Dennis Tuuri

Well, a few of you managed to actually clap while most of us just did the Gnostic clap, imaginary intellectual clap. We should make a notation for music people that when we sing this, we should make a little notation at the top of the song that we will all clap at that point and that we’ll all shout when it says shout as well. That’d be a good thing to do. I’d hate for us to somehow convey completely inadvertently at our part that worship is not to be as exuberant as our fellowship times.

It is exuberant and it’s exuberant because of the truth of what we just sang and read about. Psalm 47 looked forward to the going up, the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that’s our topic today as we finish off Luke 24. We’ll be looking at verses 50-53. Luke 24:50-53 and we’ll be talking about the ascension. As you’re turning in your scriptures, Bibles there, I might mention that most of us probably know that there was a Gallup survey. 79% or something of the American people believe that Jesus rose from the dead, something like that. It’d be interesting to see how many people think he ascended. And then it’d be even more interesting to see what they thought he ascended to do. And that’s sort of what we’ll be talking about today from Luke 24:53.

Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Luke 24, beginning of verse 50.

“And he led them out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. Now it came to pass while he blessed them that he was parted from them and carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God.”

Amen. Let’s pray.

Lord God, we do thank you. We praise you and bless your holy name and the temple that is your church. Now we thank you for the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ and the great joy that these unbelieving and doubting disciples were finally brought to after 40 days of being trained by our savior. Give us that great joy and an understanding of the ascension based in your scriptures to the end that we might indeed worship Jesus, you and the Father and the Holy Spirit and that we might also continually praise you and sing forth blessings to your name. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Well, this is the culmination of course of Luke’s gospel. This is the ascension of our savior. And Mark’s gospel ends in pretty much the same way. And this is a gospel message. Then it’s the culmination of the gospel. And as I just prayed, you know, we what we’ve seen in Luke 24 is that these disciples were doubting and then they were kind of feeling good and then they were brought into more realization. And that progression, the way Luke has determined the text here leads to this great joy here at the end of the chapter.

Now, this event doesn’t occur on that resurrection Sunday. Of course, and there’s no reason to assume that Luke was in error about this. When it says that he led them out, it doesn’t mean there wasn’t a passage of time. Clearly, there was. As obviously in Acts, Luke tells us it was 40 days after his resurrection. So, but he’s decided to put it in at the end of his gospel in this way to draw some degree of continuity with what’s happened.

So, we have this progression in these four sections of Luke 24, you know, from complete unbelief basically and then the great joy at the end. And so that’s the progression that’s the culmination the capstone of the gospel here. The ascension then is the culmination of the gospel. If we stop at the resurrection and don’t preach the implications of the ascension of the savior king to the throne we haven’t really, I don’t think articulated the gospel.

The gospel climax is in the ascension and that’s to a particular purpose, right? I mean, the ascension isn’t still going on. It was to an end. It was simply a transition point to something else. But it’s the climax here in the gospel. So when we think about the gospel, you know, this is what we need to think about the ascension of the one who has saved us, Jesus. The ascension of the savior. And he’s king. He’s Christ. He’s the Messiah, the anointed one. The ascension of the savior king. But where to? To the throne. So this is what we’ll be talking about today is the ascension and its implications.

Now first of all this culmination has some characteristics that echo back Luke chapter 2. These last four verses in Luke chapter 2 there were various things that happened there that are kind of repeated here at the end of Luke’s gospel.

I mean for instance in Luke chapter 2 the angels announced the birth of Jesus Christ, right? And the angel says that he brings you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. So we got great joy predicted at the beginning of the gospel and now here at the end of the gospel brought to culmination great joy. This same phrase is what these disciples now have as a result specifically tied in literary fashion here that great joy is tied to the ascension.

So a proper understanding of the ascension will bring us to the same culmination to great joy.

They the parents bring Jesus to Jerusalem. There’s travel narrative to Jerusalem and there’s travel narrative here. He brings them out to Bethany and then after he’s departed from them they go back to Jerusalem. So there’s movement here of Jesus’s infancy when he’s brought by his parents to Jerusalem. And here when he leads his disciples away from Jerusalem, ascends and then sends them back without him because he’s ruling at the right hand of the father now.

So, again, this blessing stuff that goes on when they bring Jesus in Luke chapter 2 to the temple and there’s a man there, right, Simeon, and he pronounces a blessing upon the family, including upon those that are with the family. In verse 34, Simeon blessed them and said to Mary’s mother and he says what’s going to happen with Jesus.

So this theme of blessing doubled up blessing at the end of the gospel is tied back to these blessings that are pronounced by Simeon upon both God and upon the mother and Joseph and Jesus in chapter 2.

Again with the idea that they come back and they don’t depart from the temple. Anna who is the other person that is in the temple waiting for the consolation of Israel. We read of her that this woman was a widow of about 84 years who did not depart from the temple but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.

So we’ve got serving God continuously in the temple by a widow woman who’s 84 and she is serving with fastings but by the end of the gospel a gospel the salvation has been accomplished and now they’re continually not fasting but now they’re continually worshiping praising God with great joy at the end of the gospel. So there’s movement here from Luke chapter 2 to this concluding statements of the joy that we find here.

So there’s that and then the other reflection found here is from chapter 1. We talked about this before. We did an overview of the gospel in one of the sermons, but remember that Luke chapter 1 starts out with the announcement of John’s birth, Zacharias in the temple and he’s struck dumb because of his unbelief. And so we have dumbness in the temple at the beginning of Luke’s gospel to now continually praising God using voices and songs and all that stuff and engaging in the liturgy of the temple worship at the end of the gospel.

So again, there’s a transition. The world has moved from muteness to now singing out. The world has been moved at the declaration, the great joy will happen. But now the great joy is actually theirs and the world was continually fasting in the temple. Now we have continual praising God in the context of that temple. So there’s movement here and I don’t want to move past these four verses with pointing that out.

And these many of the things that I just mentioned are the exact same terms that are used. So very deliberate bookending of all the promises and blessings that the first now accomplished through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I said specifically, this great joy is directly tied in the text to the ascension.

Now, the ascension then for Luke, right, there’s one book, Luke and Acts. Luke wrote them both. They’re kind of like two halves of the same story. And the hinge between Luke and Acts is the ascension, not the resurrection. So, he moves through the resurrection, gives an account of the ascension at the conclusion of his gospel. Then we’ll talk about this in the next couple of weeks as we look toward Pentecost in Acts chapter 1. The beginning thing that talks about that Luke describes there is the ascension.

So the ascension is the hinge point between these two aspects of his work, the gospel and then the works of Christ through the apostles.

Now the liturgical calendar which we make notice of and don’t follow it religiously but we structure I tend to structure my sermons along that way. Remember that I’ve told you that basically there’s two halves of the Christian year. The first half is all about the life of Christ. Second half is about the work of the church. And so in a way the first half is following Luke’s gospel and the second half is following Acts and the hinge point between those two the works of Jesus and then the works of his church empowered by Christ at the right hand of the father. The hinge point is not the resurrection. It’s actually the ascension. So the ascension is the key doctrine in Luke’s mind that accomplishes the work of the church and hinges it back to what’s been recorded in the gospels.

So the work of Christ and the work of the church and the hinge point is this very important doctrine of the ascension. So it’s important it’s the climax of the gospel. It’s part of the gospel. In fact, it’s the culmination of Luke’s gospel and it’s also the hinge point to the acts of the apostles and I would say that we can draw by analogy to the church today. It’s the same thing. To the extent that the church appropriates the meaning of the ascension, she will then engage in that work that the book of Acts covers that the last half of the church year records as well. She’ll do her job. Okay.

So, what happens in the text? Well, there’s a heavy emphasis on blessing. So, there’s blessing associated with the ascension. It’s mentioned twice. Right? He lifted up his hands and blessed them. Now, I think the only other place where there’s this lifting of hands to bless is Leviticus 9:22, which is a text that we should be real familiar with. It’s the one that gives us the basic structure of our offerings, our liturgy, our worship.

You know, after the sacrifices, particularly the purification offering, the ascending offering, and the peace offering, then you know, the Aaronic priest would lift the hand or hands and bless the people. And that’s what Jesus is doing here. So he’s the greater Aaron, the greater Levi. He’s actually of the order of Melchizedek. But the idea is having accomplished his sacrifices, his one sacrifice that Leviticus points out in its various aspects.

Having done that, now we have that culminatory blessing. So in a sense, Luke’s gospel is about Leviticus 9:22. It’s about the work of Christ in his sacrificial work accomplishing purification. But not stopping there, not just saving us for heaven, but the ascending offering and peace offering here on earth as we have our meal with him. As he accomplishes all that stuff, then the blessing is pronounced upon the congregation.

So there’s a blessing associated with this. And I think that if we think of this, what’s happening here is identification and imputation so to speak of Christ and his church through the blessing. And so it’s important at this point to talk about the implications of Christ’s ascension for us because the Bible makes clear that Jesus’s ascension, the focal point is not his divinity. Now, there’s a little cartoon or coloring page for the kids today, and I apologize for the cartoonish look of it. I chose it for two reasons.

One, because the other pictures that were available seemed a little odd. He looked kind of like Buddha in one, and he looked like couldn’t quite get off the ground in another. “Is he going to make it? Is he not?” And they’re all faces. This one doesn’t have the face of Jesus. So, I’m not necessarily opposed to drawing the face of Christ, but this one doesn’t have that. That was one reason I chosen it because these other ones looked a little goofy.

The other reason I chose it, though, was I think there’s two little spaces you can color in kids on his feet, and I think those are supposed to be nail holes. So, if you colored those red, okay, those two little spots on his feet. It’s a reminder that Jesus takes his body, his resurrected body into heaven. And that’s the emphasis of the ascension. It’s not Jesus, the second person of the Trinity or it’s not the second person of the Trinity that’s the emphasis of the ascension.

It’s the bodily resurrection and the bodily ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’ll look at it a little bit later, but you know, the 39 Articles talks about him taking up bones and flesh and everything else that pertains to a human body and he takes that into heaven. Okay? And this idea of blessing hands imputation connectedness with the people he’s blessing. You see, it’s a reminder to us that the ascension has to include an understanding.

The scriptures clearly teach our ascension as well. John 14:2 Jesus said, “In my father’s house there are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” So, he’s going there to prepare a place for us. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. So, he’s preparing a place for us. So, long term, we have that.

But even the short term, 1 Corinthians 15:23 tells us, “Each in his own order, Christ the first fruits, afterwards those who are Christ at his coming.” So, Jesus is the first fruits. He’s the first of humanity to end up where he’s going at in the ascension. And we’ll talk about that in a minute, what the results of that are. But it’s he’s linked to us. He’s the first fruits of who we are. And that’s why we read in Philippians 3:20 that our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So our citizenship is in heaven. We’re in heaven. And God says this in various verses. Ephesians 2:6 says that he has raised us up together past tense and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So Christ’s ascension is our ascension in a covenantal way. Humanity, all those who are united to Jesus Christ, all you folks, you’re sitting with Jesus in the heavenlies. That’s where we’re at.

Now, we remind ourselves of that in the Lord’s day, right? We ascend to heaven for worship. But the reality is Paul writes to the Ephesians, that’s where our seat is or to the Philippians, that’s where our citizenship is and in Ephesians, we are now presently seated with Christ in the heavenlies. So, Jesus’s ascension is our ascension as well.

In Colossians 3, we read Paul says, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above. Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. For you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

So again, Paul is saying we’re united to Jesus. His ascension in his humanity. The ascension of his humanity is the ascension of all redeemed humanity as well. So we’re seated with him. We’re to seek those things that he’s doing at the right hand of the father. That doesn’t mean that earth is unimportant. We’ll see in a minute. That’s completely the opposite sort of what he’s trying to say here. We’re supposed to have a heavenly perspective on everything that we do. And so, but the truth is that we have been raised with Jesus, not just resurrected, but we’ve ascended with him as well. So, his ascension is our ascension.

Well, where’s he going? Where did he go to? So, we know wherever he is, that’s where we are. And we’ve already just read where he went to. He went to the right hand of the father.

The culmination of the ascension is the heavenly session. This is kind of an old-fashioned word, but you know, the court’s in session. And so session refers to a court. A judge sits in session and he does his work. And so the doctrine has been articulated in the ascension that the ascension is related to the session. Jesus ascends to engage in sessional work. Now we still have that terminology in ecclesiastical circles. After today’s service, I’ll be reading an announcement on behalf of the session of RCC. It’ll be an announcement of excommunication. And so we do this representing the heavenly session that Jesus sits at. And our earthly sessions are to be emblematic of that. And that’s why Jesus links it up by saying if you forgive sins or don’t forgive sins, it’s been done in heaven.

So, but where Jesus goes to is the right hand of the father. The right hand of the father is the place of rule and authority. So that’s what’s going on now. And that’s what changed on this day that we’re reading about here. Before that day, there was no humanity on the session in heaven ruling in the same way that Jesus does now. It changed. It was a real transitional factual change. We don’t know so much.

The Bible doesn’t tell us a physical location. Early heresy said Jesus ascended and his body burned up in the sun and he was total spirit. That’s all heretical nonsense. Wherever he went, he took his human body, his transformed human body with him. And is it way out there someplace? Is it an alternative, you know, time in the time, a third or fourth dimension as we were talking about earlier? Well, whatever it is, the Bible doesn’t stress that so much.

It does want us to think of it being a location. He’s really there physically present at the right hand of the father. It’s not an idea. It’s really true physically. And what it wants us to know primarily is what he’s doing there. The right hand represents the work of Jesus Christ in ascension. So in Mark rather his account of the ascension in 16:19 says that so then after the Lord had spoken to them he was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.

So Jesus goes to sit down at the right hand of God to enter into session. Romans 8:34 says, “Who is he who condemns? It’s Christ who died and furthermore is also risen who is even at the right hand of God who also makes intercession for us.”

So Jesus is at the right hand of God in session and part of that sessional work is making intercession for us here on earth. Okay. So the thinking is ascension goes to session and as part of his sessional work he intercedes with the father and for redeemed humanity.

The Apostles’ Creed well all the historic documents of the church have talked about the importance of this. The Apostles’ Creed puts it this way. He descended into hell after his death. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. So he sits at the right hand in session and then history will culminate with the final judgment.

The 39 Articles which are the standard the Reformational standard of the church in England. Article 4 says that Christ did truly rise again from death and took again his body with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of men’s nature. Wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he returned to judge all men on the last day. So basically repeating the Apostles’ Creed but articulating you know heresy gets more complicated. Our words have to become a little longer and so instead of just “he ascended” we have to say now he ascended with flesh bones and things that pertain to human nature. That’s what the Apostles’ Creed basically said but this thing 39 Articles has to articulate it in a little more length.

The Westminster Larger Catechism deals with the ascension of Jesus in questions 51 and following. And this is to the question what was the estate of Christ’s exaltation and the answer is the estate of Christ’s exaltation comprehends his resurrection ascension sitting at the right hand of the father and his coming again so the same thing that these early documents reflected the Apostles’ Creed the same thing is articulated in the later Reformational works asserting the same truths question 53 says how is Christ exalted in his ascension.

Christ was exalted in his ascension and then having after his resurrection once appeared unto and conversed with the apostles, speaking to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God and giving them commission to preach the gospel to all nations. 40 days after his resurrection, he in our nature and as our head triumphing over enemies visible He went up into the highest heavens there to receive gifts from men to raise up our affections hither and to prepare a place for us where himself is.

So that’s good wording in our nature. He takes human nature and human body transformed human body to heaven and as our head. We are his ascension is our ascension because we’re connected to the head as his body. And the purpose they tell us of this sessional work is the triumph over present enemies that begins with this exaltation.

Question 54 of the catechism says, how is Christ exalted and is sitting at the right hand of God?

Answer, Christ is exalted and is sitting at the right hand of God in that as God man. So see, it’s man is now with God. As God man, he is advanced to the highest favor with God the Father with all fullness of joy, glory, and power over all things in heaven and earth. And does gather and defend his church and subdue their enemies. Furnishes his ministers and people with gifts and graces and makes intercession for them.

So the intercession of Christ is always tied in the historical documents not just to you know I pray for things and he gives me things or he you know it isn’t linked so much. Now it’s true that there’s a personal work that goes on there but the intercession is always linked in the historic documents to his sessional work and specifically as the catechism makes clear to his giving the church triumph over all his enemies.

The sessional work, the court that sits in heaven with Jesus at the right hand is one of power and strength that will subdue all his enemies and ours. So this is the session that Jesus goes to and that purpose of the session is victory or intercession to the end of victory.

Again question 55, how does Christ make intercession? Christ makes intercession by his appearing in our nature continually before the father in heaven.

So again the emphasis on the human nature described there. Now Daniel 7:13 is a text of a little bit of contention. Daniel says, “I was watching in the night visions and behold one like the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. Then to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away. And his kingdom is one which shall not be destroyed.”

So who is it? One like unto the son of man. Well, the son of man in Daniel’s writing was Ezekiel. That’s what Ezekiel was described as over and over again in Ezekiel’s book. He’s the son of man. He’s addressed that way. And then Daniel would be one like the son of man. He’s like Ezekiel. And the ancient of days, which we normally think of as the father, may well be the person of Jesus Christ. He’s described in some of the same ways. He’s of eternity. So we could have here a picture of Daniel receiving the kingdom from Jesus and Daniel representing the church.

Now the traditional view is the ancient of days is the father and the one like the son of man is the son of man Jesus identified as such in the gospels and Jesus is ascending and the ancient of days the father gives him dominion. Now that view is true obviously that’s what Psalm 2 and Psalm 110 tell us. Jesus in his humanity ascends to the right hand of the father sits in session with the father and the father gives him all dominions, principalities and powers in a way that he didn’t and couldn’t have because he wasn’t and didn’t have a human nature prior to the incarnation.

But the other interpretation that it’s Daniel getting it from Jesus, whether that’s technically correct or not, is still true because of what we’ve just said. Jesus’s ascension is our ascension. Jesus is king of kings and lord of lords, but he has made the church in union with him, possessor of all these things as well. He’s granted dominion over the nations to the church, to his people. Not the church institutionally ecclesiastically, but the church as the body of Christ. The father gives it to the son. The son gives it and was what Pentecost is all about and the blessing is all about.

He’s giving them victory over their enemies. They’re going to subdue the world through the preaching of his word and the power of the Holy Spirit who manifests Christ and empowers them with Jesus. So, in a way, it doesn’t make any difference what you say about Daniel 7:13-14. The end result is the same if we understand the ascension, the ascension is Christ taking human nature, human form to the right hand of the father, sitting in session there.

And in that session, his primary work is the subduing of all things and all people on earth. In other words, and in that sessional work, we are with him. His ascension is our ascension. So really, it’s the same sort of thing.

R.J. Rushdoony has an excellent chapter on the ascension and the session in his book, Foundations of Social Order. He quotes there an author named Davies has a book on the ascension and he’s commenting on the fact that to St. Paul Christ is Lord by virtue of his resurrection and ascension. Davies says this so closely allied with this conception of the ascension that it is all but indistinguishable from it is the further belief that the ascension issues in the enthronement of Christ in messianic majesty as king at the right hand of God.

And then he quotes from 1 Corinthians 15. For he must reign till he hath put all his enemies under his feet.

Thus through the ascension Christ has become God’s vice regent over the universe. Yet his reign is not one of peace but of glorious warfare as he continues in the words of Philippians 3:21 to subject all things unto himself. So the session represents the power of Christ at the right hand of the father to engage in continual warfare against all his enemies which are also thus enemies of his people. That’s what the ascension is about.

It’s about sessional work and victory. It’s postmillennial from beginning to end. And it says, and this is why the gospel, which involves ascension, is this Yahoo thing that Jordan taught us years ago at family camp because the world has definitively changed. Humanity sits at the right hand of God. Jesus and in Jesus his church has now received dominion over the nations not to mistreat them but to bring them to a saving knowledge of Christ.

And Jesus says that this is what’s going to happen. The knowledge of God will be over the earth like waters cover or like waters over the earth. So this is what’s going on. This is the meaning of the ascension. This is why they were really happy when they left him and when he left them and then they went back to Jerusalem.

The purpose of the ascension is session, intercession, and victory. As we said, 1 Corinthians 15:25, he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet. Philippians 3:21, he will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to his glorious body according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things to himself. So Jesus is now able to subdue all things to himself. Philippians 2:9-11 Therefore God also has highly exalted him and give him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

That’s the result of ascension and the sessional work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Victory. That’s what it’s to the end of Jesus has been raised up to appear in the words of Hebrews 9:24 that he now appears in the presence of God for us. He makes intercession for us. But don’t turn that into a purely personal pietistic thing. These texts make clear that a major part of that intercession is that we are successful and victorious and subdue all enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 3:22 says that Jesus has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God. Angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to him. Okay? So man created a little lower than the angels. Now man in Jesus Christ, the angels and all powers are now subject to man in Christ. Let me read that again. He has gone into heaven. He’s ascended. He is at the right hand of God. He’s the session is now in order. Court is now in session. And the result of that is angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to him and he will reign until all his enemies be made his footstool.

Psalm 2, God says, “I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree the Lord has said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you.” Change of state here. This is the incarnated Christ receiving the kingdom from the father.

Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.

And then in Revelation, this is what’s promised to the church that you’ve overcome. He gives you power and a rod over the nations. Exercise it properly, justly, graciously, but to exercise that rod.

Now therefore, be wise, oh kings, be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son lest he be angry with you and you perish in the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all them that put their trust in him.

So this is the ascension. Jesus on behalf of the church or in union with the church with Christians has received the kingdom from the father and is now exercising that dominion. Psalm 110 the most quoted or cited psalm in the New Testament.

The Lord said to my lord sit at my right hand. Jesus is enthroned at the right hand of the father. That’s what he ascended to do. Sit in session. To what end? Till I make your enemies your footstool. The purpose of the session at the right hand of the father is all the enemies of Christ will be made his footstool.

The Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion. Now, where do they what happens when they’re done? Jesus departs. They worship him. What’s Zion? It’s the place of worship. So, the rod of strength, the exercise of Christ’s dominion over the nations preeminently is seen as emanating from Zion, from the worship place of God. And that’s what they do. Jesus ascends, he’s parted from them, he blesses them, and they worship him.

Verse 52, I think this is the first time in Luke’s gospel where this word worship is attached to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the culmination of the gospel is the worship of this Jesus who will send the rod of his strength out of Zion, out of the worship of him. And as a result of that, move in history to the end that all of his enemies will be conquered.

Your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power. In the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning, you have the dew of your youth.

So that’s generally true. Unfortunately, all too many Christians, they stop at the resurrection. They think about the ascension is just kind of wrapping up the thing and personal salvation is now accomplished and we don’t really engage in warfare. But the whole purpose of the gospel is the establishment of the beginning of definitive warfare with the promise of victory because humanity now sits at the right hand of God the father in the person of Jesus Christ.

So you know when we understand the ascension and the church will over time has or in earlier generations and will once more those people are willing in the day of battle. Are you willing to understand your job in terms of ruling with Jesus Christ at the right hand of the father over the enemies of Jesus.

So Jesus’s ascension is to the purpose of the session and the purpose of the session is intercession and victory. That’s what’s going on when he’s parted and blesses them. That’s the implications of that. And our result, our response is to worship him. And then they return to Jerusalem with great joy. We’re continuing in the temple praising and blessing God.

So the result of the ascension is confident worship and great joy at the center. Remember that until the temple is destroyed, Jerusalem is the center of the universe, the center of all things. It’s like Portland is the center of culture. And like Portland being the center of the culture, we wouldn’t think of going to Portland as such a joyous thing to do and hanging around and praising God in the midst of whatever church is down there. But that’s what these guys did. They engaged in an act of simple obedience. Jesus had told them to go back to Jerusalem and wait for the power of the spirit. And they go back and they’re waiting with great confidence, great joy, praising God continually in the temple where they knew all these people hated them, where they knew that the center of that culture was wicked to the core and had killed their the Messiah and we’re going to persecute his church and drive him out of the city.

That’s where they went. They had confident rejoicing in worship in the center of their culture, in the center of the world really. And so it’s our same great joy. It’s a joy that should be certainly entered into on Ascension Day of rejoicing. Why were they that happy? Because man was now ruling at the right hand of God. And they knew what Psalm 110 and Psalm 2 and all that stuff said. They knew what that blessing was about.

It wasn’t a blessing unto personal peace and affluence. It was a blessing unto being conquerors, victors as they preached the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. His ascension was their ascension. Their citizenship was in heaven. They were ruling with Christ in union with him at the right hand of the father. And they knew the end result of that would be the conquering of all his enemies. So they were happy.

We should be happy.

Where is God taking us today? Remember that the story starts with him leading them out to Bethany. Now Bethany, that’s by it’s on the same ridge as the Mount of Olives. So, don’t get hung up with that. He ascended from the Mount of Olives nearby to Bethany. It’s the same place. Point I’m trying to make here is he leads them away from Jerusalem. And maybe they don’t know, maybe they do know. Remember I talked about that movie, The Return. Two kids, dad comes back from prison, Russian movie, kind of depressing, but you know, the idea is where is he taking us? And the apostles, you know, they’re thinking, well, he’s taking he’s leading them. God leads us. He’s led us into a place in our day and age when man’s rejection of the ascension is profound both within the church and certainly outside of the church.

Where is he taking us today? R.J. Rushdoony writes in his chapter on ascension in session that the humanistic doctrine of the session sees man as the lord of history. So like most Biblical doctrines, all of them, I suppose, they’re not completely denied. They’re transferred. So the doctrine of Christ’s total victory and control over the earth and the church in union with him is denied. But the doctrine of session, judgment, government, accomplishing whatever they want to accomplish is still in place.

And so centralized authority and power always is the drift of people that deny the ascension of Jesus and instead decide that the doctrine of the ascension is about their ascension. Rushdoony went on to say the purpose of humanism of every non-Christian movement and of all heresy and apostasy is to seize the throne for man to place man not man in union with Christ but to place man autonomously from Christ in the place of God and to create a man-centered session over all creation and history.

This is what plays itself out. During the French Revolution, plans were made to depopulate France. Got too many people. Now, they didn’t know about CO2 being a pollutant. That would have given them even more zeal to get rid of people because we’re just polluters, as it turns out. But they didn’t like they thought there were too many people. So, they made plans to depopulate France by killing 12 to 15 million French people in order to affect a revolutionary transfiguration.

Their doctrine of the session was the session would kill off a lot of humans to give heaven to the rest of the humans. As Rushdoony says, the scheme was actually explained in print. It was held that depopulation was essential. We have that same thing today. They haven’t gotten around to killing people off yet. Well, they have a million people every year depopulated, right? Abortion. And that’s what they did at the French Revolution.

Centralized planning, humanistic session, humanistic control over all things.

He says that Gulfrey in his journal expressed the opinion that only 5 million people should be allowed to survive. Robespierre on the other hand was reported to have said that a population of 2 million should be more than enough for our purposes. They had these discussions. How many million shall we leave alive at the end of all of this? Others asserted that 8 million was the figure generally agreed upon by the leaders.

The humanistic order claims for itself the absolute right of judgment which properly belongs only to God. And the end result of that is horrific.

Well, this is where God has kind of led us today as well. We’re led into a culture that increasingly has denied, maybe they believe in the resurrection, whatever that means. But we certainly have governing authorities now in the state of Oregon and in national authorities who deny the implications of the ascension. They may believe in the resurrection and personal salvation, but they don’t believe in the ascension of Jesus to a particular maybe they do it as an abstract fact but to the particular location where he is told we are told he went to was to sit at the right hand of the father and conquer all of his enemies. They don’t believe in that. They deny that and instead they attempt to be that session themselves of centralized planning.

And so we have a president who cuts the advertising budget of a car firm by 50%. Centralized planning. There’s nothing new here. This is what men tend to do with their rejection of Jesus Christ. They tend to take over everything and that power becomes more and more centralized in their vision of the session. That’s where Jesus has led us. We go back to Jerusalem too in obedience to his command. We go to a place that’s filled with ethical rebels who actually kill people that they don’t like or the French when they killed people.

We’re not at that stage. But tomorrow when you go out and you leave heaven today, you’ll go back to a world that is becoming increasingly dominated, at least in appearance, by men who reject the session of Christ and instead assert the session of centralized powers.

Now, I say apparently because who knows what’s really happening. Jesus’s rule at the right hand of God the Father isn’t like man’s rule and his session. You know, they’re figuring how many people million should we kill? It’s all about authority and power and physical might. With Jesus, it’s not like that. He has the king’s heart in his hand. You know what Jesus does with government is slow and imperceptible. Usually, I don’t know why for the first time since the survey has been taken, a majority of Americans identify themselves as pro-life as opposed to pro-choice.

Doesn’t make sense. You know, we figured, well, increasingly more and more people are taught abortion’s okay in the public school. And increasingly people have friends that commit abortions and you know this is going to be a tough fight. Well, no. As it turns out, it was exact. It was the other way around. Last year it was 51% to 44, I think pro-choice over pro-life. In the last year, you know, maybe what we’re seeing is that imperceptible moment by moment, but by long-term gradual understanding of Jesus turning the hearts of people.

I don’t know what’s happening. We were walking around Coquille last night and there’s like two or three little churches that have popped up here and there and a Christian bookstore and a Christian cafe and we don’t know what’s happening. But what we do know is that in spite of what the external evidences are, we know what these apostles knew that he’s leading us into victory. That all opposition to his session will be defeated.

That’s the very purpose of the ascension is for him to defeat man, usurp man who claims total power and authority for himself and removes freedom from people. Where Jesus leads us is in understanding every Lord’s day of our ascension and our victory.

Athanasius wrote this. He said, “The term in question highly exalted, Jesus is highly exalted, does not signify that the essence of the word was exalted, for he was ever and is equal to God, but the exaltation is of the manhood of Jesus Christ.” Chrysostom said of the exaltation We who appeared unworthy of earth have been led up today into the heavens. We who were not worthy of the preeminence below have ascended to the kingdom above. We have scaled the heavens. We have attained the royal throne.

That nature on whose account the Caledonian the cherubim rather guarded paradise today sits above the cherubim. Mankind, in other words, once guarded and kept out by the cherubim, now sits above the cherubim. That’s where God has brought us. He has brought us to victory.

He delivers us back into Jerusalem that we may conquer Jerusalem to the preaching of the word as confident, optimistic people. On the feast of the ascension, Chrysostom said, I think this was Chrysostom, I’m not sure, every Christian festival condemns the devil. But this one, this one ascension particularly so.

Where Jesus leads us is into victory. That victory is assured by the historical fact of the ascension. That ascension is to the right hand of God the Father, a place of all power, might and authority and of dominion rule by the Lord Jesus. And that session will continue until every enemy of his and his churches are defeated and freedom and liberty reign across this world from one pole to the next, from sea to shining sea. That’s what history is. That’s where Jesus has led us is to observe his ascension, see in it our ascension and our victory as well.

The only proper response is great joy, praising God with song and worship. And that’s what Ascension Day services are all about.

Let’s pray.

Lord God, we do bless your holy name. We thank you with great joy for the truths of the reality of your eternal word. Bless us, Father, with confidence and optimism, don’t let us become those that doubt and are fearful. Help us to be moved as the apostles were, particularly on this day, the day of resurrection and a consideration of the ascension to be moved from doubt to great joy through confidence and knowing that the Lord Jesus has ascended to your right hand.

Bless us, Lord God, in union with him that we may be successful in defeating your enemies. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.