
So we don’t just need deliverance; we need discipleship. We want to be free of the enemy, but we don’t want freedom that lasts for a day or two. We want freedom that’s permanent, and that won’t come without growing in fruit of the Spirit and spiritual maturity.
So let that thought go with you this week, and I hope it’ll bring you back next week.
And if you think declaring the manifold wisdom of God to the heavenly realms sounds weird, I hope you’re a little more weird today, too. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.