06.03. Ascension Day

Chapter 3

Ascension Day

BECAUSE this great anniversary necessarily falls on another day than the Lord’s Day, it attracts less attention than Easter or Whitsuntide, but it is not less momentous than either. In some senses it is the crown of the year. The mystery of the holy incarnation, the agony and passion, the festal joy of Easter would all lose their significance and power were it not that they led up to the ascension. That scene on Olivet is always an attractive one. The early morning, when as yet the peasants had not begun to pass along the mountain track on their way with market produce to Jerusalem; the sun rising behind the mountains of Moab, and bathing with gold some fleecy clouds, waiting like chariots drawn up to receive their King; the villages of Bethany and Bethphage within sight, and perhaps sending up one or two ardent lovers of Christ, who had been previously invited to join the little group gathering at the appointed rendezvous. Then the gracious Lord, never more tender than then, giving His last instructions, speaking the final commission, and assuring His followers of His unfailing presence. Now His hands are extended over them in blessing; and as His benediction falls on them as dew, He yields Himself to the attraction of His native home, and begins to ascend. But those words of grace still flow from His. lips, and those hands are still outstretched in blessing, until the cloud envelops Him, as though it were the curtain that hung before the portal of the true temple that God pitched, and not man. The ascension could not have been invented. Even supposing (a supposition which cannot be entertained for a moment) that the course of Christ’s history could have been wrought out from the imagination of an idealist, it would not have entered his thought to add the marvels of ascension to those of resurrection. Had he been able to conduct his story through the anguish of Calvary to the wonders of the Easter morning, he would have stayed his hand there. He could not have conceived another climax beyond. He could not have ventured on a farther apotheosis, Or even if he had felt the necessity of depicting a farewell scene between Christ and His disciples, it must have been fashioned on the model of the translation of an Elijah, or the death-sleep of a Moses, within view of the assembled people. No mind could have invented anything so majestic and so un-obstrusive, so sublime and yet so touching, as the ascension. In conception it stands alone for beauty and impressiveness in the entire range of Scripture.

It was the realization of God’s original design for man. "Have thou dominion," God said to Adam. Man was meant to be the vicegerent of the Creator, exercising undisputed sovereignty over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, over the cattle and over the earth. David says he was "made to have dominion; and that all things were put under his feet." But that crown of supremacy was rolled from his head into the dust; he yielded to the temptation of Satan, and became his thrall; and the right of dominion passed from his hand to him who had shown the supremacy of his fallen nature over that human nature which had come fresh from God. Therefore, says the sacred writer sadly, we see "not yet all things put under him."

Nature, indeed, seems in arms against man. Her storms shatter his mightiest buildings, her oceans engulf his Armadas, her frost and heat defy him, her creatures resist his yoke. And beneath her multiform machinery we are conscious of malevolent influences that turn the winds and tides and seasons and other natural forces against us. But when Jesus ascended, in Him, as the ideal Man at least, this was reversed. All things were put under His feet. He was raised to the loftiest pinnacle of power that the universe could offer, not as God but as Man. And thenceforward it was only a question of time when all that was true of Him should be accomplished in the experience and realization of His brethren.

It was the harbinger of the final overthrow of Satan. In one of his grandest paragraphs the Apostle Paul tells how, in the ascension, our Lord was raised far above all rule and authority and power; phrases which, in another well-known passage, he uses of the wicked spirits in the heavenlies. In another place he describes Christ as leading captivity captive, as though the world and Hades, death and Satan, were dragged behind His triumphal chariot like fettered slaves.

It may be, therefore, that beyond that cloud hell made one last stand. There was no controversy about the supremacy of Christ as God; even Satan would not have been so mad as to contest His right to return to His throne. But the battle broke out as to His right to take our human nature with Him. From the Fall the devil-power had been supreme. Man had owned Satan’s mastership, doing his behest. This power he was loath to surrender. And he never would have surrendered it had not Christ wrenched it from his grasp, in the hour of His ascension, which secured his overthrow and established forever that man in Christ is stronger than the devil, and that the doom of Satan’s empire is certain and inevitable.

Let us not be afraid of Satan. We may be but as atoms in the feet of Christ, but even then we are above the devil, for it is written that God has put all things under His feet. Let us not look up at Satan from below, but descend on him from above. He matched his power against Christ and failed, and he will fare similarly in conflict with all those in whom Christ dwells. "Thou shalt tread on the lion and adder: the young lion and dragon thou shalt trample under foot."

It was the entrance of our High Priest into the most holy place. "He passed into the heavens," said the older version. "He passed through the heavens" is the correct rendering of the Revised Version (Hebrews 4:14). As the high priest of old passed from the view of the people, bearing the blood of atonement in his hand, so did Jesus pass from the brazen altar of the cross to become our representative within the veil, a minister of holy things, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. "Christ entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." The high priest entereth into the holy place year by year, with blood not his own; but Christ entered once for all, bearing His own blood, in the marks of Calvary in hands and side, as of a lamb that had been slain. No trembling soul need now fear to draw nigh. Christ has dedicated a new and living way into the holy place. The veil has been rent in twain from the top to the bottom. Sin itself need not make us hesitate, because the blood speaks in the midst of the throne, and we have a great high priest over the house of God.

It was the occasion of receiving great and precious gifts. When He ascended up on high, He not only led captivity captive, but He received gifts for men. In His own wonderful being as Man the Spirit had resided since His birth; but now, as the representative of Man, He obtained from the Father the special power to receive and presently bestow the Holy Spirit and such other gifts as His Church needed to equip her for her struggle with the world.

Each one of us shared in that glorious bestowment. "Unto each of us was the grace given, according to the measure of the gift of Christ." We may not have acclaimed our share. We may not have asked that the portion of goods should be transferred to us. We may not have participated in the gifts of the Pentecostal age. But they are nevertheless ours, waiting for us in the hands of the risen Lord, just as pardon and redemption once waited before we came to the cross in the exercise of faith. The ascended Christ waits to bestow the gifts of His ascention on those who believe. Whatever you lack as evangelist, pastor, or teacher, you will find in Him. But it is the profoundest of all mistakes to attempt to work for Him or for men in the present age without being equipped with special qualifications He waits to impart. The ascension points our thoughts upward along the same track. We look for a Saviour. This same Jesus shall so come in like manner. By the way He went, He will return. The days are fast approaching when that pathway will glow again with glory as He hastens to receive His Bride to Himself; and then from sea and earth His saints will go to meet Him, caught up as He was caught up, blessing the world as they leave it, but above all eager to see Him as He is, and be forever with the Lord. Till then let us live the ascension life!

"Chains of my heart, avaunt, I say!

I will arise, and in the strength of love Pursue my Saviour’s pathway to His home above."