John 20:17
Jesus saith unto her…I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
JOHN FLAVEL (1630-1691): Why did Christ ascend?
ISAAC AMBROSE (1604-1664): The types prefigured it…The types of this were Enoch’s translation, Elijah’s ascension, Samson’s transportation of the gates of Gaza into a high mountain, and the high priest’s going into the holy of holies. The prophets foresaw it. “I saw in the night visions, and behold one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him, and there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom,” Daniel 7:13-14―He ascended that all those prophecies that were foretold of Christ might be accomplished: “Thou hast ascended on high,” Psalm 68:18)
JOHN FLAVEL: “The scripture cannot be broken,” John 10:35. If Christ had not ascended, how had all the types and prophecies that prefigured and foretold it been fulfilled?
ISAAC AMBROSE: All these prophecies, types, and figures must needs be accomplished. Therefore, it was necessary that Christ must ascend and go into heaven.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Our Lord’s triumphant ascension secures the consummation of His whole work.
JOHN FLAVEL: If Christ had not ascended, how could we have been satisfied that His payment on the cross made full satisfaction to God? How is it that the Spirit convinceth the world of righteousness, John 16:8-10, but from Christ’s going to the Father and returning hither no more, which gives evidence of God’s full content and satisfaction, both with His person and work.
ISAAC AMBROSE: His ascension to heaven proclaims openly that He hath completely finished the work He had to do for us here.
C. H. SPURGEON: Because He said, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do,” John 17:4, and then ascended to the Father, I feel safe in asserting that all that was required of the Lord Christ for the overthrow of the powers of darkness is performed.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): Every enemy that has ever enslaved man and kept him in bondage has been routed and defeated.
ISAAC AMBROSE: In His resurrection, He conquered; but in His ascension, He triumphed. Now it was that He led sin, death, and the devil in triumph at His chariot wheels! And this is the meaning of the psalmist and of the apostle: “When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive,” Ephesians 4:8. He vanquished and triumphed over all our enemies, He overcame the world, He bound the devil, He spoiled hell, He weakened sin, He destroyed death, and now He makes a public triumphal show of them in His own Person―as the manner of the Roman triumphs was, when the conqueror went up to the capital. It is to the same purpose that the apostle speaks elsewhere: “Having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it,” Colossians 2:15. It is a manifest allusion to the manner of triumphs after victories amongst the Romans.
C. H. SPURGEON: Remember that His ascent to the Father is representative.
ISAAC AMBROSE: “Then said the LORD unto me; This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened…It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before the LORD,” Ezekiel 44:2-3. As the gate of the holy of holies was shut against every man but the high priest, so was that gate of heaven shut against all, so that none could enter in by their own virtue and efficacy, but only our Prince and great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ; indeed, He hath opened it for us, and entered it in our place and stead. “Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec,” Hebrews 6:42.
JOHN FLAVEL: If Christ had not ascended, you could not have entered heaven when you die. For He went “to prepare a place for you,” John 14:2. He was the first that entered heaven directly, and in His own name; and had He not done so, we would not have entered when we die, in His name. The Forerunner made way for all that are coming on, in their several generations, after Him. Nor could your bodies have ascended after their resurrection but in the virtue of Christ’s ascension. For He ascended, as was said before, in the capacity of our head and representative, to His Father and our Father.
C. H. SPURGEON: Where He is, His people must be. We are in the highest glory in Jesus as our representative; and by faith, we are raised up together and made to sit together in the heavenlies, even in Him.
ISAAC AMBROSE: He is taken up into glory that He may act gloriously the second part of our righteousness; I mean that He might apply it and send down His Spirit.
JOHN FLAVEL: If Christ had not gone away, the Comforter had not come, John 16:7. He begins where Christ had finished. For He takes of His and shows it to us, John 16:14. And therefore, it is said, “The Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified,” John 7:39. He was then given as a sanctifying spirit, but not given in that measure, as afterwards He was, to furnish and qualify men with gifts for service. And indeed, by Christ’s ascension, both sanctifying and ministering gifts were shed forth more commonly and more abundantly.
ISAAC AMBROSE: The ascension of Christ contains in it a great part of the salvation of our souls.
JOHN FLAVEL: If Christ had not ascended, He could not have interceded, as now He does in heaven for us. Take away Christ’s intercession, and you starve the hope of the saints. For what have we to succour ourselves when under the daily surprises of sin, but this: “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,” 1 John 2:1.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The ascended Christ is not wrapped up in His own enthronement but is still occupied with the wellbeing of His people, maintaining their interests, seeking their good. If left entirely to themselves believers would perish. Temptations and tribulations from without and corruptions from within would prove too strong for them, and therefore does Christ make intercession on their behalf, that God would grant them such supplies of grace and pardoning mercy that they will be preserved from total apostasy.
JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): “If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life, ” Romans 5:10. “Wherefore,” as it saith, “we shall be saved,” respecting saving in the second sense, or the utmost completing of salvation―“Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them,” Hebrews 7:25. Now the saving intended in the text is saving in this second sense―that is, a saving of us by preserving us, by delivering of us from all those hazards that we run between our justification and our glorification. Yea, such a saving of us, as we that are justified need to bring us into glory.
