And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2:1-7 ESV
This is not about being regenerated.
Abraham, Moses, Daniel, Zacharias and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna, and Cornelius were all dead this way. None of them were unregenerate by the modern Evangelical use of the term “regeneration.”
Paul is not saying that sinners and unbelievers were raised to Christ at conversion. He is saying they were all “made alive together” and “raised… up with him” and “seated with him” when Jesus was raised. Read from 1.19 to 2.7 and ignore the chapter divisions and this becomes even more obvious. He is describing what Christ did for the salvation of the world, not how individuals came to repentance and faith.
To grasp Paul’s thinking we need to consider the spatial or geographical values we find in the Old Testament and transfer them from space to time. Before Israel entered the Promised Land, Moses warned them about what would happen if they turned to other gods. The ultimate punishment would be exile from the land:
The LORD will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone… And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
Deuteronomy 28.36; 64 ESV
When King Saul drives David away, David accuses him of wrongly putting him under this curse: “for they have driven me out this day that I should have no share in the heritage of the LORD, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods’” (1 Samuel 26.19). Later, Jeremiah prophesied at a time when the curse Moses warned about was coming to pass. Israel was being sent into exile. God spoke through Jeremiah, “I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night” (Jeremiah 16.13). The nations are viewed as under the dominion of “other gods,” so that a fitting punishment for worshiping other gods is to be forced of the Promised Land to be slaves in these other lands. This not only happened to idolaters, however. Daniel and his three friends were also among those sent to “serve other god day and night.” Even though they personally believed and clung to the true God they were, in a sense, under the jurisdiction of the false gods of the nations. A similar thought is expressed by Paul to the Corinthians when he assumes that to be cast out of the Church is to be handed over to Satan (1 Corinthians 5.1-17)–though in this case the person who is exiled is also personally guilty.
This same idea can also be applied to history. Adam and Eve were given a dominion which they objectively handed over to Satan. They brought themselves and their descendants under the curse of death. We were all dead before Christ came and died with us and rose again. There were those who were saved from that age of death by faith in God and there are those now who keep themselves in a state of death by unbelief, but what Jesus did in history is definite and objective. He brought new life to the world.
In fact, the geographical transition prophesied as a resurrection in “the valley of dry bones” in Ezekiel 37 would also be mainly experienced as a chronological transition by most Israelites. Most Jews never returned to live in the Promised Land. They prayed for it and supported the rebuilding the Temple but much of the foreign population in the empire stayed that way and grew there. They were supposed to. The “missionary” journeys of Paul recorded in Acts would never have been possible otherwise. This was the greatest covenantal arrangement before Jesus came. David and Solomon never sponsored the construction of synagogues in Corinth, or Antioch, or Rome. That happened during the age of Empires. Judaism became an international religion.
So, for most Jews, learning of the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy of resurrection marked a new period in history more than a new location in the world. They were all “dead” in Babylon or Susa or elsewhere (thus, the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel’s vision). And then they learned the glorious news that they had been raised from the dead. The temple was rebuilt. The sacrifices were re-established. The age of new life had begun.
In many cases, they had to take this message on faith because their circumstances probably did not instantly change. They were still “exiles” dealing with their problems in the world. Many had received blessings in their foreign homes and did not see a dramatic improvement in them after hearing of the rebuilt Temple. But, according to the Word of God, they were no longer “dead” in exile, but “alive” in a new Temple administration. Hopefully they were encouraged. Hopefully some who had slid into compromise with local gods repented and returned to devotion to the God who had fulfilled his promises. Hopefully they became better witnesses to convert the pagans around them to the true God.
So it should not surprise us that Paul describes the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus as our own resurrection.