The Ascension of Christ | Acts 1:6-11
Brian Hedges | May 28, 2017
Oh Lord, if you should mark iniquities, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared and worshipped and loved, and therefore we wait for you; our souls wait for you, and in your word we hope. For with you there is steadfast love; with you there is plentiful redemption, and you will redeem your people from all their iniquities.
As we come before you this morning in the hope of your word, draw near to us in the grace and in the power of your Holy Spirit, given by your ascended Son, in whose name we pray, Amen.
So, ascension—the ascension is one of the four primary feasts or festivals or celebration days in the Christian calendar, along with Christmas, where we celebrate the birth of Christ; Easter, where we celebrate the resurrection of Christ; and then Pentecost, where we celebrate the giving of the Spirit. Now it’s interesting that most churches give a lot of attention to Christmas, and celebrate the birth of Christ, and to Easter, of course; they celebrate the resurrection of Christ. And then many churches just go on through the Christian year and give very little attention to the ascension of our Lord or to the day of Pentecost and the giving of the Holy Spirit.
I think that reflects a neglected area of Christian doctrine and theology. The apostles speak of the ascension of Christ often in the New Testament. It was central to their understanding of what Christ had done. It’s an essential part of what we might call the history of salvation; those events in the life, in history, of Jesus Christ, that are essential for our eternal souls, for our salvation.
Just as essential as the nativity of Christ and his birth, the death of Christ on the cross, the resurrection of Christ from the grave, is the ascension of our Lord into the heavens.
John Owen, one of my favorite theologians, in the 17th century said that the ascension is central to the church. He called it the great foundation of the church’s hope and consolation in the world. Then Owen went on to say that the darkness of our faith in the ascension is the cause of all our disconsolations and most of our weaknesses in obedience.
That’s an amazing statement. Our ignorance, or lack of understanding of the ascension, Owen says, is the cause of most of our disconsolation (that means our unhappiness) and our weakness in obedience. To put it another way, if we had the ascension of Christ more fully in view we would be happier than we presently are, and we would be stronger as Christians, and more obedient than we presently are.
So, I think it’s important that we take a Sunday like this, as we did last year and as I think we should do at least on a yearly basis, take this occasion to think about the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. Next week is Pentecost Sunday; we will look at the day of Pentecost and the gift of the Spirit and what Christ continues to do in His church through the Spirit.
What I want to do today through the next, I guess, four or five weeks is take Acts 1-2; Acts 1 today, we’ll look at the ascension of Christ as well as some other passages of Scripture, and then we’ll begin in Acts 2 next week looking at the day of Pentecost, and then I want to spend several weeks in Acts chapter two, concluding this short little series in Acts 1-2 on our membership Sunday at the end of June. We’ll look at that cameo, that portrait or picture, of the early church at the end of Acts chapter two on that Sunday. So that’s the course for the next several weeks.
So today, the ascension of Christ. Of course, the record of this is found in the book of Acts, in Acts 1:6-11. So I’m going to read that passage, and then do something like a topical approach to the ascension of Christ, looking at the book of Acts and then especially the letter to the Hebrews, which has much to say about the ascension of Christ.
So Acts 1. This is written, of course, by Luke, who considered the ascension of Christ so important that he both ended his gospel with the ascension in Luke 24 and then began his history of the continuing work of Christ in and through the church and through the Spirit in the book of Acts with the ascension of Christ. Let’s look at what he says in Acts 1:6-11.
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
This is God’s word.
So three things I want us to see about the ascension of Christ, and I’m drawing and somewhat adapting an outline from Tim Chester’s very helpful book called The Ascension, Humanity, and the Presence of God, just to give credit where it’s due. Three things I want you to see.
I want you to see the ascended King, and how that relates to our mission; then the ascended Priest, and how that relates to our worship; and then, finally, Jesus the ascended Man, and how that relates to our salvation.
I. The Ascended King and Our Mission
So first of all, the ascended King and our mission. You get a hint that this is what’s going on here in the passage which we’ve read. The disciples ask Jesus, “Will you restore the kingdom to Israel?” He doesn’t rebuke them, he doesn’t correct them, he just tells them it’s not for them to know the times or seasons, and then he goes on to tell them that they’re going to receive power from the Holy Spirit and that they will be witnesses to him in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
In some ways, that verse is something like an outline of the whole book of Acts, which has to do with the mission of the church. The Holy Spirit falls on the church, the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two; the apostles in the early church give dynamic witness to Jesus there in Jerusalem, and then move progressively out from Jerusalem in the rest of this book. And throughout there are markers that what’s going on here is the extension, the expansion, of the kingdom of God through the work of Jesus in the church as they are empowered by the Holy Spirit.
The book of Acts both begins and ends with references to the kingdom of God. So in Acts 28, at the end of the book, the apostle Paul is in Rome proclaiming the kingdom of God, and those markers are telling us that this whole book is really the record of Jesus’s continuing work through the church in bringing his kingdom. But note that Jesus does this as the ascended king. He does it as the ascended king.
There are several things I just think it’s helpful to note here about mission in relationship to the ascension of Christ.
(1) First of all, it’s the ascension of Christ that gives us the authority for mission, the authority for mission. Now, again, you see this in the whole unfolding of the book of Acts, but especially note Acts 2:36, where the apostle Peter says, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
What Peter is doing there is giving reason and justification for what’s happening on the day of Pentecost and for his proclamation of the word. He’s telling them the reason that all of this is happening, that reason the Spirit has descended, the reason I’m preaching this message, is because God has made Jesus, the one you crucified, Lord and Christ. Those are kingship titles. Jesus is the ascended and the enthroned king. Jesus has taken the highest place of honor, and he reigns as the king of Israel and as the Lord of the world.
You also see this in the famous passage we all know, the Great Commission. Remember how that passage begins: Jesus says, “All authority is given to me in heaven and earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus grounds the mission of the church in his authority, that authority given to him in his resurrection and then in his ascension, where he ascends to the heavens and is seated at the right hand of God.
So, our authority for mission comes from Christ’s ascension. The fact that Jesus, in the ascension, is declared to be the king; he’s declared to be the king.
(2) We also receive our power for mission from the ascended Christ, and we see that, of course, in Acts chapter two. In verse eight, Acts 1:8, Jesus tells us that “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,” and then in Acts chapter two the Holy Spirit actually comes. There is a close connection here between the ascension of Christ and the Pentecost, the day of Pentecost, the descent of the Spirit. It is only as Christ ascends that the Holy Spirit descends, and the reason the Holy Spirit descends on the church is to give them power for mission, or at least that’s one reason the Holy Spirit comes to the church.
Jesus said that this would take place. In John 16:7 he said, “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper—” that is, the Holy Spirit “—will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you.”
John had also written in his gospel that the Holy Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus has not yet been glorified, in John chapter seven. When is Jesus glorified? He’s glorified in this one-two punch of resurrection, ascension. When Jesus rises from the dead he rises in a glorified body, and then when he ascends into the heavens he ascends into glory. That’s what the cloud signifies. The cloud in the Old Testament is always the glory cloud; represents the glory of God, the majesty of God. Jesus ascends into the cloud, and it’s demonstrating here his glorious exaltation.
So, that means that the ascension of Christ is the catalyst for the outpouring of the Spirit; the two go hand in hand. Peter makes that connection, again, Acts 2:33, “Being, therefore, exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.”
So hear what Peter’s saying, that Jesus has been exalted and is at God’s right hand. This is a place of authority, it’s a place of kingship, it’s a place of honor; and because this has taken place he’s now given the promise of the Holy Spirit to the church.
So: our power for mission. Listen, we don’t have the power in and of ourselves to bring people to salvation. We have a message, of course—the message of the gospel—and the message of the gospel is God’s power for salvation, but you remember that Paul would say in 1 Thessalonians 1 that “our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in the power and in the Holy Spirit.” He says in 1 Corinthians 2 that “our preaching was in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit.” It’s the Holy Spirit, you see, who gives us power for the work of ministry. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes the word effectual and powerful in the hearts of people, so that they believe.
We wouldn’t have the Holy Spirit if it wasn’t for the day of Pentecost, and we wouldn’t have the day of Pentecost if it wasn’t for the ascension of Christ, so that Christ, the ascended king, gives this gift to the church.
(3) One more relationship here between the ascension of Christ and our mission, and that’s this: the ascended Christ comforts the church in their mission when they suffer. So our comfort for mission comes from the ascended Christ.
We see this, especially, in the account of Stephen, who is the first Christian martyr in the church, in Acts 7. You remember Stephen; he’s one of the seven chosen in Acts 6. You remember, he preaches in Acts 7, he preaches this sermon, and the sermon has such an effect that it angers the people who hear it; makes them angry, makes them really mad at him. They think he’s reviling the temple, they think he’s blaspheming, and they decide to kill him. They stone him to death.
There’s this wonderful glimpse into what happens of a life of a martyr, at the end of Acts chapter seven. I wonder sometimes, and I’m sure you do too; you read stories out of Voices of the Martyrs and things like that. I wonder, how do these Christians do it? How do they endure through pain and suffering and torture, and they don’t give up their faith. How do they do that? Would I be able to do that? I’ve asked that question many times. Because I don’t like pain.
Here’s the answer, I believe; I believe the answer is that the ascended Christ gives a special strength and comfort to people who suffer for him. You see it at the end of chapter seven. Luke tells us that “Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens open, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’”
That’s how they do it! That’s how the martyrs endure to the end! Now I don’t know if Jesus always gives them a vision of that sort, but this is what I’m sure of, is that Jesus, the exalted king, through his Spirit always sustains his people to the end. He comforts them; he strengthens them; he gives them what they need.
How that should steel our hearts with comfort and strength in all of our missional, evangelistic efforts. Evangelism is hard, it’s really hard, and it’s getting harder in our world. Mission is hard, it’s hard to be on the mission field. And make no mistake, we are on a mission field, and the only way we can do it is through the strength, the power, the grace, of Christ given to us through the Holy Spirit. The ascended king gives us authority, power, and comfort for our mission.
II. The Ascended Priest and Our Worship
Number two: the ascended priest and our worship. Christ is not only the ascended king, he is our ascended priest. This especially the focus in the letter to the Hebrews.
The letter to the Hebrews is actually the only book in Scripture that refers to Jesus Christ directly as our priest. There are other references, of course, to the priestly work of Christ, things that he does as priest, but it’s in the book of Hebrews especially that Christ is called our great high priest.
You see it even in the beginning, which are the words we read for our call to worship this morning, where the writer declares how the eternal Son, the one whom God “appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world, who is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature,” and upholds the universe by the word of his power, has now made purification for our sins. That’s priestly language. And then, “...has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.” That’s something a priest in the Old Testament never did.
In the Old Testament, the priest would never sit down in the temple. There were no chairs there. But Jesus has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, because he is the priest who has completed his atoning work. He has made purification for sins.
Then, throughout Hebrews, there are references to Christ, who has passed through the heavens—he’s passed into the heavens; he’s come into that heavenly sanctuary, that heavenly, holy place of which the Holy Place in the tabernacle and the temple was just a shadow, just a copy—and Jesus has come into this place. He’s come into this true sanctuary, into the very presence of God himself, to appear before God on behalf of his people.
So Jesus as our priest in the presence of God, continuing his priestly work. Now, he’s finished his priestly work of offering a sacrifice, but he continues his priestly work in the heavens. What is is that he does as our priest? I want you to see two things that he does.
(1) Here’s the first: he leads us in worship. Our ascended priest leads us in worship. You see this in Hebrews 2; let’s read verses 10 through 13. The writer says that “it was fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering, for he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, ‘I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.’”
Let’s stop right there. That’s a quotation from Psalm 22: “In the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.” I love the way John Calvin describes this. He says that in this verse “Christ is called our heavenly choir-master, who tunes our hearts to sing God’s praise.” Here’s the picture: the Christ, who is one of us, is not ashamed to call us brothers. He’s the captain of our salvation, he’s been made perfect through suffering, and now he’s in the presence of God, and in the presence of God he sings in the midst of the congregation. He sings in the presence of God. He leads us into worship in the presence of God.
It shows us, essentially, what Jesus is doing. He’s leading us in worship. He’s building a community of worshippers. That’s true of all the aspects of our worship, including our singing together, but also including our praying together.
Here’s another way the book of Hebrews makes this point. Have you ever noticed the language of drawing near in Hebrews? We are said to “draw near to God,” and how do we do that? Look at a couple of texts: Hebrews 4:14-16. “Since then we have a great high priest—” there’s his priesthood “—who has passed through the heavens—” there’s his ascension “—Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
You see the picture? Through Christ, the high priest, who’s passed into the heavens, we draw near to God’s throne. And what do we do at the throne? We kneel, we pray, and we receive grace and mercy in the time of need.
Here’s another passage: Hebrews 10:19-22. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through is flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.”
That is an amazing passage. That is an amazing passage. That passage is telling us that not has Christ entered into the holy places, not only that; it’s telling us that we have confidence to enter the holy places. And how do we do it? We do it by the blood of Jesus, our high priest.
I’ve heard Martyn Lloyd-Jones preach on this passage, and preach on prayer, and one of the things that Martyn Lloyd-Jones says in that sermon is that people often talk about prayer as if it’s a simple thing. He says it’s not a simple thing. He said that’s the first mistake that people make when they think about prayer. He says it’s not a simple thing. And so he begins by talking about the difficulty of prayer. Prayer is a difficult thing! Why is prayer difficult? Because you’re coming into the presence of a holy God, and when you come into the presence of a holy God you have an evil conscience that’s accusing you, “You have no right to be here.”
He says this is how we deal with it: you deal with the evil conscience by going to the cross. You deal with an evil conscience by going to your high priest. You get access into the presence of God only through Christ. He’s the one who opens the way to God!
That’s what the writer to the Hebrews is telling us: we can draw near to God in assurance and with confidence, but only because of what Christ has done. This is true for us as individuals, it’s true for us as a church, as we gather together for worship.
John Owen, who I began this sermon by quoting, has written a wonderful sermon—it’s actually a couple of sermons that he preached—called “The Nature of Gospel Worship”. I want you to hear Owen’s amazing insight into worship.
“What can be more glorious than this?” he asks. “Namely, that the whole spiritual worship of the gospel, performed here on earth by the saints, is administered in heaven by such a holy priest, who is at the right hand of the throne of the majesty of God, and yet under his conduct we have, by faith, an entrance into the presence of God. Worship is performed in heaven; though they who perform it are on earth, yet they do it by faith in heaven.”
That’s a wonderful picture. This is what he’s telling us: he’s telling us that when you and I gather, as we’re doing right now, when we gather on earth to worship, Christ our high priest is presenting our worship to the Father in heaven. The worship is performed on earth, and it is performed in heaven. When we gather in worship, in fact, there is this intersection of heaven and earth, where by the Holy Spirit we are brought into the presence of God. We enter into the holy places! This is an amazing thought!
Folks, we don’t realize the privilege we have when we gather for worship! We don’t realize what we’re doing, sometimes. We need to be reminded; we need to dig into the Scriptures and see this, that when we gather for worship we come into the presence of God himself. How do we do that? Through our priest, our priest who presents our worship to God in his very presence. Our worship, even though it’s performed on earth, is performed by faith in heaven, because the priest brings us into God’s very presence.
This is what our priest does. Our ascended priest, in the presence of God now, leads us in worship, presents our prayers before God, leads us in song, this heavenly choir-master who tunes our hearts to sing his praises.
(2) Here’s the second thing our ascended priest does: he intercedes for us. He not only presents our worship before the Father, but Jesus himself prays for us; he intercedes for us.
Look at Hebrews 7:23: “The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he [Christ] holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him—” there it is again, drawing near. He is able to save them to the uttermost “since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens—” there’s the ascension. “He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins, then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.”
Christ is the true high priest; he’s the final high priest, and he’s made this once and for all, final sacrifice. No more sacrifice is needed. The atoning work is done, and because the atoning work is done, because he’s resurrected and ascended, he lives forever. And what does he do? He intercedes for us.
This is deeply encouraging to struggling believers. Do you ever wonder, do you ever struggle and wonder about your security as a Christian? Do you ever wonder if you’re going to continue to stay in the faith? Do you ever find yourself beset by temptation; just berated and assaulted by temptation? Do you ever fail? You want to know what your comfort is when you’re tempted, and even when you fail? Here it is: Christ prays for you. He prays for you.
Do you remember Peter? Jesus told Peter, “Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to have you, to sift you like wheat.” Peter’s going to be tempted terribly, and he fails; he denies Christ three times. You remember this? But Jesus says, “But Simon, I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail.”
Now, Peter fell; he was tempted; he blew it. But his faith did not fail. You know why? Because Christ prayed for him, and Christ prays for us. He prays for us when we’re tempted, and that our faith will not fail; that we will not be lost. He prays for us when we have sinned, so that we will be forgiven.
I love those words of Wesley:
“Five bleeding wounds he bears,
Received at Calvary.
They pour effectual prayers;
They ever plead for me.
‘Forgive him; oh, forgive!’ they cry.
‘Don’t let that ransomed sinner die.”
He presents his wounds, he presents his work, he presents the sufficiency of his atoning work to the Father and says, “Father, see what I have done. Don’t let that Christian be lost!” That’s one reason I believe in the security of the believer. It’s one reason I believe in the perseverance of the saints.
If you’re struggling with condemnation, here’s the answer: “Who is he who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died; more than that, who is raised, who is at the right hand of God, who is interceding for us,” Romans 8:34.
You may feel a condemning conscience; you may feel that you have a condemning conscience, and your conscience has lots to condemn you for, and lots to condemn me for, right? If you look at all my sins, yes, there’s reason for condemnation. But then if you look away from yourself and you look up to Christ, you see Christ, who has died for us, who is at the right hand of God, and who is interceding for us, there is no condemnation, because he has taken that condemnation upon himself.
Robert Murray M’Cheyne—I’ve quoted him often—the Scottish pastor, 19th century Scotland, whose writings have been so helpful for me, and especially his journal. It’s his journals and his diaries that have helped me the most. There’s a place where he wrote, “I ought to study Christ as an intercessor. He prayed most for Peter, who was most to be tempted. I am on his breastplate.” Now listen to this. “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million of enemies, yet the distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.”
I know that you’ve experienced this, and I have too, that when you’ve been in need, and a brother or sister in Christ has prayed for you, you have found strength in that moment, in the prayer. Someone lays their hands on you when you’re suffering; they pray for you, and you’re strengthened in the moment, right then. You feel that God is working. But I want to tell you that there is somebody praying for you, so much better than any brother or sister praying for you; your elder brother, the high priest, Jesus himself, is praying for you. He’s interceding for you. He’s praying for your continual forgiveness, your continual cleansing, for your continual strength, for God to safeguard you and to keep you from falling.
“Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea;
A great high priest, whose name is love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
“My name is graven on his hands,
My name is written on his heart;
I know that while in heaven he stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.”
You’re not banished from the presence of God as long as he’s in heaven. Do you see why the ascension is so important? The ascended Christ in heaven is what gives you access to God! Your priest, your priest, who ever lives and intercedes for you.
III. The Ascended Man and Our Salvation
Finally, number three, Christ is not only our ascended king who sends us on mission, he is not only our ascended priest who leads us in worship and prays for us; he is the ascended man who saves us. The ascended man and our salvation.
We must never forget that when Jesus rose from the dead he rose physically and bodily, and when he ascended into the heavens he ascended physically and bodily into the heavens. You see it there in Acts 1. They saw him lifted up; they saw it. The angel said to them, “Just as you’ve seen him taken into the heavens, so you’re going to see him return.”
So we believe, folks, in the literal, bodily resurrection of Christ, the bodily ascension of Christ, and the physical second coming of Christ, the return of Christ. This means that Christ is in the heavens as a man. He’s the God-man, fully God and fully man, those two natures perfectly united into one person, but his human nature is exalted in the heavens.
This has tremendous implications. I’m just going to give you one text and an illustration, and then I’m done.
Here’s the text: it’s Hebrews 2:6-9; it precedes the passage we read earlier. Hebrews 2:6-9, and the writer to the Hebrews here is quoting from Psalm 8, a psalm about the dignity with which God created human beings.
Now listen to what the writer says, “It has been testified somewhere, ‘What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him, for a little while, lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.’” Now that’s language that’s directly from Psalm eight, and of course it’s harking all the way back to Genesis one and two, where God created man in his image, created him with dignity, created him perfect, created him and gave him dominion over the earth.
But here’s the problem: though we were created with that high and wonderful vocation, we have fallen away from God; we have fallen into sin, and we’re not exercising that kind of dominion. That’s what the writer says; look at this next verse, “Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.”
We don’t see everything in subjection to man! Man is not ruling over the earth, over the created world as Adam would have. This world, as the poet said, is “red in tooth and claw.” It’s a dangerous place. The environment, natural disasters, all kinds of things that bring about death and destruction and decay; hurricanes and tornadoes—it is not a safe place. This world is not a safe place. It is not under our rule.
“At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to him, but we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor, because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” And then the text goes on to talk about how he’s not ashamed to call us brothers, and he’s our priest, and through death he has slain the power of death and him who had the power of death, and he’s liberated us, and so on.
All of this is showing that Christ, in our humanity, has dealt the deathblow to death itself, and Christ, in his humanity, is now exalted, crowned with glory and honor, and so fulfills the vocation of human beings as being the man who reigns. The man who reigns—he’s the second Adam. We sang about that this morning. He is the second Adam, and, as the language of Hebrew so often says, he is our forerunner; he is our pioneer. He is the captain of our salvation. He’s the one who leads us in his victory train, so that we are coming up behind him. He’s the firstborn of the dead, the firstfruits of the dead. First one to be resurrected and exalted, and we’re going to be resurrected and exalted as well.
This is what we see in the words of John Duncan, the old Scottish pastor, who said, “The dust of the earth is on the throne of the majesty on high,” because Christ is exalted in his humanity, his humanity.
Now let me just give you a quick illustration, and then we’re done. This is from C.S. Lewis. I just love the picture that Lewis gives us. This is from Lewis’s essay, called “The Grand Miracle”. He gives us, I think, a very vivid word picture for what Christ has done in salvation, in his death, resurrection, and ascension. So as I read this, notice the language of down and up, descent and ascent, and get the picture that Lewis gives us.
“The story of the incarnation is the story of a descent and a resurrection. When I say resurrection here I am not referring simply to the first few hours or the first few weeks of the resurrection; I am talking of this whole, huge pattern of descent, down, down, and then up again, what we ordinarily call the resurrection being just, so to speak, the point at which it turns. Think what that descent is: the coming down, not only into humanity, but into those nine months which precede human birth and going lower still into being a corpse, a thing which, if this ascending movement had not begun, would have gone back into the inorganic, as all corpses do. One has the picture of a diver stripping off garment after garment, making himself naked, then flashing for a moment in the air, then down through the green and warm and sunlit water, into the pitch black, cold, freezing water; down into the mud and slime, then up again, his lungs almost bursting, back again to the green and warm and sunlit water, and then at last out into the sunshine, holding in his hand the dripping thing he went down to get. This thing is human nature, but associated with it all nature, the new universe.”
That’s why I say he is the ascended man who brings about our salvation, and our salvation is not just the redemption of the soul; brother and sister, it is the redemption of the body and of the whole created world.
You and I need not fear death, because if you’re in Christ, if I’m in Christ, we will be resurrected, the body will be raised into immortality and glory, and our destiny is not to escape from this planet, it is to see this world recreated so that the glory of God covers this earth as the waters cover the sea. It is to see a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells; it is to see the New Jerusalem descend from heaven to earth so that God makes his dwelling place with man once and for all. That’s what we’re waiting for; that’s our salvation. The guarantee of that is the ascension of Christ. He’s been raised in our nature, the dust of earth exalted to the majesty of the right hand on high.
Brother and sister, Christ is your ascended king who leads us into mission. He is our ascended priest who leads us into worship, and he is our ascended man, our man in heaven, who is leading us in the train of salvation, redeeming us from death itself.
The ascension, therefore, is part of the gospel. It’s right at the heart of it; it shows us what Christ has done for us. That’s why we celebrate it when we come to these ascension Sundays, and really, it’s what we celebrate every time we come to the table.
When we come to the table, we are coming to commune with Christ, who is bodily absent, but by his Spirit unites to himself, so that we feast by faith on his glorified humanity. We eat his body, we drink his blood. What does that mean? It means that we partake of Christ and all that he has done in his human nature, for our sake and for our salvation.
So let’s pray as we move to the table.
Gracious Father, how we thank you for the astounding work of salvation. It’s so much deeper, so much richer, than we could ever fully comprehend. We thank you that Christ has descended all the way into the muck and mire of our sinful world, that he descended into death itself, but the grave could not hold him. He faced death, he met, fought, and beat the king of death, and now has been raised and lifted up and exalted and seated at your right hand, showing us what our future will be. Thank you for the exaltation of Christ. May our hearts be lifted up this morning to rejoice in what Christ, our king, our priest, Christ our brother, has done for us.
As we come to the table this morning, may we come in faith. May we come believing that as surely as the bread and the juice nourish our physical bodies, so we are nourished by our Lord Jesus Christ; that he strengthens us, that he comforts us, that he sanctifies us; that he gives us everything we stand in need of.
So we come now in faith. We come believing the gospel. By your Spirit unite us to our Savior more closely; let us experience his grace, let us know the presence of our Lord through the Spirit, let us know that even as we worship here on earth we are being led by our priest to worship in the heavens themselves. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Brian G. Hedges
