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In this message we shall first cover more aspects of Christ’s work in His resurrection. Then we shall go on to consider His work in His ascension.
In resurrection Christ became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). This was not an easy matter; on the contrary, it was a great work. In order to accomplish the work of becoming the life-giving Spirit, the Lord Jesus had to pass through death and then, in resurrection, do certain wonderful things. Now He is the Spirit who gives life, the Spirit who imparts life to us, the Spirit who dispenses Himself as life into the believers.
Christ’s resurrection was His transfiguration into the life-giving Spirit. He was Christ in the flesh, but He has been transfigured into the pneumatic Christ, the Christ who is the life-giving Spirit. Resurrection was His actual transfiguration. Before His death and resurrection He was transfigured on the Mount of Transfiguration. However, that transfiguration was temporary. His actual transfiguration was His resurrection, for in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit.
If we are lacking in revelation, in proper spiritual vision, we may not realize that in resurrection Christ as the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit. To deny that Christ is the life-giving Spirit is equal to denying the reality of resurrection. The life-giving Spirit is the life pulse of Christ’s resurrection. If Christ had merely been resurrected with a body and had not become the life-giving Spirit, His resurrection would not mean nearly as much to us. It would simply be an objective fact unrelated to life. It could then be compared to the resurrection of Lazarus. The resurrection of Lazarus was merely an act of resurrection; it did not produce anything related to life. But Christ’s resurrection is a matter absolutely related to life, for in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit who imparts life.
Resurrection was not merely an objective act accomplished by Christ. It is very much related to us subjectively. Through incarnation Christ became a man. Incarnation was much more than an objective fact; it was a process that brought God into humanity. The principle is the same with the process of resurrection. Resurrection was not merely an act in itself; it was a process to bring forth the life-giving Spirit. Through the process of resurrection Christ, who ended the old creation, became the life-giving Spirit, the germinating element of the new creation.
Few Christians have seen that Christ in resurrection is the life-giving Spirit. Andrew Murray, however, understood something concerning this and wrote about it in his masterpiece, The Spirit of Christ, in the chapter entitled, “The Spirit of the Glorified Jesus.” The Spirit of the glorified Jesus is actually the Lord Jesus Himself in resurrection and in glory. When He entered into resurrection, He became the Spirit who gives life. This life-giving Spirit is the essence to germinate a new creation. The germinating element of the new creation is the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit.
First Corinthians 15:45 is a great verse because it implies the new creation with the Spirit as the center. This Spirit is nothing less than Christ, the Triune God. Actually, the life-giving Spirit is the processed Triune God. Christ passed through the process of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Now in resurrection He is the life essence to germinate the new creation. We have become the new creation germinated by Christ as the life-giving Spirit. The highest definition of resurrection is that it is the process by which Christ, the last Adam, became the life-giving Spirit.
When Christ came through incarnation, He came with the Father and by the Spirit. After coming in incarnation, He took a further step to pass through death and enter into resurrection. This is the process that we call Christ’s transfiguration from the flesh into the Spirit. By going through this process of transfiguration, the Lord Jesus, who came in incarnation with the Father and by the Spirit, became the Spirit as the ultimate consummation of the Triune God. Therefore, Christ’s resurrection was His transfiguration — the transfiguration into the life-giving Spirit to enter into His believers. This transfiguration included a number of elements: humanity, human living, Christ’s all-inclusive death, and His life-imparting resurrection. All these elements have been brought into the all- inclusive life-giving Spirit, the consummation of the Triune God.
In resurrection Christ came to the disciples and breathed Himself as the Holy Spirit into them. “He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). We may not think that this was a work, but it was a great work accomplished by Christ in His resurrection. The Holy Spirit is the realization of the resurrected Christ, and the Lord breathed this realization into the disciples.
Before His death and resurrection, the Lord Jesus could not be in His disciples. He could only be among them. In order to come into them, He needed to do the marvelous work of becoming the life-giving Spirit and of breathing this Spirit into the disciples. This great work was accomplished by Christ in His resurrection.
The Gospel of John reveals that Christ is the Word, the eternal God (1:1), who passed through a long process eventually to become the breath, the pneuma, that He might enter into the believers. For the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose, He took two steps. First, He took the step of incarnation to become a man in the flesh (1:14), to be the Lamb of God to accomplish redemption for man (1:29), to declare God to man (1:18), and to manifest the Father to His believers (14:9-11). Second, He took the step of death and resurrection to be transfigured into the Spirit that He might impart Himself into His believers as their life and their everything for the building of His Body, the church, the habitation of God, to express the Triune God for eternity. The Gospel of John clearly reveals that Christ became flesh to be the Lamb of God and that in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. Thus, in the evening of the day of His resurrection He came and breathed Himself as the Spirit into the disciples.
The Holy Spirit in John 20:22 is the Spirit expected in 7:39 and promised in 14:16-17, 26; 15:26; and 16:7-8, 13. This indicates that the Lord’s breathing of the Holy Spirit into the disciples was the fulfillment of His promise of the Holy Spirit as the Comforter. In chapter fourteen the Lord Jesus promised that He would ask the Father to send another Comforter (v. 16). Then in chapter twenty He brought to His disciples this other Comforter, the Spirit of reality. Now the Spirit of reality has come to the disciples to be within them; now the disciples know that the Lord Jesus is in the Father and that the Father is in the Lord; and now they are in the Lord and the Lord is in them. They realize that they are now one with the Triune God. Therefore, all that the Lord Jesus spoke to them in chapters fourteen through sixteen is fulfilled at this very moment. This fulfillment is that the Lord Jesus went by death and resurrection and came to the disciples as the Spirit, coming as another Comforter to be their reality that they might be one with the Triune God.
As the falling into the ground to die and the growing out of the ground transforms a grain of wheat into another new and lively form, so the death and resurrection of Christ transfigured Him from the flesh into the Spirit. As the last Adam in the flesh He became the life-giving Spirit through the process of death and resurrection. As He is the embodiment of the Father, so the Spirit is the realization, the reality, of Him. It is as the Spirit that He was breathed into the disciples. It is as the Spirit that He was received into His believers and flowed out of them as rivers of living water (7:38-39). It is as the Spirit that through His death and resurrection He came back to the disciples, entered into them as their Comforter, and began to abide in them (14:16-17). It is as the Spirit that He can live in the disciples and they can live by Him and with Him (14:19). It is as the Spirit that He can abide in the disciples and they can abide in Him (14:20; 15:4-5). It is as the Spirit that He can come with the Father to the one who loves Him and make an abode with him (14:23). It is as the Spirit that He can make all that He is and has to be fully realized by the disciples (16:13-16). It is as the Spirit that He came to meet with His brothers as the church to declare the Father’s name to them and to praise Him in their midst (Heb. 2:11-12). And it is as the Spirit that He can send His disciples with His commission, with Himself as life and everything to them, in the same way that the Father sent Him (John 20:21).
After the Lord Jesus breathed Himself into the disciples, He stayed with them economically for forty days. Acts 1:3 says, “To whom also He presented Himself alive after His suffering by many convincing proofs, through a period of forty days, appearing to them and speaking the things concerning the kingdom of God.” Christ’s presenting Himself alive was for the purpose of training the disciples to practice and enjoy His invisible presence. In the Gospel of John there is no word or hint indicating that the Lord Jesus left the disciples after breathing Himself into them. Actually, He stayed with them, although they were unconscious of His presence. The Lord’s further appearing to them was His manifestation. Before His death, the Lord’s presence was visible in the flesh. After His resurrection, His presence was invisible in the Spirit. His manifestations, or appearings, after His resurrection were to train the disciples to realize, enjoy, and practice His invisible presence, which is more available, prevailing, precious, rich, and real than His visible presence. Christ’s invisible presence is just the Spirit in His resurrection whom He breathed into the disciples and who would be with them all the time.
After the Lord Jesus breathed Himself as the Spirit into the disciples, He never left them essentially. However, economically He would appear and then disappear. The Lord appeared and disappeared economically in order to train the disciples. Regarding this, we should not speak of His going and coming but of His appearing and disappearing. The disciples had become accustomed to the visible presence of Christ. For three and a half years He had been with them visibly in the flesh. Suddenly His visible presence was taken away. Then the Lord came back to the disciples to breathe Himself into them. From that time onward His presence with them became invisible. It was no longer a physical presence but a spiritual presence. From the time He breathed Himself as the Spirit into the disciples on the day of His resurrection, the resurrected Christ dwelt in them. His appearing spoken of in Acts 1:3 does not mean that He ever left the disciples. Rather, it means that He made His presence visible to them, training them to realize and enjoy continually His invisible presence.
Although Christ’s spiritual presence is invisible, it is more real and vital than His visible presence. The Lord’s visible presence involved the elements of space and time. But with His invisible presence there is neither the element of space nor the element of time. His invisible presence is everywhere. Wherever we are the Lord’s invisible presence is with us. Actually, His invisible presence is not merely with us — it is within us.
The Lord Jesus appeared to His disciples for a period of forty days. In the Bible forty days are a period of trial and testing (Deut. 9:9, 18; 1 Kings 19:8). When the Lord Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil, He fasted forty days and forty nights (Matt. 4:1-2). Also, the children of Israel were tested by God in the wilderness for forty years. Forty, therefore, is the number of testing, proving, trying, educating. In Acts 1 the Lord Jesus appeared and disappeared during a period of forty days in order to train His disciples.
During these forty days the Lord Jesus spoke to the disciples concerning the kingdom of God. Although we are not told in Acts what the Lord Jesus spoke concerning the kingdom, we may infer what He said by considering other portions of the Word. In the Gospels the Lord Jesus taught the disciples much concerning the kingdom. It is not likely that during the forty days after His resurrection He gave the disciples something new concerning the kingdom. Rather, He may have repeated what He taught them in the Gospels. When the Lord spoke regarding the kingdom in the Gospels, the disciples were not able to understand what He was teaching them. They did not have the necessary spiritual insight, because the Lord was not yet in them. But in John 20 they received Christ as the life-giving Spirit. As a result, in Acts 1 they were very different, for Christ, the life-giving Spirit, was now within them as their life and person. Because they had the life-giving Spirit within them, they were able to understand Christ’s speaking concerning the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is not a kingdom visible to human sight; it is a kingdom of the divine life. The kingdom of God is actually the spreading of Christ as life into His believers to form a realm in which God rules in His life. The kingdom of God is the ruling, the reigning, of God with all its blessing and enjoyment. It is the goal of the gospel of God and of Jesus Christ. To enter into this kingdom, people need to repent of their sins and believe in the gospel (Mark 1:15) so that their sins may be forgiven and that they may be regenerated by God to have the divine life, which matches the divine nature of His kingdom (John 3:3, 5).
The kingdom of God is actually Christ Himself (Luke 17:21) as the seed of life sown into His believers, God’s chosen people (Mark 4:3, 26), and developing into a realm which God may rule as His kingdom in His divine life. Regeneration is its entrance (John 3:5), and the growth of the divine life within the believers is its development (2 Pet. 1:3-11). The kingdom of God is the church life today, in which the faithful believers live (Rom. 14:17), and it will develop into the coming kingdom as an inheritance reward (Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5) to the overcoming saints in the millennium. Eventually, it will consummate in the New Jerusalem as the eternal kingdom of God and the eternal realm of the eternal blessing of God’s eternal life for all God’s redeemed to enjoy in the new heaven and new earth.
In Acts 1:3 the Lord Jesus must have helped the disciples to have such a proper realization concerning the kingdom of God. The disciples must have begun to see that the kingdom of God is the spreading of Christ as life to His believers, that it is the propagation of Christ as life to form a realm in which God rules in His life. The disciples certainly must have understood that they were now part of the propagation, the spreading, of Christ, and thereby were part of the kingdom of God. Christ’s teaching the things concerning the kingdom of God was an important aspect of His work in His resurrection.
Finally, in His work in His resurrection Christ prepared and charged the disciples to preach the gospel and disciple the nations for His propagation that the church may be produced. Luke 24:44 and 45 say, “He said to them, These are My words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all the things must be fulfilled which have been written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and Psalms concerning Me. Then He opened their mind to understand the Scriptures.” The Law of Moses, the Prophets, and Psalms are the three sections of the entire Old Testament, that is, all the Scriptures (v. 27). The Lord’s word here unveils that the entire Old Testament was a revelation of Him and that He was its center and content. The fact that He opened the mind of the disciples indicates that in order to understand the Scriptures, our mind needs to be opened by the Lord Spirit through His enlightening (Eph. 1:18).
Christ’s meeting with the disciples in Luke 24 was the right time for Him to commission them to preach the forgiveness of sins. After pointing out that it was necessary that Christ should suffer and rise up from the dead on the third day (v. 46), He told them that “repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (vv. 47-48). Forgiveness of sins could be proclaimed only after Christ’s vicarious death for the sinners’ sins had been accomplished and had been verified by His resurrection (cf. Rom. 4:25).
To proclaim the forgiveness of sins is to proclaim the jubilee. Luke 4 speaks of the release of the captives. To proclaim the forgiveness of sins is to proclaim the release of captives from slavery and bondage. The first aspect of the jubilee is the forgiveness of sins. According to the following books of the New Testament, the forgiveness of sins ushers the forgiven ones into the riches of the Triune God. Therefore, forgiveness of sins brings us into the enjoyment of the Triune God. This is the jubilee.
The Gospel of John emphasizes life for fruit-bearing (John 15:5), whereas the Gospel of Luke stresses forgiveness of sins for proclaiming. To bear fruit in life requires essentially the Spirit of life received through the breathing of the Spirit (John 20:22). To proclaim forgiveness of sins requires economically the Spirit of power received through the baptism in the Spirit (Acts 1:5, 8).
In Mark 16:15 the Lord Jesus said to His disciples, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all the creation.” This reveals that the redemption of God accomplished by the Lord Jesus through His death and resurrection is not only for man, the leading one in God’s creation, but for all the creation. Hence, all things, whether on earth or in the heavens, were reconciled to God, and the gospel should be proclaimed to all creation under heaven (Col. 1:20-23). Based upon this, all the creation expects to be freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom. 8:19-22).
In Mark 16:16 the Lord Jesus went on to say to the disciples, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be condemned.” To believe is to receive the Lord Jesus (John 1:12) not only for forgiveness of sins (Acts 10:43) but also for regeneration (1 Pet. 1:21, 23), so that those who believe may become the children of God (John 1:12-13) and the members of Christ (Eph. 5:30) in an organic union with the Triune God (Matt. 28:19). To be baptized is to affirm this by being buried to terminate the old creation through the death of Christ and by being raised up to be the new creation of God through Christ’s resurrection. To believe and to be so baptized are two parts of one complete step for receiving the full salvation of God. To be baptized without believing is merely an empty ritual; to believe without being baptized is to be saved only inwardly without an outward affirmation of the inward salvation. These two should go together.
Mark 16:16 does not say “who does not believe and is not baptized shall be condemned.” This indicates that condemnation is related only to not believing; it is not related to not being baptized. Believing itself is sufficient for one to receive salvation from condemnation; yet it needs baptism as an outward affirmation for the completion of one’s inward salvation.
In Matthew 28:18 the resurrected Christ spoke to His disciples saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” In His divinity as the only begotten Son of God the Lord Jesus had authority over all. However, in His humanity as the Son of Man to be the King of the heavenly kingdom, all authority in heaven and on earth was given to Him after His resurrection.
In verse 19 the Lord Jesus continued, “Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Because all authority had been given to Him, the Lord Jesus sent His disciples to go and disciple all the nations. They go with His authority. To disciple the nations is to cause the heathen to become kingdom people for the establishment of His kingdom, which is the church on earth today.
Notice that the Lord Jesus did not charge the disciples merely to preach the gospel but to disciple the nations. The difference between preaching the gospel and discipling the nations is that to preach the gospel is simply to bring sinners to salvation, but to disciple the nations is to cause the Gentiles to become kingdom people. The disciples were sent by the Lord not only to bring others to salvation but also to disciple the nations.
In verse 19 the Lord speaks of baptizing the nations into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Baptism is to bring repentant people out of their old state into a new one by terminating their old life and germinating them with the new life of Christ that they may become kingdom people. After the Lord Jesus accomplished His ministry on earth, passed through the process of death and resurrection, and became the life-giving Spirit, He charged His disciples to baptize the discipled people into the Triune God. This baptism has two aspects: the visible aspect by water and the invisible aspect by the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38, 41; 10:44-48). The visible aspect is the expression, the testimony, of the invisible aspect, whereas the invisible aspect is the reality of the visible aspect. Without the invisible aspect by the Spirit, the visible aspect by water is vain, and without the visible aspect by water, the invisible aspect by the Spirit is abstract and impractical. Both are needed. Not long after the Lord Jesus charged the disciples with this baptism, He baptized them and the entire church in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13) on the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:5; 2:4) and in the house of Cornelius (Acts 11:15-17). Then, based upon this, the disciples baptized the new converts (Acts 2:38), not only visibly into water but also invisibly into the death of Christ (Rom. 6:3-4), into Christ Himself (Gal. 3:27), into the Triune God (Matt. 28:19), and into the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). The water, signifying the death of Christ with His burial, may be considered a tomb to terminate the history of the baptized ones. Because the death of Christ is included in Christ, because Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God, and because the Triune God is one with the Body of Christ, to baptize new believers into the death of Christ, into Christ Himself, into the Triune God, and into the Body of Christ is to do one thing: on the negative side to terminate their old life and on the positive side to germinate them with a new life, the eternal life of the Triune God, for the Body of Christ. Hence, the baptism ordained by the Lord Jesus here is to baptize people out of their life into the Body life for the kingdom of the heavens.
In Matthew 28:20 the Lord Jesus concludes, “Behold, I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age.” Christ is Emmanuel, God with us (Matt. 1:23). Here He promised to be with us in His resurrection with all authority all the days until the consummation of the age, that is, until the end of this age.
In His work in His ascension Christ led captive those taken captive. “Having ascended to the height, He led captive those taken captive” (Eph. 4:8). The word “height” in the quotation from Psalm 68:18 refers to Mount Zion (Psa. 68:15-16), symbolizing the third heaven where God dwells (1 Kings 8:30). Psalm 68 implies that it was in the ark that God ascended to Mount Zion after the ark had led the way to victory. Verse 1 of Psalm 68 is a quotation of Numbers 10:35. This indicates that the background of Psalm 68 is God’s move in the tabernacle with the ark as its center. The ark was a clear type of Christ. Wherever the ark went the victory was won. Eventually the ark ascended triumphantly to the top of Mount Zion. This portrays how Christ has won the victory and has ascended triumphantly to the heavens.
The word “those” in Ephesians 4:8 refers to the redeemed saints who had been taken captive by Satan before they were saved by Christ’s death and resurrection. In His ascension Christ led them captive; that is, He rescued them from Satan’s captivity and took them to Himself. This indicates that Christ has conquered and overcome Satan, who had captured them by sin and death.
The Amplified New Testament renders “He led a train of vanquished foes” for “He led captive those taken captive.” “Vanquished foes” may refer to Satan, to his angels, and to us the sinners, also indicating Christ’s victory over Satan, sin, and death. In His ascension there was a procession of these vanquished foes as captives from a war for a celebration of Christ’s victory.
In Adam we all were captured by Satan. This means that through Adam’s fall we became Satan’s captives. Eventually, the Lord Jesus came to undo Satan’s work, defeating him by His death and capturing Satan’s captives through His death and resurrection. Then in His ascension He led these captives to the heavens as a train, a procession. This indicates that, as believers in Christ, we are in the heavens, for when Christ ascended to the heavens we were in that train of captives led by Him to the highest place in the universe.
This is confirmed by Ephesians 2:6, which says that God “raised us up together and seated us together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.” God not only raised us up from the position of death but also seated us in the heavenlies, in the highest place in the universe. The heavenlies are the high position into which we have been saved in Christ. The word “heavenlies” refers not only to a place but also to an atmosphere with a certain nature and characteristic. God’s salvation has brought us into a heavenly place and into a heavenly atmosphere with a heavenly characteristic.
It was in Christ that God seated us all together, once for all, in the heavenlies. This was accomplished when Christ ascended to the heavens, and it was supplied to us by the Spirit of Christ when we believed in Him. Today we realize and experience this reality in our spirit through faith in the accomplished fact.
Through His death and resurrection Christ released us from the usurping hand of Satan. Then He brought us to the heavens where we are now sitting, not as captives but as sons of God and members of Christ. Christ’s unique work in His ascension has brought us all to the highest place in the universe.
