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Scripture Reading: 10, Isa. 53:12; Eph. 4:8; Acts 2:36; Rev. 17:14; 19:16; 10-11, Eph. 1:22; Acts 5:31; Rev. 1:5a; Heb. 4:14, 4:15-16; 7:25, 7:26; 8:1-2; Rev. 1:13; 2:1b; Eph. 4:11-12; 1 Tim. 1:4b
In this message we come to the last verse of Isaiah 53. As we have seen in the previous two messages, Isaiah 53 covers the four stages of Christ. In the whole universe Christ is the most wonderful One. As such a One, Christ has four stages: incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. The entire Bible of sixty-six books speaks mainly concerning these four things. Nothing in the universe is as crucial as Christ's incarnation, Christ's crucifixion, Christ's resurrection, and Christ's ascension. In this message we will see Christ in the stage of His ascension.
Colossians 2:15 says that while Christ was hanging on the cross, the Father stripped off the rulers and authorities, the evil angelic powers. This verse opens a window to show us that while Christ was being crucified on the cross, a war was raging between God and Satan. Before that time Satan had induced a group of angels to rebel against God and to follow him and become his subordinates. In Ephesians 2:2 Satan is called "the ruler of the authority of the air," indicating that under him are the rulers and authorities in the air, which are the evil angels. When Christ was crucified on the cross, there was a war between the good angels and the evil angels, and even between God and Satan. This is clearly indicated by Colossians 2:15, which says, "Stripping off the rulers and the authorities, He made a display of them openly, triumphing over them in it." The antecedent of the pronoun He in this verse is God in verse 12. If we read only the four Gospels, we will not be able to see that during Christ's crucifixion a war was raging between God and Satan. Only Colossians 2:15 shows us such a scene.
We need to realize that in the universe there is an invisible scene behind the visible scene. In the entire universe there are two scenes; one is visible, and the other is invisible. When Christ was crucified, there was a visible scene. All the people standing there saw that visible scene. The soldiers put Christ on the cross and nailed His hands and His feet. Then they erected the cross. The bystanders saw these things, but they could not see and they did not see that behind the visible scene there was an invisible scene: God and Satan were fighting there. In this fighting God stripped off all the troublesome rulers and authorities, and He made a public show of them, triumphing over them in Christ and in the cross.
This indicates that in the whole universe only four things are crucial to God and to us, His elect. All other things are insignificant. In the books of the New Testament we can see the invisible scene behind the visible scene concerning Christ's incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. This scene is continuing even today.
The Old Testament, in books such as Daniel, also shows that at that time there were both a visible scene and an invisible scene. In the scene that was visible to people, Babylon came to capture Jerusalem (Dan. 1:1-2). That captivity endured for seventy years. At the end of those years the Medo-Persian Empire defeated Babylon. All these things were visible. But people could not see that behind that scene there was another, invisible scene. They could not see that behind Persia was the prince of Persia, and behind Greece was the prince of Greece. When Greece under Alexander was fighting against Persia, the two princes also were fighting in the air (10:13, 20).
In each of the four steps of Christ, not only men but also angels were involved (Luke 2:8-14; Col. 2:15; Matt. 28:2-7; Acts 1:10-11). This indicates again that concerning Christ's incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension there is both the visible scene and the invisible scene. However, of these two, the invisible scene is more important.
Isaiah 53:12a says, "Therefore I [Jehovah God] will divide to Him [the ascended Christ] a portion with the Great, / And He will divide the spoil with the Strong." The word spoil in this verse is very significant. It indicates that there was a war. Without a war there could be no spoil. Spoil signifies prey, and prey denotes captives taken in a war. The word spoil indicates that a war was fought and someone won that war, and the winner got the prey, the captives, the spoil. This one word opens a wide window to us, enabling us to see the invisible scene of a war. Christ, the One who won that war, divided the spoil with the Great and the Strong. Here, the Great and the Strong refer to God. God is the Great, and God is also the Strong. As the Great, He received the honor from Christ's ascension, and as the Strong, He gained the victory. So the two, Christ and the strong and great One, shared the spoil with each other.
This indicates that in Christ's ascension there was a demonstration of Christ's victory by the sharing of the captives, the spoil, the prey, taken in Christ's victory. Isaiah 53:12a, just one half of a verse, is the only portion in Isaiah 53 that speaks concerning Christ's ascension. But this half verse, with the demonstration of Christ's victory by the sharing of the prey, opens a wide window to us. God the Father was the Great and also the Strong, and God the Son was the Fighter. He fought the battle on the cross and in His resurrection. He won the battle, and by winning that battle He captured all Satan's captives. All men, beginning from Adam and including us, were captured by Satan. We became Satan's captives. However, according to Ephesians 4:8, when Christ ascended to the heavens, "He led captive those taken captive and gave gifts to men." This verse is a quotation from Psalm 68:18. Those taken captive refers to those who had been captured by Satan. This verse indicates that when Christ ascended to the heavens, He led a train, a procession, of captives. These captives included all the saved sinners. Before that time, we were captives under Satan's hand. Satan captured us and made us his captives because of sin and death. We were in slavery to Satan under sin and death. Then Christ through His death and resurrection defeated Satan, and He captured all the captives under Satan's hand and made them His captives. First we were captives of Satan, but now we have become captives of Christ. Then, in His ascension Christ led us in a triumphal procession, "a train of vanquished foes" (The Amplified New Testament), to the heavens.
Perhaps we do not realize that we have already been in the heavens. Ephesians 4 tells us that when Christ ascended to the heavens, He led a procession of captives, who were originally the captives of Satan, and He brought all these captives to the heavens to present them to the Father. These captives included you and me. We were among those vanquished by Christ. Satan also was vanquished by Him. Many people have never heard such a gospel. Thus, we need to preach the higher gospel to them according to Ephesians 4:8, telling them that Christ vanquished and captured them through His death and resurrection and took them to the heavens in His ascension. As a triumphant Victor, Christ led a triumphant procession to celebrate His victory, and He brought these captives to the heavens to offer them to the Father, saying, "Father, these are the prey, the spoil, gained by Me through My fighting. Now, Father, I present them all to You as My presents. You sent Me, and I went. Now I have come back to You with a present, a gift, from the cross and from Hades. I captured these, and now I present them all together to You as a present." The Father accepted this gift from the Son. Then the Father gave all these captives back to the Son as a gift from the Father. This is the invisible scene in Christ's ascension.
After receiving all the captives as a gift from the Father, the Son transformed all these captives in His resurrection life, making every one of them a gift (Eph. 4:8b). Paul was made such a gift, and we also were made such gifts. Then Christ gave these gifts to the church. Thus, Ephesians 4:11 says that "He Himself gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as shepherds and teachers." We are all gifts given by Christ to the church. The church has many gifts. Every member in a local church is a gift to the church.
Before he was saved, Saul was a captive of Satan. But after being saved by the Lord, Paul became a gift. We too were once Satan's captives. Then Christ defeated Satan and captured us and brought us to the Father; and the Father gave us to the Son. The Son made us a gift by transforming us with His resurrection life. Have you not been transformed? We all must confess that we are different today from what we were before we were saved. Now, instead of being captives of Satan, we all are gifts to the church.
Ephesians 4:12 tells us that it is by the perfecting of the saints as gifts that the Body of Christ is built up. This building up is the unique work of the New Testament ministry. My burden is not to annul you by making you a layman in a system of clergy and laity, but to develop and perfect you as a gift to build up the Body of Christ.
We need to learn to see the invisible things behind the visible scene. Behind the visible scene there is another scene that is invisible to our physical eyes. But those who have spiritual eyes can see the invisible scene behind the visible. Isaiah 53:12a shows us the invisible things that took place in the invisible scene behind the visible one. Through the window opened up in this verse we can see that in His death on the cross Christ was a Warrior who was fighting a war. When He was dying there, He was fighting. According to Colossians 2:15, while Christ was fighting on the cross, the Father joined the war, and the evil angels came to frustrate the Father. The Father stripped them off and made them a public display to shame them, thus triumphing over them. That was the war fought during Christ's crucifixion. Then, 1 Peter 3:18-20 tells us that after He died on the cross, Christ went to Hades to proclaim to the evil angels God's victory over Satan and his power of darkness through Christ's death on the cross. That too was part of the invisible scene.
After the war, Christ the Son resurrected, and in His resurrection He gained the victory. He captured all the captives of Satan and led them in a triumphal procession, and He brought them to the heavens and presented them as a gift to the Father. Then the Father returned them as a gift to Him, and He accepted them and made every one of them a gift. According to Isaiah 53:12a, in the heavens there was a demonstration of Christ's victory. In that demonstration the Son and the Father shared the prey. The Father acknowledged the Son's victory and divided to Him a portion of the spoil. There Christ enjoyed a portion of the spoil, the captives, with the Father as the Great and the Strong. This was a demonstration of the Son and the Father in the enjoyment of Christ's victory.
Neither the Father nor the Son received the ultimate benefit from such a demonstration. Eventually, the Body of Christ, the church, gained all the gifts, all the spoil. Both the portion divided to the Father and the portion divided to the Son were given to the church as gifts. Such good news as this should cause us to rejoice. Hallelujah, we were saved out of the hand of Satan and brought to the heavens, and we were given by the Son to the Father as a gift. The Father was pleased to receive such a gift, and He returned us to the Son, and the Son made us a gift through transformation with His resurrection life. Then He gave us as gifts to the church in our locality to do the work of the New Testament ministry, that is, to build up the Body of Christ.
Although we are here on earth, we can see the scenery in the heavens. We are now seeing things that are absolutely invisible to the earthly people. While they are enjoying the worldly entertainments in their visible scenery, we are enjoying the heavenly things in our invisible scenery.
In His ascension Christ was made both Lord (Lord of lords) and Christ (Acts 2:36; Rev. 17:14a; 19:16b).
Christ was made the Lord (Lord of lords) to lord over and possess all men and all things. All men in every nation belong to Christ as His possession and are under the lordship of Christ. Christ is Lord over them and possesses them.
In His ascension, Christ was also made Christ to execute God's plan and to accomplish God's will. Christ is the anointed One of God to execute God's plan and to accomplish God's will.
The ascended Christ has been given to be Head over all things to the church (Eph. 1:22b).
As the Head over all things, Christ will head up all things at the fullness of the times (Eph. 1:10). When the fullness of the times comes, Christ will head up all things, including the things in the heavens and the things on the earth. Today among the millions of people on this earth there is no head. But when the fullness of the times comes, Christ will head up all the people.
Christ's heading up of all things is for the church to be the inheritance of God according to the counsel of God's will (Eph. 1:11). According to Ephesians 1:7 we were redeemed into Christ not only as a person but also as a sphere and as an element. We were redeemed into this sphere and into this element. According to 1:11, with Christ as the element we were made something precious, a treasure to God. This precious treasure is the church as God's inheritance. This has a great deal to do with Christ's heading up of all things. In order to head up all things, first Christ has to make us a treasure, the inheritance of God. Based on this, Christ will go on to head up all things in good order under Himself as the Head.
In His ascension Christ was made Leader (the Ruler of the kings of the earth, King of kings) and Savior (Acts 5:31; Rev. 1:5a; 17:14a; 19:16a).
Christ was made Leader (the Ruler of the kings of the earth, King of kings) to rule over the unbelievers. All the unbelievers today, regardless of how unruly they are, are under Christ's ruling.
Christ was made Savior to save the believers. He is both the Leader (the Ruler) and the Savior. Christ is the Leader (the Ruler) to the unbelievers and the Savior to us, the believers.
In His ascension Christ was ordained to be the great High Priest (Heb. 4:14; 7:26).
Christ was ordained to be such a High Priest to minister to the believers the heavenly things with all the riches of the heavenly Christ (Heb. 8:1-2). Today the Christ whom we enjoy is not an earthly Christ but a heavenly Christ. If Christ were not in the heavens, He would not be so rich or so high. Today, the very Christ whom we enjoy is in the heavens as a Priest, ministering Himself to us with the things of the heavens.
Many Christians hold the understanding that the ministry of Christ includes only His incarnation, that is, His becoming a man, His death on the cross for our sins, and His resurrection that we may be resurrected with Him. I would not say that this is wrong, but this is only a small part of Christ's ministry. Today, Christ continues His ministry in the heavens. This is His heavenly ministry. In executing such a ministry, He is the Lord in the heavens, the Christ, the Head, and the great High Priest. As such a One He is busy today in the heavens. First, He is building up His universal Body. In the old creation Christ as the almighty One simply spoke a word, and things came into being (Gen. 1:3; Psa. 33:9). But in the new creation, He must do a lot of work in order to build up His Body. Then, concerning the world, concerning the great image in Daniel 2, Christ must do a lot of work. In recent world events, it seems that the United Nations is exercising its control over certain nations, but actually, Christ is controlling all the nations. Christ is administrating the entire world situation. Although Communism is a formidable system, it could remain in Russia for only seventy years. For this we must give the glory, the praise, to the Ruler of the entire earth. Christ is busy; He is preparing the situation, the environment, and the time so that He can come back with the eternal kingdom of God. He is getting everything ready so that He can return to smash that great image precisely on the ten toes, to defeat Antichrist, the ten kings, and their armies (Dan. 2:34-35; Rev. 17:12-14; 19:11-16, 19-21). For the past forty-five years all the nations have been busy competing in the realm of military might. Today, Christ and the Antichrist also are preparing. One day there will be an ultimate war, which will be at Armageddon (16:16). In that war Christ will lead God's army, and Antichrist will lead Satan's army. Two armies will fight there. Christ is preparing His army. That army needs us to be overcomers, whom Christ will marry as His bride. Christ's bride will be His army (19:7-8, 11, 14). Today Christ is doing a lot of work in the heavens to prepare for that day.
Christ has been ordained to be the great High Priest to save the believers to the uttermost by interceding for them (Heb. 7:25). Christ is in the heavens interceding for the church. He is interceding not only for the believers in general but also for every believer individually. We need to believe and be assured that Christ is interceding for each of us by name. This interceding work is not His earthly ministry but His heavenly ministry, a ministry by Christ as the High Priest.
Christ was ordained to be the great High Priest to take care of the believers with sympathy by ushering them to the throne of grace that they may receive mercy and find grace for timely help (Heb. 4:15-16). When we enter into the Holy of Holies to touch the throne of grace, we may not realize that it was Christ who ushered us there. He brings us into the Holy of Holies and places us at the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely need. Such a ministry is carried out by Christ not in a general way but in a very fine and detailed way.
As the great High Priest, Christ walks among the churches as the lampstands and dresses them (Rev. 1:13; 2:1b). The lampstands among which Christ is walking are not on the earth but in the heavens. All the churches today are in the heavens. In the heavens and in His heavenly ministry Christ is caring for all the churches and dressing them as the lampstands by trimming off the charred wicks (dealing with the old and charred natural life) and adding more oil (supplying the Holy Spirit) to make them shine brighter. This is Christ's work in His heavenly ministry today.
As we have seen previously, in His ascension Christ shared the prey of His victory by His death and resurrection with God, the Great and the Strong (Isa. 53:12a). Then Christ gave the prey of His victory to the church as gifts — some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers — for the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:8b, 11-12).
The ascension of Christ consummates in the following three main things:
First, Christ's ascension consummates in the heavenly ministry of Christ in the heavens. In such a ministry, Christ ministers as the anointed One of God to carry out God's eternal economy for the propagating of the gospel, the raising up of the church as the kingdom of God, and the building up of the Body of Christ.
Second, Christ's ascension consummates in the distributing of the prey from His triumphant victory as gifts to His Body. This is for the accomplishing of the pleasure of Jehovah, which will prosper in His hand according to God's desire and plan (Isa. 53:10c). The pleasure of Jehovah is the building up of the Body of Christ. God is pleased only with the building up of the Body of Christ. The accomplishing of God's pleasure is for the fulfillment of God's New Testament economy (1 Tim. 1:4b).
Third, Christ's ascension consummates in the accomplishment of the work of God for His new creation. God is producing His new creation among His old creation and out of His old creation. The old creation is like an egg, and the new creation is like a little hen. Just as a hen comes out of an egg, the new creation comes out of the old creation.
The work of God for His new creation is carried out in and through the four ages of His old creation. The four ages of God's old creation are (1) the age before the law, from Adam to Moses (Rom. 5:13-14); (2) the age of the law, from Moses to the first coming of Christ (John 1:17); (3) the age of grace, from Christ's first coming to His second coming; and (4) the age of the kingdom, from Christ's second coming to the end of the thousand-year kingdom. By these four ages God is creating the new creation. The new creation is created altogether in Christ, by Christ, through Christ, and with Christ. This is carried out mainly in Christ's heavenly ministry. Christ's death and resurrection, which belong to His earthly ministry, only terminated the old creation and germinated the new creation. The continuing work of constituting the new creation is being done in the heavens in Christ's heavenly ministry.
The work of God for His new creation is to complete the constitution of the New Jerusalem as the mingling of the processed Triune God with His transformed tripartite saints to be God's expression and the saints' blessing for eternity. At the end of the sixty-six books of the Bible, a city is unveiled, that is, the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is the consummation of Christ's ministry, including His earthly ministry and His heavenly ministry. Again, the greatest part of this ministry is not His earthly ministry but His heavenly ministry. The ministry of Christ, in both its earthly and heavenly parts, will consummate in a city, and this city is the mingling of the processed Triune God with His transformed tripartite saints to be God's expression and the saints' blessing for eternity. For eternity God will have an expression, and for eternity we will enjoy a blessing, that is, the New Jerusalem as the consummation of Christ's ministry in the four stages — incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.
