A summary of chapter 40 of The Fountain of Life, by John Flavel.
John 20:17 – ‘Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.’
The persons to whom this message was sent: ‘My brethren’; a sweet term, and full of love.
The message itself: ‘Tell my brethren, I ascend to my Father, and your Father; to my God, and your God.’…
Ephesians 2:1-10
Transformations. DIY SOS, Restorations, Homes Under The Hammer, House Doctors, Grand Designs, Tattoo Fixers, Embarrassing Bodies.
But none of them attempts: the transformation from death to life.
V5 ‘God made us alive even when we were dead.’
A threefold tyranny: –
The tyranny of the world: v2 ‘You followed the ways of this world’. ‘Those places, persons, pleasures and pursuits where God is left out.’ Those without Christ are slaves to secularism, materialism, peer pressure, religious fads, and the dubious role models of celebrities.…
Bart Ehrman is one of those scholars who impresses with his extensive knowledge (to say nothing of his personal charm and communication ability), but who makes glaring errors of judgement on too regular a basis. Perhaps it is his own loss of Christian faith that makes him so certain that he has no axe to grind that he cannot see the axes lying all around him – some on have already been ground, others are waiting to be ground, still others are in the process of being ground. …
1. Why didn’t Jesus go straight to heaven when he rose from the dead?
2. In how many ways could the following sentence be completed:- ‘Because Jesus has ascended to heaven, we know that…’
3. If Christ’s followers are not supposed to be standing looking into the sky (Acts 1:11), what are we supposed to be doing, according to this passage? And why do we need power (verse 8) to do this?…
It is a horrible thought to try to imagine life without someone you dearly love.
The disciples were having to get used to the prospect of life without Jesus.
There they are, sitting around the table sharing one last meal with Jesus. They listen with increasing alarm as he tells them that he must leave them. On top of that, he warns them that they can expect to be treated with terrible hostility after his departure.…
The ascension:-
It establishes three facts:-
1. Christ’s personal ascendancy. Jesus went up to the place of power, pictured as a throne at the Father’s right hand.…
1.We can go home, too. Jesus tells his disciples a little later that he’s going to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house. Because Jesus returned to the Father, I can say with Paul that “to live is Christ, and to die is gain”—when I depart, I will be with Jesus.
2. Jesus mediates for us to God. It’s phenomenal: Jesus, the God-man, advocates for me before the holy and righteous God.
John Owen claimed that the mediatorial life of Christ in heaven ‘is not so considered nor so applied as it ought to be’; and again, ‘the darkness of our faith herein is the cause of all our disconsolations and most of our weakness in obedience.’
Owen adds,
‘Most men have only general and confused notions and apprehensions of the present state of Christ with respect unto the church.’
Yet:
…‘This assumption of our Lord Jesus Christ into glory, or his glorious reception in heaven, with his state and condition therein, is a principle article of the faith of the church – the great foundation of its hope and consolation in the world…He leads not in heaven a life of mere glory, majesty and blessedness, but a life of office, love and care also.
We are too apt to move straight from an assertion of Christ’s resurrection to an invitation to a present encounter with the living Saviour. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that ‘from the moment Jesus left the tomb, he was heading for the heavenly throne.’
‘The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.’ The resurrection began, and the ascension completed, his return to glory, his journey home.…
