I’m determined to post a bit more frequently. Like the fact that I got ordained a few weeks ago…

It all comes down to this — the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to the primacy of the Bishop of Rome and the Pope as the universal monarch of the church is the defining issue. Roman Catholics and Evangelicals should together recognize the importance of that claim. We should together realize and admit that this is an issue worthy of division. The Roman Catholic Church is willing to go so far as to assert that any church that denies the papacy is no true church. Evangelicals should be equally candid in asserting that any church defined by the claims of the papacy is no true church. This is not a theological game for children, it is the honest recognition of the importance of the question.

The Reformers and their heirs put their lives on the line in order to stake this claim. In this era of confusion and theological laxity we often forget that this was one of the defining issues of the Reformation itself. Both the Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church staked their claim to be the true church — and both revealed their most essential convictions in making their argument. As Martin Luther and John Calvin both made clear, the first mark of the true Church is the ministry of the Word — the preaching of the Gospel. The Reformers indicted the Roman Catholic Church for failing to exhibit this mark, and thus failing to be a true Church. The Catholic church returned the favor, defining the church in terms of the papacy and magisterial authority. Those claims have not changed.

I also appreciate the spiritual concern reflected in this document. The artificial and deadly dangerous game of ecumenical confusion has obscured issues of grave concern for our souls. I truly believe that Pope Benedict and the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith are concerned for our evangelical souls and our evangelical congregations. Pope Benedict is not playing a game. He is not asserting a claim to primacy on the playground. He, along with the Magisterium of his church, believes that Protestant churches are gravely defective and that our souls are in danger. His sacramental theology plays a large role in this concern, for he believes and teaches that a church without submission to the papacy has no guaranteed efficacy for its sacraments. (This point, by the way, explains why the Protestant churches that claim a sacramental theology are more concerned about this Vatican statement — it
denies the basic validity of their sacraments.)

I actually appreciate the Pope’s concern. If he is right, we are endangering our souls and the souls of our church members. Of course, I am convinced that he is not right — not right on the papacy, not right on the sacraments, not right on the priesthood, not right on the Gospel, not right on the church. The Roman Catholic Church believes we are in spiritual danger for obstinately and disobediently excluding ourselves from submission to its universal claims and its papacy. Evangelicals should be concerned that Catholics are in spiritual danger for their submission to these very claims. We both understand what is at stake.

The Rev. Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, responded to the press by saying that the Vatican’s “exclusive claims” are “troubling.” He also said, “what may have been meant to clarify has caused pain.”

I will let Bishop Hanson explain his pain. I do not see this new Vatican statement as an innovation or an insult. I see it as a clarification and a helpful demarcation of the issues at stake. I appreciate the Roman Catholic Church’s candor on this issue, and I believe that Evangelical Christians, with equal respect and clarity, should respond in kind. This is a time to be respectfully candid — not a time to be offended.

Ascension Day isn’t exactly the most well known celebration of the year, and Ascension Day cards aren’t available at Clinton’s, which is a terrible shame because it should be one of the biggest parties of the year. I suppose being on a Thursday it was never linked to the weekend and turned into a bank holiday; personally I think it deserves taking both the Thursday and the Friday off!

So, in my own small way, I want to correct the imbalance. It’s fairly unlikely I’ll turn the church around – my National Ouagadougou Day never quite lived up to its name – but I can make a start…

What actually happened?

Having risen from the dead on the third day, just as the Old Testament had predicted, Jesus appeared to his disciples many times over 40 days giving convincing proofs he was alive. Luke – the physician who carefully researched the events between Jesus’ birth and ascension – then records that “When Jesus had led the disciples out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.” (Luke chapter 24, verse 50). King David, writing hundreds of years beforehand, tells us what happened next:

“The LORD (God the Father) said to my Lord (Jesus, God the Son): ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’” (Psalm 110:1)

Or, to quote Paul, one of Jesus’ personally appointed spokespersons (apostles),

“God exalted Him to the highest place.” (Philippians 2:9)

It seems like quite a simple event. But there are huge implications of Jesus’ ascent into heaven to sit enthroned at the right hand of God the Father.

What does it mean?

The meaning of the ascension is spelt out in great detail in the letter to the Hebrews. Let me quote part of what the writer says and then explain it:

[In the ascension] ²⁴Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. ²⁵Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. ²⁶Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. ²⁷Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, ²⁸so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

[The quote comes from chapter 9 of the letter; the verse numbers aren’t original, but help readers know where they are.]

The writer has been explaining how things in the Old Testament such as the sanctuary (part of the temple), animal sacrifices and priests were models/copies/shadows of a greater reality, and also how the models contained deliberate flaws just in case anyone was tempted to think the models were actually the reality. Now that the reality has come in Jesus Christ, the Jewish Christians can dispense with the models; not to would be like gazing intently at a picture of one’s other half while he or she was standing in the room with you!

Before I go on, I had better explain what the Bible means by ‘sin’. Basically, sin is rejecting Jesus. The whole world was made through him and for him; it is a gift from God the Father to Jesus, God the Son. The eternal love that existed between Father and Son as it were ‘overflowed’ and the world was made so that humanity in could share in that love and enjoy loving Jesus as the Father does. So to reject Jesus (either deliberately or by simply ignoring him) is to be the greatest rebel around. And having lost our frame of reference, we continue rebelling through our actions against God and against one another. If there’s one lesson to be learnt from the Twentieth century, it’s that our mutiny has singularly failed. This is sin, and God hates it. Jesus himself said, in John’s gospel, chapter 3 and verse 35, “The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever trusts the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” Our sin, and God’s anger against our sin, is the biggest problem we all face. The quote from Hebrews mentions in passing that everyone is destined to die once, and after that face the judgment. The grim reality that Jesus tells us is: we can’t do a thing about it. In God’s eyes, we are guilty as hell, and heading that way also. Christianity is good news about being rescued by the one we’ve rejected.

Back to the letter to the Hebrews. The writer has been explaining in particular the reality behind a special day in the Jewish calendar – the Day of Atonement, which is described in Leviticus chapter 16. This annual event was done to symbolically take away the sin of the nation of Israel. The High Priest selected two goats and, as representative of the nation, laid his hands on the heads of the goats to symbolically transfer the sin and guilt of his nation onto the animals. One was then sacrificially killed – it took the judgment that the nation deserved, in place of the nation. The other goat (the original scapegoat) was released into the desert – symbolically taking the sins away. It was a gory event, but a graphic portrayal of all that Jesus would do. Together the two goats showed how Jesus was “sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people” (verse 27). As one of us, he was our High Priest. As our representative and true substitute he offered himself “to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself” (verse 26). Perhaps the best explanation of Jesus’ death on a cross was written by the prophet Isaiah, some 500 years before Jesus left heaven to be born as a member of the human race. Isaiah writes:

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities [sins];

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

This amazing act is what allows God to forgive us without brushing sin under the carpet. But, back to the Day of Atonement, there was more to come.

Having sacrificed one of the goats, the High Priest then took some of the blood into the sanctuary, the Most Holy Place of the temple. To explain all that the tabernacle/temple symbolised would be too much now; as the writer to the Hebrews himself says in verse 5 of chapter 9: “we cannot discuss these things in detail now”! But verse 24 of our quote explains what the sanctuary was a copy of:

Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear to us in God’s presence.

Unlike the Day of Atonement, which was repeated year after year as “an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4), Jesus only had to do this once:

Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.

This is what Ascension Day is all about. After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus ascended to heaven to present himself before God the Father as both High Priest and sacrifice. There are many important implications of this; I’ll mention three.

SALVATION ACHIEVED

When someone turns to Jesus and trusts him for salvation, God the Holy Spirit unites us to him. The Bible uses the imagery of being ‘clothed in Christ’. All that he achieved becomes ours.

‘Ever since Adam spurned God it had been impossible for God and humanity to meet safely together. But now God had not only become one of us, He had suffered the punishment for our sins, taking away the curse of death. And now He ascends to heaven so that one of us, a flesh and bones member of our race, sits next to God the Father on our behalf.

‘This is the enormous comfort the Christian has. Whenever I look within myself, I am overcome by the wickedness and evil that’s within me and I know I have no right whatsoever and no chance in myself of ever having friendship with the Father. But, when I stop looking at myself and start having faith – in other words looking out from myself to see what Christ has done for me – then I see a completely different picture. I’m not the damnable wretch I was when I looked inside my heart. No – there I am – in Christ, raised to new life; righteous, accepted, loved by the Father. Seated at His right hand in honour! That’s the real truth about me and anyone else in Christ. Right now, however sick I know my heart to be, I can boldly approach the Father who is too pure to even look at sin, and right now I can sit in His presence and enjoy friendship with Him. I can talk to Him. “Therefore,” the writer to the Hebrews says, “since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”’

SALVATION FULLY ACCOMPLISHED

There is a bizarre and blasphemous heresy going around; one that most non-Christians believe, and it goes something like “Christianity is all about being good so that God will let you into heaven.” But the ascension shows that to be wrong. The writer to the Hebrews says,

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest [Jesus] had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect for ever those who are being made holy.

Christianity is NOT about trying to be good; it is NOT about doing religious duties. The good news of Jesus is that he has completely accomplished salvation on our behalf. The quote shows us that this is the case because, unlike the ‘shadow’ priests who kept repeating the sacrifices, Jesus has made THE sacrifice for sins, and has sat down at the right hand of God. A Christian is someone who has realised his or her complete inability to do anything good in God’s sight and instead is trusting Jesus for his or her salvation. Yes, a Christian tries to live like Jesus their Lord and Saviour; a Christian is someone who is ‘being made holy’, but when he or she fails – as all Christians do every day – we know that “by one sacrifice he has made perfect for ever those who are being made holy.”

JESUS THE UNIVERSAL KING OF GLORY

Psalm 24 speaks of Jesus’ return to heaven in the ascension and describes him as the King of glory, the LORD strong and mighty, the LORD Almighty. The apostle Paul describes the ascension by writing

God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus wasn’t just any priest – in chapter 7 the writer to the Hebrews has been explaining how Jesus is also the King of righteousness and the King of peace. Jesus has been enthroned as King over the whole creation, and so every knee in the whole creation should bow to him and confess him as Lord. It’s sheer stupidity not to. He promises he will return one day “to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:28) and to judge those who have continued their wilful rebellion. Jesus made this very clear during his time on earth – and since he died for me, I have no option but to believe him.

Ascension Day

There are so many more implications of the ascension, but then I would be writing a book and not a short explanation of why Ascension Day should be such a massive celebration! On our own we deserve only judgment for our rejection of Jesus, but the one we rejected died in our place, rose again to new life and has ascended to heaven to appear for us before God the Father. Salvation is achieved – God and man are re-united – and that salvation is offered freely to those who would simply trust Jesus as Lord and Saviour. With such good news, I hope that you will be joining in the Ascension Day celebrations not just next year, but every day until Jesus returns to claim the whole creation as his own.