COOPERATING WITH THE HEAVENLY MINISTRY OF THE ASCENDED CHRIST
Message Four
Propagating the Resurrected Christ under the Heavenly Ministry of the Ascended Christ
Scripture Reading: Acts 1:8, 22; 2:32-36; 3:15; 5:30-32; 8:4, 12; 13:1-4
I. The book of Acts reveals a resurrected and ascended Christ who is in the heavens—1:3, 9-11, 22; 2:32-36:
A. The Lord's living and ministry in the heavens are the content of the book of Acts.
B. The Lord's ascension was His initiation into His living and ministry in the heavens—5:31:
1. This initiation brought Him into a new realm, that is, into the heavens where He now has His living and His ministry.
2. The book of Acts reveals that the resurrected and ascended Christ is now living in the heavens and ministering there.
C. Christ's ascension was God's exaltation of Him—2:33-36; 5:31:
1. The Lord was made Lord, the Lord of all to possess all, and He was made Christ, God's Anointed, to carry out God's commission—2:36; 10:36; Heb. 1:9:
a. As God, the Lord was the Lord all the time (Luke 1:43), but as man, He was made the Lord in His ascension after He brought His humanity into God in His resurrection.
b. As God's sent and anointed One, He was Christ from the time that He was born (2:11; Matt. 1:16; 16:16; John 1:41), but as such a One, He was also officially made the Christ of God in His ascension.
2. God exalted Christ "to His right hand as Leader and Savior"—Acts 5:31:
a. The ascended Christ is the Leader, the Originator, the Author, and the Inaugurator—3:15; Heb. 2:10; 12:2:
1) His being the Leader is a matter related to His authority—Matt. 28:18.
2) He rules sovereignly over the earth with His authority so that the environment may be fit for God's chosen people to receive His salvation—Acts 17:26-27; John 17:2.
b. The One God has exalted to His right hand is also the Savior—Acts 5:31:
1) Jesus' incarnation made Him a man, His human living 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 the Savior.
2) We were saved by the Christ on the throne, by the One in glory—3:13; Luke 24:26; Heb. 2:9; Eph. 1:20-22; Phil. 2:9-11:
a) When we were saved, we were seated with Him in the heavenlies—Eph. 2:6.
b) Christ saved us from the throne and to the throne; this is the ascended Christ as our Savior.
II. In order 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:
A. 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 by the Triune God within them as their life, and they act by the Triune God upon them as their strength, power, and authority—John 20:22; Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8.
B. Acts is a record of a group of people who act and work in the Body, through the Body, and for the Body—v. 14; 13:1-4:
1. Acts reveals the move and activity of the Body, not of individual actions unrelated to the Body—8:1-17.
2. Acts contains a beautiful picture of the one accord in the activities and work of the believers who move in the Body, through the Body, and for the Body—2:44-47; 4:24, 32; 13:1-4; 16:1-5.
C. The book of Acts shows us the divine stream, the unique flow; there is only one stream, one current, of the flow—Gen. 2:8-12; Rev. 22:1-2; Acts 2:33.
D. In Acts there is a group of people who know the meaning of resurrection and ascension, who live by Christ as their life, who act by Christ as their power and authority, and who realize that they are the Body and act in the Body and for the Body in the one divine stream; this is the intrinsic significance of the book of Acts—John 20:22; Acts 1:8-11, 14; 2:1-4, 24, 32-33; 4:33.
III. To carry out His heavenly ministry for the propagating of Himself so that the kingdom of God might be established for the building up of the churches as His fullness, the ascended Christ uses not a group of preachers trained by man's teaching to do a preaching work but a body of His witnesses, who bear a living testimony of the incarnated, crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ—1:8:
A. In His ascension the Lord carries out His ministry in the heavens through these witnesses, in His resurrection life and with His ascension power and authority, as recorded in Acts, to spread Himself as the development of the kingdom of God from Jerusalem unto the uttermost part of the earth—1:8:
1. Testifying requires experiences of seeing and enjoyment concerning the Lord or spiritual things; it is different from merely teaching—2:40.
2. Paul was appointed as a minister and a witness—26:16:
a. A minister is for the ministry; a witness, for the testimony.
b. The ministry is related mainly to the work, to what a minister does; a testimony is related to the person, to what a witness is.
B. The Lord's resurrection was the focus of the apostles' testimony—1:22; 2:32; 3:13, 15, 26; 10:39-40; 13:33; 17:3, 18:
1. God glorified His Servant Jesus through His resurrection and in His ascension—Luke 24:46; Eph. 1:20-22; Phil. 2:9-11; Acts 3:13, 15, 26; 4:10, 33; 5:30-31.
2. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus points back to His incarnation, humanity, human living on the earth, and God-ordained death; and His resurrection points forward to His ascension, ministry and administration in heaven, and coming back—2:23; 1:9-11.
3. The Lord is both God and resurrection, possessing the indestructible life—John 1:1; 11:25; Heb. 7:16; Acts 2:24:
a. Since He is such an ever-living One, death is not able to hold Him.
b. He delivered Himself to death, but death had no way to detain Him; rather, death was defeated by Him, and He rose up from it—Rev. 1:18.
4. The apostles were witnesses of the resurrected Christ, not only in word but also by their life and action, especially bearing witness of His resurrection; bearing witness of Christ's resurrection is the crucial point, the focus, in carrying out God's New Testament economy—Acts 2:32; 4:33; 10:39-40; 17:3.
IV. Our cooperation with the ascended Christ for the propagation of the resurrected Christ is a move in life for the spread of the gospel—8:26-29; 9:10-11; 10:1-3, 9-22:
A. This move in life corresponds to the Lord's heavenly ministry in His ascension.
B. In Acts 8, 9, and 10 the Lord moved His disciples outwardly for the preaching of the gospel; He was ministering in the heavens to move some of His disciples:
1. In response to the Lord's heavenly ministry, Philip left Jerusalem for Gaza (8:26); this was the corresponding on Philip's side to move in life for the preaching of the gospel.
2. In Acts 9 there was a marvelous triangle of Christ ministering in the heavens, with Ananias and Saul corresponding to it on earth.
3. In Acts 10 Peter cooperated with the Lord to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.
C. This is the proper gospel preaching as a move in life under the heavenly ministry of Christ—5:42; 8:4, 12; 10:36; 11:20; 13:32:
1. Christ as the Head exercised His headship to move His disciples here and there, and they were on the alert, responding to His ministry from the heavens—11:1-18.
2. The preaching of the gospel in the Lord's recovery should be like this: a prevailing move in life, corresponding to Christ's heavenly ministry under His headship—1:8; 2:32-36; 5:30-32; 13:1-4; Eph. 1:22-23.