A number of years ago, at the end of a week of corporate prayer here in Perth, God started to speak to me through Acts 3:19-21: “Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out and that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of the restoration of all things that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.” As I reflected on this text I seemed to sense Jesus in his ascended position over the universe. Below him were various levels of reality, all of which he was restoring to their true order. In some ways this vision-like experience puzzled me, but having been roused early one morning this week, I sense God giving me more of the pieces of the puzzle. What he is trying to restore to the church in Perth in our time is a heavenly view and experience of reality.
There is a constellation of phenomena that seem to go together in the lives of Jesus and the apostles that are strikingly absent from the sort of ministry we have become familiar with in Australia today. These include gospel proclamation with authoritative pronouncement of forgiveness (Mark 2:5; Luke 24:47; John 20:23), healings and deliverances by command (Mark 1:25-26,32; 3:5; Acts 3:6-8; 9:34; 14:9-10 etc.), miracles in the sphere of nature (Mark 4:35- 41; Acts 28:3- 6; 2 Cor 12:12 etc.), mass turning to God (Matt 4:23 -25; Acts 2:41; 4:4 etc.).
The question I want to examine is: “Where were Jesus and the apostles when they performed such wonders?” The obvious answer is “On earth!”, but another and more critical answer is “In heaven!” I believe the key to this understanding is a puzzling expression of Jesus in John 3.
In his conversation with Nicodemus concerning being “born again” Jesus made the remark: “Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except him who has descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” (John 3:11-13).
In context, the “earthly things” Jesus is speaking of is the movement of the Holy Spirit and the regeneration (John 3:3-10). Nicodemus is receiving a double rebuke; he understands neither the spiritual realities of the earth nor those of heaven.
Picture this, Jesus is right there in front of Nicodemus, he is visible to the naked eye, could be touched, smelled and so on, yet he claims at the same time to be in heaven. How was this possible for Jesus and how is it possible for us?
The Bible never describes the key to Jesus knowledge of the Father in heaven to his nature as God, something in which we do not directly share. Jesus was a partaker of the heavenly world whilst he lived on the earth by the Holy Spirit. “The one who comes from heaven … speaks the words of God because he (God) gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands.” (John 3:31, 34, 35). While his body was firmly fixed on earth Jesus’ spirit enjoyed fellowship with the Father in heaven by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. This was an intuitive, spiritual relationship he had with God and not a spatial or a physical one. Through this communion everything that belonged to the Father was at his command – the realm of forgiveness, healing, miracle deliverance flowed from the Father through the Son in the power of the Spirit. Heaven and earth intersected in the life of Jesus (John 1:51). In this sense, as the fullness of the Father’ visible presence upon the earth, the supernatural words and works of Jesus were natural to him (John 12:49;14:10). The exciting and challenging thing is that this is also true for us.
“Believe me, that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:11-12). These words are often quoted but infrequently understood. The key to their understanding is not “greater works” but “because I am going to the Father”. It is the ascension of Jesus to the right hand of the Father, ‘the Son of Man ascending to where he was before” (John 6:62) to “prepare a place” (John 14:2) in the Father’s heart (John 1:18), that will enable the disciples to share in Jesus communion with God and receive answers to prayer on earth in the same way that Jesus had (John 14;13- 14; 15:7,16; 16:23.). All of this will become real for the apostles in the same way as it became real for Jesus, through the Holy Spirit.
According to John, the Holy Spirit could not be given until Jesus was glorified through the cross and by returning to the Father (John 7:37-39;12:27-28; 17:4-5, 11). Therefore on the resurrection morning, while he remained on earth, Jesus did not minister to the disciples but commanded Mary Magdalene: “Do not hold on to me, because 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.’” (John 20:17).
The emphases here are of extreme significance. The disciples are now Jesus’ “brothers”, because by his death, resurrection and soon to be completed ascension his God and Father is now their God and Father. They were now, in principle, if not yet in experience, inside of the circle of the divine family in heaven. What the ascension of Jesus would open up for them would be his authority as the heavenly Son, who had returned to the eternal glory of the Father’s immediate presence (John 17:5), to impart the Holy Spirit.
“Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you… as the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven, if you retain the sins of any they are retained.” (John 20:21-23). This is nothing less than an act of new creation infinitely superior to the imparting of earthly life to Adam (Gen 2:7), it is the impartation of the heavenly life of the Son of God. Jesus now expects the disciples, in the power of the Spirit, to be able to command on earth what has been declared in heaven. That is, to minister as he ministered. Their communion with the heavenly Lord in the Spirit is the key to the constellation of phenomena lacking in our day.
Can I suggest we have become, more or less, “so earthly minded to be of no heavenly use”. It seems to have escaped our attention that “heaven” and “earth” are constantly used as terms of present opposition in the New Testament (1 Cor 15:40; 2 Cor 5:1; Phil 2;10; 3;19; James 3:15). So strong is this contrast in the book of Revelation that those who “dwell on the earth” (Rev 1:5,7; 3:10; 6:10,15; 8:13; 11:10; 13:8,14; 14:6; 16:18; 17:2,5,8,18; 19:2,19) are always people under the wrath of God. Christians however are not earth bound but given insight into the heavenly mysteries in the Spirit and through the book of Revelation itself (Rev 1:10; 4:1-2 etc.). This perspective is consistent throughout the New Testament.
In the apostolic teaching of Acts we find repeated references to Jesus location “at the right hand of God” (2:25,33,34; 5:31; 7:56) in “heaven” (Acts 1:11; 2:2; 3:21), a place from which he speaks and works and from where he will return (7:55-56; 9:3; 10:11,16, 11:5,9-10; 22:6,16,19). A continuous dynamic flows between heaven and earth through the power of the Spirit (2:2).
This manner of understanding spiritual things is continued by the epistles. The ascended Jesus (Rom 10:6; Eph 4:8-10; 1 Tim 3:16 ) is in heaven at God’s right hand (Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; 1 Pet 3:22; Heb 1:3,13; 8:1; 10:12;12:2; Rev 5:1,7 etc.). He will return “from heaven” (1 Cor 15:48; 1 Thess 1:10;4:26; 2 Thess 1:7; Heb 12:5). Similarly, Christians are in the “heavenly places” (Eph 1:3, 20; 2:6;3:10;6:12) with Christ in God (Col 3:1). All of this stands for the reality of a deep spiritual and not spatial communion.
Since such things are revealed by scripture to be aspects of the life of Jesus, the apostles and the early church as an expression of who Jesus is and what he has done, we must expect the same today. Even in Australia.
In my observation, contemporary Christians know much about the earthly life but little of the heavenly. We have become preoccupied, if we are Evangelicals, with telling people such “earthly things” as that they need to be “born again” (something that neither Jesus nor the apostles ever preached), and focussed, if we are Charismatics, with things like emotional experience and material prosperity. What we have forgotten is the heavenly life that the ascended Lord longs to share with us.
We are not experiencing the constellation of phenomena (forgiveness, healing, miracle, deliverance, mass conversion etc.) that mark the in breaking of the kingdom of God / heaven on earth because of our worldliness. “Friendship with the world makes you an enemy with God.” (James 4:4). Jesus said the world, indeed, “all nations”, would hate us (Matt 24:9; John 15:19). This is because to live faithfully as a Christian is to live as a strange person or an alien on this planet (Heb 11:13; 1 Pet 2:11).
To live consistently as a Christian is to bring the life of the heavenly world to the earth. This is what Jesus and the apostles did and it is what God is moving to release in our day. Such a move will bring all the results we read of in scripture, including tremendous joy and severe persecution. Let us pray that we may have grace to receive both from the Lord.