Sermon on January 16, 2000 (A.M.)
in Holland, Michigan
Rev. Charles Terpstra
Scripture reading: Luke 24:33-53
Text: Lord's Day 18, Q & A 46-49
Beloved in the Lord,
Our undoubted, Christian faith is that the Jesus in whom we believe is the exalted Lord. As such, He is not only risen from the dead, as we saw last time, but He is also now ascended into heaven. That, too, is His glory after His humiliation. Not only brought up out of death and given new life, but also brought up to the place of glory and perfection and eternal life in heaven.
That is the truth that we, as Christians, confess here in Article 6 of the Apostles' Creed when we say together with the church of all ages and all places, "And I believe in Jesus Christ who ascended into heaven." That is the truth that is recorded for us in the end of Luke 24 and which we consider this morning.
Before we go into that, let us remember that this, too, is an indispensable part of our Christian faith. This article, too, is necessary to believe. I think that often the ascension of Jesus Christ is slighted. We focus, as we ought to, upon the death of Jesus Christ as full atonement for our sins. We focus upon His resurrection from the dead, obviously because of that wonder of grace for us. But I think we sometimes forget the importance of the ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven. We have an Ascension Day service. But even then I do not believe we give to this event in the life of our Lord the weight that it is due. I want us to remember that each and every day we live in the blessedness of this event.
We have, and we want, the hope of heaven. We have, and we want, access to God in prayer. We have, and we are blessed by, the Holy Spirit and His gifts. We want a Savior who is sovereign, who reigns over all for our salvation and for His return. This morning let us remember that all of those things that I just mentioned are a reality only because Jesus Christ is ascended into heaven. Without that, we have none of these benefits - no hope of heaven, no access to God in prayer, no Holy Spirit with His gifts. And no sovereign Lord who reigns over all and who is coming back again.
This is a crucial truth to our faith. And I mean that very personally. This is necessary for me to believe, this is necessary for you to believe, because without believing in this Jesus who ascended into heaven, you personally, and I personally, have no hope of heaven. I, and you with me, have no access to God in prayer. I, and you with me, have no Holy Spirit and His gifts. I, and you with me, have no sovereign Lord who reigns over all and who is coming back. We must believe this truth.
Of course, we must believe it because it is the truth concerning our Redeemer revealed in the Scriptures. The Bible writer Luke, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, found the ascension so important and necessary for Christians to know that he wrote of it twice. He recorded it here in the end of his gospel account. But you may remember he recorded it again at the beginning of the book of Acts. He recorded it with great simplicity and plainness. But he also wrote about it to reveal the power and the fruit of that event in the lives of the disciples as we have it here in the end of Luke: "And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God." That is the fruit of the ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven.
Notice that with me this morning,
1. This is a Fitting Transfer for Him
The ascension is as much a historical event as the death of Jesus or the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We must see and believe that this morning. In the ascension, something happened in Christ's life and something happened to Him. We know that after Jesus arose from the dead He remained in the earthly realm for forty days. During those forty days He appeared to His disciples, giving them instruction concerning His departure from them and preparing them for their future work when He would become absent from them according to His human nature.
We also know that Christ had spoken plainly of His ascension into heaven, even before He died. Those chapters in John (14-16) record Jesus' continuing word to the disciples: "I am leaving you, but I will send you another comforter. I am going to depart from you, but you must carry on the work in the power of that Spirit that I will send to you. I am departing from you, but I am going to a place that I will prepare for you." He told them plainly that He was going away and going to the place of heaven.
But we can also back up beyond that. In the Old Testament, too, there were prophecies about the ascension of Jesus Christ. Even as there were prophecies about His death and resurrection, so too we believe the Scriptures foretold the ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven. We sang two of those prophecies this morning: Psalm 24 and Psalm 47.
The Scriptures reveal that there was also a type of the ascension of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. We do not often think about that. This past week in Old Testament Beginners' catechism class we had, did we not boys and girls, the story of Jonah. We said that was an Old Testament type of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, so that just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of that fish, so the Lord Jesus Christ was three days in the belly of the earth until He arose. But there is an Old Testament type of the ascension of Christ, too. That is when king David came with the Ark of God and ascended the hill of Zion. He went up the hill of the Lord and ascended into the Holy Place of Jehovah. That is what David was writing about in Psalm 24 and in Psalm 47. So the Lord Jesus Christ would go up the holy hill of the Lord and take His place in the Holy Place of Jehovah in heaven.
So it was that when it was going to happen, when Jesus was about to go up, He gathered together about Him His disciples, a great company - more than just the twelve - on the Mount of Olives, near Bethany, Luke tells us here in the end of his gospel. This was to be a witnessed event. It was going to be the last appearance of the risen Jesus to His disciples. But the ascension itself was also to be a witnessed event. That is why our Catechism says that Christ, in the sight of His disciples, was taken up from earth into heaven. The Lord saw to it that there would be eyewitnesses of the ascension, just as there were witnesses to His resurrection.
Jesus gave final instructions to the disciples at this time. According to Acts 1 they had that question, "Wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Jesus said to them, "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons of that kingdom. But you must wait here in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father," talking about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. So everything was ready now for Jesus' departure. And Luke simply tells us that He lifted His hands over those disciples and He blessed them. That was His final action toward them while He was on this earth. Jesus is the great High Priest. Just as Aaron lifted his hands over the congregation to bless them, so the Lord Jesus Christ, the Priest of His people, lifts His hands over them and blesses them with grace and peace and mercy from God.
Then He was parted from them, He was taken away from them and carried up into heaven. In Acts 1 Luke tells us that He was carried into heaven in a cloud. Clouds in the Scriptures are sometimes pictures of the Lord's anger. But they are also pictures of His presence - pictures of His power, of His glory. Think of the beautiful white, billowing clouds on a summer day as they reveal to us that the Lord is present in His creation and that He is the God of power to uphold the universe that He made. So when that cloud came down and took Jesus up in it, it was a symbol that God was with His Son and was taking Him up to be with Him in power and in glory.
Just like that, Jesus was gone, taken off the earth and brought up to heaven.
Luke tell us in Acts 1 - and you can picture the scene, beloved, and no doubt if we had been there we would have done the same thing - the disciples were intensely looking upward as they watched that cloud take away their Lord. What a sight that must have been. What curiosity must have filled their minds. But the Lord dispatched two angels to the disciples to tell them not to keep gazing up into heaven, because their earthly eyes could not penetrate into the heavenly anyway, and because they had obligations here on the earth. One of those was to wait, wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit. But also the angels gave to the disciples at that time already the hope of Jesus' return: "that same Jesus will come back upon the clouds as ye have seen Him go away." Wonderful word.
That, very simply, was the event - a transfer of place for Christ from this earth into heaven. When you read the accounts of it in the Scriptures, it seems so plain, so insignificant, so inglorious. Yet it is anything but that. This was exaltation. This was glorification for our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember who it is who goes up on high on that fortieth day after His resurrection. It is the Son of Man, the Son of Man who had clothed Himself with our humanity, had covered Himself with shame and humiliation, had died in such shame and humility, but was now raised up in glory and honor. The One who ascends is the One who through the resurrection is clothed with new life, the One who is clothed with immortality and incorruptibility, who is, as we pointed out last time already, covered with heavenly life and whose heart and soul and body are permeated with that heavenly glory. So He goes up to the place where His life already is in the resurrection. He goes up to another stage of His exaltation to receive more honor and more glory.
And, remember, this is also the Son of God in our human nature, the Son of God who is very God, as our Catechism reminds us in this Lord's Day, the Son of God who had, from the point of view of His coming down to earth, left heaven and the Father and descended to this earth to save His people from their sins. But now, having finished that work on earth, He returns to the glory that He had before and He returns to His Father's bosom where He dwelt. It is a fitting transfer from that point of view. The Son of God goes back to His heavenly Father.
But remember, along with that, where Jesus Christ goes in the ascension. It is not just into the starry heavens to float around somewhere in the air above us. It is certainly not to the place of Hell. It is certainly not to some dreamy place that is a land of make-believe. He goes to a real place in God's creation - as real as this earth is. A different place, a mysterious place, to be sure. But a wonderful place above us. The Bible always pictures heaven as up, even as it always pictures hell as below and under. Heaven is the place of exaltation, of lifting up, of glory, the place where God Himself makes His presence known in this universe. Remember, heaven is a created place. It is the place where God Himself, according to the Bible, dwells in the midst of the angels who are about His throne and in the midst of the saints who have died and gone on to that place of wonder.
Heaven, therefore, according to the Bible is always the place of glory and perfection, the place of life and blessedness, the place of unending covenant fellowship with God, the place that is so utterly different from anything that we know and see here, a place without sin, a place without strife and conflict, a place without war, a place without death, a place without sickness, a place without weakness, a place without discouragement, a place without pain or any trouble, a place that Satan cannot reach and where there is no trouble - internally or outwardly - a place of perfect harmony and peace. That is where Jesus went in the ascension. He was brought up, into the very presence of God, for covenant fellowship with the Father. This was glory for Him! Imagine the reception that He received from the Father and from the angels and from the saints in glory! And this was well deserved! For Christ had accomplished the Father's will concerning the salvation of His people through His suffering and death and resurrection. He had suffered for sin by bearing our sin.
Not that He had any sin before, but Jesus, having lived on the earth, had lived amid sin. But not anymore. He dwells now in a place where death cannot touch Him anymore, where there is no sighing and groaning in His own soul anymore, being burdened by the miseries of this present life, a place where Satan cannot touch our Lord anymore and tempt Him, a place where He experiences perfect peace in the presence of His God.
This was glory for Jesus!
Imagine the wonder for Him when, in His glorified human nature, He enters into that realm.
We know and believe that it is wonderful for God's people; but, this morning, remember that Jesus underwent that change too, from this life into the glory of the hereafter. For Him, who was the Son of man and the Son of God, what a reception there must have been for Him. We sang a little bit about that in Psalm 24: "Ye gates, lift your heads, the glad summons obey, ye doors everlasting, wide open the way; the King of all glory high honors await, the King of all glory shall enter in state."
When God's saints go to heaven, princes and princesses enter into
the glory of the majestic King. But here is the King Himself,
the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords entering into the
realm of the perfect. What a day! How the angels must have rejoiced!
How Adam and Eve and Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and David
and Solomon must have rejoiced to see Jesus enter into heaven!
No wonder, according to our passage in verse 52, they worshiped
Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and continued in
the temple praising and blessing God. This is even before the
Spirit was poured out. They knew, though in a limited way, they
had caught a glimpse of the wonder of the ascension of Jesus,
and it awed them. The glory of heaven present now in their Savior
who had departed from them was seen on their faces because it
shone in their hearts through faith. He has gone into heaven.
Let us not be sad. Let us rejoice! He is gone from us, but He
is gone into the presence of His Father. Let us worship Him. If
they could do it then, how much more can we do it now? And how
much more ought we to do it, beloved? That is why we are
here, and will be here again tonight and are here every Lord's
day even as we said last week. We come in remembrance of the resurrection
of Jesus. Let us remember, every Sunday, that we come here because
He is gone up on high. We worship a heavenly Lord!
2. This is a Precious Advantage to Us
But He has not just gone up for Himself. That is the wonder of the ascension, too. He has gone up on high for us, for His church, for all of His people, for all Christians. There is a precious advantage in His ascension for us because He did not really go up alone.
He went up as our Head, as the Head of the church, representing us when He entered those holy doors and those sacred gates. As our King, as our High Priest, He bore our names on His breastplate. He went up on high united to us organically, one with us. He is our Head and we are His body, so that we may say this morning, "Jesus Christ's ascension is our ascension. Right now. His exaltation is our exaltation. His glory is our glory. Right now!"
As I said a little bit ago, the glory of heaven and the exaltation was seen on those disciples who on the Mount of Olives watched Him go up. As I look at you saints, I can see the glory of the ascended Lord already on you too - because He went up for us, not alone. He entered heaven to continue His work for us. He is not up there sitting idle. Jesus is not in heaven resting in the sense that He is wondering what He should do now, having finished His work on earth and just waiting for the day when the Father says, "Go back now to the earth and get My church off the earth." The King and the High Priest entered heaven with work to do. In heaven He has more salvation to accomplish. That salvation is to bring His church home where He is. That is His work now - to bring His church home into Father's house of many mansions. While He is our sovereign King in heaven, Lord of all, ruling over all, He is there as our great merciful High Priest after the order of Melchisedec. That is why Answer 46 says that Christ was taken up from earth into heaven and that He continues there "for our interest." That expression does not just mean that we are interested in His going up into heaven. That too is true, of course. But it means that Jesus is there for our benefit. He continues there for our good, for our interest He is there, for our spiritual well being.
So, Question and Answer 49 speak of the marvelous advantage to us of Jesus' ascension in three things. Let us look at those together now.
Of what advantage to us is Christ's ascension into heaven?
First, that He is our Advocate in the presence of His Father in heaven. An advocate. It is a biblical concept. I John 2:1, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." That word "advocate" there is the word paraclete. It is the same word that Jesus used in John 14-16 to describe the Holy Spirit. "Comforter" is the translation in our King James Version. But it literally is the idea of "one who is called to your side." A comforter is one who is called to your side and comes to your side and speaks words of comfort and peace to you. That is Jesus. That is His Spirit to us through the Word.
But here, now, is the idea that we have a paraclete or an advocate or a comforter in heaven for our interest. Jesus is there called, now, not to our side but to His heavenly Father's side, that He may represent us for the Father. That is the idea. The Father calls Jesus to His side as our Comforter so that everything the Father will do for us, He will do through our Mediator, Jesus Christ. That is the idea. Whatever word of comfort the Father will speak to us, He speaks through Jesus. From the side of the Father, through Jesus and through the Spirit, comes the Father's comfort to us. Marvelous idea!
But that word "advocate" also has the idea of legal action. You have heard of an advocate in a court of law. A "JAG" in the military is a Judge Advocate General. An advocate, really a defense attorney - that is the idea. The idea is that Jesus is our Advocate in heaven before the Father in the sense of being our Judge Advocate General who represents us and defends us before the Father.
I trust that we know why we need such an advocate before the Father. It is because we are still sinners. We are His people, we are redeemed in the blood of the Lamb, we are precious to Father and to Son and to Holy Spirit. But for all that, we are still sinners who have no right in ourselves, not only because of our original sin in Adam but because of our daily transgressions. We have no right to appear in heaven with our prayers, no right to appear in worship as we do this morning before God. Not in ourselves! We have no right to any comfort or any word of peace; we have no right to the word of forgiveness in ourselves.
That is why it is significant what John says in his first epistle, chapter 2: "And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father." We have a heavenly attorney who represents us, not only, but who is from our side because He has our flesh there in heaven. And in that flesh, He died for us and made perfect atonement for us. So that as He stands there before the Father, He stands there with His sacrifice for us that covers all of our sins. As often as His Father, seeing our sins, says, "Those people are unworthy to call upon Me as Father; unworthy to receive My Spirit and any of His blessings; unworthy when they die to come up into My presence; unworthy to hear My word of peace in the Scriptures," Jesus has to say, "You are right, Father. It is so. But I am here for them. Hear Me, and for My sake, hear them when they cry and when they pray and when they gather for worship." And the Father always says, "Thou art right, Son, because Thou didst die for them. Thou dost represent them perfectly. Thou dost defend them perfectly. I cannot do anything but bless them. I cannot do anything but forgive them because of what Thou art to them and because of what Thou hast done for them."
Our advocate in heaven.
It is wonderful, beloved. That is why it is a precious advantage to us that He went there.
Secondly, the Catechism says that Christ is in heaven as a pledge that He will bring us there, too. That is the whole goal of our salvation, is it not? The whole goal of our salvation is to be where Jesus is and where the Father is. The end of our covenant life here is unending, perfect, glorious fellowship and friendship with God in the realm of the heavenly. That is where every child of God is headed. That is our hope. And we know that the Lord Jesus Christ secured that heavenly hope for us by His work on earth. From that point of view, our hope is finished, too, in principle. We are, as we already said, glorified. But Jesus also went to heaven to make sure that this happens. That is what He promised in John 14, the opening of that chapter: "I go to prepare a place for you, so that where I am, there ye may be also." That is it! That is what He went to heaven for. He opened the way Himself for us when He went there. Hebrews, the end of chapter 6, tells us that Jesus went there as our "forerunner." He went ahead of us to blaze the path to glory for us. So He works now to make sure that we will be brought to heaven.
The next part says He sends us His Holy Spirit. That Spirit, as we pointed out last time in connection with the resurrection of Jesus, already puts the hope of heaven in our hearts and the life of heaven in our hearts so that right now today, that life is beating in my soul and in your souls.
But I want you to notice the perspective of the Catechism when it speaks of the second advantage. All it says is that we have our flesh in heaven as a pledge. Just Jesus' presence there in heaven is our pledge, our guarantee, or future glorification. Why is that? Why should Jesus' mere presence there be a pledge for us - apart, now from any work that He does in heaven to make sure that we arrive - why just His presence? The Catechism says that our flesh is there. He is the Head, remember, and we are the body. Wherever the Head is, there is the body, too. Just as you cannot live in a headless state, so Jesus cannot live in a bodiless state and the church cannot live in a headless state. If the Head went up on high, the body is already attached and the whole church is already in glory with Jesus. That is why the distinction that we make sometimes between the church militant and the church triumphant (we are the church militant now on earth and the church triumphant is the church in glory) is somewhat inaccurate. Here, already, we are the church triumphant, because He is there. And His triumph is our triumph.
Just as Jesus cannot be without His body but will draw that body to Himself, one by one, daily, through death bringing them up into the presence of Himself, so He is at work in the world making sure that the body is all brought. Because He is there, we have the pledge that we will be there. That is a precious advantage of Jesus' ascension.
Then, last, the Catechism says that Christ has given us His Holy Spirit as an earnest. That, too, is a biblical concept. II Corinthians 1:22 says, "Who hath sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." You have heard the term "earnest money," down payment. A down payment is security for what is to follow. The down payment is a pledge, a guarantee that payment in full will be made later on. You are owed something. But it will be paid. Jesus has given to His people the Holy Spirit as a down payment on their future glorification. It is earnest, it is security.
And, of course, the Holy Spirit is that in God's people not just because He lives in them, but because He works that life of heaven in them and works the hope of heaven in them through regeneration and conversion.
So, by that Holy Spirit, as the Catechism says, we live for heaven. By that Spirit we seek the things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, and not things on earth. Paul wrote of that to the Colossian church. He put it in the form of an admonition: this is our calling. As those who believe in the risen Christ, as those who believe in the ascended Christ who has gone up on high to heaven, this is our calling: Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God and not things on the earth. The question is: Are we a heavenly-minded people? Is our faith such that being rooted in Him who has gone up on high we are a people whose affections, whose love, is there and not here, and who are minding eternal things and heavenly things and not temporal things and earthly things?
I guarantee you, Jesus never forgets you. Though He has gone ahead
of us, He does not forget you. But do we forget Him? I assure
you, beloved, He longs to have you with Him. But the question
this morning is: Do we long to be with Him? Is our faith also
love and hope and longing and expectation? You know, He is preparing
a place for all of His. But are you working, by grace, to make
sure that you are prepared for that?
3. There Does Continue to be an Abiding Presence of Jesus with Us, Too
Jesus went away. That can make the church sad, in one sense - even afraid. He is not with us anymore. We are left behind, and maybe left alone. The disciples were afraid of that when Jesus announced He was departing from them. Sorrow filled their souls. They were afraid. They trembled. Carry on the work of the church without the Lord? Go preach without Jesus? Go baptize in His name without Him? Face the foe without Jesus? Impossible!
So we today. Live without the Lord here on earth? Impossible! Fight the good fight of faith without my Lord at my side? Impossible. Go about my daily calling without the Lord being present with me? Impossible. Stand and endure unto the end without my Lord? Impossible. Preach the gospel without Him? Impossible. Be an elder without the Lord? Impossible. Be a deacon without the Lord? Impossible.
That is why Jesus gave His disciples the promise of Matthew 28:20 that our Catechism refers to in Question 47: "Is not Christ with us to the end of the world as He hath promised?" That is the question. If the ascension is a transfer, it means that He went away. Yet He promised that He would be with us till the end of the world. Where is He? Has He broken His word? Should we be sad and fearful?
The answer of the Scripture is: "No, don't be afraid. Don't be sad." True, Jesus Christ is not omnipresent according to His human nature. Even in His glorified state, He is limited now to one place in His body. And that place is heaven. He will not come back until the end of this age. He is there, and there alone, according to the body. Physically He is not with us. But the Catechism says, "Don't forget. He is also very God. He has a divine nature. And, according to that divine nature, He is at no time absent from us. He is with us, as He promised, with respect to His Godhead. God is with us. He is Immanuel. He is with us in His majesty, His sovereign Lordship. He is with us by His grace. He is present with us by His Holy Spirit.
Then do we tear apart Christ? Do we tear apart those natures? No, says the Catechism. We do not do that, either. He remains one Lord, but one Lord who is so glorious that, according to His divine nature, He is not limited by that human nature that He has assumed. He is infinite, so He can be everywhere present, not in His body, but in His deity. So, while I am here and you are here and the whole church is left here on earth, we are not alone. Our God is with us. Our Lord Jesus is with us. He has not forsaken us.
When you go to face the devil, Jesus Christ is with you. When you fight the good fight of faith, He is with you. When you do your daily work, He is with you. When you face the temptations and when you are in the trials, when you are low, He is with you as He promised.
Even unto the end. He makes sure that we get to where He is. That is the kind of glorious Lord we believe in, beloved. You do, do you not? Lo, I tell you, this morning, He is gone there. But, lo, He is also with us. Press on, church of Jesus Christ, unto the end.
Amen.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we rejoice in our ascended Lord. Even as the disciples worshiped Him, so we worship Him now. Even as they left to enter Jerusalem to praise and bless Thee, so we do too. We thank Thee, Father, for the gospel of heaven. We thank Thee that Jesus is there preparing a place for us, interceding for us, present there so that we have our flesh in heaven already as a guarantee. And we thank Thee for the Spirit who is our down payment. Grant, oh God, that we may more and more set our eyes on our heavenly Lord and seek those things which are above for His glory. Amen.
Last Modified: 03-Jun-2000