From Caroline Divine John Cosin's sermon the Ascension (edited)
Acts 1:9-11 … And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight.And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as He went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel.Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking up into heaven? This same Jesus, Who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.
Jesus’ Ascension was no withdrawing of himself out of the way, no vanishing out of their sight to some other place here below, as He had sometimes done before; but a … visible, and real elevation of his body into heaven. He was taken up on high. So much we have in the first verse of the text; that He was taken up on high. … How high was it? So high, as it is added here, till a cloud came and took him out of their sight. … The angels say that He was taken up into heaven; twice here repeated, that there might be no doubt … . But after all these, St. Paul takes the true altitude for us, when he says that He ascended far above all the heavens, that is, to the highest of them all, there sitting at the right hand of God. And now He is at His full height.
St. Paul in his fourth chapter to the Ephesians … keeps a just correspondence between Christ's ascending and He descending; his going up here to heaven, and his coming down … to the earth; his highest and his lowest. That lowest was … the lowest condition there of any others, none beneath Him. This highest was … to the highest of heaven, to the highest throne, the highest state there of any others, none above him. And this latter made amends for the former; his humility was the merit of his glory, and his glory was the reward of his humility.
He ascended out of the grave, at Easter, from the gates of death, wherein He was shut; from the jaws of death, whereunto He was taken; … from the … belly of the whale, into which He was swallowed; out of all these He ascended then, when He rose from the dead. But all these brought Him no higher than to the ascension of Jonah from the bottom of the dungeon to the uppermost face of the earth. Now He comes to the ascension of Elijah; from earth to heaven, froth the lowest parts of the earth to the highest place in heaven, from His De profundis [out of the depths] then, to his In excelsis [on high] now, from being laid under a stone, to sit at the right hand of God.
For his own ascent into his glory, [Jesus ascended] as the Son of Man,--for as the Son of God in that nature, He ascended not, That was always in glory before, -so makes it much for our hopes of ascending there after him. … His going below first, descending to the lowest condition of men, and then in that condition going up, ascending to the highest state of heaven, and carrying our nature there with Him … For if the Son of Man be gone up, we have all hope that the sons of men may [also go] up after Him.
He that sat in a throne in heaven himself, was content to leave it; content to do a great deal more, to take upon him the form of a servant, the form of a malefactor, the form of humility; and in that form is brought to the throne again; in that form exalted far above all principalities and powers.
And now it is a good sight to behold Christ thus ascending to the heavens; a better sight to see Him as an eagle in the clouds than as a worm in the dust, for so they used him. But thus God exalted him. The Apostles looked on and saw it, that they might testify the truth of it.
A cloud came and took Him out of their sight … parts Christ's bodily presence from us; that, as St. Paul said, if Christ was once known by mankind after the flesh, now from henceforth we shall know Him no more. The cloud has removed Him from us. This cloud has taken his bodily and fleshly manner of being here, from among us all. It is his spiritual presence that we must hold to now, and that is as real a presence as any His body or his flesh ever was, or ever can be.
And there is an advantage [for us here]. For by his corporal presence He could have been resident but in one place at a time; as if he had been with St. James at Jerusalem, He had not been at the same time with St. John at Ephesus, or with St. Peter at Babylon, or with St. Thomas at the Indies--but by His spiritual presence, which was to succeed the corporal, wheresoever they were, He could be, and was, present with them all, and all at a time, with all and every one by himself. For by his Spirit he can be everywhere, truly and really everywhere, where it pleases Him; and so with us.
The corporal therefore was removed that the spiritual might take place, the visible taken away that the invisible might follow; and neither they, nor we, in sight and sense as before, but in spirit and truth henceforth to cleave unto Him. For which purpose we have still a Pentecost to come after an ascension.
This will make us say, when we can see him no longer for. the cloud, as we said here the other day in the Psalm of ascension, 'Good Lord, set up Thyself above the heavens, and Thy glory above all the earth.' Let Him be where He is, we shall lose nothing by it.
When the Apostle tells us that Christ was received up into glory, he tells us there in the same period that He was seen of Angels. … So here we have men and Angels brought together to wait upon Christ's ascension.
When God first brought his Son into the world, according to St Luke, it was then said, Let the Angels of God come down and worship him; and so they did. And when God here carries his Son out of the world, they come down to worship Him again; for as He is the Son of man, He is Lord both of men and Angels.
But Christ is gone up and the Angels stay still below, to teach the disciples before they go up after Him.
First, they stood by them; and it was no little honor to the Apostles … and to the religion which they preached to us, that they had these blessed spirits, the Angels, to assist them. When that religion was once preached to the world, the Angels appeared no more, their work and their errand was done.
They stood by them in white apparel; which was a symbol not only of their own purity, and integrity of their nature, but of their joy and triumph likewise, that was made both by them and by all their fellow-Angels in heaven for the coming up of Christ, the Son of God and man, there.
Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven?’ Peter and Andrew, James and John, and all; they were all Galileans, and had seen Christ's first there. Here they saw Him last. It was called Galilee of the Gentiles, for it was set in the confines of them, though it was itself in Judea. And now Christ was gone up, they were to go down and preach Christ to them both; to Jews, and Gentiles, and all.
Where it is not amiss to take notice of the word, that Galilee signifies 'a revolution.' And these Galileans … made that word good; they made such a revolution in the world as was never made before. For at their preaching of Christ, they made darkness light, and turned the world round. …
The Angels ask the Apostles here, why they stood looking still into heaven? … Yet since the clouds would let them see him no longer, it was time to take them from having recourse to this corporal presence any more; and to bid them look now after his Spirit. … This is sure, that Christ is gone and taken up into heaven, both from their sight and ours, from whence He will not return in any bodily manner again, till He comes at last to take an account of the world … And then both they, and we, and all the world, shall see him; see him coming down in the clouds again, as here He went up; 'This same Jesus, Whom you have seen taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven.’
Let the end of all be, that as Christ is gone up to heaven before us, so we may prepare to go up there after him; for His going up was not altogether for Himself; He [has] gone as our forerunner … to lay open the way before us, saith the prophet; to prepare a place for us. … He that can set his heart upon His ascension here, shall not fail to be with him in person hereafter. [The pledge and earnest of our being with him being the sacrament of his Body and Blood … he in us and we with him.] This blessed estate, the end of our desires here and of our fruition there, He pledged to bring us all; to him, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one eternal Deity, be all honor and glory now and for evermore. Amen.
JSH+