THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ASCENSION

Has the resurrection and the ascension lost its rightful place in church life?

Many today within the church know little about the atonement and how it applies. The subject of atonement is for another day. Let’s now cogitate on the resurrection and the ascension.The ascension relates to the rising of Jesus from the earth into heaven forty days after the resurrection.

LUKE 24:50-53

⁵⁰ Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. ⁵¹ While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. ⁵² And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, ⁵³ and were continually in the temple blessing God.

At the resurrection Christ’s spirit was reunited with His body and He was raised from the dead, just as Christians who have died will be reunited to their bodies and raised in their perfect resurrected bodies. The resurrection of Christ did not consist in the mere re-union of body and soul, but especially in that, in Him, His human nature, both body and soul, was restored to its original beauty and strength and even raised to a higher level. In distinction from all those who had been raised up before Him, He arose with a spiritual body.

1 CORINTHIANS 15: 20 & 23 

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.²³ But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.

Our resurrection will be a rising from the dead into a glorious new kind of life not subject to aging, sickness, deterioration, weakness or death. At Christ’s resurrection our spiritual journey was established; that is our justification, sanctification and glorification. However because of Christ’s ascension, Christ completed the process so that we can walk in Christ’s justification, sanctification and glorification. Jesus as our High Priest is the only sinless person who went into the holy of holies and was not destroyed by the direct presence of the holy God.

G.K. Beale reminds us that Christ’s kingship and priesthood belong together and are a result of the ascension. “Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens” (Heb 8:1). Jesus Christ is the High Priest of the good things to come. He became the priest of the new creation; those whom His heavenly Father calls.

 Our only access to the new heavenly creation is through the completed work of Jesus Christ as the Father draws us.

Thank you Jesus for competing the work “sinless” or without sin!