Ascension...
Apostles' Creed "He ascended into Heaven and sits at the right
hand of God the Father Almighty..."
Terry Dashner (www.ffcba.com)
The Ascension story is one of the basic pillars on which our
salvation rests. These pillars are four in number. They are the
incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the
ascension of Jesus Christ.
It was forty days after Christ had risen from the tomb. During
those forty days, on ten different occasions Christ had appeared
to the disciples, but He lived an otherwise mysterious and aloof
life, unseen by human eyes. But now that the forty days were up
He gathered the disciples together for the last time at some
undesignated spot in Jerusalem and held intimate communion with
them. Then He led them forth, as He had so many times during His
ministry, out of the city of Jerusalem, across the Kidron valley
where He had been brought, bound by the temple police, not too
many weeks before. Up the Mount of Olives He went--up a path
that has been trod by many pilgrims since--to the top of the
Mount of Olives. Then He went a little farther, to the small
village of Bethany, and there, as He gathered His disciples once
more around Him in a circle and gave them His final
instructions, He uttered the great commission: "Ye shall receive
power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall
be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
Luke tells us that He then lifted His hands and began to bless
them, and as He blessed them, while they looked on, before their
astonished eyes, He suddenly began to rise up out of their
midst. As they followed Him with their eyes, soon He was above
their heads and His words continued to fall like the very dew of
heaven upon their heads. When He was a great distance above
them, at last a cloud, like the chariots of heaven, received Him
out of their sight--as if the great veil had fallen behind the
high priest as He entered into the Holy of Holies. And Jesus was
gone.
What is the significance of the ascension? First, it meant that
the mission of Jesus on this earth was finished. It was the
culmination of His redemptive work, the completion of His
incarnation, the end and reward of His sufferings, and His
entrance upon a new and greater sphere of work. It was the
beginning of His great intercessory work in heaven above. His
humiliation was over, and now was the time of His exaltation.
Second, it meant that we are now lifted up. Because we suffer in
this life and despair, our coming exaltation is guaranteed. We
will one day be resurrected from the dead and lifted to heaven
above all evil and suffering in this life. Because Christ
ascended, our ascension is for sure. But, then again, we don't
have to wait until death to be lifted up and recompensed for
suffering for Jesus' sake. The power of the Holy Spirit is given
to the church to raise it above the gates of hell. The believer
doesn't have to take a back seat to the devil. Because Jesus
ascended, we may ascend above the fray and snares of the enemy
the by the power and might of the Holy Spirit. So it was with
John Knox, from the ignominious ranks of the slaves on a galley
ship, he became one who caused the very throne of England to
tremble. And so it was with John Calvin, who began his work in
Geneva only to have the people turn against him and run him out
of the city and out of Switzerland--until finally in desperation
they called him back again to do the mighty and
world-transforming work that he accomplished there.
This document can not state everything you should know about the
merits of the ascension of Jesus Christ. Suffice it to say this:
It is imperative to know that Christ is ascended before the
Father. He has entered the Holy of Holies, a place in the
earthly temple reserved for the High Priest of Israel only. The
High Priest entered there once a year before the Mercy Seat and
applied the blood of the sacrificial lamb on behalf of the
nation Israel. The blood was accepted by the Father as atonement
for Israel's sin. When Jesus, the true Lamb of God, ascended to
the Father, He offered His own blood before the Father for the
sins of the whole world. If any man or woman will receive this
atoning work by faith, he or she will find God's salvation and
be lifted from death unto life. This is the significance of the
ascension of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God.
Keep the faith. Stay the course. Jesus is coming soon.
Pastor T