Setting Affections upon an Ascended Christ

The resurrection of Christ is a very significant event. It is indispensable in the life of the true church. Paul says, “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain…ye are yet in your sins.” But if we remain outside the work of Christ personally, what shall it profit us? Millions hear of that resurrection but die without the profit of it. Yet Paul says that there is a people who are “risen with Christ.” That does not mean that they also died as Christ died and are now risen again. That was true of many of the saints which arose after His resurrection; but Paul here speaks not of a physical, but of a spiritual resurrection.

After Christ arose from the dead and spent forty days upon the earth, He fulfilled what He spoke to Mary, “I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God.” When He had spoken beforehand to His disciples concerning the time that He would go away from them, sorrow had filled their hearts. But Christ had said to them, “It is expedient for you that I go away.”

From the place to which He ascended He fulfills everything for His church on earth. There He is active in the application of that redemption which He accomplished in the flesh. It is only because of that applying work that there is a profiting from the salvation which He has purchased. That is the only reason that Paul may speak of a people who are “risen with Christ.” They are raised from the death of sin to a life of grace in Him, for He is the Resurrection and the Life.

Must it not be a grief to Him that His people ding so fast to the dust of the earth?

Do you also know what it is to be “risen with Christ”? Have you ever experienced your death state? Did the law ever work death in you in order that you might be buried with Christ, that you may also be quickened together with Him? In the previous chapter Paul speaks especially about the law of ceremonies. From these also God's people must be delivered. In the beginning of that new, spiritual life, they are often working so much with a covenant of works. But by the teaching of the Holy Spirit they must die to their own work and be raised with Christ.

Christ continues to exercise His divine wisdom, power, and care in the life of that people who are risen with Him. There are many aspects of His ascension. Wonderful and great are the effects. It is through His sending of His Spirit that something is known and felt in the life of His church. The fruits redound to the glory of God.

Yet, very often the ascension of Christ is far from the life of faith. There is much consideration of His incarnation, suffering, death, and resurrection, but His ascension seems so far removed. Why is that so? Is it not because there is so much cleaving to the things of this time? Are not His people too much attached to this world? Are they not of the earth, earthy? Does not the prosperity of our time also lull the true church to sleep, as with the five wise virgins? According to the forty-ninth question and answer of our Heidelberg Catechism, “We have our flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that He, as the Head, will also take up to Himself, us, His members.” Is there a people today who look longingly for such a day? Must it not be confessed that the number is very small?

Therefore how necessary that from heaven Christ would send His Spirit “as an earnest, by whose power we seek the things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, and not things on earth.” How much labor does Christ yet have, not only to protect His church from outward enemies, but also to correct the church herself in her waywardness! How many heart murmurings must He endure from His bride as He must wean her from the world in order that she might understand more and more that here she has no continuing city, but must seek one to come!

Is not rebellious, murmuring Israel in the wilderness a true but sad picture of that church when Christ sends trials, afflictions, and tribulations to upset their earthly dreams and pleasures? He exerts His power from on high in the life of that people that they might “look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Must it not be a grief to Him that His people cling so fast to the dust of the earth? Is it not then a great mercy that He intervenes continually in order that they might sell what they have, that they might provide themselves “bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth? For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Is there not much to be sought of the things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God? Are there not many blessed mysteries which are yet unfolded in the experience of His people? How much comfort might the true church receive from the sanctified contemplation of Christ's fulfillment of His offices while He is at God's right hand! What a comfort to see Him by the eye of faith fulfilling His kingly office, sending out His Spirit to work irresistibly in the hearts of the King's enemies! They may have hope for the church when they may believe that He is yet bringing those under the seal of election out from under the grasp of the prince of darkness and into His marvelous light.

His mighty, exalted arm is a great consolation to those who learn to understand not only the impotence, but also the rebelliousness of the human nature. There is yet hope for them and their families from His side. What a comfort that He yet preserves them in all the persecutions, tribulations, and trials which they must undergo in this world! What an encouragement for the church militant to experience that He teaches their hands to war and their fingers to fight in the battle against sin, Satan, and the world!

Therefore that church is encouraged to “seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.” There, as their heavenly High Priest, He intercedes for them before His Father. He is their heavenly Advocate, whose pleading will not be rejected. He has entered the heavenly Holy of Holies not without blood, to sprinkle it there upon the heavenly Mercy Seat. From God's right hand He sends forth spiritual blessings in abundance.

“Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth.” That people is directed to set their affection on Him who, as the heavenly Prophet, is able to lead them, as “the blind by a way they know not.” In all their ignorance they are not able to do without the instruction of His Spirit. Is it not a great blessing when they may experience that His ear is not heavy that it cannot hear, neither is His arm shortened that it cannot save?

May the ascended Bridegroom more and more allure the heart of His bride unto Himself, where He is. It would be for their comfort. “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” It would also be a testimony in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation. It would be for a drawing in the midst of the congregations, where our youth see so little that makes them jealous. And, finally, it would be to the pleasure of Him who sits at the right hand of God. Although He does not yet pray that they be taken out of this world, He prays that they may be kept from the evil, that their conversation might be in heaven, until that time is fulfilled of which He speaks when He says, “Father, I will, that they whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am.”

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