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ASCENSION 55
Rev. 11:12.
`They ascended up to heaven in a cloud'.
Rev. 14:11.
`The smoke of their torment ascendeth up'.
While evangelical believers rightly stress the fundamental place that the Crucifixion, the Burial, the Resurrection
and the Coming again of the Saviour must ever occupy, the supreme importance of the Ascension seems to have
been missed.
The only gospel of the four that omits the Ascension is Matthew, but this is in harmony with its teaching
concerning the kingdom of heaven. Should any think that the Ascension is omitted also from John by the fact that it
does not occur in the last chapter, we commend a reading of chapter 20. Not only did the Lord Himself make
reference to His approaching death and Resurrection, He also spoke on more than one occasion of His Ascension:
`No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in
heaven' (John 3:13).
`The Jews then murmured at Him, because He said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they
said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that He saith, I came
down from heaven? ... Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was
before?' (John 6:41,42,61,62).
Here we touch the most vital subject of the Scriptures, nothing less than the very mystery of godliness. That this
is not simply the figurative expression of an enthusiast, turn to 1 Timothy 3:16 and note the opening and closing
items, `Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh ... received up in glory'. It will be seen by
comparing John 6:42 with the Lord's own answer and this revelation in 1 Timothy 3:16, that the deity of Christ, His
assumption of flesh, the finishing of His work, and His resumption of glory are deeply involved. To omit this
consummation of the mystery of godliness is to give place to the satanic mystery of iniquity, which with
blasphemous pretensions likewise places a `man' upon the throne of deity (2 Thess. 2:3-12).
The Ascension of Christ was the grand testimony of Scripture to the fact that His work was finished:
`I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do ... and I COME TO THEE' (John 17:4,11; cf. John 13:3).
The Ascension of Christ is the basis of the believer's victory during the present conflict:
`Who is he that condemneth? Is it Christ that died? yea rather, that is risen again, Who is EVEN AT THE RIGHT
GOD? Who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall
HAND OF
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... Nay, in all these things we
are more than conquerors through Him that loved us' (Rom. 8:34-37 Author's translation).
The fact that Christ has ascended enables the believer not only to triumph over such mundane things as famine or
nakedness, but `death, life, angels, principalities and powers' also, for Peter declares of Christ that He `is gone into
heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him' (1 Peter
3:22). The finished work spoken of in John 17 in connection with the Ascension bulks large in the epistle to the
Hebrews. In two of the references the mystery of godliness is in view:
`Hath in these last days spoken unto us in Son ... when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right
hand of the Majesty on high' (Heb. 1:2,3).
`A body hast Thou prepared Me ... this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the
right hand of God' (Heb. 10:5,12).
In both of these passages the same sequence is observable as in 1 Timothy 3:16, `manifest in the flesh ...
received up in glory'. Hebrews 8:1 says:
`Now of the things which we have spoken THIS IS THE SUM (PRINCIPAL THING): we have such an high priest, Who
is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens'.
Connected with this ascended position is the blessed assurance of an `uttermost salvation':