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And Ephesians 2:6 amplifies the point that the new life given in Christ has a decisively resurrection structure: "And He raised us up and seated us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." The act of resurrection, by which believers become possessors of new life, cannot be isolated from union with Christ. There is no notion of redemptive life apart from the more basic category of resurrection life, and this resurrection life is given in terms of union with Christ. Hence, when Paul specifies the sense in which we have been made alive in Christ (v. 5), it is natural and necessary that he invoke the category of resurrection life in Christ (v. 6). To be made alive with Christ consists in being raised up together with and in Christ. The believer's death and resurrection with and in Christ replicates on a soteriological level the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.