When we look at Philippians 2:5-11, Paul describes the humiliation and exaltation of Jesus Christ. When we speak of Christ’s humiliation, we address Christ’s life from the incarnation through His death on the cross, where he died in our stead, placing our guilt and shame upon Himself. Christ’s exaltation is seen from His resurrection, through His ascension, to His seating at the Father’s right hand (Session).
Indeed, the resurrection is a defining point in history. However, as important as the resurrection was, it was not the decisive redemptive event that would transform Christ’s stumbling disciples into Christ’s steadfast apostles. Nevertheless, the apostles never forgot the resurrection. Without the resurrection, all would be lost. But they could not live or serve in God’s plan as He intended with only the forgiveness of sins and the memory of Christ’s triumph over the grave. Having rescued them from sin and reconciled them to the Father, Christ was now prepared to equip them with His presence and send them out to be witnesses in the world.
We read of Christ’s ascension in Acts 1:6-11. Just before Jesus departed from them, Jesus told them to fix their attention on fulfilling His great commission (Acts 1:8). He had done enough, and they had heard enough to tell others everything they needed to know about Jesus. The ascension also anticipated that Jesus would end the Spirit-empowered era of the gospel preaching by returning to them. Jesus would return as He had left, visibly, bodily, and triumphantly.
Just as the resurrection of Christ gives us a firm hope that God will one day resurrect our bodies, similarly, the ascension affirms He will return to take us home. So often, much of the focus of the ascension is given to Jesus leaving His disciples, but more significantly, it was also the time Jesus returned to His Father. Think about it. The resurrection confirmed that Christ’s salvific work was completed, and this His work in heaven would be accepted, allowing believers to know that His access to the Father is the basis for theirs.
Jesus’ ascension allowed His Spirit to come in power. Jesus viewed the Spirit’s ministry as an essential extension of His own. Actually, we could say that Jesus continued His ministry through the Spirit. Before Christ’s death, Jesus had described the relationship between the believer and the Spirit as the Spirit “dwelling with you and will be in you (see: John 1416-17). God, the Holy Spirit, would abide with them and would be “in them.”
The Spirit’s goal is to magnify or glorify Christ in the life of believers. The baptism of the Holy Spirit was a once-for-all action that took place on Pentecost. As individual believers subsequently enter into a saving relationship in Jesus Christ, they are indwelt by the Spirit individually, entering a body of believers (the Church) indwelt corporately (1 Cor 12:13). We have the account of Pentecost recorded for us in Acts 2:1-6.
The cross and Pentecost constitute the two redemptive transactions. On the cross, Christ removed our guilt and shame. At Pentecost, the Lord equipped us with His divine presence through the Spirit, enabling us to function as designed and directed in our God-ordained purpose. It is important to note that Peter immediately preaches a message that fittingly and instructively was about Christ, not about the Spirit. The Spirit enabled Peter for the first time to proclaim the truth about Christ accurately and, therefore, powerfully (Acts 2:14-36). Peter declared, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). For the first time since Adam sinned, God could be restored to human beings. Cleansed by the blood of Christ, He again assured His rightful place in human beings through the indwelling Holy Spirit. From Pentecost until Christ’s return, faith in Christ results in restoring the Holy Spirit to the human spirit.
Jesus entered heaven and sent us His Spirit. Jesus is now seated at the right hand of God. We call this Session, which literally means “seating. He sat down to show that he had secured salvation (Hebrews 1:3). From His seated position, Jesus is situated ideally to come to the aid of His own. Christ intercedes for us now, before the Father (Hebrews 7:25).
Let me speak a bit about Christ in you through the Spirit in you. If “you in Christ” defines the identity and source of every spiritual blessing for Christians, then “Christ in you” describes the provision of God, enabling Christians to be in daily life who they have become in Christ. Paul wrote, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Paul was not stating merely that you will go to heaven if you are a Christian. Glory is the manifestation of the attributes of God in their splendor. The Christian life is a manifestation of the restored image of God because of the restored presence of God. The Christian life, therefore, is the life of Christ lived out through a human being by faith. The Christian life is about Christ, His life, His attributes, His glory.
The Scripture speaks about “Christ in you” whenever it speaks about the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer. The Spirit’s task is to apply the ministry of Christ, to magnify Christ, to point to Christ, to teach about Christ – and nothing else! The Spirit and Christ are so united in purpose that “the Spirit in you” means the same thing as “Christ in you.” Christ always does the work that has made salvation possible. The Spirit always applies the work Christ does to our lives. Here it is in a nutshell. What the believer has become legally and positionally in Christ is the basis for what Christ through the Spirit becomes actually and practically in you now, and this is a journey.
I know we have explored a lot here together. We have looked at Christ’s humiliation, exaltation, and the impact his ascension and Session have on the lives of believers today. You may be asking, “How do we enter into this saving relationship with Jesus Christ and experience the benefits of doing life with Him?” Faith is the one requirement God ever places upon any human being. Christ proclaimed, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). This life of vertical momentum (finding salvation and abundant life in Christ) is offered to all who believe. Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone)!