After spending 33.5 years in His earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus today is the God-man on the throne in the heavens in His heavenly ministry, having many statuses and doing many things; we as His people are resurrected and ascended with Christ, having Him within us as life and upon us as our power, and we live by Him.
Most believers focus on the earthly ministry of Christ, appreciating His teachings, His doings, and His death and resurrection; however, the present Christ is even more rich, more wonderful, and more busy than He ever was on earth.
The book of Acts, as a transitional book from the earthly ministry of Christ to His heavenly ministry, reveals a resurrected and ascended Christ who is in the heavens; His living and ministry in the heavens are the contents of the book of Acts.
It is amazing to realize that, just as a president is inaugurated when the elections are finalized, so Christ was inaugurated on the day of His ascension, and He was initiated into His heavenly ministry.
Christ’s ascension was God’s exaltation of Him (Acts 2:33-36); when God raised Jesus from the dead, He approved His redemptive work and justified us, and when He lifted Christ to the heavens, He inaugurated Him into His heavenly ministry.
Now Christ is the highest person in the universe, being inaugurated by God in His ascension to be the Lord of all, the Christ, the Leader, and the Savior. The Lord Jesus was made in ascension to be Lord of all to possess all; He rules over all things, situations, people, and circumstances.
The Lord Jesus was made in ascension to be Christ, God’s anointed One to carry out God’s commission and carry out His economy.
On the one hand the Lord Jesus already was the Lord and the Christ, but in His ascension, after passing through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, He was officially inaugurated to be the Lord and the Christ.
God exalted Christ to His right hand as Leader and Savior. He is the Leader, the Originator, the Author, and the Inaugurator; He exercises His authority so that the environment would be fit for us, His chosen people, to receive His salvation. Praise the Lord, our resurrected and ascended Christ!
The Ascended Christ is the Leader to be our Savior – He Saves us to the Throne!
God has exalted Christ to His right hand and has made Him Leader and Savior (Acts 5:31).
On the one hand, Christ is the Leader, the Originator, and the Initiator, arranging all things and circumstances so that His people would receive, enjoy, and experience His salvation. On the other hand, the ascended Christ was made by God to be Savior to save us all the way to the throne.
Christ’s incarnation made Him a man, His human living on earth qualified Him to be man’s Savior, His crucifixion accomplished full redemption for man, His resurrection vindicated His redemptive work, and His exaltation inaugurated Him to be the ruling Leader so that He might be our Savior.
He is fully qualified to be our Savior, for He passed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, and in His ascension He was made Leader and Savior by God.
As the Savior, the Lord gives us repentance and forgiveness of sins; He leads us to repent, and in His salvation based upon His redemption He gives us forgiveness of sins.
As the Leader, Christ arranges the environment for us to be led to repentance and receive salvation; as the Savior, the ascended Christ gives us repentance and forgiveness of sins. He came as the Savior (John 4:42), and He was made officially the Savior in His ascension, where He is on the throne.
Our Savior is the One on the throne; He saves us from the throne, from glory, and He saves all the way to the throne in glory! When we are saved, we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:6), and as we experience His organic salvation daily, we are being saved from the throne and to the throne.
Hallelujah, we were saved by the Christ on the throne, by the One in glory (Acts 3:13; Luke 24:26; Heb. 2:9; Eph. 1:20-22; Phil. 2:9-11)!
Now physically we are on earth and He is in heavens, but spiritually, we are joined to Him and share the same position – we are seated with Him on the throne, for He is the Head and we are the Body organically joined together!
Christ saved us from the throne and to the throne; this is the ascended Christ as our Savior. We are now under a constant divine transmission from the throne to us on earth; when we touch and enjoy Christ as the heavenly ladder in our spirit, we enjoy the divine transmission from the heavens.
The traffic from the throne is not a “slow-moving traffic” – it moves at lightning speed, like electricity; as soon as the throne transmits something, we receive it – it is instantaneous! Praise the Lord, we are connected directly to the throne, and the ascended Christ as our Savior is saving us to the throne!
Thank You Lord Jesus for being the Leader and the Savior to bring us to enjoy God’s full salvation until we are brought to the throne where You are! We praise You, Lord, for being qualified to be our Savior; You were incarnated to be a man, lived a perfect human life, accomplished full redemption, were vindicated by God in resurrection, and in ascension You are the Leader and the Savior! Thank You, Lord, for saving us from the throne and to the throne as the ascended Christ. Keep us connected to You in spirit, enjoying the constant divine transmission!
We’re Resurrected and Ascended with Christ, having Him as Life within and Power without
How can we cooperate with the heavenly ministry of the ascended Christ? In order for us to cooperate with the heavenly ministry of the ascended Christ for the propagation of the resurrected Christ, we need to know the intrinsic significance of the book of Acts.
The book of Acts doesn’t talk of the “acts of the apostles”; rather, what we see in acts is the propagation of the resurrected Christ in His ascension through the disciples by the Spirit for the producing of the churches, the kingdom of God.
In particular, the first aspect of the intrinsic significance of the book of Acts is that in it we see a move fully in the Spirit, that is, a move in the resurrected and ascended Christ.
The book of Acts is a record of a group of people who are resurrected and ascended with Christ, having Christ within them as their life and Christ upon them as their power and authority. They live not by themselves but by Christ as life. They forget about their own life and deny themselves. Moreover, they walk, act, and work not by their own strength, their own way, or their own method but by Christ as their power, their way, and their method. This Christ who is now their method, way, and power is the very Holy Spirit who came down upon them. In other words, they live by the Triune God within them as their life, and they act by the Triune God upon them as their strength, their way, and their method. This is the contents of the book of Acts. Witness Lee, A General Sketch of the New Testament in the Light of Christ and the Church, Part 1—the Gospels and the Acts
In the book of Acts we see the disciples who were with the Lord and who now have received Him as their life; they are a group of people who are resurrected and ascended with Christ, having Him within them as their life and upon them as their power and authority (see John 20:22; Acts 1:8).
As the continuation of the book of Acts, we as believers in Christ are a group of people who were resurrected and ascended with Christ, having Christ as our life within and upon us as our power.
We are daily learning to live and act not according to knowledge, doctrine, teaching, rules, regulations, forms, or traditions, but according to the living Christ within us and upon us.
In the book of Acts we see that the disciples were regenerated by the Triune God and also they were inaugurated with authority; they were baptized in the Holy Spirit as power, and they had the Spirit within them for their living, and whatever they did and said, it was by the Christ within.
Christ breathed into them the Holy Spirit on the day of His resurrection, and He descended upon them as the Holy Spirit as power for their work.
Through His death and resurrection, the resurrected Christ was propagated – He was enlarged, and now He moves through the corporate Christ, the group of people resurrected and ascended with Christ having Christ as their life within and power without. Christ in resurrection and ascension is our life within and He covers us as power.
In 1 Cor. 12:13 we see that we were baptized in the Spirit (that is, we were immersed into the Spirit, into the Triune God) and we were given to drink the Spirit (that is, take the Spirit into us). The result is that we become people completely mingled with the Triune God: inwardly and outwardly we are filled with Christ as the Spirit.
The whole Body of Christ was baptized in the Spirit in two stages: the Jewish believers were baptized on the day of Pentecost, and the Gentile believers were baptized in the house of Cornelius.
This baptism in the Spirit is a kind of inauguration or authorization. Christ was inaugurated in His ascension, and we also have been inaugurated – some on the day of Pentecost and the rest in the house of Cornelius. Hallelujah, the entire Body of Christ was immersed into the Triune God as the economical Spirit, and we all have been authorized to propagate the resurrected and ascended Christ!
We are heavenly ambassadors, and the authority behind us is the throne of God. Christ in ascension has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, and we are sent by Him with His authority to disciple the nations, baptizing them and teaching them (Matt. 28:18-19).
Wow, what kind of authority we have backing us up when we propagate this Christ! This should give us much boldness!
In Acts we see that the disciples were very bold, for they were filled inwardly and outwardly; when they spoke, they spoke with much boldness, and this subdued everyone who heard them.
In our propagation of Christ we don’t move and do things by arrangements, organization, or teaching, but by the present, living, and fresh guidance of the Spirit, for we are people who were resurrected and ascended with Christ, one with Him!
Lord Jesus, thank You for making us those who were resurrected and ascended with Christ, having CHrist within as our life and Christ upon us as our power and authority! We want to cooperate with You in Your heavenly ministry, Lord, by living by the Triune God within us as our life and acting by the Triune God upon us as our strength, power, and authority! Hallelujah, we have been immersed in the Spirit and we are given to drink of the Spirit: we are fully mingled with the Triune God in Christ as the Spirit to propagate the resurrected and ascended Christ!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Mark R. for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1964, vol. 2, “A General Sketch of the New Testament in the Light of Christ and the Church, Part 1 — the Gospels and the Acts,” ch. 6, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Cooperating with the Heavenly Ministry of the Ascended Christ (2017 Spring ITERO), msg. 4 (week 4), Propagating the Resurrected Christ under the Heavenly Ministry of the Ascended Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Christ the Savior hath ascended / To the heavens far above, / Crowned with glory and with honor / By the Father God in love…From this Christ to God ascended / Hath the Spirit been outpoured, / Poured upon the Church, His Body, / That His members be empow’red; / Thus the Lord of all in heaven / Thru His Church will be adored. (Hymns #277)
# Baptized in the Holy Spirit, / In the Spirit we’re immersed; / All the church is born of Spirit, / All religion is dispersed. / In the Spirit, in the Spirit— / Brothers, this is all we need. / Now the church must be in Spirit, / Not in teaching, form, or creed. (Hymns #1123)
# Lord, fill with Thy Spirit of life every part, / That we may grow up in Thy life as Thou art; / And clothe us without with Thy Spirit of pow’r / Thy will to fulfill in Thy service each hour. (Hymns #278)
In principle, Acts is a record only of that group of people who are resurrected and ascended with Christ, having Christ within them as their life and Christ upon them as their power. Moreover, they live not by themselves but by this Christ within, and they act not according to knowledge, doctrine, teaching, rules, regulations, forms, and traditions but according to the living Christ upon them….If we take this point of view and go back to read Acts again, we will gain the proper insight into it.
The book of Acts is the record of a group of people who are regenerated by the Triune God and inaugurated with authority by the Triune God. These people have the Triune God within them as their life and upon them as their authority and power. They act in this way and live by the life within. This is the basic thought of the book of Acts….The believers mentioned in Acts moved and worked with authority and power, not as many do today.
We must realize the significance of the Lord’s resurrection and ascension, including both the breathing of His breath into us on the day of resurrection and the rushing of the violent wind on the day of Pentecost. Now we have the breath within us and the rushing wind upon us. We have the Triune God as our life within and the very same Triune God as our authority without. As such, we are the church. This is the critical transition in the book of Acts. (Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1964, vol. 2, “A General Sketch of the New Testament in the Light of Christ and the Church, Part 1—the Gospels and the Acts,” pp. 203-204, 197)
Amen!
Amen….
Amen brother. Hallelujah for Christ our life (John 20:22) and Christ our power and authority and walk (Luke 24:49)
“Then He measured a thousand cubits, and it was a river that I could not pass through; for the water had risen, enough water to swim in, a river that could not be crossed. And He said to me, Son of man, have you seen this?” (Ezekiel 47:5-6) ” And all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank of a spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ.” (1 Corinthians 10:2-6)
Amen. Thank You for the Spirit!
Amen, we are in Him!
Amen. Thank You Lord Jesus for this accomplished fact. We were all given to drink one Spirit!
Praise the Lord we have His authority to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom to the whole inhabited earth. Dear Lord Jesus gain all of Germany as Your stepping stone.
AMEN HALLELUJA THANK YOU LORD