Lord's Day 18
46. Q. How do you understand the words, He ascended into heaven? A. That Christ, in the sight of his disciples, was taken up from earth into heaven, and there continues for our interest, until he comes again to judge the living and the dead.
47. Q. Is Christ, then, not with us even to the end of the world, as he has promised? A. Christ is true man and true God: with respect to his human nature, he is no more on earth; but with respect to his Godhead, majesty, grace, and Spirit, he is at no time absent from us.
48. Q. But if his human nature is not present wherever his Godhead is, are not then these two natures in Christ separated from one another? A. Not at all; for since the Godhead is illimitable and omnipresent, it must follow that it is beyond the bounds of the human nature it has assumed, and yet none the less is in this human nature and remains personally united to it.
49. Q. Of what advantage to us is Christ's ascension into heaven? A. First, that he is our Advocate in the presence of his Father in heaven; second, that we have our flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that he, as the Head, will also take us, his members, up to himself; third, that he sends us his Spirit as an earnest, by whose power we seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God, and not the things that are upon the earth. |