Q28. Wherein did Christ’s exaltation consist?

A. Christ’s exaltation consisteth in his rising again from the dead on the third day, in ascending up into heaven, in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last day.

We have mentioned that Philippians 2:5-11 is a classic text for both the humiliation and the exaltation of Christ—“Therefore God has highly exalted him…” (v. 9). But if there is a passage that best expresses the importance of the exalted state of Christ for the church in this age, it may be where Paul speaks of,

“the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:19-23).

So we must “picture” the exalted position of Christ above both this church age in between the Two Advents, and in the age to come. One ground that needs to be cleared, just in case there is still any confusion on it. Watson expresses this well with the question: “In what sense has God exalted Christ?” “Not in respect of his Godhead, for that cannot be exalted higher than it is: as in his humiliation, the Godhead was not lower; so in his exaltation, the Godhead is not higher: but Christ is exalted as Mediator, his human nature is exalted.”1

Resurrection: Human Nature Exalted

The resurrection is included in the exalted state of Christ because here we witness the first sight of the glorious and incorruptible humanity.

“Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (Jn. 20:17).

“So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God” (Mark 16:19; cf. Lk. 24:51). We have already seen some of the saving significance of the resurrection. In speaking of the two parts of the exaltation of Christ, Vos divides between the legal and conditional:

“In coming out from under the curse and wrath of God … followed by an entrance into the favor and full good pleasure of God … [and] In a change of condition … Both in body and soul it must be made clear that the curse had ceased and that the Mediator found Himself basking in the good pleasure of the Father.”2

There is the question of whether Christ was raised by his own power or that of another. The Socinians and others reasoned that it must only be by the power of another, since it was a divine power, whereas what was raised was human. But Turretin answered, “the orthodox ascribe the cause of the resurrection to Christ himself no less than to the Father. Since the power of the Father and the Son is the same [… so] by the same the Father raised Christ and Christ raised himself.”3

What scriptures show this? Jesus himself speaks to his own power to raise himself up (John 10:18) and that he in fact does so (John 2:19). Also in John’s Gospel, he closely associates himself with the resurrection life (John 11:25) that he has both the intrinsic power of life, as does the Father (Jn. 5:26), but that this issues forth into his sovereign exercise of that power: “so also the Son gives life to whom he will” (Jn. 5:21). How then can the human body of Jesus in the tomb be an exception to this rule? Turretin also argues from Romans 1:4 and the raising of Lazarus that Christ’s own resurrection could not have proved his divinity if it were a “resurrection in which Christ were merely passive.”4

As a last point on how the resurrection exalted, or “raised the esteem” of human flesh, let us return to the maxim that what he redeems, he must assume. Mediation is not simply legal, but moral, experiential, and, we might even say, aesthetic. Watson says,

“Christ took our flesh that he might make the human nature appear lovely to God, and the divine nature appear lovely to man.”5

The resurrection is for a heavenly presentation, we might say, of man: “to present you blameless before the presence of his glory” (Jude 24); “For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53). Christ is exalted in such a way that he has imperishable and immortal humanity—body and soul. 

Ascension: Human History Exalted

When the Christ ascended into heaven, human destiny was given the ultimate upgrade. It wasn’t simply God’s claim on the redeemed human body, but on the redeemed whole human experience. Our view of our lives down here is raised up to the spiritual realm. 

The meaning of the expression AT THE RIGHT HAND must be understood. Watson explains:

“God really has no right-hand or left; for being a Spirit, he is void of all bodily parts; but it is a metaphor taken from the manner of kings, who were wont to advance their favorites next to their own persons, and set them at their right hand.”6

Exaltation is not merely about a status, but it is about a persuasion. What is high and lifted up is designed to raise the heads and hearts of those below. So in those passages about the cross as the glorification of Christ, in what way is this so? Let us revisit especially John 12:23-24; 32-33.

“And Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit … And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.”

The first “raising up” or first “exalting” of Jesus was when the literal wooden cross raised up his sin-laded, shame-soaked, body from the ground to the sky atop Golgotha. A few other times in John’s Gospel this connection is made:

“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,  that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (3:14-15).

“When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me” (8:28).

This fulfills the Scripture: “when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand” (Isa. 53:10); and Brakel even sees the same pattern in the words of Psalm 110:7, “He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.”7 Jesus himself rooted the order of glory through suffering in the Old Testament predictions of him—“Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Lk. 24:26)

That is why on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the disciples who were also apostles. The oil of the anointing represented this, and as Peter preached the coronation sermon in the courts of Zion below, Christ took his seat of majesty, so that the spiritual overflow of the anointing was said to be for power to be his witnesses (Acts 1:8).

So the authority that grounded the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 in the form of a command is realized at Pentecost in real kingdom-advancing power: gospel and discipleship. This fits perfectly with the two main meanings of entering or pursuing the kingdom in the Gospels—namely, converting to Christ and conforming to Christ. Converting to Christ answers to the gospel preached, and conforming to Christ answers to the discipling of the nations: “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

Session: Human Dominion Exalted

We need to think about those words again from Matthew 28:18: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” The word AUTHORITY (ἐξουσία), also sometimes rendered as “power,” means that position of power, when is why the imagery of a throne is often evoked to communicate the same. The word “session” refers to him being “seated,” and this seating has to do with the authority and the rule he exercises from that place he sits. It is all about the establishing of his kingdom in both heaven and through history from that point onward. So his offices find a kind of unity in this action:

“After making purification for sins, jhe sat down kat the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3).

Back to that Ephesians 1 passage, this exalted state is “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (Eph. 1:20). This has implications (1) for Christ’s control over the empires of men and (2) for Christ’s pattern to be obeyed by the empires of men. Bavinck compared the local church to a visible “outpost of the kingdom.” The church is not logically co-extensive with the kingdom. The kingdom of God is a broader concept. However, since the kingdom of Christ is inaugurated in this age, there is relationship between the exaltation of Christ and the way the local church manifests the kingdom. 

How should we evaluate the Radical Two Kingdom (R2K) view of the past generation, in terms of its tendency to see the humiliation of Christ as the present pattern for the church in this age? The idea here is that, though Christ is exalted in heaven, that reign is spiritual over the church in such a way that the church’s relation to the world resembles Christ in his earthly pilgrimage. To put it another way: in the First Advent, Jesus announced judgment and mercy; in the Second Advent, Jesus will fully consummate judgment and mercy. This is all true, but we might ask whether we fully consummate either one ever. If not, it may be that the analogy itself has been over-applied. 

Again, exaltation-by-humiliation is a pattern for us, so that the goal of the suffering is the glory gained, through us, for God. 

We are not to treat the suffering and scorn as an end in itself, as the author of Hebrews exhorts us, 

“let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:1-2).

Suffering is not surrender to the enemies of Christ. Suffering is not silence in the face of evil. Suffering is not resignation to that which violates God’s prescriptive will on the pretext that the same events accord with God’s decretive will. 

Return: Christ’s Kingdom Consummated

Returning to the moment of the ascension, what did the angel say to the disciples? “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” (Acts 1:11). What is meant by “in the same way”? Three main things: 1. bodily, 2. visible, 3. descending. 

There is a main connection between Christ’s ascension to the throne and the basic mission described of him when he returns. In a word—judgment. We see this prefigured in John 5, that, 

“For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father … And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment” (vv. 22-23, 27-29).

For this reason and others that we have seen, the view known as Full Preterism must be considered a heresy because it denies truths that belong to the heart of the Christian hope. It denies this Second Coming, the bodily resurrection of believers, and judgment that Christ brings on a Last Day. Paul declared to the Athenians,

“he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed” (Acts 17:31)

This world will not go on forever as it is now. 

_____________________

1. Watson, A Body of Divinity, 203.

2. Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, III:219.

3. Turretin, Institutes, II.13.17.2.

4. Turretin, Institutes, II.13.17.3.

5. Watson, A Body of Divinity, 194.

6. Watson, A Body of Divinity, 205.

7. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, I:575