We Don’t Know What’s Become of Him
Ascension Sunday
Andrew Katay posted a quote this week stating that when the church fails to emphasise the Ascension, a commitment to church programs instead of to Christ fills the vacuum. This should come as no surprise.
Typologically, the Ascension of Christ was prefigured by the ascension of Moses, and later the ascension of Daniel, as Stephen understood:
“This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear.’ “This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, ”whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, “saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ ”And they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. “Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the Prophets: ‘Did you offer Me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch, And the star of your god Remphan, Images which you made to worship; And I will carry you away beyond Babylon.’ … ” You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.” (Acts 7:37-51)
A great factor in our failure to understand the Ascension of Christ is our failure to understand the ascension of Moses, and thus what Christ’s Ascension meant for the first century church.
Jesus brought a mixed multitude out of Herod’s Egypt, through His Passover death and resurrection. His Ascension as the Mosaic head of the Levitical priesthood gave the church the ‘oracles’ of the New Covenant Scriptures via the Holy Spirit. That much, we would all agree on.
But Stephen’s mention of Israel’s idolatry in the wilderness, and its correspondence with their later captivity in Babylon all found its fulfilment in the first century.
In Revelation 4-5, Jesus ascended and opened the New Covenant scroll, sending out the apostles as four horsemen. Herod’s Egypt became Babylon, home of the living dead, a time of captivity and testing for the saints. Despite Christ’s warnings, Herod continued to construct and beautify the Temple. It became Babel, the image of the beast, an idol that could actually ’speak.’
After Pentecost, Trumpets was fulfilled in the apostles’ warnings to the Jews of the Diaspora (the later letters) and the destruction of Jerusalem as Jericho was Atonement under the New High Priest. The unbelieving Jews were sent to Azal, outer darkness. Just as the Hebrews ‘drank’ the golden calf and later died in the wilderness, Jerusalem drank the cup of God’s judgment, given to her as the harlot-bride by her Bridegroom as priest (Numbers 5).
So, the modern church, without understanding the repercussions of the Ascension upon the Land, will have no vision of the similar long-term repercussions upon the World. No wonder church-building and programs become a golden calf, and saints dance themselves into a trance attempting to reach heaven on tiptoe.
However, a true understanding of the Ascension of Christ, the current heavenly government of the saints instituted in AD70 and our own weekly ascension for fellowship, brings true church building. And in this case, we do know what’s become of Him, because we see Him as He is. Every Sunday is a Day of the Lord.
