Morning Nourishment-The Experience, Growth, And Ministry Of Life For The Body(W3-Outline)

Int’l Training for Elders and Responsible Ones (Fall 2013)

Entering Into the Fourth Stage of the Experience of Life to Arrive at a Full-Grown Man for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose

Message Three

The Fourth Stage of the Experience of Life (2)
          Knowing the Ascension

Scripture Reading: Acts 2:36; Heb. 2:9; 4:14-15; 7:26; 12:2; Eph. 1:19-23

Outline

Day　1 & 2

I. The Man-Savior’s ascension is His inauguration into His heavenly office through the process of creation, incarnation,human living, crucifixion, and resurrection as God and man, as the Creator and the creature, and as the Redeemer, the Savior,and the life-giving Spirit to execute God’s administration and to carry out God’s New Testament economy.

II. We need to see the objective aspect of the Lord’s ascension:

A. The Lord’s ascension caused Him to be crowned with glory and honor—Heb. 2:9:

1. Glory is the splendor related to Jesus’ person; honor is the preciousness related to Jesus’ worth—1 Pet. 2:7.

2. Christ is glorious in state and honorable in rank; He is above all kings and rulers; this is His honor.

B. The Lord’s ascension caused Him to be enthroned for God’s administration; Hebrews 12:2 says that Christ is now seated on the right hand of the throne of God:

1. The fact that God in Christ is sitting on the throne means that God administrates the entire universe from within Christ and through Christ, just as the light shines from within the lamp and through the lamp—Rev. 22:1, 3; cf. 21:23.

2. Christ is now on the throne to administrate the entire universe; He is the unique Administrator, the King of kings and the Lord of lords; He is the Ruler of the kings of the earth—1:5; 17:14;19:16.

3. His administrating is related to the universe, but His carrying out God’s New Testament economy is to propagate Himself for His reproduction to build up the church, His Body, which will issue in the New Jerusalem—cf. Acts 5:31.

C. “Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you have crucified” (2:36); in this verse the word made can be understood to mean “inaugurated”; in His ascension God inaugurated Christ into His heavenly ministry:

1. The Man-Savior, in His ascension, has been made the Lord to possess all; He is now the Lord to possess the whole universe, God’s chosen people, and all positive things, matters, and persons.

2. The Man-Savior, in His ascension, was made the Christ as God’s Anointed (Heb. 1:9) to carry out God’s commission.

D. We are now one with Christ in His resurrection and ascension (Eph.2:6); as a result, we have life and power in resurrection and alsoauthority in ascension; when we contact our Lord, we need to have a realization of what He is, a realization of His status, position, and office.

Day　3

III. We need to see the subjective aspect of the Lord’s
ascension—cf. Psa. 91:1; S. S. 4:7-8; 6:10:

A. Christ in His all-transcending ascension transcended Hades (where the dead people are being held), the earth (where the fallen people are moving against God), the air (where Satan and his power of darkness are acting against God), and all the heavens (where Satan can go—Eph. 1:20-21; 4:8-10; Heb. 7:26; Job 1:6-12a; 2:1-6); in His ascension Christ passed through the heavens (Heb. 4:14) so that now He is not only in heaven (9:24) but also is higher than the heavens (7:26), far above all the heavens (Eph. 4:10).

B. Ephesians 1:19-23 reveals that there is a transmission from the ascended Christ to us; verse 22 says that God gave Christ “to be Head over all things to the church”; the phrase to the church indicates a transmission from the ascended Christ to the church, His Body:

1. God gave the ascended Christ a great gift—the headship over all things; what God gave Christ to be is to the church; it is transmitted to the church, and the church shares it.

2. Verses 20 through 22 show that God caused His power to operate in Christ in four steps: first, raising Him from the dead; second, seating Him at His right hand in the heavenlies; third, subjecting all things under His feet; and fourth, giving Him to be Head over all things to the church.

3. Christ’s power—His resurrecting power, ascending power,subjecting power, and heading up power—is “toward us who believe” and “to the church”; whatever Christ, the Head, has attained and obtained is transmitted to the church, His Body—vv. 19, 22-23.

4. We should not only believe in the divine transmission; we need to experience it day by day; the church should be in the transmission of the exalted and ascended Christ; in this transmission the church shares with Christ in all His attainments—the resurrection from among the dead, being
seated in His transcendency, the subjection of all things under His feet, and the headship over all things.

5. Because the divine transmission is not once for all, the church should continually receive this transmission; this is the continual transmission into the church of the ascended Christ with the full significance of His ascension; through the divine transmission, we are joined to Christ in the heavens; as long as we are clean receptacles and are willing to open ourselves, this transmission will take place continually in us—2:6.

6. We simply need to open ourselves and say, “Lord, I am here. I love You, and I give myself to You. Lord, I empty my whole being for You”; if you pray like this, you will experience and enjoy this divine transmission.

Day　4

C. The great goal of the divine transmission is the heading up of all things in Christ (1:10); through all the dispensations of God in all the ages, all things will be headed up in Christ in the new heaven and new earth; this will be God’s eternal administration and economy:

1. This heading up is done by God through a universal man; the Head of this man is Christ, and the Body of this man is the church.

2. Because God is heading up all things through a universal man constituted of Christ, the Head, and the church, the Body, we as members of the Body need to keep the oneness of the Body under the headship; this oneness is the instrument, channel, and sphere that God is using to head up all things in Christ.

3. The whole creation is expecting and eagerly awaiting the manifestation of the sons of God; at that time all divisions and separations will be removed, and all things, not only mankind, will be headed up in Christ—Rom. 8:19-22.

4. According to man’s view, the heading up of the entire
universe seems to be an impossibility, but with God nothing is impossible—Mark 10:27.

Day　5

D. In His ascension Christ was made the Head of the church, His Body, to express God in His fullness—Col. 1:18; Eph. 1:23; 3:19:

1. The Head and the Body are one and form a universal man; with this divine matter there is neither the element of space nor the element of time; the Body is one with the Head in the divine life and in the divine Spirit.

2. According to the divine viewpoint, we are one with the ascended Christ, and His ascension is also ours (2:6);  here in this ascension we express Him in His fullness; since the transcending Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9), His transcending transmission includes all the rich dispensing of the Triune God to make us the fullness of Christ for His expression (Eph. 1:22-23; 3:19, 8).

E. In His ascension Christ was also made the High Priest in the heavens to bear us in the presence of God and to care for all our needs; in His ascension He was inaugurated into His priestly office—Heb. 2:17-18;4:14-15; Psa. 110:1-4; Heb. 5:6; 7:26:

1. On the one hand, Christ is the High Priest interceding in the heavens for the churches (vv. 25-26; Rom. 8:34); on the other hand, He is the High Priest moving in the churches to care for them; in Revelation 1:13 Christ is depicted as the High Priest, as shown by His garment, a garment reaching to the feet, that is, a priestly robe (Exo. 28:33-35).

Day　6

2. In Revelation 8 Christ is revealed as the Priest offering the incense at the golden altar: “And another Angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer, and much incense was given to Him to offer with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne” (v. 3).

3. In the Old Testament the high priest typifies Christ as our High Priest; according to the book of Exodus, the high priest bore the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on his shoulders and on his heart, bearing the names of God’s chosen people before God—Exo. 28:9-10, 12, 21, 29:

a. Today Christ is our High Priest, and we are on His shoulders and on His breast; He is in the heavens as the High Priest bearing us with His strength and holding us with His love.

b. As our High Priest, Christ is also taking care of us; He is “a merciful and faithful High Priest in the things pertaining to God” (Heb. 2:17), a High Priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses (4:15).

c. Although Christ as the High Priest is taking care of us, we all have our own thought and feeling as to how He should care for us; however, what is good for us is not a matter of our interpretation but of His—Rom. 8:28-29.

d. The ascended Christ cares not only for us and our welfare; He cares for God’s desires; as the High Priest, He cares more for God’s need than our need.

e. The Lord as the High Priest establishes lampstands and trims the lamps for the expression of God (Rev. 1:13; 2:1); this work includes His edifying of the saints and His building up of the church as the living testimony of Jesus.

4. As the High Priest in the heavens, the Lord is the surety and the Mediator, the Executor, of a better covenant—Heb. 7:22; 8:6;9:15-17:

a. The New Testament is a new will for our inheritance; it has many bequests, all of which are divine blessings bequeathed to the churches.

b. Christ died to enact the will, resurrected to become the reality of the bequests of the will, and He is now in the heavens as the living Executor of the will that He has bequeathed to us (Isa. 42:6).

c. Every blessing in the New Testament (Eph. 1:3; Gal. 3:14) is a bequest applied to us by the living, resurrected, and ascended Christ.

d. Christ’s ministry in the heavens has a destination—the New Jerusalem; the New Jerusalem will be the consummation of Christ’s work in His ascension.