His Ascension -More Powerful Than His Resurrection

[Cntrysner]

Christ’s ascension is our gateway to the Father in glory.

Christ had to ascend to send His omnipresent Spirit to indwell us giving us the wisdom and revelation of His earthly ministry and the fullness of being in Christ, the Hope of Glory in ascension (Eph 1:17-20, Col 1:26-27). He left the earthly realm ending His earthly ministry and transformed to began His heavenly -omnipresent Spirit reign. His has and is creating a new man (2Co 5:16-17) for a new creation (Rev 21:1) in a Spirit realm which encompasses both heaven and earth.

Christ’s transformation from terrestrial to celestial (1 Co 15:45-49) displayed His divinity as The Creator God Who is now one with the Father in one Spirit. His resurrection defeated death and we are now in the likeness  and a witness of His resurrection but His ascension made an eternal victory in His Spirit Body.

The death and resurrection of Christ was glorious for we died with Him and were raised to walk in newness of life yet still in resurrected flesh ( Rom 6:4-11). But we need more than just resurrection because flesh and our natural desire to please it causes us to sin and the flesh wars against Christ’s Spirit in us (Rom 8:3) (Gal 5: 16-17). The ascension is the launching pad to the heavenly realm, it is a literal and spiritual transfiguring event which removes the body of sin (1Co 15:44) and is for all believers that continue to follow Christ by faith after being spiritually resurrected in a natural body of flesh (Rom 6:4). This transformation or metamorphosis (Mat 17:2) occurs at death or rapture when we leave our natural body (2Co 5:1-9) that will eventually return to dust from which it came (Gen 3:19).

God’s eternal plan was to make man in His express image (Heb 1:3) (2Co 3: 16-18). He created the earthly realm and formed man from the dust. God told Adam… “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return“. Christ was born in the flesh, born of a women, yet He was the only begotten of the Father’s seed Who became The Spirit when He ascended… “Now the Lord is that Spirit“...the express image of God. God’s plan to make man in the image of God was fulfilled in the glorious transfiguration of Christ when He ascended to the Father and returned as “that Spirit“ that indwells us (Col 1:27). The resurrected Christ could not physically indwell believers thus the transfiguration of Christ from flesh to the omnipresent Spirit was extremely important.  

Gen 1:26  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness

What is the express image of God the Father? Is He not light and Spirit? He certainly is not flesh, not man or woman. Seed when fully matured produces likeness after it’s kind and the seed of God is Spirit which will produce a spirit body in the image of God not of flesh from the earth. Man was not created or born in the image of God and that is why we must be born again of the Spirit… That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (Joh 3:6).

Image is a visual representation not just a set of attributes, we have our morals but they stem from the flesh (Rom 8:8), we can only express God’s attributes by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:16-17), Paul spoke of this when he said..For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not (Rom 7:18). There is an assumption that Adam was created not only in God’s image which is glorious but was also created immortal in the flesh, why then was the tree of life needed in the garden? Resurrected or reconstituted flesh will not be glorified (1 Co 1:29) and it is not the glorious Spirit image of God. After Christ was resurrected in the flesh He said …Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have (Luk 24:39), yet Paul writes after the ascension…“the vail which is His flesh shall be taken away (Heb 10-20), " now " the Lord is that Spirit, But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2Co 3:16-18).

Gen 1:27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 

Adam was created in man’s own image an earthly creature formed from the dust of the earth with a sinful nature that desired to please his flesh (Rom 8:8). It was desire of the flesh that caused Adam to disobey God. Man’s image was in the likeness of God but it was an “illusion, resemblance; hence a representative figure, especially an idol: - image, vain shew“ -H5764.

Jesus was born in the flesh but had power over sin being the only begotten of the Father via the Father’s Holy seed, a supernatural birth. We can only overcome sin by His seed in our body of dirt, He is the Conqueror yet we wait for His Seed in us (Eph 1:13) to reach maturity with a literal transfiguring rebirth as we rise from the earth and follow Christ. Christ transfigured and ascended to the Father in glory, by faith if we continue to follow Him we will receive our spirit’s desire and be with our Father face to face in glory.

Heb 2:10  For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

The ascension is often overlooked leaving the resurrection as the ultimate completion of God’s plan to make man in His own image. Christ incarnate descended from His glory in heaven (Joh 6:51) where He was One Spirit with God. He became flesh so that His flesh body could be sacrificed to give us eternal life (Heb 10:5, 20). We pass through the veil, that is His flesh, into the presence of God who is a consuming fire. The glorious image of God was hidden behind the flesh image of the man Jesus.

What does it mean to be in the Spirit body of Christ? It is an operation of God by the Spirit of Christ (1Co 12:13) wherein we become one with Him in one Spirit body (Joh 17:21). Flesh must be removed to become a member of the one Spirit body of Christ, Paul explained it…In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ (Col 2:11). God counts this operation as a done deal yet we wait for it’s literal manifestation as a son of God transformed into His Spirit image (Rom 8) (Gen 1:26).

As a member of His body all Christ achieved is credited to us, His death, burial, resurrection, ascension and literal transfiguration into the Image of the ascended Christ. We, as members of His body are not of this earth. We are sealed by the Spirit (Eph 1:13-14) and will ascend to the Father’s right hand (Eph 2:6, Col 3:2-4, Heb 1:3).