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