RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION
Luke 24: 27-53; John 20: 10-20
I am sorry, beloved, not to read the entire passages, but I think that what I have read will suffice to bring what we have to say before you.
We have, in the passages I have read, three wonderful facts concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, and I need not say that if they concern Him they ought to concern us, because when you come to Christianity everything is really so inseparably bound up with Himself, and with facts concerning Himself, that I am sure nothing could be more important, more deeply interesting to us, than the consideration of the facts concerning Himself.
I want to speak very simply. The first fact is the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and, pursuing the order of our reading, the second fact is the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ; and then the third fact, in what is recorded in John 20, is the Lord coming into the midst of His disciples as they were thus gathered together, and what is connected with His presence as thus found in the midst. But if we take account of time we should have to say that the third fact precedes the second, because as a matter of fact the Lord Jesus Christ in John 20 had not ascended—He was risen from the dead, but He had not yet ascended. Indeed, I suppose there would be at least a period of forty days between His resurrection and taking His place in the midst of His own, as recorded in John 20, and the fact of His ascension as recorded in the closing verses of Luke 24.
Let me say further—these were three wonderful facts of actuality. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ was an actual fact. I wish to dwell upon it for a moment, because I would that the Spirit of God might so bring these facts before us that they might affect us in all their actuality; and so, with regard to the fact of His ascension it is actual; so, with regard to His corning into the midst of His disciples as it is brought before us in John 20, it was actual. I suppose with regard to time that both the first and third facts occurred on the same day. His taking His place in the midst of His own was on the very day of His resurrection, while the second fact—the fact of His ascension, did not occur until the end of that period mentioned by Luke in the opening of the Acts of the Apostles—the end of the forty days. The actual appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of His own in John 20 is really a pattern (I use the word because it is so freely used amongst us), and it is a pattern, beloved friends, of the assembly; not the assembly as in the light of 1 Corinthians, where the world is in view, and where those who do not believe may come into the midst of the company, but the assembly in a spiritual way, and not only in a spiritual way, but the assembly in regard to real enjoyment of heavenly privileges; and so (if we take the actual fact recorded in John 20 as a pattern, though its application to us would be in a spiritual way, and we should have to take it in that sense out of the realm of what is actual and transfer it to the realm of what is spiritual), it is none the less true. I know there are those who seem to think that if you talk about things that are spiritual you talk about things that are not real, but it is not so at all. It is a fact of spiritual reality in its application to us, and I have not much doubt that so far as regards the moral order of these three scriptures, that we have read them to you in their correct order. We first learn the Lord in connection with resurrection, and then we learn the Lord in connection with ascension, and with all that it involves for us in connection with Christianity, and then I think the climax is reached in learning the Lord in spiritual reality as coming into the midst of His own as assembled.
I wish to speak first of the Lord in resurrection. I am very conscious of great feebleness in attempting, in any way, to speak of such marvellous facts—facts of such tremendous importance. I could not hope in any sense whatever to cover the ground: I could not pretend in the course of a few minutes to speak to you of all that is involved for God and for us in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now it is difficult in a certain sense to speak of these three facts without at least an allusion to what goes before and to what fairly underlies these facts, and to what gives them their wonderful significance and meaning—I mean the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have four accounts of His death: we have Matthew’s account, and Mark’s account, Luke’s account, and John’s account. I cannot take the time, beloved friends, to mark out in any detail the distinctions and differences, but I would rather allude to the broad general fact of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It has often been said that in Matthew and Mark He is the Victim, hence in Matthew and Mark you get that cry from His lips on the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt 27: 46; Mark 15: 34) but in Luke He is not exactly the Victim; that is, it is not exactly in that way that Luke presents Him in connection with His death; He is rather the offering Priest; He offers Himself, as we get it in Hebrews—“Who by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God”, Heb 9: 14. But John’s account must for ever stand alone; it has its own unique character; He delivers up His spirit—that is the wonderful thing when you come to John’s account of His death. That is a marvellous fact. It is not in your power, or mine, or in the power of any one to deliver up one’s spirit, but it was in His power; after He had cried He bowed His head and delivered up His spirit. Not only, beloved, is He presented in John’s gospel as a divine Person in manhood, but even speaking of Him for a moment as a Man—oh, what a Man! Such a Man had never been in this world before. He did not need to wait for His own death, or His own resurrection; He could say at the grave of Lazarus: “I am the resurrection and the life”. Resurrection and life were inherent in Him as a Man. The Father had given to Him as Man to have life in Himself. If you think of Him as a divine Person only, you could not speak of anything having been given to Him; as a divine Person all was His; He was equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Godhead; but He had taken upon Him the condition of Man, and so He says in John 5: 26, “For even as the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son also to have life in himself”; and then in chapter 10 He says: “I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it again” (v 18)—“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself”. Have you considered Him in this wonderful light? What a Man! I am inclined to think that the title—the inherited name according to Hebrews—the Son of God—is not a title or name that describes Him so much as a divine Person; it describes Him as a Man born in time; in His relationship to God that Man was God’s Son. It is true that underneath that—never apart from it—there is the blessed fact that He was the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father. But, not to multiply words, what I say is, that John’s account of His death is unique—He delivers up His own life; and so it is with His resurrection, as He says in chapter 2: 19 of this gospel: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”; He was alluding to His own body. He delivers up His spirit, and He raises Himself; it is all His own blessed act, and He is not ‘carried up’ into heaven in John; He says: “I ascend”; it belonged to Him; He had that right, that privilege, in His own Person as Man; He says, “I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”.
I have made a sort of digression, yet I trust it will not be without some profit; but I want to go back to the fact of His resurrection. I need hardly say that the resurrection presupposes death, whether on the part of the Lord or anybody else. Some of us may be in the room tonight who will never know resurrection, because the apostle says: “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all fall asleep, but we shall all be changed, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet”—it is a wonderful fact (I can hardly forbear alluding to it). People say: You have got to die. I say: No, in a real sense—a literal sense—I have not got to die. If the assembling shout should be heard tonight, not one of us Christians in this room would ever fall asleep—we should all be changed: in the practical effect it comes to the same thing, whether we are raised or changed, but for the moment I call your attention to the fact that resurrection, whether of the Lord Jesus or of the saints, implies death. And so with the Lord Jesus, He really died; even in John His death is very real; indeed, the reality of it in John stands out, perhaps, as it does not stand out in any other gospel, because it is only in John that we get the incident of the Roman soldier, and the spear thrust into His side. Whatever peculiar character or significance attaches to His death in John’s gospel, you cannot read that record without the reality of it corning vividly before you. It is said, “he was already dead”, hence the action of the soldier—“The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first and of the other that had been crucified with him; but coming to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water”, John 19: 32-35. Wonderful witness to the reality of His death!
Now to come to the resurrection. I hardly know how to begin to speak of it, because it is so marvellous—so transcendently great; but there is no fear of over-statement; the question is, can we take it in—can we speak truly according to the scriptures of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ? In the most simple way we might speak of its effect, for it had a wonderful effect upon the disciples of the Lord; you can hardly conceive of a greater moral effect than Luke 24 gives you as to this company. If we take account of them in the beginning of the chapter, we see how they were affected by the death of the Lord! Peter says in his first epistle: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead”, 1 Pet 1: 3. Those two had had their hopes, but when the Lord joined them in that walk to Emmaus, they said mournfully, “we had hoped”; they thought it was all over. But what a change His resurrection made! We have not the details of His appearing to Simon, but we have the details of His appearing to the two that went to Emmaüs. What a moment it was to them when they “constrained” Him; He could be constrained, and He is still constrainable; He loves to be constrained by those He loves and by those who love Him. “He made as though he would go farther”—that brought out the constraining from them and He went in. “And it came to pass as he was at table with them, having taken the bread, he blessed, and having broken it, gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognised him”. He took the place and gave thanks and broke the bread. That was enough; they had been with Him before, they had not forgotten it, and the moment that action took place they knew Him.
Then when they were gathered together—they had not, as a company, seen Him yet, but Simon had seen Him, they had Simon’s testimony, and on the strength of Simon’s testimony the fact of His resurrection was the theme of their conversation, saying, “The Lord is risen indeed and has appeared to Simon ... And as they were saying these things, he himself stood in their midst”. Were you ever so happy, beloved, that you were afraid to speak? Such joy filled their hearts—a kind of surprised joy, they hardly dared to speak. He was risen. All their trouble was over; their sadness, their reasonings and unbelief—all over!
Now I think one might say a word about the resurrection of the Lord in regard of God. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ has been a wonderful thing for God. If it be a question of the declaration of the righteousness of God, that was at the cross. If it be the question of atonement, that was at the cross, all that it involves was set forth at the cross. I would not brook for a moment anybody that would dare to add to the cross of Christ, because we know that all was completed in His death. But then, what of God? Sin had come in on the part of man, and the question of sin had been met—it was met in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ; but was there nothing else in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ besides meeting the question of sin? We know better than that. In the heart of God there had been counsels of grace before the foundation of the world was laid, and in raising Christ from the dead God reached the moment when He could put into effect as to man the counsels of His grace; He could express toward man what was in His blessed heart. I think we may say that if it is the death of Christ alone it is a scene of judgment; we shall never know the depth of all His sufferings; no heart could conceive them. When we contemplate them in any measure, we can only bow our hearts adoringly. In the cross we see all that man could do, but that is not atonement. When the wrath of God came upon Him, when God made His soul an offering for sin, when God ‘put him to grief’, who could presume to sound the depths of those sufferings through which the Son of God passed on the cross? All that man inflicted upon the Lord Jesus Christ never wrought one atom of atonement; it was what He suffered at the hand of God. Now what must it have been to God to raise that One from the dead! God longed for the moment when He could express toward man all His pleasure and His wonderful thoughts of grace! Well, now, that is the resurrection. There is no forgiveness for man, no justification till you come to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ—there is no salvation at all until you come to the resurrection. “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins”, 1 Cor 15: 17. But Christ is raised and the believer’s faith is not in vain. “Who was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification”, Rom 4: 25. His death effected things greater than that—beyond that. When Christ was raised from the dead there came to pass in God’s mind a scene—a world altogether beyond death. There never was a death like the death of Christ, and there never will be; you and I might die naturally, but we could not put into our death what was put into the death of the Lord Jesus Christ—the question of sin, the claims of God, the wrath of God, everything on that side was brought to an issue in the death of Christ. Hence in His resurrection a world beyond death was opened—a world of life—life according to God, life for man according to God, where every question of sin, and every question of the judgment of God has been settled—a world that Satan can never touch. Do you believe it? Are you in the good of it? You pass through the death and resurrection of Christ into a world of life and glory.
Now I just want to say this: you must give to resurrection its proper character. You need not detract from it. Resurrection is the great evidence of the power of God. If somebody said to me, Search the scriptures and give me the greatest proof that scripture affords of the power of God, I would not go to Genesis, I would go to the first chapter of Ephesians. It is as though the Holy Ghost, through the apostle Paul, just piled up the words till they could not be piled any higher; it is as though there were a tremendous effort on the part of the Spirit of God to impress upon us “the surpassing greatness of his power to usward who believe”, Eph 1: 19. What a marvellous exercise of His power when God raised Christ from the dead; it will ever remain the foundation of the effectuation and accomplishment of the counsels and purpose of God. Who would detract from it? I would that I were equal to speak suitably of it.
Then the second thing I want to speak of is the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a great thing to be able to see things as scripture presents them. One thing connected with the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ is glory, and consequent upon His ascension and glorification is the Spirit. Where should we be practically without the Spirit? We might talk of resurrection, but what would it amount to apart from the Spirit of God? Peter’s discourse on the day of Pentecost puts it very plainly. There was the great fact that the Holy Ghost had come—a divine Person—with unmistakable attestations and proofs, and Peter rises to the occasion, and how does he account for it? Christ was exalted. He received of the Father, as glorified, the promise of the Holy Ghost which He had shed forth. So John says: “for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified”, John 7: 39. I would that we might take in all these facts in their proper connection; for they are all facts concerning Him, and, as I said, they ought to concern us deeply. Who wants to separate them? who wants to put resurrection over against ascension or ascension over against resurrection? It would be a very unspiritual person who would do so. No, we want all. We cannot do without the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and we cannot do without His ascension.
Well now, to return to Luke 24, they witnessed His ascension. He goes up with His hands uplifted in blessing, and the effect was they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. In the beginning of the chapter, they are full of sorrow; they cannot tell out the sorrow of their hearts; they thought they had lost the Lord. Look at them at the end of the chapter and you find them in Jerusalem praising God. The Lord had gone up to heaven and He had gone up with His hands uplifted in blessing—in the very act of priestly blessing—and if He went in that sort of way what will He not do for His people? And when you come to Pentecost (because the connection, as you know, between Luke 24 and Acts 1 is very close—it is the same writer, this beloved physician, Luke, and he is writing to the same Theophilus, and he just continues it in Acts 1), there they are, and what is the outcome? The Holy Ghost comes down upon them all.
I have tried to say a few words about resurrection, but resurrection in itself does not give another place; it does give another condition—passed out of death, as it were, into life. Between you and death, between you and the power of the devil stands the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But now when He goes up it is to another place. His death was not for Himself; His resurrection was not for Himself, His going up to heaven was not for Himself. He has gone up as our Forerunner. Hebrews puts it very literally—He appears in the presence of God for us; the same One who appeared in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself now appears in the presence of God for us. He is our Forerunner. What does that mean? It means that you and I are going to get there; it is the pledge that the whole company is going to get there. It is not only that you have new condition, that you are clear of death, but you have got a new place; and it is wonderful how the Holy Ghost connects things in scripture. Take the five links, as you know, in the chain of divine purpose in Romans 8: 29—foreknew, predestinated, called, and “whom he justified, them he also glorified”. All is assured, and see the wonderful way the Spirit of God puts it there and states it, as if it had already taken place. And again, “being justified by faith ... we rejoice in hope of the glory of God”, Rom 5: 1, 2. You cannot rejoice in anything unless you are perfectly certain about it; there cannot be rejoicing if there is any uncertainty. A good many people say they hope they will go to heaven when they die, but that is a poor thing. By the Holy Spirit you are consciously linked up with the One who is there; you are linked up with Him, you have the certainty of the hope.
Now I want to speak a little about John 20, because that is where you reach the top—the summit. It is a wonderful moment when the One who is risen and the One who is ascended comes to take His place in the midst of His people. “The disciples rejoiced therefore, having seen the Lord”. They are together in a very special way; they are together, too, in Luke 24, but their being together in John 20 is another kind of thing. One could not speak so positively if we had not what we have when the Lord appeared to Mary Magdalene and said, “Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren”, &c. What does the Holy Ghost say about it? “For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren”.
What has taken place? Why, the grain of wheat has fallen into the ground and died, and these are the “much fruit”. There is a company here upon the earth that is derived from Himself; His death is the womb of their new existence. He says to Mary, ‘Go to that company—go to My brethren’. There we get the first meeting of the “brethren”. People sometimes say: Can you give me the history of the brethren? I say, I can give you their origin; I can tell you the first time the brethren ever met together. He did not say, Go to Peter, or James, or John, but to “my brethren”. I wish you could grasp it in a spiritual way, because it is a company; it is not a number of people who have got together on the ground of mutual agreement or anything of that sort. He has been into death, and there are His brethren, the “much fruit”. They are a wonderful company, derived from Himself. Now, I trust I am not saying too much in saying that they are together in the light of that wonderful message; they are together as His brethren—it is blessed every step of the way; but they are together, not only in the light of the fact that they are His brethren, but they are together in the light of association with Himself. “My Father and your Father, and my God and your God”. That is association, and association in the most marvellous way; you could not conceive of any other association like that; every other kind of association of people pales into utter insignificance when compared with that. They are there in that light, and to that company of His brethren who have derived their new being from Himself, and whom He has set in the light of association with Himself, into the midst of that company He comes.
My time is up, and I must not go further, only to say, what a marvellous thing it is to enter really into that—to know that in spiritual reality. Do not be content with merely reading it in the chapter, blessed as it is. Do not be content short of the blessed Spirit of God making it so real in your heart, that you know the reality of being derived from Himself, and the reality of the light of association with Him, and to crown it all, the reality of His presence in the midst. The disciples “rejoiced” when they saw the Lord. It is the assembly, but it is the assembly in respect of heavenly privilege down here, and this enjoyed, beloved, with Himself in the midst; He the Sanctifier and we the sanctified; He the “firstborn among many brethren”. I have no doubt that the passage in Romans 8: 29 looks on in a way to the future; but then all that is of the future has a present realisation in the power of the Holy Ghost. I trust we may be greatly encouraged. I have spoken very poorly; but I commend the Lord to you and I commend these things to you. You may say you believe in the doctrine of resurrection. You may believe in the doctrine of resurrection and freeze! I put it strongly, but you must reach HIM. Do not be content to live in dogmas and theories. Get close to Himself. These disciples got close to Him; He possessed their hearts; they were filled with joy when He came into their midst. There was joy in the risen One, and great joy in the ascending One, and oh, beloved, the joy of having Him in the midst cannot be told; it may be known, but you could not express it. It is all an anticipation of what is coming.
May the Lord bless His word to us for His Name’s sake!