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Our Flesh As a Pledge (Earnest) in Heaven

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Our Flesh As a Pledge (Earnest) in Heaven

12 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

Rev. A. Moerkerken, Capelle a/d Ijssel, the Netherlands

The Spirit draws the heart out to Him who ascended to heaven

When light is given about the fruits of the ascension, one can only preach about it with longing. In Christ, the Church received a homecoming by the Father, and Christ shall not rest until He has His Church truly and actually with Him.

He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father.” In the Apostles’ Creed, the article relating the ascension follows immediately after that of His resurrection. In light of His mediatorial work, Christ could have ascended to heaven on Easter. He had paid the debt, and He had completed the work which the Father had given Him to do.

Forty days

The forty days that the Lord Jesus still remained upon the earth were not, in the first place, meant for Him but for His disciples. If Christ had ascended to heaven immediately after His resurrection, the Church would have remained behind in the greatest need and sorrow.

The number forty frequently points to a period of preparation in Scripture. Israel spent forty years in the wilderness before they were able to enter the Promised Land. Christ was tempted in the desert for forty days before He began His public ministry.

In those forty days between His resurrection and His ascension, the Mediator no longer had a daily walk with His disciples. He wanted to prepare them for His ascension. At the same time, He wished to speak with them concerning the things of God’s kingdom. This also included the command for performing the work of missions. There were ten visits in all, whereof certainly half of them occurred on the first day of the week. That is striking. Christ preferred to reveal Himself on Sunday. That is still the case, since it is just on that day that He lets His Word be proclaimed.

Challenged

The fact of the ascension was unchallenged for a long time. With the coming of the Enlightenment, the biblical wonders were questioned more and more. In the early days of the Church there was an aversion to question the facts of salvation. The arrows were directed more to what were called the fringes of the Revelation, such as the speaking of the serpent and the authorship of the books of Moses.

The evolution of biblical scholarship, however, went further. In today’s day and age, all the wonders of the facts of salvation are denied. There is an aversion to offending the modern man with his doubts. The fact of the ascension is referred to as being, so called, “of spiritual significance.” According to modern concepts, Christ did not actually ascend to heaven, but we must “think of Him by God” and in this manner lift up our hearts on high.

He who removes the ground from under this fact of salvation loses the foundation for the spiritual experience of the ascension. Regrettably, we also hear, at times, within the church, “The history of the ascension, the reality of it we know, but it must be experienced.” Now, I would not like to disavow the last part, but experience that does not have Scripture as its foundation does not have much value. Of what value is it if you can only say, “That is how God’s people experience it,” and you cannot say, “Here, this is where it is written in God’s Word”? In preaching about the facts of salvation (Christ’s birth, suffering, death, descent into hell, resurrection, and ascension), the objective must first be properly laid out before I can go over to the subjective application.


When you think of a pledge, think of a wedding ring. The ring keeps the memory lively and is an assurance of the love of the other. Christ took our flesh and blood as a pledge into heaven. For God’s Church that is a guarantee that they will come to that place where the Head has prepared a place for them.


Concise

It is striking that the Evangelists did not write extensively about the ascension. The accounts in both the gospels of Mark and Luke are very short and concise. Matthew and John do not write about it at all. It is not until the second book of Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, that we read a more extensive account of the ascension. Modern man concludes without a glance or a blush that the ascension is evidently a digression in the biblical testimony. It certainly should not be understood in that way.

It is likely that the short account of the ascension had to do with the fact that the eleven apostles were personal witnesses of the ascension. The early Christian church could ask them about it. Christ’s uplifted blessing hands and the cloud that took Him from their sight were engraved in their memory.

Psalms

We believe that, in addition to the testimonies in the New Testament, a number of psalms point to Christ’s ascension. That is why on Ascension Day we frequently will sing psalters based upon Psalms 24, 47, 68, and 110. Now, we must always use care to take into account the historical context in which the psalm was composed and, in the first place, look for the background in the life of the poet, but, at the same time, we may look for the deeper meaning. The Christian exegetist will not be satisfied until he can find Christ in the Old Testament. For the fulfillment of the prophecies regarding the work of Christ which are written in the psalms, the New Testament provides a handhold. According to Ephesians 4:8, for example, Psalm 68:19 prophesies of Christ’s ascension. Psalm 110:1 is quoted in Hebrews 1:5. In such citations lies the key to understanding other texts out of the Old Testament. Psalm 47:6, for example, is not quoted in the New Testament, yet we believe that this psalm indirectly points to Christ’s ascension.

The Heidelberg Catechism gives extended coverage to Luther’s conception that Christ’s human nature, after His resurrection, was everywhere present. In our days this is no longer a pressing issue. This shows that the catechism is a product of its own age, but because of this our Book of Comfort is not bound to the time. The background for this difference of meaning—regarding the natures of Christ—remains an actual one. Especially in our days it is necessary to explain with emphasis that Christ is true God and true man. He remained God, but the godly person took on the human nature.

Salvation significance

Christ’s ascension has its own significance for salvation. Question and answer 49 of our Heidelberg Catechism considers the benefit of the ascension. Christ is in heaven as Advocate. He pleads upon His finished work and demands, as Rev. Hellenbroek states it, the salvation of His own.

Jacob Revius has penned an especially beautiful verse (loosely translated): “Thou hast taken up to heaven our pledge, Thou lettest come down from heaven Thy pledge, The pledge Thou took from us was our flesh and blood, The pledge that Thou gave us was Thy Comforter sweet.”

When you think of a pledge, think of a wedding ring. The ring keeps the memory lively and is an assurance of the love of the other. Christ took our flesh and blood as a pledge into heaven. For God’s Church that is a guarantee that they will come to that place where the Head has prepared a place for them. The Head of the Church is above, and the body will not remain behind. Christ has our flesh as a pledge in heaven. That causes Him to long to have His Church with Him. What a great difference there is with the pledge that He gave back to the Church, His Holy Spirit. A pledge, if it is well, draws the heart to another. By the power of the Spirit, so the Catechism summarizes it, God’s children seek the things that are above. The Spirit draws the heart out to Him who ascended to heaven.

Judge and Father

The ascension followed Good Friday and Easter. On Good Friday the disciples lost their salvation. According to their estimation, God’s Church went lost on Good Friday. With Easter followed the appropriation of the fruit of Christ’s death. The Church may experience that an angry Judge is a reconciled Judge. The forgiveness of sins is a weighty matter, but is it the weightiest matter? Is the concern of God’s children, in the first place, the forgiveness of sins or the fact that they have lost God?

With the forgiveness of sins God’s children cannot conclude thereby that God is their Father. They cannot live just with assumptions. There remains a missing that is fulfilled with the ascension. Christ did not bring His Church back to the Father at Easter but at His ascension. Paul speaks about this in Ephesians 2:6, “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

Right hand

Christ sits in heaven at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Scripture sometimes speaks of Christ sitting, then again that He stands, and sometimes that He is sitting at the right hand of God. These words all point to the holy industry of Christ in heaven. His sitting points to the rest obtained after His finished offering. No chairs stood in the temple. The priests stood in serving. That pointed to the incompleteness of the shadow service, but Christ sits at the right hand of God. His priestly work is complete. Christ’s standing points to His operation. In this manner Stephen saw Him standing, ready to take him up into heaven.

The question is sometimes asked what the nature of Christ’s body was after His ascension. The Scriptures give us reason to say that at Easter He received a glorified body. He did eat, but He no longer had need of food. Yet, it continued a human body where the wounds of His crucifixion remained visible. Nothing special happened with His body at His ascension as was taught by Luther. John did, after all, see the Lamb of God standing as slain.

Rule

The addition of the words, “God the Father Almighty” points to the rule of Christ in the name of the Father. “By whom the Father rules all things,” wrote the authors of the Catechism. Upon the grounds of His mediatorial work, Christ received all power in heaven and upon earth. He has earned the authority to rule His Church and, also, the entire world.

Christ presents Himself as Head of His Church. It is not written, therefore, that He became the head of His Church. For the viewpoint that the Church assumes the place of Israel temporarily from the day of Pentecost, there are no grounds. The Church was there already since Genesis 3:15. Actually, we should say it more accurately; the Church has been elected in Christ from all eternity. Christ, therefore, has always been Head of the one Church which shall be gathered from both Jews and Gentiles. That Christ presents Himself as Head of the Church does not mean that the whole world falls down before Him. In this rule He frequently shows Himself as Head in a hidden manner in the hearts of His children. In His godly wisdom, the glorified Mediator works with proofs other than those which are awe-inspiring for the intellect.

The Apostolic Confession of Faith testifies of a catholic undoubted Christian faith. It is a treasure which has been handed down to us throughout the ages. What does it have to say to the Church, and to us personally, in these days wherein the Christian faith is universally doubted? □

(This article is a translation of an article which appeared in the Reformatisch Dagblad of March 5, 1998. It is one of a series of articles by various ministers on the Apostles’ Creed.)


“Thy Testimonies Are My Delight”
(Psalm 119:24)

In a fivefold manner, the kingly prophet has expressed his delight and desire for the Word of the Lord:

1. In the reading and the searching of the Word: “Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law” (Psalm 119:18).

2. In the hearing of the Word: for “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand within Thy gates, O Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:1&2).

3. In the meditating and remembering of the Word of the Lord: “I will meditate in Thy precepts, and have respect unto Thy ways. I will delight myself in Thy statutes: I will not forget Thy Word” (Psalm 119:15&16). “I have remembered Thy Name, O Lord, in the night, and have kept Thy law” (Psalm 119:55).

4. In the speaking of and proclaiming of the law of the Lord: “With my lips have I declared all the judgments of Thy mouth” (Psalm 119:13); “I will speak of Thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed” (Psalm 119:46); “Seven times a day do I praise Thee because of Thy righteous judgments” (Psalm 119:164).

5. In the doing and meditating upon the Word of the Lord: “Make me to go in the path of Thy commandments; for therein do I delight” (Psalm 119:35); “O how love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97); “My soul hath kept Thy testimonies:; and I love them exceedingly” (Psalm 119:167).

— Rev. Rudolphus Petri (1585-1649)

’tLofdes Woorts Godts, ofte der Heiliger Schrifture (Amsterdam 1640), p. 177

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