PRACTICAL VALUES OF THE ASCENSION

PRACTICAL VALUES OF THE ASCENSION

 

 The Ramifications of God Coming to Earth in the Man Jesus:
1. Man will now know for certain what sort of character the eternal God possesses. What He calls good and what He calls bad as He humanly interprets His Words of truth called Scripture.
2. The facts about man and God, the perennial questions concerning such issues as pain and suffering, death, which create anxieties in men, the dim hope of a permanent world which is to follow-these and scores of other claimant questions will now have a fixed reference point by which they can be adjusted if not settled.
3. A man will be able to gain at first hand information as to "what life is all about" and as to how he can co-operate with the plan and the Power behind time and space and the created universe.
4. A man can look at Gods' words as He describes an absolutely unique event in the history of the earth and God Himself coping with life on the very terms that He has imposed upon His creatures. They will not be serving God seated on high on a throne, but down in the battlefield of life.

It Should Bring Joy to the Christian

John 14:28-29 "Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe."
The words were uttered in that period when He was the Self-emptied One, while still of one essence with the Father. By bringing this verse together with vs. 9 you touch the mystery of identity and yet difference. The declaration, "My Father is greater than I," must be interpreted by the whole context, where He was speaking of the witness of God to Himself, as a Teacher employing human speech and needing verification. The term "Son" does not necessarily imply inferiority, for in using it of our Lord we must cancel the limitations of time. Eternal Fatherhood and Eternal Sonship are both terms which break through the limitations of finite things, and leave us in the realm of mystery. The Son is to subject to the Father only in the sense in which He was the Servant of the Father, accomplishing a mission, after the completion of which, God becomes all in all.

It Should Arouse Interest in Heavenly Things

John 16:5-6 "But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart."
Col. 3:1-4 "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory."
 This is the greatest definition of prayer ever said. This definition does not suggest that the Christian is forevermore to be sighing after heaven, and expressing his discontent with the present world, and longing to escape from it; but rather that the Christian is to seek the upper things, seting his mind upon them, and everywhere and always he is to be hoping for, and endeavoring after, the ULTIMATE. That is the simple meaning of prayer. Reaching forward, wishing forward, desiring forward, seeking the upper, the higher, the nobler. So that in prayer there is included first, the thought of worship and adoration, that content of the heart with the perfection and acceptability and goodness of the will of God which bows its soul in worship. To always pray as Luke suggests in 18:1 is to always set the lifes inspiration and all its endeavor toward the ultimate goal of the glory of God. Paul also wrote to pray without ceasing in 2 Thes 5:17.

It Should Produce Steadfastness

Heb. 4:14  "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession."

It Gives us  Great Assurance

Heb. 6:17-20 "Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec."
The church having been counseled along with His oath resolves itself into an association of believers by which its growth, perpetuation, etc., is insured by the use of means of grace connected with such an organization, and by the care and oversight extended to it by its living Head. It is preparatory, because its office is, under divine assistance, to gather out of the nations the elect. It is simply calling and preparing "the heirs of promise," the "heirs of that kingdom which God hath prepared for them that love Him."
In this gathering out of believers to form this elect people-the inheritors-is found the ground for a firm belief in the perpetuity of the Church. God's purpose, no matter how adverse at times the Church's circumstances, how hostile the world, how corrupt her mixed condition, etc., will and must be inevitably carried out. The number that God has predetermined will be secured, so that His Theocratic Plan may be realized in power and glory.

It Shows that Heaven is a Locality

(Christ is there in a physical body.)

Shows the Marvelous Possibilities for a Glorified Body

The last part of our sanctification whereby we get the needed body that does not sin and last forever, for at last we are just like Him. 1 John 3:2 "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."

Adam and Eve were supernaturally and suddenly created by God; they did not gradually evolve from the animal kingdom. They were created physically; not just spiritually. They were created in the image and likeness of their personal, infinite, eternal Creator; not like animals which lack that image. They were created by God to exercise total dominion as "king and queen" over a perfect and complete world; they did not rule as subordinates to a fallen angel (Satan) in a world full of the marks of destruction, death or decay. They were not only unique in their physical perfection in all of human history, but were also the most brilliant human beings the world will ever know, apart from Christ, their incarnate Creator, until the day of glorification when all of God's people will be like Him when they see Him as He really is (1 John 3:2). Intelligence at a 100% level instead of 3-5% as we have today.
Surely the words of rebuke given by our Lord to the two on the road to Emmaus must be applicable to many Christians today: "O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken" (Luke 24:25). Our basic problem today in the question of origins and other Bible doctrine is not so much that we are ignorant of the theories and speculations of men. Our problem too often is that we know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God, and therefore deeply err in communicating God's message to modern man. May God be pleased to grant to each of us a renewing of our minds through submission to His special revelation of truth in His infallible Word, that we might prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.