Ascensions & Ascension
Tucked away on a Thursday within the fifty days of Easter, ten days before Pentecost Sunday, is Ascension Day. Holy Week, closing out the season of Lent, leading up to Easter Sunday, receives a great deal of attention in the church. Many churches will even observe some form of Ash Wednesday to begin Lent. However, Ascension Day comes and goes in many of our churches without much as a whisper. Maybe we push its recognition to the following Sunday, but you just don’t hear that much about Ascension Day. Besides, who wants to meet on Thursday?
Is it really that big of a deal in Scripture? Luke draws attention to the historical event of the Ascension of Christ at the end of his Gospel and the beginning of Acts, but I suppose we have to know the history of the resurrected Christ before the church received the Spirit. The Ascension only takes up a few verses in Scripture, right? Not really. The historical record of Jesus’ ascension is limited to a few passages, but many ascensions are fulfilled in Jesus’ ascension.
From the beginning, God’s plan for man was to ascend to rule the earth, replacing angelic rule. According to Psalm 8 as interpreted by Hebrews 2, man was created “for a little while” lower than the angels. Angels were tutors and guardians for man, assigned to lead him to maturity. One day, when the man matured and was able to handle the responsibility, he would rule over the angels, the principalities and powers, as Paul calls them in his epistles.
The angelic being assigned to the first man led the man and woman astray. Man fell short of the glory of the rule that God intended for him when he fell into sin (Rom 3:23). From that point forward, salvation meant ascension.
The story of the Ascension was prefigured in the “ascension offerings,” which are normally translated as “burnt offering” or “burnt sacrifice.” (The Hebrew word has nothing to do with “burning” or even “offering.” The word means “go up,” or “ascend.”) Ascension offerings predated the Tabernacle. Noah (Gen 8:20) and Abraham (Gen 22) offered ascensions. Moses told Pharaoh that the children of Israel were going into the wilderness to offer ascensions (Ex 10:25). Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law and Midianite priest, offered ascensions (Ex 18:12). Ascensions were codified in Leviticus, being the first offering prescribed, revealing something of the primacy of the offering as it, in some way, embodies all the other offerings. The bronze altar was the altar of ascensions (Ex 35:16; 38:1). The morning and evening offerings were ascensions (Ex 29:42). The worshiper ascending to God is salvation.
Every promise for God’s Son to rule the nations was a promise of ascension, and those promises are peppered throughout Scripture in direct statements as well as types and shadows. Jesus humbled himself and became obedient unto the death of the cross in order for the Father to exalt him (Phil 2:5-11). The immeasurable power that God has for his people was demonstrated in the resurrection of Christ and seating Christ at his right hand “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Eph 1:20-21). Jesus was exalted above the angels and crowned with glory and honor (Heb 1—2). Jesus’ ascension to glory fulfilled the destiny of man. Ascension was the point of it all.
Jesus doesn’t ascend alone. He is our Ascension Offering. The cross was the beginning of his “lifting up,” his ascension (Jn 3:13-15). His blood was displayed, he was “skinned” (disrobed), and then he ascended from death to resurrection and then to the right hand of the Father. We who are united to him ascend with him to sit in heavenly places (Eph 2:6).
Our ascension with Christ means that we share authority in his mission, an authority that conquered sin and is able to shape the world after the fashion of heaven. This begins with ruling our own hearts and bodies and then extends to whatever God has put in our hands. We bring order where evil has created chaos. We bring life where sin has produced death. We do so because we sit in rule with the ascended Christ
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