Sermon on Lord’s Day 18⤒🔗

46. Q. What do you confess when you say, He ascended into heaven?
A. That Christ, before the eyes of His disciples, was taken up from the earth into heaven,[1] and that He is there for our benefit[2] until He comes again to judge the living and the dead.[3] [1] Mark 16:19; Luke 24:50, 51; Acts 1:9-11. [2] Rom. 8:34; Heb. 4:14; 7:23-25; 9:24. [3] Matt. 24:30; Acts 1:11. 47. Q. Is Christ, then, not with us until the end of the world, as He has promised us?[1] A. Christ is true man and true God. With respect to His human nature He is no longer on earth,[2] but with respect to His divinity, majesty, grace, and Spirit He is never absent from us.[3]
[1] Matt. 28:20. [2] Matt. 26:11; John 16:28; 17:11; Acts 3:19-21; Heb. 8:4. [3] Matt. 28:18-20; John 14:16-19; 16:13.

48. Q. But are the two natures in Christ not separated from each other if His human nature is not present wherever His divinity is?
A. Not at all, for His divinity has no limits and is present everywhere.[1] So it must follow that His divinity is indeed beyond the human nature which He has taken on and nevertheless is within this human nature and remains personally united with it.[2]
[1] Jer. 23:23, 24; Acts 7:48, 49. [2] John 1:14; 3:13; Col. 2:9.

49. Q. How does Christ's ascension into heaven benefit us?
A. First, He is our Advocate in heaven before His Father.[1] Second, we have our flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that He, our Head, will also take us, His members, up to Himself.[2] Third, He sends us His Spirit as a counter-pledge,[3] by whose power we seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, and not the things that are on earth.[4]
[1] Rom. 8:34; I John 2:1. [2] John 14:2; 17:24; Eph. 2:4-6. [3] John 14:16; Acts 2:33; II Cor. 1:21, 22; 5:5. [4] Col. 3:1-4.

Scripture Reading: Luke 24:50-53; 1 John 1:5-2:2; Hebrews 4:14-16

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Hymn 31:1,2,3
Psalm 42:5
Hymn 2:4,5
Psalm 62:3,4
Hymn 33:1,2,3,4,5,6

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

After Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, Jesus spent 40 more days on earth. The Scriptures tell us that Jesus spoke to His disciples, visited with them, ate with them, taught and comforted them. No doubt it was all very encouraging for His disciples.

But the day came that Jesus left this earth. The result is that today Jesus will not appear in our homes –nor even in this church building- as He appeared in the disciples’ midst years ago. Nor can we plan a visit to Jesus’ house to ask Him questions.

It strikes us as somewhat of a loss. Given the unbelief of our western world, would it not be great if the Lord Himself could preach some sermons for the public? People could put their difficult questions directly to Him; Lord, where was God on September 11? We could even bring our sick to Him for healing….

According to the passage we read from Luke 24, the disciples witnessed Jesus’ ascension into heaven and they were filled with great joy – says vs 52. Somehow, to their minds Jesus’ departure was exciting news. How come? We for our part –very modern people living in a very modern (and turbulent) world- we for our part need to understand why the disciples could be so joyful at Jesus’ departure. We need to understand so that we might be excited about His departure also.

I realize that last week a sermon was already read on Lord’s Day 18. There is, however, so much encouragement in our Lord’s Day for God’s people in our troubled world that I take the opportunity to devote a second Sunday to this Lord’s Day. I trust there will not be too much overlap.

I summarize the sermon with this theme:

The ascended Christ is our advocate before the Father 

1. How Jesus ascended into heaven.
2. What Jesus does in heaven.
3. How the church shows her joy.

How Jesus ascended into heaven←⤒🔗

The passage we read from Luke 24 tells us that "it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven" (vs 51). Of significance for us now is Luke’s use of the passive form, Jesus "was parted." The point of the phrase is that somebody else acted upon Jesus. Luke presents Jesus as passive; Jesus did not storm the gates of heaven in an attempt to invade heaven. Rather, "He was parted from them and carried up into heaven."

A significant detail is given in Acts 1. I read there in our translation: "He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight" (vs 9). We picture in the eye of our mind that Jesus began to rise from the earth, went up, up, up, and a cloud drifted by to block the disciples’ view of Jesus, and when the cloud had passed Jesus was gone…. But the verb translated as ‘received’ describes the action of coming down to pick someone up. We may think of how a wind gets under leaves or dust and lifts this dust on high. The cloud of Jesus’ ascension did not move horizontally across the sky (and so block the view); this cloud rather moved vertically, came down from above to pick Jesus up and carry Him aloft.

You will recall from the prophecies of Ezekiel the vision the prophet saw by the River Chebar. Chapter 1: "Then I looked, and behold, a whirlwind was coming out of the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself; and brightness was all around it and radiating out of its midst like the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire" (vs 4). As this great cloud came closer to Ezekiel, the prophet could make out more detail, including the four living creatures and wings and wheels and eyes all around, then a platform and on the platform a throne, and on high above the throne was God Himself. "This," Ezekiel said at the end of the chapter, "was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord" (vs 28). The cloud: it was the vehicle of God, the chariot carrying the Almighty. That’s an image we meet more often in the Old Testament: clouds form God’s chariot, God’s vehicle (Ps 18:10f; Ps 104:3; cf 2 Kings 2:11). The disciples saw a cloud come down from heaven to pick Jesus up and carry Him aloft. That’s to say: the disciples witnessed that God Himself sent His divine vehicle to transport Jesus from earth into heaven!

What that means in turn, brothers and sisters? This: Jesus was royally welcomed into heaven, indeed, God desired Him there.

That is a remarkable thing. Remember: God once sent the Son out of heaven. I read in Jn 3:17 that "God … sent His Son into the world … that the world through Him might be saved." Similarly, I read in Gal 4 that "God sent forth His Son … to redeem those who were under the law" (vs 4). Though the Son and the Father had enjoyed the glory of heaven together from all eternity (to be sure, together with the Holy Spirit), the Father sent His Son out of His glorious company, sent Him to earth for the express purpose of reconciling a people to God. Some 33 years after the Father sent His Son to earth, this same Father directed His divine chariot to pick up His Son again and return Him to the bosom of the Father. That is Jesus’ ascension.

Question. Why would the Father welcome His Son so royally to His bosom again? Surely, brothers and sisters, that is because the Father was so satisfied with the Son’s work on earth! God had sent the Son to earth to redeem a race of sinners, and to accomplish that goal Jesus had taken upon Himself the wrath of God against man’s sin and satisfied God’s justice; that was His work on the cross. Well now, by transporting Jesus into heaven in such a marvelous manner, the Lord God publicly places His stamp of approval on Jesus’ work.

And for people living on earth, beloved, that is so exciting! For people on earth live every day under the eye of the Almighty. It is He who created us in the beginning, He who we offended so bitterly with our fall into sin, He who consequently drove us out of the Garden of Plenty into the Wilderness of thorns and thistles. That much of Australia is today a dust bowl is the direct result of the fall into sin in Paradise, and is part and parcel of the judgment of the God with whom we have to do day by day. That our lives know so many thorns and thistles – and we all experience so many in our marriages and families, in our church life and work- that our lives know so many thorns and thistles is again the direct result of the fall into sin in Paradise, and is part and parcel of the judgment of the God with whom we have to do day by day. Then Yes, this God in deep compassion sent His Son into the world to redeem sinners to Himself, but the conclusive evidence that God was pleased with Jesus’ work lay in the fact that God Himself received Jesus into heaven so royally again. With that act of picking Jesus up in His divine chariot and transporting Him into His heavenly residence, God has publicly declared that Jesus work was well done, that sinners are reconciled to God. Instead of anger from God on our remaining sins, there is divine favor, forgiveness of sins, grace unbounded – both for this life and for the life to come. Already the first of the human race has been received into the presence of God, and if God accepted the first one others will surely follow in due time!

Now we understand why the disciples in Luke 24 were so excited! That God should send His heavenly limousine to pick up their dear Master – what glorious evidence this was of the success of Jesus’ labors! God accepts man again, Paradise in principle restored – how rich the gospel!

We come to our second point:

What Jesus does in heaven←⤒🔗

There are in particular two things that the exalted Son of God does in heaven. Both are directly connected with our relation with God, and therefore of critical importance for us and comfort to us. The church confesses the first in the first part of Question & Answer 49, where we echo God’s revelation in the Bible like this: "He is our Advocate in heaven before His Father." The church echoes the second in Lord’s Day 19, where we confess that the ascended Christ is "Head of His Church, through whom the Father governs all things." The second we leave till next week; the first needs further attention today.

Our fall into sin offended God deeply. He was terribly displeased with our original as well as actual sins, and determined to punish them by a just judgment, we confessed in Lord’s Day 4. In His unfathomable mercy He sent His only Son to earth to bear the punishment we deserve; Christ suffered and dead for us, in our place. That God received Christ into heaven confirms us in the good news that Christ indeed paid the penalty God would otherwise have poured out on us.

But see: day-by-day we continue to sin. Fight though we might, we collapse time and again in the face of the devil’s attacks and the world’s temptations; we are just too weak…. So sin again gets between God and us, so that we earn for ourselves again His just judgments…. As God exiled Adam and Eve out of His presence and His favor when they sinned in the beginning, so we on account of our sins may expect holy God to exile us out His presence and His favor again. And that’s the more so because we keep on offending God despite the infinite display of His love in giving us His only Son.

But see here, brothers and sisters, the glorious work of the ascended Savior! God has transported His Son into heaven, received Him again in glory, but Jesus has not therefore forgotten us on earth! Granted, He doesn’t come to visit us in our homes. But in the courts of God in heaven He remembers us day by day and so continually intercedes with the Father on our behalf. He knows very well that we sin time and time again, and He knows also that in so doing we offend the Father severely, and that is why Jesus makes it His business to take up our cause in heaven, to speak up in our defense. This is the point of the passage we read from John: "if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 Jn 2:1).

Advocate. We scarcely use the word in today’s English, but it’s meaning is parallel to the modern word ‘lawyer’. The point is that we have offended God again with our sins, and so the Judge calls us to give account of what we have done. For our part, of course, we can’t give satisfactory account. So the ascended Christ steps in a lawyer, to plead our cause before the Father. No, as an Advocate Jesus does not present God with various excuses to try to explain away our transgressions. Instead Jesus reminds the Father of the work He accomplished on Calvary, how it was that the sins of that sinner were piled onto Jesus Christ and He paid for those sins, and therefore there is no place anymore for further wrath from God on that sinner. He pleads, intercedes before God on our behalf, and always, always God hears the pleas of His only Son. Romans 8: "Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect?" And make no mistake, beloved: Satan lays countless charges against us (cf Zech 3), and we well know that we give Satan plenty of ammunition to lay countless charges against us. But who shall condemn us? Shall God? No, says Romans 8, for "it is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us" (vss 33f). He pleads, and because the Father took Him into heaven may we be assured that God always hears Jesus’ intercession.

We understand: here is a most wonderful gospel. It is with God that we have to do day by day, it is God we offend day by day with our ongoing sinfulness and sins, and so we cut off the blessing we need so very much in every circumstance of life. Here is the gospel: Christ in heaven intercedes, pleads for us, so that God does not deal with us day by day according to what we deserve but instead pours daily upon us His gracious blessings! We can live, we can expect God’s grace, not only because Christ died for us long ago, but also because Christ today labors in heaven’s courts on our behalf.

We for our part say: it would be nice if Jesus were still on earth, could visit us, preach for us, answer our questions and heal our sick. But now we understand something of the disciples’ "great joy" at Jesus’ ascension into heaven. That He labors there on our behalf before the God with whom we have to do day by day is such a glorious gospel! This is far richer than if He would appear in our midst to give us a word of comfort! Given our ongoing sins it’s an Advocate before the Father that we need so much. And precisely this is what God has granted to His children on earth. Indeed, it is better that Christ has gone to heaven (cf Jn 16:7); it gives cause for rejoicing because His departure guarantees that we keep a good and healthy relation with the Father.

So we come to our third point for this afternoon:

How the church shows her joy←⤒🔗

The Savior God transported so marvelously into heaven is busy there, daily pleading our cause before the Father. As a result of His work there, God in heaven does not reject us on account of our sins; instead, He forgives those sins and treats us daily as His children and heirs. That means in turn, beloved of the Lord, that we can - and therefore must- speak with this God.

Recall Paradise. Before the fall into sin there was an open communication between God and man. The Lord God came regularly to Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, so regularly that Adam and Eve could recognize the sound of His coming (Gen 3:8). But as soon as they sinned God sent them out of the Garden, and with that expulsion came an end to God’s visits and therefore to unhindered communication with God. True, the Lord taught mankind to make sacrifices, and through the sacrifices still to approach God in prayer. And those sacrifices in turn pointed forward to the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, that work where He would pay for the sins that had hindered prayer ever since the fall in the beginning. Christ on the cross has paid for sin, and so opened the way for us to speak to God again. Yes, and God has placed His stamp of approval on Jesus’ work by transporting Him so gloriously into heaven. The result of it is, congregation, that we can speak to God again! Add on top of that the fact that Jesus Christ is in heaven interceding for us: what wonderful incentive that is to pray!!

This, in fact, is the specific instruction of the apostle in his letter to the Hebrews. We have, He says in 4:14, "a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God." As High Priest, we understand, Jesus keeps reminding the Father of the sacrifice He presented on the cross; there’s His work as Advocate, Intercessor. In His reminding the Father, He sympathizes with us in our weaknesses, for Satan has tempted Him as he tempts us, and the world has put pressure on Him as it puts on us, and He was afflicted with the weaknesses of the flesh as we are; He "was in all points tempted as we are" – so much can He sympathize with our weaknesses. The fact that Christ intercedes for us, and does so as One who sympathizes with our weaknesses must, writes this inspired author, must prompt a response from the church, and the response has to be this: "let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (vs 16).

In other words: the reality of Jesus’ ascension must drive the church to prayer. God Himself took one of us –Jesus Christ, true man- into heaven because He was pleased with the work Christ accomplished on the cross. This man –true man like we, and at the same time true God- continually intercedes on our behalf before the Father. It’s the combination of those two facts that must drive the people of God to take up again with confidence the communication with God we broke through our fall into sin. That’s the instruction of the apostle: "let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace." Boldly, says the apostle, and the point is not that we come arrogantly, as if we have rights we can demand from God or have no need to be ashamed on account of our sins. No, with the term ‘boldly’ the Scriptures teach us to work with the reality of Christ’s blood and His continual intercession on our behalf, and so to be sure that our sins do not hinder access to God; they’re forgiven for Jesus’ sake. So come boldly; confess sin, yes, and then move on to speak openly with the Father about all that is in your mind.

The church has understood this glorious aspect of God’s revelation, and echoed it in Art 26 of the Belgic Confession. Look with me please on page 460 of your Book of Praise (or 459 if you have an older version yet).

How, then, shall the church respond to the reality of Christ’s ascension? We live, brothers and sisters, in a very modern world, amongst much godlessness and much restlessness. The devil continues to attack us and the world does also, and we meanwhile are weak, so inclined to all evil. Would it be better if Jesus were still with us to visit and to encourage? By faith we say: it is better, much better, that our Lord and Savior has ascended into heaven, because herein we are assured that the God we offend with our sins has accepted Him, and therefore also heeds Christ’s intercessions on our behalf. So we’re confident: in this troubled world our Father for Jesus’ sake supplies all the grace we need day by day.

More: we’re joyful. As did the disciples of long ago, we respond to news of Jesus’ ascension with "great joy", a joy that drives to prayer, boldly, openly, abundantly – confident that for Jesus’ sake Father hears and answers. Amen.