I. IN HIS ASCENSION CHRIST BEING MADE:
Now we want to see the statuses of Christ in His ascension. Because Christ is doing so much work, He has to be a person with certain statuses. If we are going to do anything, we need a status. Even a little child sent to a preschool becomes somebody with a certain status. When he enters elementary school, he has another status. At each stage of his education, he arrives at another status. When he eventually gets a job, he has another status. At one time he may be a junior accountant but after working for ten years, he becomes a senior accountant. Christ has many statuses which He gained in His ascension. The New Testament gives us a clear record of the Lord’s position for His ministry. With every position, He has a status. In this message we want to point out eleven statuses of Christ in His ascension.
A. Lord—the Lord of All, to Possess All,
After He Brought His Humanity
into God in His Resurrection
In His ascension Jesus was made Lord (Acts 2:36). He was made Lord of all to possess all after He brought His humanity into God in His resurrection. As God, He was the Lord already (Luke 1:43; John 11:21; 20:28), but He became flesh and put on something that was not the Lord. Humanity was not a part of His lordship. As a man Jesus was made the Lord in ascension. Today a man in the heavens is the Lord! The Lord is the One to possess all and to govern all. Acts 10:36 says that Jesus is Lord of all. This indicates He is the Lord of all peoples, both the Jews and the Gentiles. The Bible also shows that He is the Lord of everything, including the entire creation. He possesses all.
The Lord gave Israel the good land in the Old Testament, but Israel was not faithful to fully possess that land. Today there is a quarrel concerning whom the Golan Heights belongs to. We need to see that the Golan Heights belongs to the Lord. The whole earth is the Lord’s (1 Cor. 10:26; Deut. 10:14; Psa. 24:1; 50:12). We may think that the land where our house is or where our meeting hall is, is our land. But this is the Lord’s land. The whole earth with its fullness is the Lord’s.
When I was younger, I preached the gospel sometimes by asking people, "Who is your Lord? To whom do you belong?" A teenager may think that he belongs to his parents, or a wife may feel that she belongs to her husband, but we should declare that we belong to the Lord Jesus. In human history only Jesus is the Lord. Mohammed is not the Lord nor is Buddha the Lord. Confucius is not the Lord. Jesus is the Lord! In His resurrection Jesus brought His human part into God, and He was made the Lord in His ascension.
(The Move of God in Man, Chapter 8, by Witness Lee)
