A. Introduction.
1. There are two Christological dispensations.
a. The great power experiment of the Hypostatic Union, B.C. 4 - A.D. 30.
b. The great power experiment of the Church Age, A.D. 30 - Rapture, an indefinite period of time.
2. The resurrection, ascension and session of Jesus Christ divides the two Christological dispensations.
3. Both the ascension and session of Christ occurred in His resurrection body. His was the first resurrection in all of history.
B. Definition.
1. The ascension is that doctrine of Christology pertaining to the transfer of our Lord’s true humanity from planet earth to the third heaven in a resurrection body.
2. The session is that doctrine of Christology pertaining to the glorification of our Lord’s humanity at the right hand of the Father. These definitions presume your understanding of the Hypostatic Union.
3. These doctrines are closely related to and based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. If Christ remained on earth, He would have a limited glory, but when He went to the third heaven He became superior to all creation, and therefore had unlimited glory.
4. As a result of the resurrection of our Lord’s humanity, He remained on earth for forty days before His ascension. The ascension of Jesus Christ occurred on day forty in His resurrection body. This period of time demonstrated the capabilities of the resurrection body. The resurrection body can eat food.
5. The ascension and session of Christ are predicated on the capabilities of the resurrection body.
a. It can travel horizontally and vertically at unlimited speed, and is capable of unlimited space travel.
b. Our Lord traveled horizontally during His forty days on planet earth, as well as moving through closed doors.
c. The ascension of Christ demonstrates the vertical travel of the resurrection body, moving with ease through the atmosphere of the earth, the galaxies of stellar universe, and the billions and billions of light years in an instant, and entering into the third heaven, the abode of God.
6. Upon arrival in the third heaven, our Lord was seated at the right hand of God the Father; this is the doctrine of the Session. Then He received His third royal patent and the title “King of kings, Lord of lords, the Bright Morning Star.” Because His third royal warrant had no accompanying royal family, the Church Age was inserted for the calling out of a royal family.
a. This is why this doctrine of ascension and session is the missing link between the resurrection of Christ and the Christian way of life.
b. Something new had to be created to accompany this new third royalty of Jesus Christ, a new royal family. His new royalty had to be a new spiritual species, as per 2 Cor 5:17.
c. Therefore, the dispensation of Israel was interrupted seven years short of its completion. Then the omnipotence of the Father and of the Spirit was made available to believers. The Day of Pentecost is the day the royal family began with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the first day of the Church Age.
7. So the chronology of events was: 1) resurrection, 2) forty days on the earth, 3) ascension ten days before the Church Age began, and 4) seated at the right hand of the Father. We know the number of days so exactly, because the resurrection occurred on the Feast of the First Fruits. The Feast of Pentecost would occur fifty days later. On day forty, our Lord ascended, and He said the baptism of the Spirit and the beginning of the Church Age would occur very soon (ten days later).
8. Both the ascension and session of Christ were accomplished in His resurrection body. Though coequal and coeternal with God, it was the true humanity of Christ that was seated at the right hand of the Father.
9. These two doctrines of ascension and session combine to form the climax of the strategic victory of Christ in the angelic conflict.
C. Historical Account, Acts 1:9-11.
1. “And after He had said these things [announcement of Church Age, Acts 1:5, 8], He was lifted up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid Him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently up in the sky as He was going, behold two men [angels] dressed in white stood beside them. And they also said, `Men of Galilee, why do you stand staring into the sky? This Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come in the same way as you have seen Him go into heaven.’”
2. While the angels were still talking our Lord was already in the third heaven. He traveled billions and billions of light years in just a few seconds.
D. Significance of the Session.
1. After His ascension, His session fulfilled the prophecy of Ps 110:1. “The Lord [God the Father] said to my Lord [God the Son], `Sit down at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.’” Jesus Christ had to be seated to resolve the angelic conflict. It was the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. Remember that His deity is omnipresent, everywhere, imminent and transcendent. It was His humanity that was seated at the right hand of the Father.
2. This prophecy is quoted a number of times in the New Testament, Matt 22:44; Mk 12:36; Lk 20:42-43; Acts 2:34-35; Heb 1:13, 10:13. It is quoted so often because it is very important.
3. The strategic victory of the great power experiment of the Hypostatic Union is the key to the importance of the ascension and session of Jesus Christ.
a. The resurrection, ascension, and session all deal with the true humanity of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever.
b. Just as only the humanity of Christ could provide our salvation by receiving the judgment for our sins in His own body, so only the humanity of Christ could be resurrected, ascend, and sit at the right hand of God the Father.
4. The humanity of Jesus Christ in Hypostatic Union is now exalted and glorified at the right hand of the Father where His posture is one of being seated.
a. Acts 2:33, “Therefore, [Jesus Christ] having been exalted to the right hand of God.”
b. Acts 5:31, “He is the one whom God has exalted at His right hand as prince and Savior.”
c. Phil 2:9, “Therefore also, God has highly exalted Him and given Him a title which is above every title, that at the title of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father.”
5. The strategic victory of Jesus Christ in the great power experiment of the Hypostatic Union is related to the award of His third royal patent.
a. His first royal patent is related to His deity. His title is “Son of God.” His royal family is God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
b. His second royal patent is related to His humanity. His title is “Son of David.” His royal family is the Davidic dynasty.
c. His third royal patent is related to His resurrection and ascension. His title is “King of kings, Lord of lords, Bright Morning Star.” His royal family is in the process of being completed, made up of every Church Age believer. You are not simply a child of God; you are a royal child of God.
E. The Session and the Strategic Victory of the Angelic Conflict.
1. The ascension and session is not only related to the Hypostatic Union, but it also to the angelic conflict. The fact that the resurrection, ascension and session is based on the strategic victory of our Lord in the angelic conflict is the subject of Heb 1-2.
2. Heb 1:3, “Who being the radiance [the flashing forth] of His glory and the exact image of His [God the Father’s] essence, He also sustains all things by the verbal expression of His power, having Himself accomplished purification for sins, He was caused to sit down on the right hand of the Majesty in highest places.” During the entire period of the Hypostatic Union on earth, from the baby in the cradle to the resurrection, ascension, and session, our Lord was still holding the universe together by the Word of His power.
3. Heb 1:13, “But to which of the angels did He say at any time, `Sit down at My right hand until I appoint your enemies a footstool for your feet?’”
a. God the Father never said this to any angel, but only to Jesus Christ. It is very significant that God the Father said this to the humanity of Christ in a resurrection body.
b. This means that although we are now inferior to angels in our human bodies on earth, in the future in resurrection bodies we will be totally superior to angels. This was established with our Lord’s session.
4. 1 Pet 3:22, “Who [Jesus Christ] is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven after angels and authorities and powers had been subordinated to Him.”
a. With the resurrection of Jesus Christ, all angelic creatures including fallen angels, are subordinated to Him in His humanity! That fact is very important.
b. In His deity, Jesus Christ is the creator of angels. In His humanity, He was made lower than angels, Heb 2:7. But now in His resurrection, He is higher than angels in His humanity!
c. Some day in our resurrection body, we will share that same privilege experientially. Being in union with Christ, we are already positionally higher than angels. But in resurrection bodies, we will be experientially and physically higher than angels.
5. Eph 1:22, “And He [God the Father] has subordinated all [angelic creatures] under His feet. Furthermore, He appointed Him [Jesus Christ] ruler over all things to the Church.”
a. This establishes another link between the two Christological dispensations.
b. When our Lord received His third royal patent, He did not have a royal family. Therefore, the Church Age was inserted into history.
c. The Church Age was a mystery age because we have almost infinitely more than any Old Testament, Tribulational, or Millennial saint. We have unique things which are unbelievably fantastic, which have never existed before and will never exist again after the Rapture of the Church.
d. A second Christocentric dispensation had to be instituted to provide a royal family for our Lord’s third royal patent.
e. Furthermore, Israel had rejected Jesus Christ as their Messiah and King. Consequently, the messianic kingdom is postponed until the Second Advent of Christ.
f. In the meantime, the great power experiment of the Hypostatic Union has been parlayed into the great power experiment of the Church Age.
g. During the Church Age, there are no Jewish client nations to God. The next Jewish client nation will not exist until the Second Advent of Christ.
h. We live in the times of the Gentiles, which means only a Gentile nation can be a client nation to God. At the present time, though staggering, the United States of American is a Gentile client nation to God.
i. During the Church Age, there are only Gentile client nations. The first was S.P.Q.R., “the City and People of Rome.”
j. So the ascension and session of Jesus Christ form the link between the great power experiment of the Hypostatic Union and the great power experiment of the Church Age.
F. The Session and the Efficacy of Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross.
1. Heb 10:12, “But this One [Jesus Christ in contrast to the Old Testament sacrifices], when He had offered one unique sacrifice as a substitute for our sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God.”
a. The work of Jesus Christ on the cross is efficacious. When He received the imputation of our sins and God the Father judged them, that settled the sin question for all time.
b. To indicate the efficacy of His sacrifice, our Lord sat down at the right hand of God.
c. In physical death, our Lord’s work was completed. Hence, just before His death He said, “TETELESTAI,” which means “It is finished in the past with the result that it stands finished forever.”
2. So the resurrection, ascension, and session is the verification of the efficacy of our Lord’s saving work on the cross.
3. Furthermore, this efficacious saving work occurred while our Lord was physically alive. He did not die for our sins in physical death; He died as a substitute for us in a substitutionary spiritual death, wherein each and every sin of the human race was imputed to Christ and judged.
4. Therefore, Christ died twice on the cross.
a. He died a substitutionary spiritual death for the sins of the world, which provided our salvation.
b. He died a unique physical death in which there was the separation of His soul, spirit, and body.
5. Heb 9:23-24.
G. The Session Related to the Importance of the Church Age, Eph 1:18-23.
1. Eph 1:18, “That the eyes of your right lobe may be enlightened [post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation] so that you may know what is the hope [hope 2 and 3] of His calling [divine call], what are the riches [divine capitalization of every Church Age believer in eternity past through the provision of our portfolio of invisible assets] of His inheritance in the saints.”
a. The first thing God ever did for us is the means of glorifying Him. In eternity past, God the Father as the grantor deposited into escrow greater blessings for every believer as the grantee.
b. The distribution of those blessings upon the believer’s execution of the protocol plan and advance to spiritual maturity is the means of glorifying God.
2. Eph 1:19, “And what is the surpassing greatness of His power to us [maximum availability of divine power to every Church Age believer as a result of the extension of the Hypostatic Union into the Church Age] who have believed, for the working of His superior power [execution of the protocol plan] which He put into operation by means of Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in heavenly places.”
a. Part of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age is the fact that divine power is available to us as never before in history, i.e., the omnipotence of the Father, Son, and Spirit.
b. When Jesus Christ was seated at the right hand of the Father in the session after His ascension, that’s when this plan was put into operation.
c. The protocol plan of God and the availability of divine power to us is unique. The uniqueness of the Church Age is reflected in the fact that it was put into operation at the point of the session of Jesus Christ.
d. As a result of His resurrection, ascension, and session, our Lord Jesus Christ received his third royal patent without a royal family. The royal family is being formed today because of the ascension and session of Jesus Christ.
e. God is perfect; therefore His protocol plan is perfect. A perfect plan from perfect God excludes human power for its execution. A perfect plan from perfect God demands the use of divine power or perfect power for its execution.
f. Therefore, there is no substitute for the utilization of divine power in the execution of the protocol plan.
g. Divine power and human power are mutually exclusive. For the believer to utilize human dynamics and call it the Christian way of life is blasphemy. To the extent that the Church Age believer relies on human power or gets involved in legalism, he has completely failed to fulfill God’s purpose, plan, and objective for sustaining him in this life.
h. The perfect protocol plan of God cannot accept or utilize any form of human power or human ability, or anything that we can do. Anything we can do in our own power is not a part of the Christian life.
i. Only through cognition of Bible doctrine can divine omnipotence be understood and utilized in the execution of the protocol plan. There is therefore no substitute for post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.
3. Eph 1:20, “which [superior power] He put into operation by means of Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in heavenly places.”
a. This power is superior to every authority.
b. In His deity, Christ was always superior. However, this superiority refers to the humanity of Christ in a resurrection body, seated at the right hand of the Father.
c. So the session becomes very important, because the power that raised Him from the dead is now delegated to the royal family.
d. In resurrection, the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit restored the human soul of our Lord to His body, and the omnipotence of God the Father restored His human spirit to His body. This divine power that raised Christ from the dead is now available to you only because you are the body of Christ, royal family of God.
e. Divine power was utilized, transferred, and delegated to the Church Age believer; utilized in our portfolio of invisible assets, provided by the omnipotence of God the Father; transferred and delegated inside the operational-type divine dynasphere by the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit.
4. Eph 1:21, “Superior to every authority, both human power and authority as well as angelic power and authority, and superior to every title that can be named, not only in this age [Church Age], but in the one destined to come [Millennium].”
5. Eph 1:22, “And He [God the Father] has subordinated both angelic and human creatures under His feet [operation footstool]; furthermore He [God the Father] has appointed Him ruler over all things to the Church.”
a. The first phase of operation footstool is the resurrection, ascension, and session of Christ.
b. The second phase of operation footstool is the Second Advent of Christ. At that time, the baptism of fire will remove all unbelievers from the earth, both Jews and Gentiles. Also in this second phase of operation footstool, Satan is sentenced to 1000 years of jail.
c. Another part of the second phase of operation footstool occurs at the end of the Millennium with the suppression of the Gog and Magog Revolution, sponsored and led by Satan, having been just released from prison. Then occurs the second resurrection of only unbelievers and their judgment, followed by the execution of the prehistoric sentence of Satan and all fallen angels.
d. There would be no royal family without the appointment of Christ as prince-ruler over the Church. This means He rules all Church Age believers today, winners and losers.
e. So Christ is the ruler of all creatures, angelic and human, no matter how rebellious. The most rebellious of all creatures today are not demons but born-again believers who fail to fulfill the principle of post- salvation epistemological rehabilitation in the perception, metabolization, and application of Bible doctrine under whomever is their right pastor.
H. The Session and the Royal Priesthood.
1. Heb 8:1, “Now the main point on what is being communicated is this: we have such a high priest who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens.”
2. Our Lord was not qualified by birth to be a Levitical priest in Israel. His priesthood, however, supersedes the priesthood of Israel because He is both a king and a priest.
3. Our Lord’s priesthood is patterned after a royal priesthood, that of Melchizedek. Melchizedek was both a king and a priest. Our Lord is the king-priest as a result of His resurrection, ascension, and session.
4. His third royal warrant makes Him Lord and King over all lords and kings. Therefore, our Lord’s entire royal family, Church Age believers, are a part of that priesthood. One of the unique factors of the Church Age is the universal priesthood of the believer.
5. Because you are in union with Christ, you are a king-priest. This means you can directly address God the Father in prayer through Jesus Christ, because He is the greatest high priest in all of history. He is a royal high priest or king priest.
6. Therefore, we pray to God the Father in the name of Christ, and in the effectiveness of the power of the Holy Spirit which is life inside the divine dynasphere.
7. Jesus Christ is the high priest; we are a kingdom of priests. As our high priest, Jesus Christ makes intercession for us right now at the right hand of God the Father.
8. The ascension and session abrogates the Levitical priesthood, replacing it with the royal priesthood, 1 Pet 2:9; Rev 1:6, 5:10, 20:6.
9. Jesus Christ is our high priest, Heb 10:1-10, 7:25, 8:1.
I. The session demands a new mental attitude of the Royal Family.
1. Col 3:1-2, “If therefore you have been raised in Christ [and you have in baptism of the Spirit and current positional truth], keep on desiring to possess the above things [escrow blessings] where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of the Father. Keep thinking objectively about the above things [doctrine], not things on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
2. To “possess the above things” requires the utilization of divine power inside the divine dynasphere, which requires cognition of doctrine, which requires right priorities; doctrine must be first in your life.
3. The desire to possess your very own escrow blessings motivates you to execute the protocol plan. This motivation results in consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation, the daily perception, metabolization, and application of Bible doctrine.
4. The fact that the humanity of Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, except for the Rapture of the Church and His permanent move at the Second Advent, is indicative of the fact that He has made the most fantastic system of power available to you!
5. Objective thinking about the “above things” includes cognition of your portfolio of your invisible assets, understanding the protocol plan of God in detail, perception of the unique things related to the great power experiment of the Church Age, especially the ten problem solving devices.
6. The royal family’s mental attitude is to think doctrine, not good and evil. We should have a very strong, positive mental attitude no matter what our circumstances or pressures.
7. This doesn’t mean we can’t learn about fascinating human subjects. They often demonstrate and illustrate many principles. And it’s always a wonderful thing to have a hobby or two in the field of thought, and to pursue that hobby.
8. But when it comes to the Christian way of life, the system of divine viewpoint thought must be based on cognition of doctrine. If we’re going to utilize divine power, we must understand the mechanics for its transfer and for its utilization. Ignorance is a guarantee that you will function on human power all your life.
J. The Session and the Authority of Christ.
1. The session is an indication of the authority of Christ. Rom 8:34, “Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died. Yes, rather, who has been raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who intercedes for us.” Jesus Christ has supreme authority over all human and angelic creatures.
2. All of this time Christ holds the universe together by the word of His mouth, Col 1:16, “For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven or in earth, visible or invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things were created by Him and for Him.”
K. The Session and Spiritual Self-Esteem. Heb 12:2-3, “Let us fix our eyes [concentrate] on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such opposition by sinners against Himself, so that you do not grow weary and faint in your souls.”
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