5. A Human Being Sits on the Throne of God

Essentials

Christ's Exaltation: Ascension

by Benjamin Dean

Having said all this about Jesus’ absolute Divine sovereignty, it’s critical to register where the New Testament actually places its emphasis when speaking of the ascension.

That emphasis falls on this: ‘it is Jesus, the man, Jesus of Nazareth who has ascended and sits now at the right hand of the Father as Ruler over God’s world, and as our human, empathetic High Priest constantly intercedes for us.’¹

‘In Christ, it is true that a human being sits on the throne of God in his full humanity.’

Three Things That Follow

Each of three consequences deserves to be drawn out and held before us in turn — the exaltation of our humanity into God, the establishment of Christ’s church in history, and the hidden government of Christ behind the events of the world:

‘For us, the churches who are the body of Christ, the ascension is decisive. First, the ascension means the exaltation of mankind into the life of God and onto the throne of God. In Christ, it is true that a human being sits on the throne of God in his full humanity. He is our complete Mediator. Second, the ascension means the establishment of a church in history, within space and time on the historical foundation of the apostles and prophets. Acts 1 [Jesus’ ascension] is needed for Acts 2 [the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the commencement of the church] to take place. Although in a manner absent … Jesus really remains present with us by the Word and Spirit. Third, the ascension of Jesus Christ and his session at the right hand of God the Father is behind world history. Even in the terrible events of world history the Kingdom of Christ is operative through all nations and peoples and all ages.’²

That second point contains a small phrase worth noticing: Acts 1 is needed for Acts 2. No ascension, no Pentecost. No Pentecost, no church.

Four Dutch Professors, Again

Four leading seventeenth-century theologians in Holland offer both a summary of key aspects of the Bible’s teaching on the ascension, and corrections to misunderstandings still with us today.

10. Christ’s resurrection is followed by his ascension into heaven. For after his resurrection our Savior spent forty days continuously with his disciples. He explained to them more fully the things that pertain to setting up his spiritual Kingdom (Acts 1:3), and instructed them with renewed authority to extend it among all peoples throughout the whole world (Mark 16:15). And then, when leaving the world behind at last, as his disciples were looking on and angels were bearing witness, he conveyed his human nature into the heavenly sanctuary.

11. In this ascension of Christ three things should receive special consideration for a good understanding of this article: (1) the place to which he ascended; (2) the form or manner in which he ascended; (3) the goals or fruits of his ascension.

Where He Went

12. By consensus of all the Gospel-writers, the place to which Christ ascended is heaven. By this we do not mean the air or visible skies, for Heb 4:14 states that he traveled through them. Nor do we mean only a glorious and celestial state, which the Ubiquitarians³ have dreamt up, contrary to the unanimous consent of all antiquity. But he went to the actual and glorious dwelling-place of the blessed spirits, which Scripture locates above and beyond all the visible heavens. It is to this place that Enoch and Elijah went on ahead by the power of the ascension of the coming Christ (Heb 11:5; 2 Kgs 2:21), and the place where our own bodies will be received after they will be united again with their souls by the power of that same ascension of Christ (John 14:2; Phil 3:21).

13. Besides the literal, genuine meaning of the gospel-history, the names whereby the Scriptures designate this heaven into which Christ ascended demonstrate this. John 6:58 calls it ‘the heaven from which Christ came down,’ and ‘the place where Christ was before’ (i.e., before it came into the world, John 6:62). John 14:2 calls it ‘the Father’s house, where Christ went in order to prepare a place for us.’ Eph 4:10 says that ‘he ascended higher than all the heavens.’ The ending of Phil 3[:20] calls it ‘heaven, where our citizenship is.’ Heb 11:16 calls it ‘a supercelestial fatherland,’ and 12:22, ‘the heavenly Jerusalem.’ 2 Cor 12:14 calls it ‘Paradise,’ and verse 2, ‘the third heaven,’ whereunto Paul was caught up and where he beheld and heard Christ. All these and similar passages in the Scriptures are usually understood to concern no other heaven than that eternal seat and dwelling-place of the blessed.

Notice what’s being ruled out in paragraph 12. Not the sky — he passed through that. And not merely a ‘state’ or condition, however glorious. An actual place.

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1
Doyle, Evangelical Doctrine of the Church, 265. Doyle points to the use of the unadorned name ‘Jesus,’ the personal first name of the incarnate Son of God, regards to the ascension event in Luke 24:2, 15, 19, 36-53, and Acts 1:1-2, 10-11. On the sympathetic intercession of the ascended Jesus, see Heb 2:9-18; 3:1; 4:14-16; 7:22-25. ↩︎
2
Doyle, Evangelical Doctrine of the Church, 281. Refer also to Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time, and Resurrection, 141-58. See also Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection, 137-139. ↩︎
3
The Ubiquitarians, a 16th-century Lutheran theological party associated especially with John Brenz, held that Christ’s human nature partakes of Divine omnipresence, and so is present everywhere — including, crucially, in the Eucharist. See Synopsis of Purer Theology, 28:30; Boer and Faber eds., 324-25. ↩︎