Luke (Program #65) – The Man-Savior’s Ascension (3 & 4)

The Gospel of Luke concludes with one of the mysterious and difficult to understand items in the entire New Testament and that’s the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ to the heavenlies, some forty days after His resurrection. Luke 20:4 says “while He blessed them He parted from them and was carried up into heaven and they worship Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God.”  One of the reasons that seems to be mysterious and difficult is that it appears to be very removed even remote from us. Yet when we see His ascension properly in view of the entire New Testament revelation we realized that it has tremendous implications for us.

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Genesis (Program #49) – The Progress in Answering God’s Calling

Our life study today is dealing with progress in answering God’s calling.  A central item in God’s call to Abraham was the necessity for him to cross a river.   What does this mean?  The explanation should take into account both literal and the spiritual significance of this.  Literally, Abraham had to cross a great river in order to go from one realm, the land of Chaldea into the realm, the good land into which God was calling him.  Spiritually speaking, this points to the reality of the experience of baptism.   Elsewhere in the Scriptures, when God’s people were to go from one realm to another, they pass through water.   Noah passed through water to get into the realm of God’s new creation.  The children of Israel passed through the water of the Red Sea and again through the water of the Jordan.  All of these may be understood and rightly as types of baptism.  When God calls us, we began in an old fallen realm.  God wants to bring us out of that realm into a realm where Christ is everything to us.  In order to make this transition by the Lord’s grace, we need so to speak to cross a river.  We need to pass through water which spiritually signifies death and resurrection.  So in summary, Abraham’s crossing the river indicates our need to go through death and resurrection in Christ signified by baptism in order to be transferred out of the realm of old creation into the realm of God’s new creation…

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