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Scripture Reading: 1 John 3:24b; 4:13; Rom. 8:11; 2 Tim. 4:22; Phil. 2:13; Heb. 13:21; 2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Pet. 5:10; Eph. 4:3-6, 12
II. God’s move within us in the offices and ministries of Christ in all the abovementioned statuses:
А. Dwelling in us through His indwelling Spirit in the presence of Christ in our spirit — 1 John 3:24b; 4:13; Rom. 8:11; 2 Tim. 4:22.
B. Operating in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure — Phil. 2:13.
C. Perfecting us in every good work for the fulfilling of His will, doing in us that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ — Heb. 13:21.
D. Imparting all His riches into us for our enjoyment in His love through the grace of Christ and the fellowship of the Spirit — 2 Cor. 13:14.
E. As the God of all grace, perfecting, establishing, strengthening, and grounding us so that we may participate in His eternal glory, into which He has called us in Christ — 1 Pet. 5:10.
F. As the Father of all of us, being over all of us, through all of us, and in all of us for the constituting and building up of the Body of Christ in the oneness of His Divine Trinity — Eph. 4:3-6, 12.
III. Such a move of God in Christ within us being also a part of God’s history in His union with man.
In this chapter we want to see more concerning the move of God in man in the ascension of Christ. Christ today is ministering, is working, in His ascension. Ephesians 2:6 says that God raised us up together with Christ and “seated us together with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.” We may have the thought that Ephesians 2:6 says that we are seated with Christ in the heavens, but it does not say this. It says that we are seated with Him in the heavenlies. Footnote 4 on Ephesians 2:6 in the Recovery Version says, “The heavenlies are the highest position, into which we have been saved in Christ. In the book of Romans, Christ as our righteousness brought us into a state in which we are acceptable to God. In the book of Ephesians, Christ as our life has saved us into a position in which we are above all God’s enemies. Here in the heavenly atmosphere, with a heavenly nature and a heavenly characteristic, we are a heavenly people.” Christ today is ministering in the heavenlies. The heavenlies refers to His ascension. The heavens refers to a certain place, but His ascension does not denote any place. It is more significant that Christ today is ministering in His ascension in the heavenlies than in the heavens.
Today Christ ministers as the resurrection in His ascension. Actually, today Christ is in His ascension. He is in you and He is in me in His ascension as the resurrected One.
In this series of messages we are talking about God’s move in man to write His own history. God today is writing His own autobiography in us. We may think that our Christian life is our autobiography, but actually it is God’s writing of His autobiography. Christ today is ministering, working, and moving within us in His ascension.
His ascension gives Him the statuses for His move within man. In the previous chapter we saw that in His ascension He is the Lord, the Christ, the Leader, the Savior, the High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek, the Minister of the new covenant, the Mediator of the better covenant, the surety of the better covenant, the Advocate, the great Shepherd, and the Head over all things to the church. Christ also has the status of a Prophet. In Acts 3:22-23 the apostle Peter quoted from Moses, who predicted in Deuteronomy 18 that God would raise up another Prophet, and this Prophet is Christ. Christ has the status of the Prophet, but He does not need to be in ascension to be qualified for this status. Actually, before His death when He was on the earth, He was a Prophet. For all the other eleven statuses of Christ mentioned previously, He needs the qualification of being in the heavens in ascension.
For Him to be the High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek, He needs to be in ascension. For Him to be the Advocate, the Paraclete, He must be in ascension. For Him to be the Head over all things to the church, surely He must be in His ascension. Ephesians 1 says that He transcended to the heavenlies far above all (vv. 20-21). This is ascension. It was in His ascension that He was made Head over all things to the church. Christ today is in His ascension. He is the Lord in ascension. He is the Christ in ascension. He is the King of kings, the Ruler of all the kings, in ascension. He is even the Savior in ascension. If He had never ascended, He could not be such a dynamic Savior today. Acts 2 tells us that He needs to be in ascension for Him to be the Lord and Christ (v. 36). Acts 5 tells us that He needs to be in ascension to be the Leader and the Savior (v. 31). His ascension qualifies Him. His ascension gives Him all these statuses and positions. Christ needs a position to minister as the High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek. When we say that He ministers in the ascension, we mean that He ministers with all His qualifications, with all His statuses, and with all His posts, His offices.
The Bible tells us that Christ is not only in ascension but also in us (Col. 1:27). If He were working only in ascension, His work would have nothing to do with us, and His work could never be our story as a part of God’s history in us. But today He is working within us. Because His work is within us, this work is related to our history. So this work is God’s history in His union with man. He is working in His ascension within us. As the ascended One with many statuses and positions, He is moving within us.
We need to see this. Merely to learn this is not enough. I have been living in Anaheim for nineteen years, and I see Anaheim every day. If I were asked to tell you about Anaheim without ever having been here, I would have to learn a lot by exercising my mind. But now that I have seen Anaheim so much, I do not need to merely exercise my mind to speak about it. I can simply tell you what I have seen. I hope that we see something as a vision through these messages on the ascension of Christ.
In the whole universe there is such a scene into which Christ entered. He came down from the heavens in incarnation, and then He entered into His ascension. His being in ascension, in the heavenlies, is a great part of His dynamic salvation. He passed through incarnation, human living, and crucifixion, and then He reached resurrection. As the resurrection, He entered into His ascension. These steps were His move in man to carry out His dynamic salvation. Today God is still moving in His ascension. He is living, dwelling, staying, ministering, serving, working, moving, and acting in His ascension.
He is in His ascension within us. This is why Paul tells us that we are seated together with Christ in His ascension, which Paul calls “the heavenlies.” The very heavenlies referred to by Paul is the ascension. Within our being, there is something quite extraordinary. This extraordinary thing is a person, the ascended Christ. He came into us in His ascension. The Lord today is in our spirit in His ascension. In this ascension the Triune God moves in us, and this move becomes His history. It also becomes our history because we and He, He and we, are now mingled as one. We two have the same history.
Before a man and woman are married, they have two histories, but once they are married, they become a couple in a marriage life with one history. Today we and our God, the Triune God, are one, so He and we have one history. Otherwise, how could the Bible say that we live Christ (Phil. 1:21a), that we are the fullness of Christ (Eph. 1:23), and that we are the members, parts, of the counterpart of Christ? (5:25, 30). Your ears are members of your physical body, but actually your ears are you. In this sense, as the members of Christ’s Body, we are Christ, and this Christ is in ascension. Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God, and we are parts of this embodiment in His ascension. Whenever we are gathered together into His name, Christ is there with all His members in ascension, and this is God’s move within man. This is a part of His history. Whether we can present this message to our fellow believers depends upon whether we have seen something. Our seeing changes us inwardly, and this is transformation.
Now we want to see God’s move within us in the offices and ministries of Christ in all His statuses.
In Christ’s ascension God dwells in us through His indwelling Spirit in the presence of Christ in our spirit (1 John 3:24b; 4:13; Rom. 8:11; 2 Tim. 4:22). His dwelling in us is a great thing. Eventually, we have the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — dwelling in us. The Father is the Dweller, the Spirit is the instrument, and the Son is the very presence within us day by day. When we miss His presence; miss the consciousness of the instrument, the indwelling Spirit; and miss the consciousness of the Dweller, the Father, our Christian life is a failure, a defeat. We should always have the presence of the Son with the consciousness of the Spirit as the instrument and the Father as the Dweller. Whenever we have the presence of Christ within us with a consciousness of the Spirit as the instrument and of the Father as the Dweller, the Triune God is moving in us to write His history, and that history is our story. This is God’s subjective, intimate move within us, a move in which God is altogether involved with us and mingled with us, making Him and us one. This is the ministry of Christ in His ascension as the Spirit with His incarnation through His human living and under His crucifixion. This is God’s move in man, and this is God’s writing of His history.
In Christ’s ascension God is operating in us both the willing within and the working without for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). He works within us for His good pleasure in our willing and in our working.
I love the book of Hebrews because it is so rich in all the items of Christ’s being. Hebrews 13:21 is the crucial verse of this book. This verse tells us that God is moving in us to perfect us in every good work for the fulfilling of His will, doing in us that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ.
While God is dwelling in us and operating in us to perfect us, He is dispensing, imparting, all His riches into us for our enjoyment in His love through the grace of Christ and the fellowship of the Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14). While He is working, He is imparting and dispensing Himself bit by bit in all His riches into our being. When He is imparting Himself into us, He is making Himself us so that we may become Him. Athanasius, one of the church fathers, said concerning Christ, “He was made man that we might be made God.” God’s move in man is to make man God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead. He is the unique God for people to worship in His Godhead, but we are made God only in life and in nature, not in the Godhead. This is God’s move within us to write His sweet and pleasant history.
In Christ’s ascension God moves within us as the God of all grace, perfecting, establishing, strengthening, and grounding us so that we may participate in His eternal glory, into which He has called us in Christ (1 Pet. 5:10). Even though Peter was only a fisherman without any kind of scholastic attainment, he was able to write such a marvelous word. Actually, however, the very God who was moving in Peter was the One who wrote this. Eventually, through God’s move in us, we will participate in His eternal glory. The eternal glory will not come to us by accident. The coming glory is being built up today by God’s move in us. He is now perfecting us to build up that glory. He is now establishing us to build up that glory. He is now strengthening us and grounding us to build up that glory. Eventually, that glory will be a building, the holy city, the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:10-11). The place where we should be is the divine glory, which is now being built up by God’s perfecting, establishing, strengthening, and grounding. This is all God’s move in us.
God’s move within us in the ascension of Christ is as the Father of all of us, being over all of us, through all of us, and in all of us for the constituting and building up of the Body of Christ in the oneness of His Divine Trinity (Eph. 4:3-6, 12). Ephesians 4:6 shows us that even the Father is triune because He is in three directions. Over all refers to the Father, through all to the Son, and in all to the Spirit. This is for the constituting and building up of the Body of Christ with the Spirit as the essence of the Body, with the Son as the element of the Body, and with the Father as the source of the Body. This is all God’s move in us.
As we have seen, such a move of God in Christ within us in His offices and ministries in ascension is a part of God’s history in His union with man.
