What does it mean that Christ descends to where?
Here we have some of the most difficult and challenging verses of the Letter to the Ephesians in 4:7–10. Paul says, “Now grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of the Messiah’s gift. For it says: When He ascended on high, He took prisoners into captivity; He gave gifts to people. But what does ‘He ascended’ mean except that He descended to the lower parts of the earth? The One who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.” There are two difficult parts of this passage: first, verses 7–8 and what the quotation is all about from Psa 68; and then what on earth verses 9–10 is all about. The Reference to Psalm 68 First, the psalm. Paul is quoting from Psa 68:18. It’s important, whenever an OT citation is quoted in the NT, that we pause and think about the context of that passage because it’s been demonstrated that the NT authors often had the wider context in mind as they cited a particular text. So what is Psa 68 ab...