Word of Salvation – Vol. 31 No. 14 – April 1986

 

The Ascension: A Doctrine For Rejoicing

 

Sermon by Rev. P.R. Flinn on Acts 1:6-9

Reading: Daniel 7:9-14, Ephesians 2:1-10

 

The resurrection is the great victory shout of the Gospel.  Christ has arisen and conquered life and death.  He has ushered in the New Age.  The question, however that irresistibly springs to mind is, “What next?”

Clearly this question was in the minds of the disciples.  Having become convinced of the resurrection of Christ, of His Lordly triumph over life and death, their minds turned to the issue of, “What now?”  “Is it at this time you are restoring the Kingdom of Israel?” (Acts 1:6)

They had a programme in mind.  They wished to see the Kingdom restored to Israel, the Davidic Kingdom reconstituted, with themselves to be set as twelve judges over the twelve tribes, and so forth.  The Lord, however, in Acts 1 reminds them that they are the servants of God.  It is God, by His own authority Who has fixed the times and epochs of all kingdoms.  They must serve the King of Kings, not attempt to make the King serve them (Acts 1:7).

Then, however, he tells them of the epoch they are actually to enter.  It is breath-taking in scope.  The epoch and time now fixed by the authority of God, is that the Holy Spirit would come and they would be witnesses to Christ to the uttermost end of the earth. (Acts 1:8).

The text tells us that He was then lifted up until a cloud received him, and He passed out of view (v.9).  Now to some that may seem like an anticlimax.  Christ had ascended from them and gone, as He had foretold; surely this would have occasioned a measure of sadness and disappointment.

But not so.  At the end of Luke’s Gospel we are told they returned to Jerusalem with great joy (Luke 24:52) and were constantly in a state of worshipping and praising God (v.53).  Obviously the disciples discerned something of great significance in the ascension of Christ, something of such significance that all disappointment, all sorrow at parting, all sadness that they would no longer enjoy table fellowship and human companionship with Christ was squeezed out and replaced by a great joy.  Many of you have had the experience of losing a dear friend, through death or some other providence.  Remember your heaviness of heart at that time.  The disciples who had enjoyed such close fellowship with Christ, who were SO sad at His death (Luke 24:17), 24:17), now rejoiced even though he had gone from them.  Why was the separation of the ascension so profoundly different in its effect from the separation of the grave?  What did they see in the ascension that effected such a change and caused such joy?

Here we must be guided by the writing and teaching of the apostles.

Let us then give attention to this this statement by the Apostle Paul: “He who descended is Himself He who ascended, far above all the heavens that He might fill all things (Eph.4:10).  No doubt the disciples were joyful because as Christ ascended, they realised that He was entering into the fullness of his Kingdom, a Kingdom of which they had hitherto seen only a shadowy and pale reality.  Christ was being lifted above, far above, all the heavens.  By this we should understand two things: “being lifted up” speaks of his dominion and authority; “far above the heavens” speaks of the extent of his reign, that it embraces all reality.  Secondly, the following clause speaks of the purpose of his exaltation: that He might fill all things.  Now this expression points to the entirety of all reality, in heaven, on earth, unto the farthest corners of the universe, having its being and existence from, through and unto Christ.

Thus the apostles realised as Christ ascended that this was not the end, but the beginning of a reality an epoch of salvation that far exceeded their wildest imagination.  They understood that the Ascension established Christ in a place of glory and dominion in comparison with which their own knowledge of Him on earth could only be spoken of as Him being descended to the lower parts of the earth.  (Eph.4:9).

By the ascension, then, the apostles understood something great and glorious with respect to their Saviour, and therefore something great and glorious with respect to the era they were now entering.  By the ascension they understood Christ being exalted to have dominion over all things.

In preaching the ascension to you today, let us begin here: like the disciples of old you must rejoice in the ascension.  Let us consider why.

1.  Because the ascension reveals His glorious deity.

The disciples realized that they could never again enjoy the intimate human companionship they had with Christ while he was descended.  Nor did they apparently seek it.  For the glory of deity which had been hidden from their eyes until this time, was now being revealed to them.  They knew that Christ could no more remain upon the earth as they were.  They knew that Christ now had to be worshipped and adored.

Once they had known Him as a fellow human being and only occasionally caught flashes of His deity.  They knew him first and foremost as a man, for His deity and the glory thereof was cloaked while He was on earth.  Now they could not know Him except as the Lord of Glory, the ruler over all.  Hence they rejoiced and worshipped.

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This radical change in their relationship to Christ – from companionship to worship, from devotion to reverence, from loyalty to obeisance was affected by the ascension, for the ascension impressed upon them His deity, His filling of all in all.

How could any Christian fail to rejoice at his Lord being glorified!  We know that when the new heavens and the new earth are created, gone will be our struggle with sin and pain.  All hurt will be removed.  But these great blessings will be nothing in comparison with seeing our Lord in His glory on that Day.

The disciples then could do none other but rejoice in the ascension.  The fact that the full glory of His deity was being revealed and that He was entering into the majesty of His Kingship could do nought else but bring them great joy.  And so it must for you, dear Christian.

Paul says in 2Cor.5:16 that no longer do we know Christ after the flesh.  If we are to know Christ today we must know Him as He is; as the ascension shows Him to be, the God of glory.  The ascension requires that we resist with all our might any humanising of Christ.  This humanising is as often found within the church, as outside her pale.  Many so-called Christians today continue to seek the Lord as if he were still upon earth.  They wish to know Him as a fellow creature through whom they might see flashes of deity from time to time.  Christ is one person amongst many whom they know; not the person through whom, and according to whom, and under whom, they know themselves and everyone else.  For them, Christ is an historical figure in the past whose presence and teaching at times impinges and intrudes upon them, not the Ascended One far above the heavens who fills all things in their life.

Many of you have met Jehovah’s Witnesses.  They are more consistent than many “orthodox” Christians who do not faithfully live out the ascension of Christ.  They deny that Christ is divine, they do not believe in the ascension as taught in Scripture.  Our text teaches us that when Christ ascended He did so above the heavens so that He might fill all things.  So I do not care whether Jehovah’s Witnesses are confessing the deity of Christ: we will not haggle about words.  Just let them declare that they believe in the ascended Christ, and that He fills all reality in their lives as we are taught in Scripture.  Just let them confess that He is to be the ruler of every ambition, the centre of every desire; the fulcrum of every hope and anticipation; the height of all aspiration and joy; the governor of every thought and motive; the lord over every movement of their lives; that all worship, honour, praise, devotion, loyalty, fidelity, service and labour is to be unto Him and through Him; that they are to love Him with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their strength and with all their mind – let them confess this, let them live this and they have acknowledged His deity in fact and we will be content.  Oh Christian, to believe in His ascension is to believe in His exaltation far above the heavens, to where you owe Him every moment of our soul, every well spring of your heart.  And that my friends is to believe in Him, to know Him as God, the ascended Christ.  Those who know Him truly and seek after Him will find His ascension brings them great joy for it reveals His divine glory.

2.  His ascension calls you to confess that His work on earth is completed and finished.

The disciples had come to believe that Christ was the Messiah.  They had come to believe that He was the Son of David, the King of Israel who was foretold in the Scriptures.  They had come to believe in Him as the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world as the fulfilment of all that the sacrificial system indicated.  They had come to believe in in Him as the Great Prophet of God declaring the full and complete word of God.  For centuries the people of God had been anticipating His coming.  The prophets of old had foretold that His coming would usher in the last great epoch of human history.

When Christ ascended, the Apostles, as we have seen, had no sense of disappointment or of hopes dashed – quite unlike their reaction after His death.  But what of all they had been led to expect of the Messianic Age?  As they saw Christ ascending they understood that the Messianic Age was coming.  The key had turned in the lock and the great door was swinging open.  The walls of the dam had cracked and the water was beginning to pour through.  When Christ ascended they understood that His work upon earth was complete, there was nothing more to do or accomplish.  There was only the application and the reaping.

As the disciples believed so must we believe.  The Messianic Age is here.  All the promises of God are “yes” in Christ (2Cor.1:20).  He won the right to possess them and apply them.  He is the Alpha and Omega.  The ascension indicates His messianic work upon earth is complete.  No longer is His bodily presence needed.  The word to be accomplished by His humiliation is past.  Now are the glories of the Messianic Age.

I say again, O Christian – we live in the Great Age of fulfilment, of reaping, of blessing.  The ascension calls you to triumph, to fulfilment.  Was this not so amongst the early Christians?  This note of triumphant glory – let it sound forth.  Let it shine forth in your living.  Live not under the powers of this present age, but under the powers of the Age to come.  Let it sound forth in your prayer and worship.  We are the people upon whom the ends of the Ages have come. (2Cor.10:11)

Secondly, let us not attempt to bring Christ down to earth again in tangible form.  To do so is to despise the ascension and all that it means.  We must turn away from all papal superstition for example.  The papacy, you remember, attempts to bring Christ down to earth again through elaborate rituals, through ceremony, and above all through the Mass.  It attempts, through transubstantiation of the bread and the wine, to make Christ’s body and blood tangibly present in the world.  They would deny, they would desecrate the ascension.  We do not need to the go on to speak of images and idols and statues of Christ.    All of these attempts to make Christ more tangible, more real, more apprehensible to the senses these are rejected by our Protestant forefathers because they rejoiced in the ascension and the finishing of Christ’s work on earth.  We must continue in their steps.

When the angels rebuked the disciples for staring up into heaven attempting to recapture the tangible and visible presence of Christ, let us learn that no longer is He to be sought in that fashion: His work is complete.

Thirdly, let us not try and capture the presence of Christ through visions or other fleshly devices.  Despite the fact that many today claim them, we say they are none other but attempts to bring Christ back to earth.  Some will object that Paul and John had visions of Christ.  I agree.  They, as the inspired writers of the Bible, were given such special tangible revelations of Christ that his true presence in the Messianic Age might be sealed and made more certain his presence through the Word and the Spirit.  No longer do we look for such tangible manifestations.  Nor need we, unless Christ’s work on earth is incomplete.  Whenever the Church loses sight of the ascension and looks for a more “tangible”, “close” reality of Christ, there the loss of the certainty of salvation follows.  The slavery of works-righteousness sneaks in.

Fourthly, we learn in the ascension that the work of salvation has been fully and completely accomplished.  There are some with a raw and overbearing conscience.  Your sins are so large and so ominous that you would hardly dare to think atonement sufficient for their covering could have been made.  The ascension, if you would but open your eyes to believe tells you that Christ’ work is sufficiently and completely done: there is nothing more to add.  There is nothing more needed to cover your sin.  As your conscience rises up, meditate on His ascension and fix your eye upon the hope that it contains.  His work on your behalf to make complete atonement for sin has finished.  It is complete.

3.  His ascension means we are not enslaved to any man or human institution.

Christ is in the heavens.  There He fills all in all.  It follows that nothing upon earth can represent Him fully and completely.  The fact that He has been taken from the earth far above the highest heavens to rule over all, requires that we reject claim by any man or human institution to represent him in any exclusive or complete sense, or to have captured His presence on the earth.  He is too great for that.

Here again I must speak out speak out against the papacy.  Today a good deal of adulation and attention has been focussed on this woe-begotten institution.  The Pope, in several public pronouncements recently has revived that horrible conception of the papal office held in the Roman Catholic Church that the Pope is the Vicar, the substitute of Christ, upon the earth.  This is not just a vain pretension, it is a terrible blasphemy.  But it also brings terrible results; the enslavement of conscience and heart to a man.

The power and authority of Christ is ever to be dispensed and shared amongst a complexity of institutions, and most particularly in the Church.  He rules by His Word and Spirit.  No man or body of men; no minister, preacher, teacher, or elder can ever claim to be a bodily and physical manifestation of Christ.  All must be servants of Christ.  All must be servants of the Word.  And this means that God’s people from the least to the greatest enjoy a tremendous liberty.

The ascension of Jesus Christ removes any possibility of any man or human institution being the representation of Christ in the world except as they are under the Word and servants of the Word.  Such glorious freedom forever guaranteed to us by the ascension is reason for rejoicing.

We come now to the other side of the coin.  The height of Christ’s authority and dominion forbids His glory and honour being given to anything human.  But this is also to say that everything human must give honour and glory to Christ.

The ascension makes His claims totalitarian.  His dominion is not limited to country or time.  The whole of created reality is His realm.  The Christian does not see anything in life as indifferent or beyond His realm.  His dominion is to be over every thought and motive of the heart.  His rule is over every moment of the day and night.  His totalitarian rights are over whom you marry and how you conduct your marriage; over where you live, the career you seek, the business decisions you make.  “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” (Col.3:17)

How can Paul say that?  Surely it is a rhetorical overstatement!  No, it is the stone cold, sober, literal, truth.  The Christ whom we serve and worship is the ascended Christ.  The ascended Christ  is the Christ who fills all in all.

Some will think this is a terrible prospect.  What, – no freedom left?  But for the true saint it is his boast and glory – Christ the ascended one.  No-one else is worth living for.  And there can be no greater meaning or purpose or glory than this – to give one’s life; body, mind, and soul to the One who has ascended, Who fills all in all.

For these three reasons, let the ascension be a truth that brings great joy, confidence, hope, and bright expectation.  Let us give ourselves, mind, body and soul to the joyful service of Christ Who is far above the Heavens.

AMEN