Chapter 5 – Jesus the Prophet
When Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?”, they gave the reply: “John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets” (Mark 8:28). Certainly many people looked upon Jesus as a prophet; such an estimate is true, but it is not the whole truth. The woman of Samaria, with whom Jesus conversed at the well, first addressed him as a prophet (John 4:19) but later came to see that he was more than a prophet – He was the Messiah (vv. 25ff.).
Since the sacred writings of the Hebrew prophets were read in the synagogues, the Jewish people were familiar with the idea of prophecy, both true and false. The prophet of the Old Testament, whether Elijah or Elisha, Isaiah or Malachi, declared the word of the Lord to the people of God and sometimes to surrounding nations. Each true prophet knew himself to be called and sent by God to the people in order to be the human means through which the Lord spoke his words of judgment and grace, cursing and blessing, hope and salvation. This word was given in a variety of forms, including parable and story, often with a symbolic action to make the spoken word more effective. The true prophet was usually unpopular with the corrupt leaders and martyrdom was often his lot. John the Baptist, who heralded the dawn of the age of salvation, certainly died as a martyr for God’s name and word. John pointed to Jesus as the One in whom the age of salvation would be declared, created, and given. So Jesus was a prophet but more than a prophet. He was and is certainly the Prophet in that he utters the first and last, as well as the final and complete, word of the Lord. And he is even more than the Prophet, for he is also the King and the Priest, the incarnate Son of God.
Prophet in Palestine1
At his baptism by John in the Jordan, Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit to begin his messianic work, part of which was his role as Prophet and Teacher of God’s revelation to the world. The four Gospels contain records of this teaching, which is primarily about the kingdom (kingly reign) of God the Father. Led and guided by the Spirit, illuminated and taught by the Spirit, and thus speaking and acting as God’s servant, Jesus proclaimed the good news of the arrival of the age of salvation. With parable and story he highlighted and explained the different aspects of the new age (Matthew 13; Mark 4; Luke 15). With simple illustration, hyperbole, and metaphor he declared what kind of life disciples of the kingdom were to live (Matthew 5–7). He uttered words of judgment on this world and its sin (Mark 13; Matthew 24–25), words of condemnation upon hypocrisy (Matthew 23), and words of blessing (Luke 8:26ff.). On some occasions he provided dramatic illustrations of the word he declared – for example, the cursing of the fig tree (Mark 11:15–19). Or, when he raised the son of the widow of Nain from the dead, the crowd exclaimed, “A great prophet has risen up from among us” and “God has visited his people” (Luke 7:16). So it is not surprising, as they walked to Emmaus and talked to the stranger about the events in Jerusalem, that the two disciples should tell about, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him” (Luke 24:19–20). Here the prophetic ministry of Jesus is seen not only in words but also in deeds. By this they probably meant his ministry of healing, exorcism, and working of miracles.
The friends and enemies of Jesus certainly regarded him as a prophet. But did he actually call himself a prophet or understand himself to be prophet? There are two specific occasions when he called himself a prophet. First, when his countrymen sought to reduce his role and importance in God’s service, Jesus responded: “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house” (Mark 6:4). Here he clearly presented himself in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets who were rejected by their own people. Second, in response to the message that Herod wanted to have him murdered, Jesus said to some Pharisees: “I must journey today, tomorrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33). Here he accepts a view current in ancient Judaism that, as a prophet, he must face death in the holy city. So the answer is that Jesus did present himself as a prophet. It may be added that not only did he directly claim to be a prophet, but also that, by the way he understood his role (in so far as it involved rejection, persecution, and martyrdom), he was in the tradition of the great prophets of Israel.
Jesus as Man is certainly the Prophet declaring in word and deed the will of God, the good news of the kingdom, and the arrival of the age of salvation. But Jesus is also, as the prologue to John’s gospel declares, the Word (eternal Logos) made flesh. In a real sense, to meet and encounter Jesus is to encounter the living God. People were astonished when Jesus declared that the sins of the paralytic man were forgiven (Mark 2:5); many thought he was speaking blasphemy since only God can forgive sins. The disciples were also astonished when he calmed the stormy sea and performed the other nature miracles. But had they been able to understand fully much of the teaching of Jesus that is recorded in the gospel of John, they would have realized that, while Jesus declared the words of God, he also was and is the living Word of God. How often he said, “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me,” pointing to what the Church later saw as the sharing of one deity by Father and Son. In fact, it was only later when the Holy Spirit came to dwell in them that the disciples were able to appreciate the real meaning of the teaching of Jesus. At the end of his profound teaching given at the Last Supper and recorded in John 14–16, Jesus said: “These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the Father” (16:25). The “time” when they would understand came with the exaltation of Jesus and his sending of the Holy Spirit to illuminate and guide their hearts and minds. Thus the prophetic ministry of Jesus did not cease at his crucifixion but continues from heaven as he speaks his word in and through the Holy Spirit. In fact from the time when the Spirit came to the disciples at the Feast of Pentecost (see book of Acts), the prophetic ministry of the exalted Jesus has increased and continues to increase as the Church grows in numbers and maturity.
Exalted Prophet in heaven for the world2
In the final discourse of Jesus recorded by John and given to the disciples in the upper room, the Master provided insight into the way in which his prophetic teaching ministry would continue from heaven after his glorification (via cross and exaltation). He spoke of the coming of the Holy Spirit as the Paraklētos (helper, comforter, advocate) from the Father in his (that is, Christ’s) name. The following sections in John contain this teaching:
John 14:16–18.
And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows him; but you know Him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
John 14:25–26.
These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
John 15:26–27.
But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
John 16:7–15.
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.
In the light of this profound teaching by Jesus, it is possible to make the following seven statements concerning the prophetic ministry of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit to the believing community of disciples. In looking at Jesus' instruction it is important to remember that the actual descent of the Spirit as Paraklētos, and his continuing presence and work within the believing community, are entirely dependent upon the presence in heaven of the exalted Messiah. It is this achievement and glorification that enables the Father to send his Spirit as Christ's Paraklētos into the world.
1. The coming of the Holy Spirit is dependent upon the going away of Jesus. The withdrawal of the limited physical presence of Jesus had to occur before his universal presence in and through the Spirit could begin. “It is to your advantage that I go away,” said Jesus (16:7). The Spirit could only be given when Jesus had been glorified, seated as the victorious incarnate Word at the Father’s right hand. Therefore this gift of the spirit to the apostles and believers is not the general presence (immanence) of God as Spirit in and through his creation. It is the particular presence of the Spirit as coming from the Father through the incarnate (exalted) Son and thus coming as the bringer and giver of the graces and gifts of the incarnate Son.
2. The Father sends the Holy Spirit at the request of the exalted Son and in the name of the incarnate Son. Because of the perfect love between the Father and Son, the Father will do whatever the Son asks of him, and so he sends the Spirit to the disciples. But the Spirit does not proceed directly from the Father to the believing community. He proceeds through the Son who is Savior and mediator, so that he comes to the disciples bearing the saving name, virtue, and characteristics of the incarnate and glorified Son. “I will pray the Father,” said Jesus, “and He will give you another Helper ... whom the Father will send in My name” (14:16, 26). As Christ came in the name of the Father so the Spirit comes in the name of Christ, the incarnate Son.
3. The Holy Spirit comes in the name of the Son to abide with the disciples forever. As the Spirit of Christ, he comes to the believing community in order to be with (meta), by (para), and in (en) them (14:9, 16; 15:27). He comes to make their hearts his home so that Christ dwells in their hearts by faith. His presence is not irregular but constant and permanent, since Christ is permanently guaranteeing and ensuring the Spirit’s presence.
4. The Holy Spirit comes to the disciples to testify of the exalted Christ. The Holy Spirit comes in order to cause people to think of Jesus and to come to see his true identity and mission as Creator and Redeemer within the purposes of God. Therefore, he is often called the Spirit of Christ in the Epistles of the New Testament. Furthermore, because the Spirit testifies of the exalted Jesus, the disciples can also bear witness to the same Jesus. “He will testify of me,” said Jesus, “and you will also bear witness...” (15:26–27).
5. The Holy Spirit comes as the Spirit of truth to guide the disciples into all truth. The exalted Jesus is Truth and so faithful descriptions of him are also truth. But it is only in personal, spiritual communion with the exalted Jesus, in and through the Spirit, that Truth as saving, healing personal reality can be experienced and known. The Spirit comes not to declare any new truth for there is no further truth possible after the glorification of Jesus. “When the Spirit of truth has come,” said Jesus, “He will guide you into all truth” (16:13). As the disciples grow into Christ in spiritual communion they will see more of the Truth, and thus be able to proclaim the exalted Jesus and the life found in him.
6. The Holy Spirit discloses to the disciples what Christ has received of the Father and thus what Christ offers to them now as Savior and mediator. “He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak,” said Jesus. And he continued, “He will tell you things to come” (meaning the character of the world and age to come when God’s kingdom is consummated). “He will glorify me for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you” (16:13–14). The Father has revealed himself to Jesus the incarnate Son and, having received this wonderful revelation as Man, he, through the Spirit, shares it with his believing community, of which he is Savior and Lord. The Spirit is continually taking from the exalted Jesus spiritual treasure and conveying it to the Church on earth. Since Jesus is in perfect communion with the Father, his treasure of living truth and grace is constantly and perfectly renewed.
7. The Holy Spirit, whom the world cannot naturally receive, nevertheless comes to the world to convince people of their need of Christ. When the Holy Spirit has come, Jesus told his disciples, “He will convict the world of sin, because they do not believe in me; of righteousness because I go to my Father and you see me no more; of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged” (16:8–11). The disciples were sent out with authority to preach the good news, but people in darkness needed light, and people with hard hearts needed receptive minds. The ministry of the Spirit in the world is to prepare the way for the reception of the gospel. He is to show that the rejection of Jesus is the primary sin, that Jesus has been vindicated by God, and that Satan and evil were judged at the cross.
The teaching of Jesus concerning the Paraclete, and his relation as exalted Prophet and Messiah, is summarized in these seven points. It has implications for our knowledge of God’s self-revelation through Jesus Christ by the Spirit, as well as for our understanding of the position of apostles and prophets in the writing of the New Testament. We shall examine these and other points below.
The exalted Jesus recognized as Prophet by the primitive Church
Noticing that the lame man, normally found by the gate “Beautiful” in the Temple, had been wonderfully healed, a crowd formed and marvelled at the event. The apostle Peter addressed them to tell of Jesus, crucified and risen, by whose power this lame man was now able to walk. He explained that the death and resurrection of Jesus had been prophesied by the prophets of Israel. If they rightly understood their Scriptures, they would realize that Jesus of Nazareth was that great Prophet of whom Moses had spoken. So citing Deut. 18:15, 18, 19 and Lev. 23:29 to function as both an invitation and a warning from the Lord, Peter announced, “For Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. And it shall come to pass that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people’” (Acts 3:22–23). Here Jesus is presented as alive, resurrected, and ascended. He is the last and greatest of the prophets, greater even than Moses.
This was not the first time Jesus had been presented or recognized as the Prophet of whom Moses had spoken. After the feeding of the great multitude by Jesus, using only the five barley loaves and two small fish, some men had exclaimed, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world” (John 6:14). Furthermore, some time after the healing of the lame man in the Temple, it was the turn of the martyr Stephen to address the Jewish leaders. He too made the point that the Jesus, whom they had crucified and whom God had raised from the dead, had been throughout his ministry and was now in his exalted life that same Prophet of the eschaton (end-time), of whom Moses had spoken (Acts 7:37).
The primitive Church also believed that Jesus, as Prophet of God and proclaimer of God’s Word to the world and Church, shared his gift and function of prophecy with the apostles, with those actually called prophets, and with Christians who possessed the spiritual gift of prophecy. We need to look briefly at each of these three areas.
1. The apostles were recipients of God’s revelation through their special relation to Jesus Christ. In the letter to the Ephesians we read: “Now, therefore, you [Christian Gentiles] are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles who are also prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone” (2:19–20, author’s translation). Changing “apostles and prophets” to “apostles who are also prophets” is a better translation for it is in harmony with the rest of the New Testament teaching that the Church is built upon the apostolic foundation. The same translation is needed at Eph. 3:5. In this passage the word “apostles” signifies the mission of those sent by the exalted Master and the word “prophet” points to the nature and character of that mission proclaiming, declaring, and teaching the word of the Lord as the truth to be received and obeyed. The apostles are both the authoritative witnesses and representatives of Jesus and the authentic messengers and agents of the message they receive from the exalted Lord Jesus, Prophet of God.
The identification of the ministry of Jesus as Prophet with that of his apostles is presented in the last words of Mark’s gospel. Even if these words are part of a second century addition, they witness to a first century understanding. “So, then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they [the apostles] went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs” (16:19–20). Professor T. F. Torrance makes this useful comment:
Here we have a statement about the relation between the Church’s proclamation of Christ and the activity of Christ himself in that proclamation, where, through their common objective and dynamic content, the proclamation of the Gospel in the name of Christ and Christ’s own proclamation are one and the same. That is the New Testament concept of the kerygma, in which proclamation is objectively and, dynamically controlled by the Reality proclaimed. Primarily, it is Christ’s own kerygma, his self-proclamation, which through the Spirit he allows to be echoed and heard through the preaching of the Church, so that their kerygma about Jesus Christ is made one with his own kerygma.3
2. The apostles were prophets. Yet there were prophets who were not apostles (1 Cor. 12:28–29). A useful definition of a Christian prophet is: “One who functions within the Church, occasionally or regularly, as a divinely called and divinely inspired speaker, who receives intelligible and authoritative revelations or messages which he is impelled to deliver publicly, in oral or written form, to Christian individuals and/or to the Christian community.”4 As Jesus chose apostles so he also promised he would send prophets. Speaking to scribes and Pharisees just before his trial and death, he said: “I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city” (Matt. 23:34).
In the Acts of the Apostles we meet several Christian prophets, the first of whom became a martyr. Stephen was not only described as “full of the Holy Spirit” (6:3, 5) but his speech to the Jewish leaders has a prophetic ring about it (Acts 7:1–53). And he received a glorious vision of the exalted Jesus in heaven just before he died as a martyr.
Philip also is presented as a prophet filled with the Spirit and guided by the Spirit. He began the evangelization of Samaria with great signs accompanying the preaching (Acts 8:4–8). In a style reminiscent of Elijah or Elisha, he went out into the desert to encounter the eunuch of Ethiopia in order to declare the good news to him (8:26–40). When the eunuch had received the message and been baptized, “the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip so that the eunuch saw him no more.” Third, there is Barnabas, another prophet filled with the Spirit (11:24; 13:1). He became the traveling companion and colleague of Paul, and he had an important part in the production of the circular letter produced by the synod in Jerusalem (Acts 15). Finally, there is the man who could predict future events, Agabus (11:28; 21:10–14). He told the church in Antioch to expect a great famine, and he told Paul that he would be arrested in Jerusalem and die for the name of the Lord Jesus. Here we have an example of the exalted Prophet, Jesus Christ, sharing his knowledge of the future with his servant, the prophet Agabus.
For a further example of a Christian prophet and his prophecy we turn to the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. The writer, John, certainly functioned as a prophet in the way he received messages from the Lord Jesus and in the way he communicated them to the Christian congregations. John was “in the Spirit” (1:10; 4:2) and “carried away in the Spirit” (17:3; 21:10). The same Spirit inspired what he was able to see and utter. In fact throughout Revelation, the Holy Spirit (Spirit of Christ) is understood to operate as the representative or the alter ego (the other “I”) of the exalted Jesus (compare the presentation of the Spirit as Paraclētos above). Thus the prophet John is the fully authorized witness to Jesus, who is in heaven; and through the prophet’s words which are provided by the Spirit, the Lord Jesus himself (the exalted Prophet) speaks to his churches on earth.
3. Prophets are different from those who have the gift of prophecy. This distinction may be arbitrary, but it is helpful for our purposes. Quoting the words of the prophet Joel, Peter proclaimed that the Holy Spirit was being poured out from heaven. As a result “menservants” and “maidservants” would prophesy (Acts 2:18). This general gift, in turn, is a reminder of the exclamation and prayer made by Moses, “Oh, that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put His Spirit upon them.” (Num. 11:29). Thus it would appear that, as a result of the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit given to all who repent and believe, each believer has the potential of exercising the gift of prophecy. And certainly many church members appear to have exercised this gift, as a reading of 1 Corinthians 12–14 reveals. It is perhaps possible to distinguish those who exercise the gift of prophecy among many churches – call them prophets – from those who function within one congregation and sometimes give a word of prophecy. Examples of the former would be Agabus and John who was on Patmos.
But what was the content of the prophecy given by individual Christians within congregational fellowships? We cannot be sure; but it would appear to have included messages of comfort and chastisement, of hope and judgment, of the need to repent and trust in the living God, and of the great privilege and task given to the Christian community in a hostile world. Also from time to time, there would probably have been warnings and even predictions of the future, as well as specific guidance on matters of concern for the congregation and individuals within the body.
We are not, however, to think of Christ, the Prophet in heaven, as giving additional revelation in the sense of completely new insight into the character and will of God. This gift applies, reinforces, and revives that Word which already had been revealed and which the apostles had taught and were teaching. Through the spiritual gift of prophecy (as well as through other spiritual gifts – see 1 Cor. 12:10) we are to think of Jesus, the Prophet, keeping alive within the fellowship the sense of God’s word as living, dynamic, and efficacious.
The Protestant understanding of Jesus as Prophet
John Calvin made the point that Jesus was anointed by the Spirit to be the Prophet “not only for himself that he might carry out the office of teaching but for his whole body that the power of the Spirit might be present in the continuing preaching of the Gospel.” With the teaching of Jesus came perfect doctrine and the end to all prophecies.
...all those, then, who, not content with the gospel, patch it with something extraneous to it, detract from Christ’s authority. ... outside Christ there is nothing worth knowing, and all who by faith perceive what he is like have grasped the whole immensity of heavenly benefits .... the prophetic dignity in Christ leads us to know that in the sum of doctrine, as he has given it to us, all parts of perfect wisdom are contained.5
Following in Calvin’s theological footsteps, the divines who composed the Westminster Larger Catechism wrote: “Christ executes the office of a prophet, in his revealing to the church, in all ages, by his Spirit and word, in divers ways of administration, the whole will of God, in all things concerning their edification and salvation.6 There is the outward preaching of the word, the kerygma and the didache, and there is the inner illumination of the Spirit. Preaching is normally done by those who are given gifts by Christ and are appointed as ministers within the Church, but there is a duty laid upon all Christians to preach (in an informal way) by what they are and say. In the same catechism, in answer to the question – How is the word made effectual to salvation? – we read:
The Spirit of God makes the reading, but especially the preaching of the word, an effectual means of enlightening, convincing, and humbling sinners; of driving them out of themselves, and drawing them unto Christ; of conforming them to his image, and subduing them to his will; of strengthening them against temptations and corruptions; of building them up in grace and establishing their hearts in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation.7
Since they interpreted the prophetic office of Jesus in the light of Christological dogma – one Person in two natures – many Protestant theologians have seen the work of the Son, as eternal Logos (John 1:1), behind the prophetic ministry of the prophets of Israel. As eternal Word he gave them the living word to declare in ancient Palestine; as eternal Word made flesh he spoke in Palestine himself both as Man and Logos; and as the incarnate Word in heaven he speaks to his people now through faithful ministers. J. H. Alsted (1588–1638) put it like this:
The first mode of Christ’s prophetic office which he used under both covenants is direct; and while in the Old Testament he taught the patriarchs and prophets by visions, oracles and dreams according to the divine nature, in the New Testament he taught his disciples fully and perfectly according to both natures. For this reason he is called in Scripture the logos, the legate of Jehovah – the angel of the covenant – the supreme prophet. The second mode is indirect, by which he taught the Church through his servants; formerly of course through the patriarchs and prophets (of Israel) then through the apostles, evangelists and all faithful teachers of the Word.8
Alsted established the origin of the church with Abraham; but the Christology he adopts, while based on the dogma of Chalcedon, does not sufficiently allow for the work of the Holy Spirit in and upon prophets, either in the old or new covenants.
From a seventeenth century theologian of Germany to a modem theologian from Scotland who follows in Calvin’s footsteps we hear testimony to the prophetic ministry of Jesus. Professor James Torrance (brother of T. F. Torrance) puts it like this:9
When we think of the prophetic ministry of Jesus, we think of Jesus as the Word made flesh. We think of him as God Himself in our midst, for God was in Christ revealing Himself to the world; and yet at the same time we think of Him as Man, as Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in deed and word. We think on the one hand, of the testimony of Hebrews that ‘God who ...spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son’; and we think, on the other hand, of the testimony of Peter and Stephen in the book of Acts, who quote of Jesus the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15, ‘The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto Him ye shall hearken.’ When Jesus says to the paralytic in Mark 2:5, ‘thy sins be forgiven thee’, He does not merely speak about God’s forgiveness of sins, but He Himself as the Son of Man forgives sins, and men are astonished at His doctrine for He speaks as one having authority (exousia) and not as the scribes. Were it not that God was in Christ (anhypostasia), His words would indeed have been blasphemy, and yet it was the very voice of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man (enhypostasia) with power on earth to forgive sins, that spoke. Here again we must think of the twin concepts of anhypostasia and enhypostasia in relation to the prophetic ministry of Christ. The hypostatic union of God and man in Christ means that Jesus is at once God’s Word to man, and at the same time, the Man of faith, ‘the Amen, the faithful and true witness’ to His Father, the Servant of the Lord who witnesses a good confession before Pontius Pilate.10
This account needs supplementing with the teaching that, as incarnate Son and Messiah, Jesus was anointed by the Spirit; and his humanity was filled with the Holy Spirit so that he was led and he spoke by the power of the Spirit.
Revelation, the exalted Christ, and the Scriptures11
Having looked at Protestant explanations of the prophetic office of the exalted Jesus, the incarnate Word, we now proceed to explore the theological and practical relevance of the fact that Jesus, in his states of humiliation and exaltation, was and is, as Man, the receiver of God’s revelation. Orthodox Christians readily acknowledge Jesus Christ as the full and final revelation of God and as the ultimate and final Word of God, granting these as basic truths of the Christian faith. However it is not so widely stated or recognized that Jesus himself, in his human nature and human mode of consciousness, actually received, spiritually understood, and appropriated God’s revelation as his own. This topic is worth exploring. To grasp it means a greater appreciation not only of the prophetic office of Christ but also of a major aspect of his role on our behalf in heaven.
1. Receiving revelation as God’s servant on earth. As a young man Jesus was a committed student of the Hebrew Bible. By regular, prayerful meditation upon the contents, as he lived in communion with the Father, he came to understand what it records. He entered fully into the moral and spiritual meaning that God intended in the revelation recorded in Torah, Prophets, and Writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. He made his own, in heart and mind, this self-disclosure by God. And because he perfectly appropriated the deep meaning God intended, he was able to bring out in his own life, teaching, and ministry that fuller or complete meaning God wished to make known in the messianic age.
As a true Israelite and member of the chosen people of God, Jesus implicitly recognized that the basis of God’s revelation is the interpersonal relationship which God has with human beings and they with him. In Old Testament terms this may be called “knowing God.” God “knows” Israel in that he chooses this people and treats them as his children, bestowing his blessings upon them. In response, Israel is to “know” God as they encounter, worship, trust, and obey him.
However, the nation Israel failed to “know” God. And where Israel failed, Jesus succeeded. As the Messiah (representative and substitute) of Israel, Jesus obeyed and trusted the Lord. He recapitulated the experience of Israel; but instead of failing through disobedience, faithlessness, and compromise, he humbly succeeded. This theme is presented in the narrative of the temptations of Jesus in Matthew 4. In his confrontation with Satan in the wilderness, Jesus triumphed over the same temptations to which Israel had fallen in the desert of Sinai. Thus Jesus is the true Israel, in the sense that he embodies the virtues which Israel should have exhibited. He is the true Israel in that he received the revelation which God gave to Israel in the way God wanted it to be received and acted upon in terms of worship, trust, and obedience. He “knows” God.
We are to think of Jesus’ reception of God’s revelation in a twofold way. First, there is the loving communion between Jesus, the Messiah, and his heavenly Father; in this holy exchange revelation occurred. For descriptions of this revelation through communion we turn to the gospel of John (for example, 3:31ff.; 5:19ff.; 6:25ff., etc.). Then, secondly, there is the perfect communion of his own divine and human natures; in this intercommunion there is revelation from the divine to the human nature.
Of course we are dealing with a mystery of the faith. However, we can penetrate the mystery a little by thinking of the work of the Holy Spirit within Jesus. Not only was he conceived by the Spirit, but he was led by the Spirit throughout his ministry. As far as his human nature was capable of being filled, it was continually filled with the presence and power of the Spirit. So we are to think of the humanity of Jesus as sensitive to divine revelation by the indwelling Spirit. This same Spirit, sharing the one Godhead with the eternal Son, was and is also one with the divine nature of Jesus, the Messiah, making possible the perfect intercommunion of divine and human natures within the one Person of Jesus.
As Jesus performed the work of Messiah from his baptism by John until his ascension into heaven, his human mode of consciousness (which we are to think of as distinct from his divine mode of consciousness) was receiving that revelation of God which he himself as one Person (with two natures) was providing for the Jews and the world. Before he could teach and act in God’s name, he had to receive, accept, and make his own what he communicated to others by word and deed. The meaning had to be in his human mind and consciousness before he gave it verbal and practical expression in concrete situations. In order to be the Prophet of the Lord in Galilee and Judea, he had first to receive and assimilate what God was disclosing to him.
Day by day, week by week, Jesus, considered as Man, gained a deeper knowledge of God as he perfectly appropriated the growing revelation of God. The high point of his reception of the divine self-disclosure came between Good Friday and Easter Day. He offered himself unreservedly to the Father in loving obedience and submission as the suffering servant. In the spiritual and moral anguish of the cross, the long “wait” of Holy Saturday, followed by the glorious resurrection from the dead on Easter Day, his human mode of consciousness experienced the fullness of God’s self-disclosure to human beings. He knew the holy love of God, both in wrath against sin and in love for sinners. He knew the glorious power of God that lifted him from the power of death. The fullness of God’s self-revelation and the great act of our redemption occurred simultaneously. God redeemed the world in Jesus Christ and revealed himself to Jesus (and to us through Jesus) as holy love. As Man, Jesus made this revelation his own. In resurrection and ascension his human nature was glorified and transformed; but it remained our humanity. Thus it is in this mode of human consciousness that the exalted Jesus has received, and continues to receive, the fullness of the divine revelation. As Prophet he entered heaven with our human nature and with a great treasure of spiritual knowledge and understanding to impart to God’s church.
2. Receiving revelation as exalted Man in heaven. Within the human mode of consciousness of the exalted Jesus in heaven, revelation continues to occur in fullness. The high point reached in the great drama of death, descent into hades, resurrection, and ascension is everlastingly maintained. More than this, it is strengthened; for, not only is there the continuing interpersonal communion within the one Jesus of his divine and human natures, but the same Jesus, as second Adam, is at the right hand of the Father in glory, in perfect union with him.
The present revelatory activity of the exalted Lord Jesus is suggested by such passages in John’s gospel as, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life,” and, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.” Though spoken on earth, they also certainly apply to his present position, seated at the right hand of the Father as our exalted King, Priest, and Prophet. He is the sole mediator between God and humanity. This does not mean that he is a go-between, eagerly running between two parties to reconcile them. Rather, as the One who is simultaneously and permanently God and Man, he is able to reveal God to human beings and then to bring those same human beings to God and to keep them with God. The ministry of the Word is not separable from the ministry of reconciliation. Unless Jesus Christ is now revealing God to us through the Spirit, there is no living knowledge of God available on earth; and thus there is no eternal life, for to know God is to have eternal life (John 17:3).
In the last chapter we noted that Jesus Christ, our exalted Priest, blesses the people of God. The blessing uttered by the high priest under the old covenant included: “the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” As the Priest after the order of Melchizedek, Christ continually blesses the people of God and is the source of all blessing to them (Gal. 3:8–29). Through him the face of God shines upon us so that we can sanctify the Lord in our hearts (1 Pet. 3:15). Contained in this blessing from heaven is the self-disclosure of God in and through Jesus Christ, leading to the gift of divine grace and peace for each individual who believes. The full or supreme blessing, in which are contained all blessings, is the gift of the Spirit from the exalted Lord. As we have seen, the Paraclete, called the Spirit of Christ, comes in his name and bears his virtues and characteristics. Using the traditional language of the Church we may say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son; that is, the Spirit comes to us through the One who has two natures, divine and human, and so he comes to us through that human nature which has experienced not only the depth of human life but also the heights of divine revelation. He comes not only as the Spirit bringing the benediction of the Priest, but also he comes bringing the word of the Prophet.
3. Exalted Prophet in heaven and receptive apostles on earth. We are to think of the Spirit not only as giving the apostles eternal life and guiding them in their missionary activity but also as bringing to them and sharing with them the mind of Christ, exalted Prophet. The revelation, which had been and was continuing to be received and appropriated in the mind of Christ, was shared with the apostles. This process began with the “resurrection appearances” when Jesus opened the sacred Scriptures of the Jews to show them truths concerning himself and the Father. It continued after the Day of Pentecost through the Spirit. This sharing in the mind of Christ by the apostles does not mean that each apostle explained and communicated what he received in an identical manner. What we have in the books of the New Testament is the result of that apostolic reception of revelation expressed in different ways to meet the different needs and circumstances of the first churches. Thus scholars talk today about the different but complementary theologies of the New Testament. Like the seven colors of the rainbow they belong together but each is, and remains, a separate entity. The New Testament is the record of what God has spoken in and through Christ the Prophet, via the Spirit, to the apostles, expressed either in the words of the apostles or of their assistants and colleagues.
4. Revelation on earth today. We must now face the question whether the revelation of God today is simply, as some Protestants have been in the habit of saying, the work of the Spirit “bringing to life” or “making alive” the contents of the sacred pages of the deposit of revelation in the Bible (for example, “The Spirit breathes upon the page and brings the truth to sight”). If revelation has been recorded once and for all, should we think that revelation is now accomplished through illumination, by the Spirit of Christ, of the written record of that once-for-all revelation? A problem with this way of stating the matter is that it has no immediate reference to the Lord and Prophet of the Church. How is Jesus still, in a dynamic sense, the light of the world, the prophet of the Lord, and the revealer of God?
Here I make a suggestion for the broadening or deepening of the common Protestant approach to Scripture and revelation. First, we must be clear that God has spoken and that this Word has been recorded in the words of men in the books of the Bible. Yet God continues to speak the same Word to, as well as in and through, Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Revelation happens continuously in the human mode of consciousness of our Savior in heaven. We Christians on earth who are the people of God, the body of Christ, and the household of faith, are united to our exalted Prophet and Savior as the people whom he has redeemed. In and by the Spirit, who proceeds from the Father to us through him, there is a union between the Lord in heaven and his body in heaven and on earth. So we are to think of a “triangular” relation of Jesus, the Holy Spirit (Spirit of Christ) and the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church (in local communities called “churches”). Rather than thinking of the Holy Spirit as shining a light on the sacred page so that individually the people of God (led by their pastors and teachers) can understand it and thereby receive the living word of God (illumination), it is preferable to say something different. The meaning of the sacred text is that meaning which God intended and which Christ has perfectly made his own. When a human reader of the Bible reads and interprets, he forms a hypothesis in his mind as to what the original writer (and God) intended. One reader forms one hypothesis and another forms a different hypothesis – we are all familiar with this phenomenon. Only Jesus Christ as Prophet has fully appropriated the meaning of the revelation of God as recorded in Scripture. Therefore, in spiritual union with his people (that is, through the direct agency of the Holy Spirit) that meaning which is in the human mode of consciousness of our exalted Prophet is shared with his people as they read the Bible or hear it expounded. Thus the illumination is not of the sacred page as such, but is of the mind and heart of the pastor, teacher, or believer; and it is by the Spirit who comes from the Lord Jesus (see Eph. 1:17–18; 3:16–17). He is the same Spirit who inspired and directed the apostles.
This meaning is at a deep, profound, and spiritual level within us, not at a level whereby it can immediately be translated into sentences of explanation and application. Coming from the Father through the Son (that is, through his human nature), via the Holy Spirit, divine revelation illuminates our minds with the contents of the mind of Christ as we read or hear the Bible. As God has disclosed and continues to disclose himself fully to the exalted Jesus, so, through the same Jesus our Prophet, God discloses and reveals himself to the Church and the world today, making full use of the record of his revelation.
Revelation, as received by the humble believer (whatever be his intellectual powers), is at a deep level of spiritual and moral sensitivity. This is the same level wherein the Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. Because it is at this level, and because it then has to be expressed in words drawn from the vocabulary, experience, and context of the Christian who receives it, we should not expect (and do not find) that each Christian gives precisely the same account of his relationship to God and of the meaning for him of the text of the Bible. In the true children of God there is an important relation between what we may call their in-depth personal relationship to God in Christ and their appropriation of God’s revelation. It is not always the case that those who appear to be the most lucid in their accounts of the meaning of the Bible are in fact those who have most participated by the Spirit in the mind of Christ the Prophet of God. Christians, who could never offer a structured explanation of the content of God’s self-revelation, often have nevertheless experienced (and continue to experience) a deep encounter with Christ through the Spirit and have gained great spiritual nourishment from reading the Bible with the mind of Christ.
5. Summary. It will be observed that this way of stating that God reveals himself today to and in Jesus Christ does not allow in any way for any addition of content to that which is recorded in the New Testament. It is not any new revelation that is here being discussed; it is the one revelation of God brought to completion by Christ as the Word made flesh and appropriated by Christ in his human mind and mode of consciousness. Unless Jesus is the living Lord and Prophet who shares his appropriation of revelation with those of whom he is the Head, the representative, and Savior, then the revelation given by God through him as Messiah in ancient Palestine is merely history. It is history which tells us only that “God has spoken.” The fact that God has spoken centuries ago is not of immediate relevance to people today (or yesterday or tomorrow) unless it can be shown, and is true, that the God who has spoken is the God who speaks. Thus today we say that God speaks the same full and complete word of revelation, becoming the word of salvation and sanctification. Because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, He makes the once-for-all complete revelation a reality today in and by the Holy Spirit. In ancient Palestine Jesus functioned in this manner; as God he revealed and as Man he received. In heaven today as our King, Priest, and Prophet, he receives and reveals; and we share that revelation because, through the Spirit and by faith, we are “in” him, united to him through his vicarious humanity.
We may go on to affirm that our life with God in heaven in the age to come, when we have our resurrection bodies, will be life totally dependent upon the Son of God who everlastingly possesses his perfected human nature. The New Jerusalem will have no temple in it “for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it, and the Lamb is its light” (Rev. 21:22–23). We shall ever see and encounter the living God only through the once slain Lamb of God, who both reveals God to us and brings us to God.
Notes
See Bibliography for full citations.
1. See “Prophet” in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (1975), Vol. 3, pp. 74ff., and the literature listed there.
2. Helpful commentaries on John 14–16 are R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, (New York: Doubleday, 1966) 2 vols.; Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (1971); and the older B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Reprint, 1980).
3. T. F. Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection (1976), p. 119.
4. See further David Hill, New Testament Prophecy (1979), pp. 8–9. This is a most helpful book.
5. Calvin, Institutes (1559), Book two, chap. xv., section 2.
6. Westminster Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms (1967), p. 148.
7. Ibid., p. 247.
8. Alsted as cited in Reformed Dogmatics (1950), p. 457.
9. J. B. Torrance, “The Priesthood of Jesus” in Essays in Christology for Karl Barth (1956), p. 164.
10. The terms anhypostasia and enhypostasia possibly need explanation. Hypostasis means “person” as used in the phrase, “One God, three Persons.” Anhypostasia refers to that theory of the Person of Christ which holds that Christ has a real humanity without being a real man. The divine Word united to himself human nature (not a man) in order to recreate manhood. Thus Christ’s manhood is impersonal and God is certainly in Jesus, the Christ. Enhypostasia refers to that theory of the Person of Christ which holds that the divine Logos took to himself humanity and possessed it within himself, thereby making it fully personal. Thus Jesus is certainly the Son of Man.
11. See further G. Moran, Theology of Revelation (1966) and God Still Speaks (1966), the theme of which is: “Revelation has ceased with Christ, but Christ has not ceased.” See also E. L. Mascall, Theology and the Gospel of Christ (1977), pp. 35–36.
Chapter 6 – Lift Up Your Hearts
In the older Holy Communion services the Sursum corda (hearts upwards) is said or sung as the congregation prepares to receive the consecrated bread and wine:1
Minister: Lift up your hearts
People: We lift them up unto the Lord
Minister: Let us give thanks unto our Lord God
People: It is meet and right so to do.
Here the people of God recognize that, to feed spiritually on the once-slain Savior who is alive forevermore, their hearts and minds need to be tuned to the exalted Jesus, who shares their human nature and who comes to them in the Spirit.
The lifting of the heart upwards to heaven is a continuous activity for the Christian and is especially operative in worship. Charles Wesley (1707–1788), the Methodist hymn-writer, sang:2
Rejoice the Lord is King,
Your Lord and King adore,
Mortals, give thanks and sing,
And triumph evermore:
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice.
And the hymn continues to celebrate the fact that the “Saviour reigns,” “his kingdom cannot fail,” and “he sits at God’s right hand.” It closes:
Rejoice in glorious hope;
Jesus the judge shall come,
And take his servants up
To their eternal home.
We soon shall hear the archangel’s voice,
The trump of God shall sound, “Rejoice.”
Hearts lifted upward to heaven rejoice that Jesus is exalted, experience the presence and power of his Spirit, and take delight that they are among his people who await his return.
The incomparable Christ
In our study of the exalted Jesus, we based our exposition on three major models – King, Priest, and Prophet. And we subsumed under these models other biblical metaphors – for example, “Head” and “Lord” under “King.” Furthermore, it has been emphasized that the exalted Jesus is always and simultaneously King, Priest, and Prophet. To do justice to the New Testament it is now necessary to say that in all expositions and explanations of the identity and mission, Person and Work, of Jesus, we have to be selective in order to communicate meaningfully.
We recognize that Jesus bursts the bounds of these titles and models, for he is always greater than the best descriptions. Isaac Watts (1674–1748), the Congregationalist hymn-writer, knew this when he wrote:
Join all the glorious names
Of wisdom, love and power,
That ever mortals knew,
That angels ever bore;
All are too mean to speak His worth,
Too mean to set my Saviour forth.
Then he proceeded to celebrate his Savior as “Great Prophet of My God,” “Jesus my great High Priest;” and “Divine, Almighty Lord, My conqueror and King.” He closed:
Now let my soul arise,
And tread the tempter down;
My Captain leads me forth
To conquest and a crown:
A feeble saint shall win the day,
Though death and hell obstruct the way.
John Newton (1725–1807), the evangelical Anglican hymn-writer, wrote these verses in his well-known hymn, “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds”:
Jesus, my Shepherd, Husband, Friend,
My Prophet, Priest and King,
My Lord, my life, my way, my end,
Accept the praise I bring.
Weak is the effort of my heart,
And cold my warmest thought;
But, when I see Thee as Thou art,
I'll praise Thee as I ought.
Till then I would Thy love proclaim
With every fleeting breath;
And may the music of Thy name
Refresh my soul in death.
We are only finite creatures and so must use finite words, but as we use them we know that Jesus is greater than our greatest thoughts.
Surely we have only scratched the surface of Christology and the ascension titles for Jesus. In his book, Jesus as They Saw Him (1962), William Barclay lists forty-two titles of Jesus found in the New Testament. Most of these describe Jesus both in his state of humiliation and in his state of exaltation. The whole list includes Jesus; Man; God; Son of David; Son of God; Son of Man; Messiah; The Servant of God; The Good Shepherd; The Divine Physician; Savior; Prophet; King; The Stone; The Bridegroom; The Bread of Life; The Light of the World; The Door; The Vine; The Way, The Truth and the Life; The Resurrection and the Life; The Judge; The Lamb; The Scapegoat; Apaugasma and Charakter (Heb. 1:3); Apostle; Forerunner; Surety; Mediator; Archegos (Acts 3:15); High Priest; Beloved, Only, Chosen; The Just One; He That Should Come; The Amen; Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End; The Head; The Image of God; The Christ of Creation, the Firstborn of all Creation, the Beginning of God’s Creation; The Bright Morning Star; Lord; and The Word. Many of these deserve separate study, but since Jesus is the same “yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8), what he was and became, he remains. He is the incomparable One, and to encounter him is to experience inexhaustible wonder. Thus again, in the words of John Newton we should sing:
Let us love and sing and wonder;
Let us praise the Saviour’s name!
He has hushed the law’s loud thunder,
He has quenched Mount Sinai’s flame:
He has washed us with His blood,
He has brought us nigh to God.
Looking up and looking forward
One way to describe God’s Church on earth is to say that it is a community which looks in four directions simultaneously, and it acts on the basis of what is seen. The Church looks back to the people of God of the Old and New Testaments, receiving from them the sacred Scriptures. Also the Church looks back over the history of the centuries to team from the experience of brothers and sisters in Christ and of the way in which the faith has been believed, taught, and confessed. Today we recognize that, while there are twentieth century Christians, there is no twentieth century Church for the Church has deep roots in history.
The Church looks around to see, not only the needs of its own membership, but also to view the need for the Gospel and for the practical love of God in the world. The Church looks around in order to know when and where to act. It is always conscious that the harvest is ripe and the reapers are few.
Finally, the Church looks up to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and particularly to the exalted Jesus, incarnate Son. And the Church looks forward to the consummation of all things – the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with the new heaven and earth. This book has led us to examine these last two perspectives in greater detail.
1. Looking up. Seeing themselves as the continuation of the people of God of the old covenant, the first Christians happily used images drawn from the cultic center of Judaism, the Temple in Jerusalem, to emphasize the need to look up in worship. Paul rejoiced that “the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all” (Gal. 4:26). When he wrote this, the old Jerusalem existed in Palestine, but it was no longer the city of God in the sense that God dwelt with his people there. He now dwelt with his people in and through the exalted Lord Jesus. So the true and real Jerusalem, the source of all grace and the place of encounter between God and humanity, is in heaven. Only as a community sustained and guided from heaven can the people of God be fed, nurtured, disciplined, and protected. The Church, whose origin and source of life is in heaven, is mother of us all, and we feed at her breasts. Since we belong to the heavenly Jerusalem we are free, for no longer are we slaves of sin but are free people in Christ.
The writer to the Jewish Christians, emphasizing the great privileges of the people of the new covenant, wrote: “you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant...” (Heb. 12:22–24). As Jerusalem was meant to be the place in which God was worshiped, so the Church is the sphere and people from whom pure worship should arise to God. There is the Church triumphant in heaven and the Church militant on earth looking to heaven. So the church on earth joins in the communion of saints, with angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven, to laud and magnify the name of the Lord.
John’s vision in Revelation 21 places the new Jerusalem in the future, to be revealed at the beginning of the new age: “I ... saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God’” (21:2–3). So it is that the believing community on earth both looks up and looks forward as Christian people who offer spiritual worship to God in and through Jesus Christ.
The image of the Temple was used by Paul in his letter to Corinth and his letter to Ephesus. To the Corinthian church he simply said, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16). He developed this thought in the letter to Ephesus by presenting a picture of the Temple with Christ as the cornerstone, the apostles and prophets as foundation stones, and all believers as “living” stones of the building. The building grows in size as new stones are added and are thereby united to the cornerstone. Thus he said, “You also are being built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit” (2:22). At one and the same time the earthly Temple was the place where God dwelt (and where he set his holy name) and the place where the covenant people offered their worship to him. The worship was ceaseless, with sacrifices morning and evening. So the Church as Temple is the people in whom God dwells through Christ and the people who exist to offer holy worship and spiritual sacrifices to God.
Peter also used the image of the holy building when he wrote: “you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5). The community of Christians is both living stones and a priesthood. Peter went on to write that it is even more: “you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light...” (v. 9). As those who look up in worship, Christians are to reflect in their lives, in word and deed, what causes them to praise the Lord in the name of Jesus Christ.
Sacrifices were regularly offered in the Temple and, recalling this, Paul wrote: “I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1). Here Christian living and service is presented in terms of sacrifice. It is holy and acceptable to God as sacrifice, not because of what it is in itself, but because those who present it are people in whom the Spirit dwells. Thus the people of God, the Church, are an offering and a sacrifice made to God through Christ in the Holy Spirit.
Apart from the offering of sacrifices in the Temple, there was also an altar of incense, and each morning incense was burned there (Exod. 30:1–10; Luke 1:8–10). With this picture in his mind Paul wrote, “we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death to death and to the other the aroma of life to life” (2 Cor. 2:15–16). Those who preach the Gospel, being filled with the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ, are themselves as a pleasing aroma of incense to the Lord. However, what is a beautiful smell to those who are in Christ is a horrible smell to those who reject Christ. This is not a simple image, but it highlights a continuous privilege and function of the Church: to be filled continuously with the knowledge of Christ and so to worship and serve God continuously.
These five images of city, temple, priesthood, sacrifice, and aroma clearly present us with an understanding of the people of God as those who are to look up to God, the Father, and to the exalted Lord Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Corporate worship lies at the heart of the genuine service which the Church offers to God. And, as we saw in Chapter 4, we worship in, through, and with Christ for he possesses a vicarious humanity.
2. Looking forward. The first Christians, led by the apostles, believed that many of the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible had been perfectly fulfilled by the birth, life, ministry, passion, death, resurrection, ascension, and session of Jesus – as well as in the descent of the Holy Spirit. However, they also believed that the climax of history was not yet reached for the Lord Jesus was to return to earth from heaven in order to judge the world and raise the dead. Through victory over Satan, death and sin had been conquered at Calvary; but the final subjugation of these enemies of God would occur at the end of this present age at the Parousia. Therefore Christians are those who have much reason to look forward.
Paul told Titus that Christians are those who are “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ...” (Titus 2:13). Writing to Philippi he affirmed that “our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who 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” (Phil. 3:20–21). Peter also firmly held that “according to [God’s] promise we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13). Faith “is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).
Bearing this in mind, it is not surprising that the Christian community is portrayed in the New Testament as a pilgrim people, aliens and strangers (1 Pet. 2:11–12) who long for a better country, a heavenly one (Heb. 11:13, 16). The little churches to whom Peter wrote were “pilgrims of the Dispersion” living in lands that were not their true home, for where Christ is, there was their home (1 Pet. 1:1–4). Thus the Church looks forward to the Second Coming, and to the new order of reality which will then be brought into existence.
Finally, because the Church looks up and looks forward (remembering its roots in history), Christians have a mission to the world in Christ’s name and for his sake. In the light of what the Church sees as it looks up and looks forward, it has a motive and a task to go forth into the world to witness to its reigning and coming Lord.
Epilogue
As the process of secularization continues, and as the successes of modern science and technology condition us to be merely this-worldly in our thinking, we need to follow the advice which Paul gave to the church in Colossae:
If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. (3:1–5)
Only as we place ourselves in the position (through regular corporate worship and daily prayer or meditation) where true spirituality can grow and flourish within us, shall we begin, with the help of the Spirit, to set our minds on Christ who is above. In Christ, let us not forget that we have risen to new life, we have ascended into heaven, and we do sit at God’s right hand (Eph. 1:20). Therefore, “whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Col. 3:17).
The last word in this book belongs to the exalted Lord Jesus. Before leaving his disciples for the route to glorification via death and resurrection he said:
Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father’s house are many mansions (dwellings); if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also (John 14:1–3).
Here we have the promises of (a) life with Christ in the Father’s house (heaven), and (b) the Parousia of Christ at the end of the age. These promises are only viable because the Ascension and Exaltation have occurred.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus! (Rev. 22:21)
Notes
1. See for example, The Service of Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer (1662) of the Church of England.
2. This and other verses from hymns are all taken from the Anglican Hymn Book (1965).
Appendix 1: Cosmology and Theology
Most of us know enough about modern cosmology (even if our knowledge is only gained by watching TV pictures of space exploration) to realize that the ancient understanding of the physical universe is false. This was a naive cosmology of geocentricity in which the earth is seen in the center of things as a flat disc over which there is the arch of the heavenly sphere and beneath which is the underworld of the departed.
Is the biblical teaching on the Resurrection, Exaltation, and Ascension dependent upon this old picture; that is, if this old picture is rejected must the truth and teaching of the Resurrection, Ascension, and Exaltation be rejected? Has the baby gone out with the bath water? Are we completely out of date to use images of “descent” and “ascent” and of “at the right hand of God”?
Certainly we have had those in the Church (for example, Rudolph Bultmann) who have told us (and many have carefully listened) to abandon the “myths” of the Bible because they belong to an outdated cosmology and to engage in the task of demythologization in order to free the gospel for the modem world. However, what is left after this kind of process is very little of hope or comfort for modern, scientific, technological, and “come-of-age” people! The demythologized Jesus has little to offer (see further E. L. Mascall, Theology and the Gospel of Christ, 1977).
We must recognize that theories about the physical universe change as human knowledge increases. Thus we have seen theories associated with such names as Ptolemy, Copernicus, Newton, and Einstein; and no doubt more theories will arise as knowledge increases. Furthermore, we must distinguish between cosmology as a scientific statement concerning the cosmos and theology as a rational but religious statement concerning the nature of the cosmos and its relation to God as creator and sustainer. For the scientist as scientist, the universe is the only reality to be taken into account in cosmology. For the theologian and thinking Christian, the primary reality is the invisible God, who is Spirit; and the universe is seen in his light and in relation to him. Now it is true that some scientists move out of their scientific area and make statements which reflect their beliefs about the meaning and purpose of life. When they do this they are conflating what the Germans call a “world picture” (Weltbild) with a speculative “world view” (Weltanschauung). The scientist provides a theory or “world picture” of the cosmos as he or she understands it. The religious person provides a “world view” or theology of the universe which may exist together with a “world picture” or cosmology but is not dependent on the latter.
The fact and meaning of the Resurrection, Ascension, Exaltation, and Session are theological statements which belong to the “world view” rather than to the “world picture”. However, because they who make theological or religious statements and interpretations about the universe belong to a specific place and culture, it is natural for them to express themselves in the available language and with reference to the commonly-held “world picture.” However, doing this does not mean that they necessarily are saying that the “world picture” is entirely correct and unreformable. The writers of the Bible give the impression that, while they made use of the current “world picture,” they were aware that the reality of that which they wrote was a reality that was greater than, and was not essentially conditioned by, the cosmos as they thought it to be. They give the impression also of using finite words and this-worldly illustrations to describe the transcendent world of spiritual reality, with the recognition that such words, images, and illustrations can never wholly convey that which is essentially beyond words. Thus we get statements like this in prayer: “Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You, [O Lord]” (1 Kings 8:27).
In the account of the Ascension in Acts 1 it is clear to the careful reader that the reality of the Ascension is not dependent upon any cosmology or “world view” even though Jesus is presented as going up – in which other direction could he go? “A cloud received him out of their sight.” This is not an ordinary cloud but it is the Shekinah, the radiance, glory, and presence of God coming to his people, as happened in ancient Israel. “Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Ex. 40:34–35). So Jesus enters into the transcendent, metaphysical sphere of reality, where God is wholly experienced and encountered.
We have to distinguish the “world picture” (be it in pure scientific form or in a popular form via a text-book or article in Reader’s Digest) from the “world view” (be it that of the Christian theologian or the non-Christian philosopher). We also have to recognize how words are used in the Bible, which we understand to be the record of God’s revelation to mankind.
When you or I speak to a person, we adapt our speech to what we believe are the capacities of that person to understand. We operate on a principle of accommodation, accommodating our presentation to the capacity of the hearer. Through the centuries, Christian teachers have insisted that God, in his revealing of himself, his will, and his purpose, has also accommodated himself to our capacities. He has spoken to us in ways that we can understand and so he has necessarily had to speak through the prevailing “world picture” that was in existence when he spoke. As receivers of that revelation in the “common sense mode,” believers have realized that they were speaking in human and finite words of the One who is infinite and eternal. In order to convey the relation of the transcendent world of God’s spiritual presence and glory to the created world in space and time, images of “above” and “below,” ascending and descending, have been used. They do not, however, totally belong to the “world picture” of a three-decker universe. They always were and certainly remain attempts to convey the difference and distinction between the primary Reality – God who is Spirit – and the dependent reality – the cosmos. We use them without believing in a three-decker universe.
Appendix 2: Greek Verbs Used for
Ascension and Exaltation
First those in the active voice:
anabainō (go up): John 3:13; 6:62; 20:17; Acts 2:34; Eph. 4:8–10.
aperchomai (go away): John 16:7.
eiserchomai (go into): Hebrews 6:20; 9:12, 24.
dierchomai (go through): Hebrews 4:14.
dihistēmi (go away): Luke 24:51.
poreuomai (go): John 14:2, 12, 28; 16:7, 28; 1 Pet. 3:22.
hupagō (go away): John 7:33; 8:14, 21; 13:13; 14:4; 16:5, 10, 17.
hupolambanō (take up): Acts 1:9.
Then, secondly, those in the passive voice:
anapheromai (be taken up): Luke 24:51.
epairomai (be taken up): Acts 1:9.
analambanomai (be taken up): Mark 15:19; Acts 1:2, 11, 22; 1 Tim. 3:16.
hērpasthēn (be seized): Rev. 12:5.
Thirdly, we must add those verbs which describe the Exaltation to the right hand of the Father:
hupsoō (raise high): Acts 2:33; 5:31; John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32, 34.
huperhupsoō (raise more highly): Phil. 2:9.
kathizō (transitive; to cause to sit): Eph. 1:20; Acts 2:30. (intransitive; to sit down): Hebrews 1:3; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2.
Appendix 3: Is Resurrection Also Exaltation?
Dr. Murray J. Harris distinguishes three levels of meaning in the concept of resurrection in the New Testament (Raised Immortal, pp. 271–72). First, in the most elementary sense, resurrection denotes resuscitation, the regaining of physical life – for example, as by Lazarus in John 11. Second, there is resuscitation accompanied by instant changing of the physical body into an immortal, spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:35ff.); and third, there is the complete concept including resuscitation, being given an immortal body along with exaltation into heaven (Rom. 6:9).
Jesus, it may be said, experienced all three aspects of resurrection on Easter morning. Believers who are alive at his Second Coming will experience only the last two of the three aspects when they are marvelously changed, while those who have died before the Second Coming will appear with Jesus, having experienced all three aspects of resurrection. Dr. Harris comments: “In its full theological import, resurrection signifies the raising of persons from the dead to new and permanent life in the presence of God. Such a definition applies to the resurrection of Christ and to the spiritual and somatic resurrection of believers” (p. 272). It is his view that following the Resurrection/Exaltation, Jesus appeared from heaven during forty days and then, in what is known as the Ascension, closed his appearances as he visibly demonstrated that his primary sphere of existence was in heaven.
Dr. George E. Ladd takes a position like that of Dr. Harris with respect to the resurrection of Jesus. In I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus he argues that “the resurrection of Jesus was his exaltation” (p. 127), seeing this as the logical implication of new Testament statements. For example, in the following texts exaltation follows resurrection with no reference to an intermediate period of time.
Acts 2:32–33. “This Jesus has God raised up.... Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God....”
Acts 5:30–31. “The God of our Fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God hath exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior....”
Phil. 2:5–11. In this hymn Paul portrays the descent of the Son of God and then moves straight from “the death on the Cross” to “therefore God also has highly exalted him.” Resurrection, as such, is not mentioned.
Col. 3:1–2. “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.”
Heb. 1:3. “when He had by Himself purged our sins, [He] sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.”
Therefore we conclude, while it is possible and correct to speak of resurrection, ascension, exaltation, and session, it is also right to speak of resurrection and exaltation or session, and exaltation and session. However, this said, it must also be noted that in systematic theology the words resurrection, exaltation, ascension, and session are usually more specifically defined than in the New Testament. So “resurrection” often refers only to being raised from death in an immortal body and then the word “ascension” is needed to cover the movement of that body from earth to heaven. Karl Barth wrote: “The resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ are two distinct but inseparable moments in one and the same event. The resurrection is to be understood as the terminus a quo, its beginning, and the ascension as its terminus ad quem, its end” (cited by T. F. Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection, 1976, p. 123).
Appendix 4: When Did Jesus Ascend into Heaven?
In chapter one it was argued that on Easter morning Jesus was raised from the dead and taken up into heaven in one great act of exaltation. Then from heaven he visited his disciples over a period of forty days until, at his last appearance, he gave a visible demonstration of what already was the case – that he had ascended into heaven. Thus what we call the Ascension is in fact that last of the appearances of Jesus to his disciples before the sending of the Spirit; and it is also a symbolic, visible presentation of the earlier, secret Ascension on Easter morning.
Here another way of presenting the time of the Ascension is explained. It is that Jesus was raised from the dead on Easter morning, that he ascended into heaven on Easter evening in the darkness, and that he later visited his disciples from heaven for an unspecified period of time. The major exponent of this position in recent times has been Dr. J. G. Davies of Birmingham University, England, in his important book He Ascended into Heaven (which is a fine study of the patristic theology of the Ascension). The view he expounds was apparently held by some of the early Church Fathers. Dr. Davies proceeds on the assumption that the general order of events recorded in Luke 24 – resurrection, appearance of Jesus, and ascension – all happened on Easter Day. He believes that Luke 24 is not in conflict with Acts1:1-11 if the “forty days” of the latter are not taken literally. Furthermore, since Luke records that the Transfiguration of Jesus occurred in darkness (9:32; note that the disciples were falling asleep on the mountainside), and since Luke presents the Transfiguration and Ascension in a related fashion (the former being a partial anticipation of the latter), then it is not unexpected that the Ascension occurred at night (for it would have to be around midnight for all the events of Luke 24 to have taken place).
I adopted this position in Jesus Christ Is Lord (1979), but it now seems to be faulty in that (a) it does not deal adequately with the nature of Christ’s resurrection-glorified body and how this could remain earthbound for a day until Easter night; (b) it too easily assumes that Luke 24 is the account of the events of one long day; and (c) it too ingeniously reduces the “forty days” of Acts 1 to an unspecified period of time. Thus the view set forth in the text, and also explained by Murray J. Harris in his important study, Raised Immortal (1983), appears to me to be the most satisfactory position.
Appendix 5: Church Teaching
Having looked at the New Testament foundations, as well as the Old Testament prefigurement of the teaching on the Ascension, Exaltation, and Session, we here turn to a brief overview of the teaching within the Church over the centuries since the apostolic period. As the Patristic and Reformation eras were important for the development of doctrine and the production of creeds or confessions of faith, our emphasis will be on these. However, we shall also notice the medieval teaching of Thomas Aquinas and certain modem contributions.
Patristic teaching1
When the books of the New Testament were being collected by the churches (to be read alongside the Old Testament in worship and to preserve the gospel in written form), creeds were also beginning to emerge. The two best known ones are the Apostles’ Creed (based on the baptismal creed of the church in Rome of the second century) and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (produced by the ecumenical councils of 325 and 381). Both are used in church services today. The third of the traditional creeds of the Western Church is the Quicunque Vult, or the Athanasian Creed, which dates from the fifth century. This is little used in worship today even though it contains excellent summaries of classic Trinitarian and Christological dogma.
The Apostles’ Creed contains this statement: Christ “ascended to heaven [and] sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty” (ascendit ad coelos, sedet ad dextram dei patris omnipotentis). According to the Nicene Creed, Christ “ascended to heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father” (anelthonta eis tous ouranous, kai kathezomenon en dexia tou patros). Finally, in the Athanasian Creed we read that Christ “ascended into heaven: he sits on the right hand of the Father” (ascendit in coelos: sedet ad dexteram (dei) patris). In each of these creeds the Resurrection precedes and the Second Coming follows the Ascension and Session of Christ. Note that just as a distinction is made between the Resurrection and the Ascension so also is a distinction made between the Ascension and the Session. The Ascension has happened; it is an historical event. The Session is what Jesus is doing now and will continue to do until his Second Coming. He sits at rest and in glory.
During the period of Arianism (the doctrine that Jesus Christ was not God-made-man but the highest of heavenly creatures made man), it was argued that Jesus’ seated position at the Father’s right hand was proof that he was inferior to God and merely the greatest of creatures given the highest honor. In response both Eastern and Western theologians of the fourth century were obliged to offer explanations of “sitting at the right hand” which did not admit a basic inferiority of the Son to the Father in terms of his essential nature. Leading Eastern theologians argued that the Son had always occupied the throne at the right hand of the Father; he had not taken his seat there in time but had sat there throughout eternity. Thus they used the present participle (kathezomenon) or the perfect participle kathēmenon (both suggesting continuous occupation) rather than the active aorist participle kathisanta, used by the Arians (which suggests the Son’s entrance upon the exalted state). The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed used kathezomenon, and no doubt this was interpreted by the Eastern bishops present as pointing to the eternal deity of the Son.
In contrast, the interpretation of the Session by Western theologians of the fourth century and afterwards emphasized the humanity rather than the deity of the incarnate Son. As God, Jesus Christ had no need to ascend into heaven and sit at the Father’s right hand; but, as representative Man, he needed to be exalted to the highest position of honor. Thus the Session is the culmination of the Incarnation. As Man, and not only as God, the incarnate Son sits as co-Regent. There is no doubt that this explanation is more in line with the teaching of the New Testament than the Eastern one, which may be explained as an overreaction to the powerful heresy of Arianism. Happily it is possible to accept the Western interpretation and still use the Nicene Creed, for kathezomenon need not necessarily imply that the Session refers to the eternal deity of the Son and his eternal existence as of one Being (substance) with the Father.
After the Arian heresy, the Church not only affirmed that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son and one in Being with the Father but also went on to state that he is one Person with two natures. He is perfect God and perfect Man in one Person. This teaching was set forth with clarity by the Council of Chalcedon (451). So teaching on the Ascension was henceforth given not only through the use of biblical images and categories but also through these dogmatic concepts. Biblical categories tend to be dynamic and functional, whereas those of classical Christological dogma are static and ontological. There is, of course, need for both types of Christology. They may be seen as complementary, yet they are not easily married.
Fortunately there is a sizeable collection of sermons on the Ascension beginning in the latter part of the fourth century. This is due to the adoption of the ecclesiastical year which included the annual Ascension-Day, naturally causing preachers to deliver sermons on the topic.2 Preachers in the East were fond of the image of Christ as the firstfruits (1 Cor. 15:20, 23). Early in the fifth century one congregation heard this at the Eucharist on Ascension-Day.
For today our firstfruits ascended up to heaven, and taking up the flesh from us took possession of His Father’s throne, in order that He might work reconciliation for His servants, destroy the old enmity and bestow freely upon men of earth the peace of the powers above. For today He makes available to us a feast in honour of victory over the devil; He makes available the prizes, the crowns and the glory ... Stand amazed therefore, beloved, at the ingenuity of thy Master, and glorify Him who gives such things freely to thee; for the distinction of the gift surpassed the magnitude of the loss. See, we who were excluded from paradise have even been taken up into heaven itself; we who have been condemned to death have even been given immortality; we who were quarrelsome and despicable have even been counted worthy to be called sons, and not sons only but heirs, and not heirs only but also coheirs with Christ.3
Confident that the eternal Son had taken to himself our human nature in his Incarnation, the Greek (Eastern) preachers used the image of firstfruits to convey the idea that Christ ascended as our representative because he has a vicarious humanity. Thus they celebrated the festival recalling that Christ had placed our human nature in the heavenlies, at the right hand of the Father.
If the image of firstfruits was dominant in the East, then in the West it was the image of the Head and members which was most popular (Col. 1:18; 2:10, 19). Augustine of Hippo often emphasized that “the going before of the Head is the hope of the members.” Preaching on Ascension-Day he said:
For today, brethren, our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven. Let our hearts ascend with Him. Let us hear the apostle’s words: ‘If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth.’ For when He ascended, He did not depart from us; so we ourselves are now with Him there, although that which is promised us has not yet been accomplished in our bodies. He has now been exalted above the heavens. But the perfect and angelic habitation in the heavenlies is not to be despaired of by us on that account, because He said: ‘No man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven, even the Son of Man, which is in heaven. But this is said on account of that unity by which He is our Head and we are His body. When He ascended into heaven, we were not separated from Him. He who descended from heaven does not grudge us heaven, but proclaims: ‘Be my members, if you wish to ascend into heaven. By this therefore we are strengthened; by this we are enflamed in all our prayers.4
A few years later Bishop Maximus of Turin explained the Ascension in this way:
The mystery of the Lord’s Ascension, dear brethren, has ordained today’s festival. Let us rejoice that the Only-begotten of God came to earth for the redemption of all and let us be glad that He entered heaven for our immortality. For this is the truth of our saving faith that we believe in His Passion and do not deny His glory. Nor indeed is the essence of the miracle such that He who came from heaven returned to heaven, but that He brought to the Father the manhood which he had assumed from the earth .... The earth rejoices when it sees its Redeemer reigning in the heavens; heaven is glad because it has not lost its God which it had, and has received the manhood which it had not.5
Therefore the Christian hope is surely based on the assumption into heaven by the eternal Son of that human nature which he shares with all human beings. What he acquired he has taken into the very center of heaven and into the very life of God.
Not only was belief in the Ascension expressed in creed and sermon, it was also expressed in liturgy. In the ancient canticle, Te Deum Laudamus, these lines are found:
You Christ are the King of glory:
the eternal Son of the Father.
When you became man to set us free:
you did not abhor the Virgin's womb.
You overcame the sting of death:
and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
You are seated at God’s right hand in glory:
we believe that you will come and be our judge.
Come then Lord and help your servants:
bought with the price of your own blood;
and bring us with your saints,
to glory everlasting.
In similar vein the canticle, Gloria in Excelsis, has these lines:
Lord Jesus Christ only Son of the Father:
Lord God Lamb of God,
you take away the sin of the world:
have mercy upon us;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father:
receive our prayer.
Furthermore, in the central prayer of the Eucharist in both East and West the Ascension was celebrated as one part of the mighty work of God through Jesus Christ in bringing salvation to the world.6
Before leaving the Patristic period, it is worth pointing out that the theologians made a distinction between the eternal Son ascending into heaven by right because of his eternal deity, and the incarnate, eternal Son assumed into heaven in light of his human nature as the Second Adam. So they could speak of both the Ascension and Assumption leading to the Session. (See further Appendix 6, “What Ascension meant and means to Jesus himself”)
Medieval teaching
Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274) explained the doctrine of the Ascension in his Summa Theologiae in terms of what Christ accomplished for us:
First of all, by his ascension he prepared a way for us to heaven .... Since Christ is our Head, we as members of his body follow him to the place where he went before us. Proof of this is to be found in the saints whose souls he freed from hell. These he led to heaven .... These souls in the captivity of the devil he brought with him to heaven, to a place foreign to their human natures. They were a fine prize and he truly seized them by his triumph.7
Here we have the Western (Latin) emphasis upon the image of the Head and the members, the doctrine of the descent of Jesus into hell (Hades) on Holy Saturday (based on 1 Pet. 3:18–22), and the triumphant entry into heaven by Christ, leading with him those who had been confined to what was called the limbus patrum. The doctrine of limbo, which was widely held in the medieval Church, described the position of saints from the old covenant who had believed the word of the Lord but who had not yet encountered the Messiah. They were kept by God in limbo, a state of joy and peace but not the full joy and peace of heaven, until Holy Saturday when Christ preached the gospel of the kingdom to them and then on Easter morning led them in triumph into heaven (Ps. 68:18; Eph. 4:8).8
Aquinas went on to speak of Christ as Priest:
Secondly, just as the high priest in the Old Testament entered the sanctuary into God’s presence to represent the people, Christ entered heaven to intercede for us. The presence of his human nature in heaven is itself an intercession for us; for God, who exalted the human nature in Christ, will also show mercy towards those for whose sake this nature was assumed. Thirdly, enthroned in heaven as God and Lord, Christ from above showers upon men his divine gifts.
Then he asked what Christ achieved by sitting at the right hand of the Father:
Because Christ is our Head we share in what has been conferred upon him. Thus, since Christ has already been raised from the dead, St. Paul tells us that God has, in a certain sense, made us also rise with him.... and, continuing in the same vein, he adds, ‘He has given us a place with him in heaven’, for Christ our Head is seated there. ‘The right hand’ implies divine happiness, but to sit at the right hand of the Father means more than a simple possession of happiness. Happiness with power of dominion, as it were natural and proper, in the one possessing them, is meant. To Christ and to no other creature does this apply. We can say, however, that every saint is ‘made to sit at the right hand of God’. So also we read that ‘he will place the sheep at his right hand’. By the word ‘throne’ we mean the judiciary power which Christ receives from his Father. This is the origin of the expression, ‘to sit on the throne of the Father’. This privilege is shared by Christ with his saints. Thus, they are made to sit on Christ’s throne.9
Here, by means of the image of Christ as Head and the people of God as his members, the sharing of this people in what Christ has achieved is clearly taught.
One of the special prayers used in the medieval Church on Ascension-Day is that found in The Gelasian Sacramentary. It reads:
Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty Father, that in the intention of our mind we may ever tend thither, where the glorious Author of today’s festival hath entered in, and that to the place whither we reach forward by faith, we may come by our holy conversation. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.10
Here there is the recognition of the need to “set your mind on things above, where Christ is” and also of the idea that the Christian life is one of holiness in preparation for the holy presence of the Lord in heaven.
Protestant teaching
The major Protestant reformers received without question the patristic teaching concerning Christ as one Person with two natures. They also accepted without question the contents of the sacred Scriptures. Furthermore, the majority of reformers also accepted the ecclesiastical year and thus celebrated Ascension-Day forty days after Easter Day. On that day they used the same psalms and lessons from the Old and New Testaments that had been used in the medieval Church. Because they wanted to emphasize that salvation and justification are by grace through faith and because they rejected the doctrine of purgatory (and with it that of limbo), their emphasis was on what Christ has done and is doing for our salvation.
Here are some extracts from confessions of faith. First, from the Augsburg Confession (1530):
There is one Christ, true God and true man, who was truly born, suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried in order to be a sacrifice not only for original sin but also for all other sins and to propitiate God’s wrath. The same Christ also descended into hell, truly rose from the dead on the third day, ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God, that he may eternally rule and have dominion over all creatures, that through the Holy Spirit he may sanctify, purify, strengthen, and comfort all who believe in him, that he may bestow on them life, and every grace and blessing, and that he may protect and defend them against the devil and against sin. (Article III)11
Second, from the First Helvetic Confession (1536):
From the undefiled Virgin Mary by the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, this Lord Christ, the Son of the living, true God, has assumed flesh which is holy through its unity with the Godhead in all things like unto our flesh yet without sin – since it was to be pure, unblemished sacrifice, and has delivred it unto death for us as a payment, pardoning and washing away all our sins.
And in order that we might have a perfect hope and trust in our immortal life, He has set his flesh, which he had raised from death unto life, at the right hand of his almighty Father.
This Lord Christ, who has overcome and conquered death, sin and the whole power of hell, is our Forerunner, our Leader, and our Head. He is the true High Priest who sits at God’s right hand and always defends and promotes our cause, until He brings us back and restores us to the image in which we were created, and leads us into the fellowship of his divine nature. (Section 11)12
Finally, from the Scots Confession (1560):
We do not doubt but that the selfsame body which was born of the virgin, was crucified, dead, and buried, and which did rise again, did ascend into the heavens, for the accomplishment of all things, where in our name and for our comfort He has received all power in heaven and on earth, where He sits at the right hand of the Father, having received his kingdom, the only Advocate and Mediator for us. Which glory, honour and prerogative, He alone amongst the brethren shall possess till all his enemies are made his footstool, as we undoubtedly believe they shall be in the Last Judgment. (Chapter XI)13
The emphasis in all these statements is on what Christ, the exalted Lord, has done, is doing, and will do to bring the Church to its full enjoyment of the glory of God after the Last Judgment.
Regrettably, while the Lutherans and Reformed taught the bodily resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and while they held firmly to the classic Christology, they engaged in controversy (in what was an age of controversy!) over the implication of the Ascension for the doctrine of the presence of Christ in Holy Communion. The issue arose from the application of the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum (interchange of the properties) between the two natures of the one Christ.14 Does the humanity of the exalted Lord Jesus by the interchange of properties, receive the attribute of universality (which naturally belongs to his divine nature)? And so, is the humanity (body as glorified) of the exalted Lord Jesus not only in heaven with God but also together with every piece of consecrated bread that is eaten in Holy Communion on earth? The Reformed (Calvinists) insisted that the glorified body of Jesus is localized in heaven at the right hand of the Father. The Lutherans claimed that the real, glorified body of Jesus is everywhere since “at the right hand of God” means “everywhere.” Furthermore, the Lutherans took literally, “This is my body,” and so held that the real body of Christ must be given in the sacrament. Thus in the Formula of Concord (1577) they condemned this “erroneous” teaching which they attributed to Calvin: “That the body of Christ is so enclosed in heaven that it can in no way be present at one and the same time in many places, still less in all places, where his Holy Supper is observed” (Epitome, article vii).15
The Calvinists held that Christ is present in and through the Holy Spirit, who comes in his name bearing his characteristics and virtues. This is how the Second Helvetic Confession (1566) put it:
The body of Christ is in heaven at the right hand of the Father; and, therefore, our hearts are to be lifted up on high, and not to be fixed on the bread, neither is the Lord to be worshipped in the bread. Yet the Lord is not absent from his Church when she celebrates the Supper. The sun, which is absent from us in the heavens, is notwithstanding effectually present among us. How much more is the Son of righteousness, Christ, although in his body he is absent from us in heaven, present with us, not corporeally, but spiritually by his vivifying operation. (chapter 21)16
Thus, for the Calvinists Christ is present in and by the Paraclete; for the Lutherans he is really and truly present himself because he is the exalted Lord in his divine and human nature through all creation.
We now move on to what may be called a major development in the presentation of the doctrine of the Ascension. It is the explanation of the role of Christ now in heaven under the threefold office of Prophet, Priest, and King. John Calvin (1509–64), Genevan reformer, began this form of explanation. He wrote: “In order that faith may find a firm basis for salvation in Christ, and thus rest in him, this principle must be laid down: the office enjoined upon Christ by the Father consists of three parts. For he was given to be prophet, king and priest.”17 Four years after the last edition of Calvin’s magnum opus, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, came the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563. Making use of Calvin’s teaching, this answer was provided for the question, “Why is he called Christ, that is the Anointed One?”
Because he is ordained by God the Father and anointed with the Holy Spirit to be our chief Prophet and Teacher, fully revealing to us the secret purpose and will of God concerning our redemption; to be our only High Priest, having redeemed us by the one sacrifice of his body and ever interceding for us with the Father; and to be our eternal King, governing us by his Word and Spirit, and defending and sustaining us in the redemption he has won for us.18
The presentation of Christ through the threefold office became a basic part of Protestant teaching. This is how the Westminster Shorter Catechism of 1647 explained the matter:19
What offices does Christ execute as our Redeemer? Christ, as our Redeemer, executes the offices of a prophet, a priest, and of a king, both in his estate of humiliation and exaltation.
How does Christ execute the office of a Prophet? Christ executes the office of a prophet in revealing to us, by his Word and Spirit the will of God for our salvation.
How does Christ execute the office of a Priest? Christ executes the office of a priest in his once offering up of himself as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God, and in making intercession for us (in heaven).
How does Christ execute the office of a King? Christ executes the office of a king, in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.
Here the threefold office is placed within the structure that moves from the state of humiliation (from birth to death on the cross) to the exaltation (from the Resurrection to the Second Coming). The right order of studying the threefold office would seem to be that of Prophet, Priest, and King for his earthly ministry but of King, Priest, and Prophet for his heavenly ministry. Protestant theologians who have worked with this threefold office have also insisted that it is to be interpreted in the light of the fact that Jesus is one Person with two natures (the hypostatic union).20
Recent developments
Within Roman Catholicism there has been one significant doctrinal development related to the Ascension. This is the dogma of the Assumption of Mary to the glory of heaven. On 1 November 1950, Pope Pius XII defined this dogma in his letter, Munificentissimus Deus. Its central paragraph reads:
Immaculate in her conception, a spotless virgin in her divine motherhood, the noble companion of the divine Redeemer, who won a complete triumph over sin and its consequences, she finally obtained as the crowning glory of her privileges to be preserved from the corruption of the tomb and, like her Son before her, to conquer death and be raised body and soul to the glory of heaven, to shine refulgent as Queen at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of ages?21
This definition of the dogma makes no reference to the disputed question whether Mary actually died before her assumption. If she did die and then was raised from the dead in order to be assumed into heaven, then her assumption is modeled on that of Jesus, her Son. The Second Vatican Council confirmed the doctrine in these words: “Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, when her earthly life was over, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and Conqueror of sin and death.”22 It hardly needs to be added that this teaching is based on Roman Catholic tradition and that no biblical evidence exists for this dogma of the Assumption.
Various factors have reduced interest within Protestantism (and to a lesser extent within Roman Catholicism) in the last century in the Ascension. There has been the revolution in cosmology and the growth in scientific teaching in schools; this has caused doubts about the existence of heaven. There has been the development of sceptical forms of biblical criticism; this has caused serious doubt to arise concerning the bodily resurrection (and therefore also ascension) of Jesus. And there has been the general impact of the process of secularization in western culture; this makes human minds more “this-worldly” in orientation and thus less disposed to think of a transcendent world.
Few books have appeared in English on the Ascension. Serious studies include William Milligan, The Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of our Lord (1891); H. B. Swete, The Ascended Christ: A Study in the Earliest Christian Teaching (1922); Arthur J. Tait, An Introduction to the History of Doctrine The Heavenly Session of Our Lord: a Study in the History of Doctrine (1912); and J. G. Davies, He Ascended into Heaven (1958). More popular books include K. C. Thompson, Received into Glory (1964) and Brian K. Donne, Christ Ascended: The Significance of the Ascension in the New Testament (1983). Of course some books on the Resurrection have a little to say on the Ascension; three of these may be mentioned: Walter Künneth, The Theology of Resurrection (1965); Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection (1976), and Murray J. Harris, Raised Immortal (1983).
However, while little interest has been shown by biblical scholars and dogmatic theologians in presenting the Ascension and Exaltation, the heavenly life and role of Jesus have been fundamental for developments in liturgy, especially new rites for the Eucharist. Belief that Jesus has ascended into heaven and is the Lord of the Church is basic for liturgical worship; so also is the belief that the exalted Lord is the dispenser of the Spirit, whom he sends to his people and by whom he comes to his people as they gather around his table. Furthermore, the belief is necessary that the exalted Jesus possesses a vicarious humanity and that therefore it is “through him and with him and in him by the power of the Holy Spirit, with all who stand before you in earth and heaven, that we worship you, Father almighty, in songs of everlasting praise.23 There is a rich doctrine of the Ascension presupposed in modern liturgies used by Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist congregations. Their fundamental commitment to the belief in bodily resurrection and ascension often stands in sharp contrast to the lack of clear teaching on these matters from some pulpits and in some theological literature within these denominations.
Notes
1. For this section see further J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (New York: David McKay Co., 1964) and Early Christian Doctrine, Fourth edition, (London: Black, 1968); Tait, Heavenly Session, and Davies, He Ascended into Heaven.
2. For details of the origin of the annual celebration of the Ascension in the early Church see Davies, He Ascended into Heaven, pp. 192ff., and B. Bobrinskoy, “Worship and the Ascension of Christ;” Studia Liturgica (1963), pp. 108ff.
3. Cited by Davies, p. 120. It bears the name of the “golden-mouthed” Chrysostom in Patrologia Graeca (1857–66) Vol. 52, columns 793–96.
4. Cited by Davies, p. 136 from Patrologia Latina (1844–55) Vol. 38, columns 1209–12.
5. Cited by Davies, p.143 from Patrologia Latina Vol. 57, columns 625–26.
6. For full details see Joseph Jungmann, S. J., The Place of Christ in Liturgical Prayer (1965).
7. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (Blackfriars edition; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964–81) Vol. 55, p. 97 (3a. 57:6).
8. See further the articles on “Limbo” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. by C. G. Herbermann, et al (New York: Gilmary Society 1910), Vol. 9, pp. 256–58, and The New Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. by W. J. MacDonald, et al (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967–79), Vol. 8, pp. 762–65.
9. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Vol. 55, pp. 111–13 (3a. 58:4).
10. Cited and translated by E. M. Goulburn, The Collect of the Day (1880), Vol. 1, p. 396.
11. From The Book of Concord, trans. and ed. by T. G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1959), pp. 29–30.
12. From Reformed Confession of the Sixteenth Century, ed. by Arthur Cochrane (London: SCM Press, 1966), p. 103.
13. Ibid., p. 170.
14. For more detail of the issue see W. Niesel, Reformed Symbolics (1962), pp. 278–290. See also Tait, Heavenly Session, pp. 184 for details of the controversy over the meaning of “the right hand of God.”
15. The Book of Concord, p. 485.
16. Reformed Confessions, p. 287.
17. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, (2 vols. 1961), Book 2, chap. xv, section 1; found in Vol. 1, p. 494.
18. Reformed Confessions, p. 310.
19. Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms (1967), pp. 292–93.
20. Cf. T. F. Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection (1976), chap. 5.
21. The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church, ed. by J. Neuner, S. J. and J. Dupois, S. J. (Dublin and Cork: Mercier Press, 1973), p. 199.
22. Lumen Gentium, section. 59, found in The Documents of Vatican II, ed. by Walter M. Abbott, S. J. (London: G. Chapman, 1966), p. 90.
23. This is a quotation from the Alternative Service Book (1980) of the Church of England and is found in the service of Holy Communion, Rite A.
Appendix 6: What Ascension Meant
and Means to Christ Himself
When we study the Ascension it is usually to enquire what it means for us and for our salvation. But it is valid to ask what it meant and also what it means for Jesus Christ (since he is the same yesterday, today, and forever). In his The Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of Our Lord (1891), William Milligan answered the question in terms of the reward prepared for Jesus after the accomplishment of his work as Messiah. Jesus, “for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). Milligan explained the reward under three headings.
First, prompted by a theme from the gospel of John (12:23, 28; 13:31, 32; 17:1, 4, 5, 22, 24), Milligan explained that the Ascension meant entering into a position and state of glorification.
When, therefore, our Lord prays, ‘Father, glorify the Son, that the Son also may glorify Thee’ we are not to think chiefly of outward glory. There may be, doubtless will be, such. Outward glory surrounded Jesus and the two Old Testament saints on the Mount of Transfiguration .... Yet, whatever outward glory may surround our Lord, what he speaks of as his reward is mainly inward. It is the glory of Divine Sonship. It is the glory of the most intimate union and communion with that God who is the sum and substance of all being in its holiest and happiest estate. It is the fellowship with God of One who is not only the coequal and coeternal Word, but who is also Man (p. 39).
As eternal Son, but also as incarnate Son and second Adam, the exalted Jesus has intimate union and communion with the Father. This is glory.
Second, the Ascension meant and means for Jesus that he has become the fullness (plerōma) of all divine blessing to his people. The Father placed all things “in subjection under” the feet of the exalted Jesus, “and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” Therefore Jesus Christ in his human as well as in his divine nature has been, is now, and ever will be the center of the natural and also of the new creation.
In him, as in one great fountain-head, are stored up those waters of divine grace that, throughout the ages, are to flow forth in every direction, and to fertilize every department of the life both of men and nature, so that they may produce, instead of bitter fruits, the sweet fruits of righteousness and peace and joy. From him and through him alone are to come all holy thoughts, all heavenly aspirations and all just works, everything that makes life desirable, lends brightness to existence, and fills us with the hope of immortality. ... In him as such dwells the fullness of all perfection, of the very perfection after which, by the law of their existence, man and nature strive (p. 43).
Not only is the exalted Jesus the Head and life-giver of the Church, but he also is the center and upholder of the universe (Eph. 1:3, 10, 22, 23; 4:9–16; Col. 1:15–20; 2:9–10).
Third, Ascension means that he is, and will be, the conqueror and judge of the enemies of God. The ministry, passion, and death of Jesus occurred in the context of his conscious battle with Satan and evil forces. Jesus knew he was the messianic King of God’s kingdom (Matt. 18:23; 22:11; Luke 14:31). The cross was a decisive battle; the Resurrection assures the final victory; but in the interim the war continues.
In this aspect it is particularly set before us in the Apocalypse, where the Captain of Salvation rides forth at the head of his armies, arrayed in a garment sprinkled with blood and with a sharp sword proceeding out of his mouth (Rev. 19:13, 15). In the same aspect also we read (in 1 Cor. 15:24) ... that a time is coming when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power. The kingdom ... is one in which our Lord contends with his foes until he makes them his footstool, and which, therefore, he naturally lays down when there are no more foes to overcome (p. 49).
By the Ascension the final victory is completed.
Jesus was conscious that he was involved in a great work for the Father, a work that involved him in pain before joy, in suffering before glory, and in toil before reward. When we consider the consciousness of the exalted Lord Jesus we must remember that it is a complex consciousness just as it was a complex consciousness when he was physically on earth (unless we accept a strong kenotic Christology). To understand this complex consciousness we need the help of the classic Christology of the early Church. The Definition of the Council of Chalcedon (451) has been paraphrased in this manner by Robert Butterworth:
However you choose to express, in expounding the Christian faith in Christ, your interpretation of Jesus, say nothing of him that indicates or implies that he is any less God than the Father is God: and say nothing of him that indicates or implies that he is any less human than we ourselves are – except that he is not a sinner, as we are. But remember above all that it is in Jesus that we believe God to be revealed – not as if Jesus merely mediates a revelation of God, but because he himself reveals God by being who he is, in his very personhood. So you must say nothing of him that indicates or implies that he is other than God in person, or that he has some kind of dual personhood (The Month, April 1977, p. 116).
Christ is one Person with two natures (human and divine). According to the later Council of Constantinople (681), often called the Sixth Ecumenical Council, to have two natures meant also to have two wills. “We proclaim two natural willings or wills in him and two natural operations; said the bishops. They proceeded to affirm that the two wills worked harmoniously, the human will following the divine will, but never being confused with it. Between the two wills, as between the two natures, there is perfect communion but no fusion or confusion.
To move from the language of “nature” and “will” and to use a modem term, we can state that the Christ also has two modes of consciousness, a human and a divine mode. In the one Christ, exalted in heaven, we are to think of two modes of consciousness. If we think this way (always of course remembering that he is one Person), then we can see how some of the biblical descriptions of the ascended Lord Jesus apply to him in his human nature, will, and consciousness, while, others apply to him in his divine nature, will, and consciousness; and yet others refer to him in the unity of his Person. Putting the matter in a different way, we may say that some material relates to the Son, considered as the eternal Son, and that other material relates to the Son, considered as incarnate Son. Perhaps some would say that we do violence to the text by reading implications into it or by interpreting it with the help of sophisticated distinctions of later theology. This certainly is a danger; but, on the other hand, the right use of orthodox theology can help to make the sacred text meaningful in terms of the questions which have arisen, and still arise, for those whose faith searches for understanding. In terms of the question we are asking, “What did and does the Ascension mean for Jesus himself?” the careful distinctions of classic Christology would appear helpful: they allow us to think of Christ as one Person in his human nature and consciousness, and thereby we recognize what exhaltation meant for him as Man. Therefore it is proper to answer this question, always bearing in mind that those who make the attempt are to do so with reverence and faith.
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