Christ Has Ascended — And We With Him

Forty days after our Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, and in the fullness of his humanity and his divinity, he ascended into heaven. Paul speaks of this in the wonderful prayer he makes for the Church in Ephesians 1: that we may know the wonderful anticipation to which God has called us, that we may know the riches of the glorious inheritance God has in us, and that we may know the unfathomable greatness of his power for us. He tells, here and elsewhere, about that great power, and we see the glory of our Ascended Lord Jesus:

That Same Power,
The Mighty Strength
God exercised when He
Raised Christ from the dead
And seated him at the
Right hand of the Father
In the heavenly realms,
Far above all rule,
Far above all authority,
Far above all power,
Far above all dominion,
Far above every name—
The Name above All Names.

God has placed
All Things under his feet
And given him to the Church
To be head over All Things
In Heaven and on Earth,
To the Church,
Which is His Body,
The Fullness of Him
Who Fills All Things
Everywhere.

Through the Incarnation, Christ united divinity with humanity, God with humankind, and became Human Being, of which we all partake and by which we are all now defined. Because of the Incarnation, the death of Christ has become our death, too. The resurrection of Christ has become our resurrection, too. And the ascension of Christ has become our ascension, too, the ascension of All Humankind. 

Only a few verses later, in Ephesians 2:6, Paul declares, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” Christ has ascended into heaven, and we have ascended with him. This is not future promise but accomplished act and present reality. It is the good news of the gospel.