Theology of the Ascension

John Knox laid unusually strong emphasis on the ascension of Jesus Christ in the self-same body which was born of the Virgin Mary, and was crucified, dead and buried and which rose again, and very rightly. It is one of the most neglected doctrines of the Faith. Ascension is not just an addendum to the story of Jesus, a ringing down of the curtain on his earthly life, but it is one of the great essential salvation events. The ascension of the Lord Jesus is the inauguration of the Kingdom of God over the whole creation, but as centred in Christ it is the Kingdom of Christ. What did the ascension do?

(1) It was the completion of the Incarnation event. He who descended also ascended. The very same body which had been born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, and died and was buried, ascended into heaven, for the accomplishment of all things. Thus the saving work of Christ reaches up into eternity, into the ultimate mystery of God.

(2) The union of God and man in Christ was assumed into the immediate presence of God the Father on his throne — there Christ wears our human life, and it is in our name that he is there at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, standing in for us.

(3) In our name and for our comfort he ascended to take possession of his Kingdom, to inaugurate it and enlarge it. There he is given and receives all power in heaven and on earth — there the crucified Christ sits at the right hand of power and glory.

(4) The Heavenly Session of Christ speaks of the fact that he ever lives to make intercession for us as our Advocate and High Priest and only Mediator, and prays and intercedes for us. This is the teaching of the Epistle of Hebrews, and plays a central role in Knox’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.

(5) In his ascension Christ opened the heavens into which we may appear in him before the throne of the Father’s mercy. Christ’s ascension is the ground of our comfort and assurance. It is the ascended Christ who sends us his Spirit, the Comforter. Thus the full meaning of the ascension is to be discerned in relation to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church. It is in this light that the Church of Christ is to be understood, as ‘the blessed society which we the members have with our Head and only Mediator Christ Jesus, whom we confess and avow to be the Messiah promised, the only Head of his Kirk, our just Lawgiver, our only High Priest, Advocate and Mediator.

Is Loving Religion Loving God

People who love religion more than truth...love their denomination more than God. However, they love themselves most of all. Why?

Because their actions speak louder than their saying “I love God.”

God wants us to love Him for who He is. He doesn’t want lip service, where we merely go to Sunday-go-meetings once a week and sing “My Jesus I love Thee.” He wants us to show that we love Him by our daily living.

In 2 Timothy 3 the Bible warns that the last days people will be hypocritical in their love for the Lord, and that will produce perilous times. Beginning in verse 1 we read, “This know, also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, lovers of [money] . . . lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away”

This verse says people will have a form of godliness? That means they will be religious people who say they love God, but their lifestyles will speak louder than their words. They will love themselves, their money, and their pleasures more than they love God.

The Surpassing Glory of the New Covenant

“In a broad sense the Old Testament was the economy of conviction of sin. The law revealed the moral helplessness of man, placed him under a curse, worked death. There was, of course, gospel under and in the Old Covenant, but it was for its expression largely dependent on the silent symbolic language of alter and sacrifice and lustration. Under it the glory which speaks of righteousness was in hiding.

In the New Covenant all this has been changed. The veil has been rent, and through it an unobstructed view is obtained of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And with this vision comes the assurance of atonement, satisfaction, acces to God, peace of conscience, liberty, eternal life.”

— Geerhardus Vos

Sickness and Pain

Sickness and pain whether physical, emotional or psychological is a part of life's journey while we are confined to the earth suit we live in. The suffering some people go through along life's journey is excruciatingly painful and sometimes long lasting.

Often the encouragement given by well meaning people is, "The good thing about it is that you are safe in the Father's care no matter the outcome of the situation you find yourself in.  Just rest in His love for you that He may be glorified in whatever the outcome of your pain is."

Often the response is an apology for not trusting God more, or the admission that they are being overwhelmed with fear and doubts as if by doing so they aren’t living up to the expectation of my prayer for them.  That only adds to their pain, it doesn’t lighten the load.  And prayers are never something to live up to, but to find refuge in.

When we pray we ask God to do something.  We are not pressuring the paining person to pretend they are doing better.  Yet sometimes the person prayed for is under pressure to respond in a positive manner?  Someone prays for healing and we have to act healed, or for joy and we have to smile and act happy afterwards.  What has ridiculous religion done to believers?  Has it made people believe that the trusting life in God means a life without pain, without seasons of doubt, or without blinding tears?

If so, why did Paul tell us not only to rejoice with those that rejoice, but also to weep with those who weep?  Why did Jesus during his time on earth offer up “prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears?”  If Jesus found the reality of the broken creation so painful, that it led him to tears, and even to doubt God’s presence with him on the cross, why would we think we should be stronger?  He wants to have fellowship with us in our suffering as much as in our joy.

When someone prays for you in you season of sickness, please don’t feel that you need to pretend all is well even if they pressure you to. Realize that God is going through your pain with you.  When we pray we should not want people to pretend to confess to healing when their guts are churning inside. We need to encourage people to hold their pain before Him until His rest finds them. Resting in God in our tears, anguish, and doubts opens a door to greater wisdom and engagement than any pretense of healing ever will.

Some of the best moments with God have come out of tear-stained eyes and when healing comes you faith in God is strengthened and you won't lose faith in God if healing doesn't happen.

Yes, pain hurts, and life stinks on times, that is normal thing in the earth realm. One way to deal with pain, fear, hurt, and disappointment, is to realize that it’s part of the world we live in. People are suffering with varying degrees of pain. We can can either have a pity party for ourselves because of our pain...or we can try to help others through their pain, which in turn will help us.

Jesus said that He would never leave us or forsake us...that means that when we suffer He is with us as God was with Him in His suffering.

\- Glenn Regular

Healing Our Memories

Forgiving does not mean forgetting. When we forgive a person, the memory of the wound might stay with us for a long time, even throughout our lives. Sometimes we carry the memory in our bodies as a visible sign. But forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. When we forgive our parents for their divorce, our children for their lack of attention, our friends for their unfaithfulness in crisis, our doctors for their ill advice, we no longer have to experience ourselves as the victims of events we had no control over.

Forgiveness allows us to claim our own power and not let these events destroy us; it enables them to become events that deepen the wisdom of our hearts. Forgiveness indeed heals memories.


 

The Sanctification of Fallen Flesh

However, while we must say all that about the flesh that the Word assumed, we must also say that in the very act of assuming our flesh the Word sanctified and hallowed it, for the assumption of our sinful flesh is itself atoning and sanctifying action. How could it be otherwise when He, the Holy One took on himself our unholy flesh? Thus we must say that while He, the holy Son of God, became what we are, He became what we are in a different way from us. We become what we are and continue to become what we are as sinners. He, however, who knew no sin became what we are, yet not by sinning himself. Christ the Word did not sin. He did not become flesh of our flesh in a sinful way, by sinning in the flesh. If God the Word became flesh, God the Word is the subject of the incarnation, and how could God sin? How could God deny God, be against himself, divest himself of His holiness and purity? Thus His taking of our flesh of sin was a sinless action, which means that Jesus does not do in the flesh of sin what we do, namely, sin, but it also means that by remaining holy and sinless in cur flesh, He condemned sin in the flesh He assumed and judged it by His very sinlessness.

- T F Torrance

Grace Thrashers

Grace thrashers feel safe when people sin under the striving to keep the law and religious rules of performance religion because they can shift the blame for people’s sinning on the sinning saints themselves by saying...”I told the people not to commit sin”...but when someone sins under the Grace Gospel they blame the Grace Gospel by claiming that gives people a license to sin.

It boggles my mind that the claimers who claim that living up to some standard of the law is is evidence of true faith and not realizing they are diluting the greatest news that the community of humanity can ever hear. We are to share the Best News of all good news...God provided free grace while we were yet sinners because of Christ...yet the religious pharisees do every thing in their power to hide grace behind the wall of rules, regulations and laws.

“This sloppy grace message is a license to sin!” is the accusation of grace haters, as though people need a license to sin. If that is so, why do law keepers sin! Are they naive enough to think they don’t sin!

We are all sinners, even the grace thrashers, God-fearing, church-going “Christians”. Sin is a natural part of living life in this earth suit in a fallen world. It is only by God’s pure and unfettered grace, as demonstrated once for all through Jesus Christ, that we are made something else...righteous... we are not righteous because we do not sin, but because the Grace of God provides the power to overcome sin.

Religious performers disguises their sanctimonious trap with “we are saved by grace” then drops the people caught in their deceptive trap in to a pot of hot hogwash of maintaining their salvation by works.

The grace haters promises grace, then delivers condemnation. The rule keepers say they preach the good news of grace, then preaches the bad news of hellfire.

Consider how the good news gospel is snowed under by the relentless garbage of denominational "segregation" “man-made doctrines",” and behavioral “ethics.” Denomination against denomination, segregating over bible interpretation, terminology, dress codes, religious standards, seating arrangements, music styles…and all the other senseless man-made ideologies.

The damning message of religious behaviorism, “Behave right (according to our religious standards), or you will burn in hell,” layers the gospel under layer after layer of the religious hog-wash of measuring up to the religious rules and regulations.

Paul called this “another gospel that isn’t the gospel at all.” It’s religion. It holds out salvation like some carrot-and-stick maintained by unquantifiable good deeds. It is a damnable lie against the the Grace Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus did not bring some make religion acceptable by adding by salvation by grace to religion. He brought us freedom "from religion" through His gospel of Grace, which is good news for sinner and saint alike.

The nonsense about how that would mean we could “just go out and sin all we want since we’re already forgiven needs to be thrown out for the hogwash it is.” Nobody who trusts God wants to sin. When you trust God to love you and forgive you, you want to be like Jesus; you don’t want to be a sinning devil. But when we do sin, in spite of the fact that we don’t want to, we have an advocate with the Father, 1 John 2:1-2 tells us (and he tells us that so we won’t sin, not so that we will sin.

Paul told Titus: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good” (Titus 2:11-14).

It’s grace that teaches us to say no to ungodliness. It’s grace that makes us eager to do what is good. Knowing we’re already forgiven and accepted does not lead us into the devil’s sinning spree, but into deeper fellowship with our Lord and Savior.

The Grace Gospel is GOOD NEWS.

- Glenn Regular