The Gospel: The Resurrected and Ascended Jesus

Today, we are going to continue our study through the Apostles’ Creed. Because it’s Easter or Resurrection Sunday, I’ve skipped ahead in the Creed to the stanza that speaks of Christ’s resurrection and His ascension.

“On the third day, He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.”

Today is going to be a content-heavy and fast-paced sermon on these topics. Sometimes a sermon is meant to call us to action (Do this! Don’t do that!), but today’s sermon is meant to call us to believe… which should affect every aspect of our lives… our thoughts, our words, and (of course) our actions.

Buckle up and put on your thinking caps… It’s going to be a ride today, and you’ll get a lot more out of it if you actively follow along.

Scripture Reading

Acts 1:1–11 (ESV)

1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

4 And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Daniel 7:13–14 (ESV)

13 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. 14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Main Idea:

Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead, He ascended into heaven, and He presently rules as God the Father’s anointed King.

Sermon

1. Jesus Really Lived and Died

In the first verse of the book of Acts, Luke was possibly acknowledging a benefactor named “Theophilus,” or possibly using a pseudonym (false name) to represent all those who loved God and who might read this account of the earliest spread of Christianity (“Theophilus” literally means God-lover). But the opening three verses are packed with important content, which we will (Lord willing) unpack during our time this morning.

The bulk of my sermon today will be devoted to the topics of Christ’s resurrection from the dead and His ascension to glory, but before I lead us down that road, we must first take a look at the big map to see where we are. Luke said that he’s already “dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach” in his “first book” (v1). The book of Acts, then, is a sequel – a part-two – of Luke’s Gospel account. Therefore, Luke tells the reader that everything he wrote in Acts builds off of what Jesus had already “begun to do and teach” (v1).

Well, what was it that Jesus did and taught, according to Luke and the other Gospel writers?

We will dive more into The Historical Jesus in our next sermon on the Apostles’ Creed (in June), but for now, we have to at least touch briefly on the facts – Jesus of Nazareth really did live, and He really did die. His life and death are as much a part of the wonderful story of the gospel as His resurrection and His ascension… it all fits together as the greatest story ever told.

The Bible teaches us almost everything we know about Jesus. Of course, there are extrabiblical sources (historical documents, archaeological finds, and other stuff) which corroborate the biblical record, but the Bible is the only place we can go to learn about what Jesus truly did and said. The Gospel writers either heard it directly from His mouth and saw it with their own eyes (John and Matthew), or they worked closely with someone who did (Mark and Luke). And the Gospel writers all believed that Jesus was the culmination of something God had been doing and predicting for centuries (really since the beginning of time).

Jesus came on the scene, in one sense, like every other human. He was born of a woman, an infant in need of care and protection. But, in another sense, Jesus was unlike every other human. He was born of God, a child who was announced as universal “Lord” by a multitude of angels (Lk. 2:11-14). And, when Jesus began His earthly ministry (at about 30 years old), He began to announce that the Old Testament Scriptures were “fulfilled” in Him (Lk. 4:17-21). Jesus showed His power over “demons” (Lk. 4:31-37), He healed all sorts of “diseases” (Lk. 4:38-41), and He even brought “dead” people back to life (Lk. 7:11-17). All of this, and more, was/is evidence that Jesus was/is the Messiah or Christ of OT prophecy (Ps. 2:2). Christ is not Jesus’s last name; it’s the claim to a title with huge implications!

But the Messiah or Christ who came was not what many in Israel were expecting. They were looking for a powerful king, who would subdue all of Israel’s enemies and rule the world with authority from a throne in Jerusalem. Instead, they got a suffering servant, who gave Himself over to be killed by His enemies and who died a scandalous death outside of Jerusalem, where those accursed by God are condemned to die.

Ah, but friends, this is precisely the sort of Messiah or Christ we all need! Before God’s anointed King comes to crush all His enemies, we need Him to remove our names from the enemy list! You see, all humans (including me and you) are sinful rebels. We have disobeyed God’s law, and we have rejected God’s authority over us. When we sin, we know full-well that it’s sin, and we foolishly imagine that, somehow, we’ll get away with it. But we won’t. In fact, the Bible teaches that Jesus Himself will stand in judgment against all sinners everywhere, and He will Himself unleash the fury of God’s wrath (Rev. 19:15).

And yet, Jesus is both Judge and Savior! King and Redeemer! When Jesus the Christ came to live and die, He did both as a substitute. He lived the obedient life God requires of all sinners, and Jesus died under the penalty of God’s curse, giving Himself as the sacrifice which satisfied God’s justice. In His life and death, Jesus earned salvation for all those He came to save. And by faith or trust in His good work, all sinners may turn from their sin and find forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

Friends, Jesus really lived, and He really died; and because He did both on behalf of sinners, we may all celebrate the grace of God on display in Jesus Christ. May God grant us all repentance and faith, so that we may turn from our sin and put all our trust in this marvelous Savior. If you want to know more about what this means or what it looks like, then please ask me or another Christian about it after the service today.

2. Jesus was Resurrected

If Jesus’s death was the end of the story, then all I’ve described so far would be meaningless. The Apostle Paul wrote, “If Christ has not been raised [from the dead], then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain… your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:14, 17). But, as Paul also wrote, “In fact Christ has been raised from the dead” (1 Cor. 15:20)!

This was also Luke’s claim at the beginning of Acts. Look at v3. Luke says that Jesus “presented himself alive to them [i.e., to His disciples] after his suffering [i.e., His death] by many proofs…” (v3). The “proofs” Luke is talking about here are the ways in which Jesus showed His disciples that He’d truly been raised to life again. Jesus wasn’t just a figment of their imagination, and He wasn’t a ghost.

Peter testified that the Jewish and Roman leaders had “put [Jesus] to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him up on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us,” Peter said, “who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:39-41). Peter’s point in testifying to eating and drinking with Jesus after His resurrection is that dead guys and ghosts don’t eat or drink. Paul later argued that Jesus “appeared” first to Peter and the rest of the disciples, and then Jesus also “appeared to more than five hundred… at one time, most of whom are still alive…” (1 Cor. 15:5-6). Paul was implying that anyone with doubts about Jesus’s resurrection could go and ask those who had personally seen Him alive and well.

You know, for the last few decades, it has been common for news stories to pop up around this time of year that claim to raise new objections or new questions about Jesus’s resurrection. But any honest historian will tell you that the resurrection of Jesus is the most attested ancient fact we know. And the supposed new questions you hear about today are just a recirculation of the earliest attempts to deny the obvious. Just after Jesus was raised from the dead, the religious and political leaders of Jerusalem tried to pay off the Roman soldiers so that they might tell everyone, “[Jesus’s] disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep” (Matt. 28:11-15).

Friends, the fact is: the tomb is empty. And the most plausible explanation is that Jesus did exactly as He’d said. Jesus said, “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (Jn. 10:17-18).

The rest of the New Testament, after the Gospels (which focus explicitly on Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection), points back to the resurrection of Jesus Christ as that pivotal moment which shapes all of human history (including the part that’s still future to us). The calendar of the western world is an illustration of the reality! All time bends around a single event in the human experience – there was the time before Christ and there is the time after. Whether you call it BC and AD or BCE and CE, your calendar still centers on the God-man, Jesus Christ.

And one of the main reasons that Jesus’s resurrection is so important is that Jesus has promised to raise others in the same way that He Himself was raised. Jesus has power not only over His own grave, but over all graves! Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live…” (Jn. 11:25). And again, Jesus said, “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn. 6:40).

Brothers and sisters, our Christian hope is not to depart; we are not looking forward to the day when we shall fly to some home far away. No, we are looking forward to that day when Christ shall come here… to this earth, to renew every aspect of it, and to raise to glory, power, and immortality those who have died in Christ, whose bodies were put in the ground as dishonorable, weak, and perishable (1 Cor. 15:42-44). We are not awaiting escape; we are awaiting resurrection!

Friends, we can know that Christ was raised because the Bible tells us so, and all history confirms it too. And because Christ was raised, we can rest assured that everyone who repents and believes in Him shall also be raised. As we sang earlier this morning, “What a foretaste of deliverance, how unwavering our hope. Christ in power resurrected, as we will be when He comes.”

But what happened to Jesus after that? Well, the Bible says, and the Apostles’ Creed affirms, He ascended into heaven.

3. Jesus Ascended

The ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ is probably the aspect of His person and work that is the least familiar to us… or it’s probably the feature of His life that we don’t realize is as important as it really is. I can’t remember ever hearing a Sunday sermon preached on the ascension; and I’m not sure that anyone talked much about it (if at all) in the churches where I belonged before coming here.

Some of us have been studying through the book of Revelation on Wednesday nights since September of last year, and it is a fascinating book. Just about the whole thing is a record of visions which the Apostle John saw and heard. He was the last prophet to receive special revelation from God, and the book he wrote sounds and reads just like portions of the Old Testament prophetic books.

The first vision John saw was a picture of the risen and ascended Jesus Christ. Jesus is described as “one like a son of man” (Rev. 1:13) who “died” and is now “alive forevermore” (Rev. 1:18). Jesus now holds “the keys of Death and Hades [i.e., the grave]” (Rev. 1:18), and John saw Jesus with “eyes” of “fire” and His “face” shining “like the sun” (Rev. 1:12-16). But how did we get from Acts 1 to Revelation 1? Does the Bible tell us anywhere what happened when Jesus ascended to take His seat at the right hand of God the Father?

Luke told us, in Acts 1, that Jesus “presented himself alive” to His disciples and that Jesus spoke to them “about the kingdom of God” (v3). Jesus told them to wait in Jerusalem to receive the promised gift of the Holy Spirit, and then there was some confusion about when exactly Jesus would complete all that God said Messiah or Christ would do (v4-6). Finally, Jesus commissioned His disciples to be His witnesses in the world, very much like Matthew recorded at the end of his Gospel (v8; cf. Matt. 28:18-20).

And then, Luke recorded, in v9, “when [Jesus] had said these things, as they [i.e., His disciples] were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (v9). Verses 10 and 11 announce the promise of Christ’s return, and if you want to hear more about that, then I plan to preach through that portion of the Apostles’ Creed in July. But for today, let’s see how the Bible itself picks up on what happened next… after Jesus was “lifted up” in “a cloud” in Acts 1.

Philippians 2 is one of the places where the New Testament tells us about what happened when Jesus ascended. There, the Bible describes God the Son as humbling Himself, taking on a human nature and performing the task of the Redeemer on earth, and then being elevated or glorified by God the Father. It’s also interesting to note that this passage was probably an early Christian hymn or creed.[1]Let’s turn to Philippians 2 together and see the humility of God the Son and the exaltation of Jesus Christ.

In Philippians 2, Paul is calling upon Christians to follow Christ’s humble and selfless example. Let’s pick it up at the very end of v5… “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:5-11).

In this passage, we see (among many other things) that God the Son took on “human form” (v8) and became the infant/adolescent/man Jesus of Nazareth. The purpose for which God the Son became the man Jesus was to “serve” (v7) sinners by His “obedience” and by His “death upon the cross” (v8). To say that God the Son was “obedient to the point of death” (v8) is to tap into the biblical concept commonly referred to as the Covenant of Redemption – that agreement or covenant which God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit made among themselves before the foundation of the world to play distinct roles in the ultimate salvation of sinners. God the Son obediently went to the cross as part of the overarching plan, by which the Triune God decreed to glorify Himself in the salvation of sinners.

If I’ve lost you in theological jargon, let’s reconnect at v9. Look there again with me. See the word, “Therefore” (ESV, NIV), or “Wherefore” (KJV), or “For this reason” (NASB, CSB)? It was specifically because of Jesus’s obedience that God the Father “highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” (v9). Jesus earned an exalted status as a real man… a genuine man… one who was “made like [us] in every respect” (Heb. 2:17) and who even was “tempted as we are, yet [He remained] without sin” (Heb. 4:15).

God the Son has always been God (Jn. 1:1-3), but Jesus the man was born in Bethlehem, He lived as a perfectly obedient image-bearer of God, and He remained obedient even unto death… at which point He broke death (because death had no claim on Him), He commissioned His disciples (because there was still work for them to do), and then He ascended to the Father’s right hand, receiving the name which He’d earned.

And what “exalted…name” did God the Father “bestow” upon Jesus? Well, look down to Philippians 2:11. What name does every tongue confess? Doesn’t it say that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is “Lord”? And what does it mean to say that Jesus is Lord? This is a title of authority, of ownership! To say that Jesus is Lord is to say that He is King!

Brothers and sisters, there is no doubt that Jesus’s ascension is directly connected to His status as King or Lord. But there is some confusion among Christians today about when exactly Jesus was or will be given that status as the resurrected and ascended Messiah. The last question I want to address this morning is: when was it… or when will it be that Jesus is crowned as Lord by God the Father? Put another way, when will Jesus reign as God’s anointed King over all the cosmos? Well, I’m already putting my cards on the table with my fourth and last point… My answer is that Jesus presently rules as King, right now.

4. Jesus Presently Rules as King

The Apostles’ Creed affirms, “On the third day, He [Jesus] rose again from the dead [past tense]. He ascended into heaven [past tense] and sits[present tense] at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” I wholeheartedly agree with this early Christian confession, but our ultimate authority isn’t any creed or confession. Our highest authority in matters of faith and practice is the Bible… We must never rest our hope upon creeds but upon Scripture, because it alone is God’s word. So, what does Scripture say? When does the Bible teach that Jesus took His seat at the Father’s right hand? When did or does the God-man become crowned as King of kings and Lord of lords?

Let’s address this final question two ways: (1) Jesus’s ascension and seat at the Father’s right hand are central claims in the earliest gospel, and (2) Jesus repeatedly claimed to be the “Son of Man.”

First, the earliest gospel presentations not only included a reference to Jesus’s status as reigning Lord at the Father’s right hand… those early preachers centered their focus on Jesus as reigning Lord. Let’s look at Acts 2 and Acts 7 as examples.

Near the end of Acts 2, Peter was publicly preaching the gospel for the first time on the day of Pentecost, and v29-36 are the climax of his evangelistic message. Peter said, “29 Brothers [i.e., fellow Jews], I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he [God] would set one of his [David’s] descendants on his throne, 31 he [David] foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he [Christ] was not abandoned to Hades [i.e., the grave], nor did his [Christ’s] flesh see corruption. 32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. 33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he [Christ] has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. 34 For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, 35 until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ 36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:29-36).

Peter’s point is that Jesus has been (already in the first century, while Peter and the rest of the Apostles were still alive) “exalted at the right hand of God” (v33), and Jesus had been given the titles of “Lord” and “Christ” by God Himself (v36). Peter was arguing that the arrival of the Holy Spirit was evidence of these present realities! So, according to Peter in Acts 2, Jesus was (about 2,000 years ago) seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty to rule and reign as Lord!

Now, let’s turn just a few pages to the right, and let’s see how Stephen preached the gospel in Acts 7. We’ve been studying through Acts on most Sundays for a while now, so you regulars will probably remember that Stephen was falsely accused and facing his imminent death. His last words were a powerful assertion of the very same claim that Peter had already made. Look with me at Acts 7:54-56.

Stephen had been giving the Jewish leaders an Old Testament history lesson, and he finally got the present day when he accused them of murdering the “Righteous One” of God – the Messiah or Christ God had been promising all along (Acts 7:52). They could not bear to hear anymore of that, so Luke says, “they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him” (v54). But then, Stephen was given a vision of God’s glory, and he saw “Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (v55). And, very interestingly, Stephen then said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (v56). This statement sent the Jewish leaders over the edge, and Luke says, “they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him” to kill him (v57).

Stephen, like Peter before him, was telling the people around him that Jesus was and is the ascended Lord, who had already taken His place at the right hand of God, which is the symbolic way of saying God’s anointed King. This claim is not tangential to the gospel of early Christianity, it is central to it!

Friends, this is already sufficient evidence to show from Scripture that Jesus is presently ruling as King of the cosmos. The gospel message of the New Testament not only includes, but is centered upon the fact that Jesus is the resurrected and ascended King of kings! All other kings, generals, and presidents (past, present, and future) must bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ! He is king; He is Lord; and He reigns above all earthly powers!

But there is even more to show you on this last point of my sermon! But to understand this second sub-point (Jesus’s claim to be the “Son of Man”), you have to let me teach you a little Biblical Theology. Biblical Theology is the part-art and part-science of studying the development of themes, concepts, and types throughout the Bible. There are repeated and expanding themes that recur in the Bible, which stand out as flashing lights, all pointing to bigger realities than themselves. There’s the type of the Garden,[2]which begins with Eden, expands with Israel, and culminates in the universal Church. There’s the theme of salvation through judgment,[3]which begins at the Fall of Adam and Eve, is repeated in the Exodus, and is ultimately displayed in the salvation of believers through the midst of God’s judgment which will be poured out on the whole world.

The Biblical Theological theme or concept I’d like to show you today is the use of the phrase son of man, so that we will see the significance of Jesus’s claim to be the “Son of Man.” Let me build my case and teach this theme in four steps.

First, the phrase son of man occurs throughout Scripture, and refers generally to humans, as distinct from God. God distinguished Himself from sinful humanity by saying, “God is not a man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind” (Num. 23:19). And the Psalmist also made this distinction, saying, “what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps. 8:4). Both verses are parallelisms, using “man” and “son of man” interchangeably. Job, Solomon, Isaiah, and Jeremiah all use this phrase in the same way – “son of man” is basically synonymous with mankind or humanity, especially emphasizing man’s lowliness and insignificance when compared to God.

Second, “son of man” was God’s repeated nickname for the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel was God’s prophet to His people during the time when the southern kingdom of Judah was destroyed by Babylon and many of the people were exiled. And, more than anyone else, God commanded Ezekiel not only to speak the words of God but also to enact or depict, with his own body and actions, what God was saying. In this way, Ezekiel was a stand-in or symbol of the people, who were sinful and rebellious, and they needed a reminder of their total dependence upon God. So, yet again, the phrase “son of man” seems to be synonymous with man or humanity, and, yet again, it emphasized man’s inferiority or subordination to God.

Third, the prophet Daniel used the phrase “son of man” twice in his writings: once like Ezekiel, and then another time in a really interesting way. Daniel lived and prophesied during the same period as Ezekiel; both were exiled to Babylon about 15-20 years before Jerusalem actually fell, but Daniel lived among the king’s court, while Ezekiel lived more like a typical prophet (strange, isolated, and crazy-poor). The phrase “son of man” shows up once in the book of Daniel, referring to Daniel himself (like God did with Ezekiel). And the other reference is to the mysterious “son of man” who is “presented” before the “Ancient of Days” and is given “dominion,” “glory,” and “a kingdom” (Dan. 7:13-14).

This is the one place in the Old Testament where “son of man” takes on more significance than merely being a synonym for man or humanity. Daniel’s “son of man” is human – that’s the strange and fascinating point of Daniel’s vision – but the “son of man” is also able to approach the “Ancient of Days” without suffering condemnation or judgment. In fact, Daniel’s “son of man” gets the opposite; He even receives “dominion,” “glory,” and “a kingdom” from God Himself (Dan. 7:13-14)! Now, this taps into some of the biggest themes of Scripture, but let’s just note here that Daniel’s vision of “one like a son of man” became the quintessential word-picture of the Messiah who was to come… and that’s exactly the way Jesus used the phrase during His earthly ministry.

Fourth, Jesus claimed to be the “son of man,” not to show humility, but to declare that He was the long-awaited Messiah, exactly the one Daniel saw nearly 600 years earlier in a vision from God. The Gospel writers record Jesus using this phrase to refer to Himself more than 80 times. Jesus said the “Son of Man has authority…to forgive sins” (Matt. 9:6; Mk. 2:10; Lk. 5:24), the “Son of Man is lord [or “master” of “ruler”] of the Sabbath” (Matt. 12:8; Mk. 2:28; Lk. 6:5), the “Son of Man” has charge over “angels” and distributes God’s justice (Matt. 16:27; Mk. 8:38; Jn. 5:27), the “Son of Man came… to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28; Mk. 10:45), and the “Son of Man” is the one who sits “at the right hand of Power” and will “come on the clouds of heaven” (Matt. 26:64; Mk. 14:62; Lk. 21:27, 22:69).

Friends, the reason I’ve selected Acts 1:1-11 and Daniel 7:13-14 as our primary texts today (even though I’ve bounced around to a lot of other passages) is because Christians have long believed that Daniel’s vision is the heavenly view of what happened when the earthly disciples lost sight of Jesus at His ascension. In other words, Daniel 7 picks up where Acts 1 left off.

In Acts 1:9 says, “And when [Jesus] had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” And then, as Daniel saw in his prophetic vision centuries earlier, what happened next was, “with the clouds of heaven there came [as it were, into the heavenly court] one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him [to this Son of Man] was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve [or worship and obey] him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed” (Dan. 7:13-14).

Conclusion

Friends, Easter or Resurrection Sunday is an annual date on the calendar when we mark that event of human history that changed everything. We celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and we praise God that He has fulfilled every promise He made in the person and work of Christ!

And yet, this is not just a reality on one Sunday each year. This is a universal explosion that echoes down the corridors of time, touching every aspect of human existence! Because Jesus lived and died, sinners like us can have forgiveness of sins! Because Jesus was raised to life again, those who repent and believe may rest assured that they too will be raised! Because Jesus ascended to the right hand of God the Father, Christians presently have an intercessor – a mediator – before the throne of God above! Because Jesus presently rules and reigns as the King of kings and Lord of lords, we must live every day of our lives in love and submission to this good King… so that He might find us faithful – obeying and trusting Him – when He comes!

Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead, He ascended into heaven, and He presently rules as God the Father’s anointed King. May God help us all to believe these truths and to live in light of them… today and everyday… even as we eagerly await the return of the King.

Endnotes

[1] It has long been understood that the New Testament includes early hymns and creedal statements of Christian belief, which the earliest Christians would have recited and maybe even sang together when they gathered on the Lord’s Day. Philippians 2:6-11 is known as the Carmen Christi or Hymn to Christ because it was one of the earliest hymns, possibly the earliest. [2]See Richard Barcellos’s work on this subject in his book Getting the Garden Right. https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Garden-Right-Adams-Christ/dp/1943539081/ [3] See Jim Hamilton’s great work on this subject in his book Salvation Through Judgment. https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Glory-Salvation-through-Judgment/dp/1581349769/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Holcomb, Justin. Know The Creeds And Councils. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014.

Mohler, Albert. The Apostles' Creed: Discovering Authentic Christianity in an Age of Counterfeits. Nashville, TN: Nelson Books, 2019.

Packer, J. I. Affirming the Apostles’ Creed. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016.

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