Behold your ascended Lord!
Worship your ascended Lord!
Proclaim your ascended Lord!
Ascension means 5 things:
- Jesus is my Sovereign King
- Jesus is my Triumphant King
- Jesus is my perfect righteousness
- Jesus is my blesser
- Jesus is my forerunner
We know to an extent the truth of our Lord’s life, death, and resurrection. Most think this is the end of our redemption story. No, in fact, this is the beginning of the redemption-applied story! The redemption Christ accomplished through His life, death, and resurrection, he started applying after his resurrection with 5 subsequent saving acts, which we can call: Ascension, Session, Holy Spirit Mission, Intercession, and Full Redemption at his second coming. The Bible connects all these saving acts to his death and resurrection as objects of our faith. If we don’t grasp them, our experience of full salvation will be weak.
So, this will be a short series of Christ’s Saving Acts of Redemption applied. We will start with Ascension. This is a very precious truth. We know according to Acts 1:9 Christ ascended to heaven in the sight of his disciples, and a cloud received Him into heaven. This is a prophesied, historical, and divinely confirmed event.
Ascension means five precious things to every believer:
1 – Jesus is my Sovereign King. Lord Jesus Christ is now the exalted and enthroned sovereign king of the universe. Phil 2:9 says, “Therefore, God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name.” Though ascension is a step towards the exaltation and enthronement of Christ, ascension is only the visible confirmation that Jesus is exalted above all authority and power and enthroned above every name. From a state of humiliation with a human body, with all the limitations of being here or there, his ascension took him to a place of the highest authority, unbounded sovereign rule, unlimited power, and unlimited presence. A shekinah presence of cloud receiving him shows he is raised to the glory of the Godhead, and reigns supreme now. Ascension visibly proves his words that all authority in heaven and earth is given to him (Mat 28:18).
Think of what impact this would have had on the apostles as they went out to preach the gospel to all the world. They would have every reason to doubt this truth in their lifetimes. Religious and civil authorities would rise against them; they would experience persecution. It may make them wonder if their Lord is truly reigning over this world after all. But despite whatever happened in the world, this vision of ascension always gave them faith and strength that their Lord was sovereignly ruling everything in this world, and they saw his ascension with their own eyes step by step, as though our King ascended the dais to be exalted, and enthroned as sovereign king of the universe. That is what made them more than conquerors of the world by faith.
You may be looking at the increasing crime in society, the political tensions, wars, nation against nation, and say, boy, it doesn’t look like Jesus is reigning. God says, “Lift up your eyes and behold your ascended Lord!” Did not this same Lord prophesy about these things before his second coming in Mat 24? When we struggle in our own lives, and perhaps in our families, and wonder whether Jesus is truly reigning, let us lift up our eyes and behold our ascended Lord! That will strengthen our faith and make us realize [that despite] what happens here below, I know He is reigning and ordering all circumstances surrounding me and is working all things for my ultimate good as he promised.
2 – Jesus is my Triumphant King. Ascension proves Jesus has triumphantly overcome all his enemies. In Eph 4:8, talking about ascension, Paul says, “Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive…””
The phrase ‘led captivity captive’ illustrates a picture of a Roman commander’s victory parade when he wins a battle: After the war, there was a triumphant public parade show of victory, as the commander marched into Rome with a grand red-carpet welcome, amid the whole city’s victory shouts, praises, and flowers. As he marches in, there is a display of all their spoils won in the war. One of the highlights of this spectacle is that of leading all enemy kings, princes, and nobles who were captured alive, taken captive, and tied to the Roman chariots, dragging them as slaves for Rome’s service here on.
Christ made war with all our enemies–the world, sin, Satan, death, and hell–on the cross. You know what? He was triumphantly victorious in that spiritual war. Col 2:15 says, “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in [the cross].” He vanquished and triumphed over all our enemies.
So when Paul says in Eph 4:8 that when Christ ascended, ‘He led captivity captive,’ he means ascension was like that triumphant Roman public parade. As He ascended, he made all his enemies–the world, sin, Satan, death, and hell–his captured slaves, and he will use them to accomplish the purposes of God’s kingdom. How important it is to have this object of faith when we think the devil is out of control, the world is troubling us, and sin is making us feel our battle of faith is vain! God says, “Lift up your eyes and behold your ascended Lord!” Say to your heart, “He completely triumphed on my behalf. The enemies are his slave dogs accomplishing Christ’s will now. They are being used by Him as kingdom slaves to increase our faith and patience, and to sanctify us. What can separate us from [loving] Christ, for we are more than conquerors in Him!”
3- Jesus is my perfect righteousness. Faith in ascension assures believers of perfect righteousness. In John 16:8-10, Jesus says about the Holy Spirit, “[And] when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and you see Me no more.” I never understood verses until now.
What he says is when the Holy Spirit comes, He will convince believers that they have perfect righteousness in Christ, by what, by his ascension, “I go to my Father”. Why? Because Christ was the sinner’s representative accomplishing full salvation. If Christ had not fulfilled all righteousness for us, he could not have ascended to heaven. So his ascension to heaven proclaims openly and loudly — That he has completely finished the work he had to do for us here, atoned all our sins, and earned perfect righteousness for us, and God was well pleased with all he did.
When you and I by the weakness of our faith fall into sins, the devil, and sometimes even our own conscience, condemns us that we cannot go to God, and we lose the assurance of our acceptance with God; all we see is our sin, not our Saviour, and we think God is angry with us. We wallow in guilt. How do we lift ourselves up from this guilt-gutter? How do we get mercy and helping grace, as Hebrews 4:16 says?
God says here is an object for your faith that will assure you of perfect righteousness: Lift your eyes and behold your ascended Lord. This is the greatest proof from heaven that the Father has accepted Christ’s active and passive obedience in our place. You come to God with confident faith even with your guilt, saying, ‘Yes, I have sinned, but I repent, and I come to my Father based on the work of my Lord Jesus Christ, who has accomplished perfect righteousness for me, and proved it by ascending to heaven. He has given me an eternal standing before God as a justified, adopted heir of God. I don’t have an angry judge in heaven, but a loving Father who is ever willing to forgive and give mercy, who will relieve [me of] my present guilt, and, through grace, help me overcome such sin in the future because my High Priest sits next to him ever interceding for me.’
4. Jesus is my blesser. Ascension assures us all the heavenly blessings we need till we reach heaven. Very beautifully did the Lord himself show this with his ascending posture. You know how he ascended – “And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven.” (Luk 24:50-51)
So beautiful. The last visible posture the disciples saw of Jesus when he went to heaven was a posture of blessing. Aren’t you happy that the one who is so exalted, enthroned triumphant in the highest heaven, went up blessing us? Has His posture changed now? Never. He ever sits blessing us. We will see his session, the Holy Spirit’s mission, and Intercession with his great offices of Prophet, Priest, and King all resulting in us being ever blessed. That is why Paul could say in Ephesians that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing. 2 Pet 1:3 – “His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness[, through the knowledge of Him] who called us by his own glory.”
This is so sweet. He is not blessing us as a detached spirit being. The disciples didn’t see Jesus change into a spirit and his humanity vaporize when he went to glory. They saw a bodily man in Jesus rise higher and higher, and that body was taken into the cloud. He was exalted and enthroned with the body, with all experience of all human suffering. It is so vital for us to understand that a man is at the right hand of the heavenly Father right now for us. That should make ascension very beautiful and dear. He went as our representative in our nature and our body. This guarantees endless sympathetic grace and blessing for all our human weaknesses and circumstances. Whatever you are facing, remember this ascended Lord, for He knows; not only knows, but he cares; not only cares, but he deeply feels every groan and sigh of yours because of your union with him. Not only that, he can also help because he is a mighty Savior who can save us to the uttermost. We have a sympathetic God-man in heaven, in a blessing posture till the end of the world, ensuring we are always blessed.
5- Jesus is my forerunner. Jesus ascended to heaven as a forerunner to all His people. Just as He is the first fruit in the resurrection, he is also the first fruit in the ascension. He told his disciples in John 14, “Let not your heart be troubled…In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” (v.2-3)
Jesus has gone into heaven as a forerunner for us. Jesus entering heaven is a guarantee of all His people joining him there. He went up not as a single person, but as our federal head, and representative. He actually, virtually, mystically, and positionally carried up all believers with him into glory. That is why Eph 2:6 says [God] raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (meaning in our union with Christ). Because of our union with Christ, his ascension guarantees our heaven’s entrance. In this union, whatever God did on Christ’s person was done on our behalf, and it will inevitably be done to us. Was Christ crucified? So are we. Is Christ risen again? So, we have risen with him. Is Christ gone up into glory? So will we. Heaven is now opened and possessed by Jesus Christ for us, and at last, we shall ascend even as he ascended.
How beautifully he says I go to prepare a place for you; he has some work to do in heaven before we go there. He has done everything on earth to purchase perfect redemption for us, and now he goes to heaven to apply that to us by his ascension, session, the mission of the Holy Spirit, and intercession.
It is as though the Lord Jesus is a host in his own house, and we are guests. We know how some of us make great preparations before a guest comes. We want to awe and surprise them in every way and make them feel so special. So eventually when the guest arrives, we say to them, “Come in please,” and, “Welcome; everything is ready for you”. In the same way, our Lord has gone to prepare a place for us–to prepare what no eye has seen, and no ear has heard. Nobody caught it better than John Bunyan, who described that the moment the believer closes his eyes here, he would ascend to heaven and find his Lord waiting with the gates open, and arms wide open; saying, “Come on in, for all things are now ready [for you]”. That is what ascension assures us. He went as our forerunner to heaven.
So then, dear discouraged brother and sister, lift up your eyes and behold your ascended Lord. This will thrill your soul and like those first disciples, make you go home and worship and proclaim your ascended Lord with great joy always. Amen.
*Author: Ps. Murali
*Edited by Rajath Bhat
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 