Apostles’ Creed (part 5)

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He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. // And he will come to judge the living and the dead.

    • Ascended: “…Christians proclaimed a gospel of Christ’s bodily incarnation, bodily suffering, bodily death, bodily resurrection, and bodily ascension. The faith of the ancient church was not about spiritual escapes but fulness, including the life of the body. As Irenaeus said it in the second century, the Son of God ‘did not reject human nature or exalt himself above it,’ but united himself with our nature in order to unite us to God.”[1]
      • Matt. 28:18ff— “I’ll be with you always …” Luke 24:52–54 “[W]orshipped him…; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.” “Jesus was understood not to be absent from them but, even though no longer present with them in flesh and blodd … to be now nonetheless personally present to them and with them and in them in precisely the way that God was and is.”[2]
      • And the dramatic scene in John 20:17–23.
  • Resurrection → 40 days → Ascension → 10 days → Pentecost. And in all these passages (again in Acts 1), the disposition of the disciples is changed. They are no longer confused or in disbelief. All the pieces now fit together. And it is this ascended Jesus that the disciples experienced the abiding presence that was promised never to leave them.
  • The right hand of God …
    • Purification: Heb. 1:1–4; 8:1–2; 10:12; 12:2; Ps. 110:2. Jesus’ priestly role of providing purification of sins is completed.
    • Mediation: Heb. 2:14ff & 4:14ff. How should we see Jesus? Jesus has greater promises, covenant, and priesthood. (See also Heb 6:19–20). Jesus, sitting on the right of God, intercedes for us in Rom. 8:34.
    • Jesus sitting at God’s right hand brings forth all the OT imagery of God sitting on the throne and all things are underneath his authority. All powers and gods and kingdoms are God’s footstool. See Eph 1:20–22 and Col. 1:18b-20.
    • And Jesus will destroy every enemy under his feet (1 Cor 15:24–28; Ps. 8:6; 110:1).
    • All others stand in God’s presence. “Sits at the right hand of God” is unique and expresses divinity in every way. And the creed repeats “Father Almighty.”
    • So, the one who descended is the one who ascended. Once incarnated, God taking on flesh remains as Jesus ascends. God taking the form of a human is now permanent. “His risen hands still bore the scars of crucifixion, and with that scar tissue the whole story of Jesus’s particular life and ministry is carried forward into God’s identity and God’s future in a defining way, rather than being discarded or left behind as though it were merely an external shell, a husk bearing the seed of an essentially Christless mysticism or generic human religiosity. On the contrary, it is the particular things that Jesus did and said, and suffered—the ‘person’ we meet in the telling of the stories about these things—that are the very touchstone of Christian faith, for it is in and through and not apart from them that God’s character is divulged, and redemption is precisely and only a matter of our being conformed to Jesus’s own human likeness.”[3]
  • Judgment
    • “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises. Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who live in it. Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity” Psalms 98:4, 7-9. NRSV
    • “This, it tells us, is how the story will end, and not in some other way… at a time appointed by God and in an ending that is no mere ending but itself a new beginning, a transformation of the cosmos rather than its gradual return to chaos and nothingness. … Yahweh, would finally step in to come and dwell among his people, bringing heaven and earth together and putting the earth right in order to make it fit for that indwelling.”[4]
    • The final scene of the drama of God. “It is part of the good news of the gospel. It is a joy to know that someone understands all the complexities and ambiguities of our lives. It is a joy to know that this one—the only one who is truly competent to judge—is ‘full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14). He comes to save, not to destroy, and he saves us by his judgment.”[5]
      • 2 Cor 5:10 in the context of being confident that ministry will judge by what is eternal and not according to the flesh.
      • Phil. 3:20–21. For our transformation.
      • Col. 3:1, 4.
    • “God’s judgments aim to create and restore justice and peace among the people of God and throughout the creation. In this sense, God’s activity as judge and savior is inseparable.”[6]
      • Judgment and salvation are closely linked. Ps. 51:2, 7, 10; 10:18; 68:5; 72:4; 98:8–9. Rom. 8:1.
      • Peter also preaches that Christ is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead (Acts 10:42; 1 Pet. 4:5; cf. 2 Tim. 4:21). He calls his readers to holy living so that their deeds may glorify God ‘when he comes to judge’ (1 Pet. 2:12).”[7]
      • 1 Cor. 16:21–22 Maranatha! “Our Lord Come.”

Final stanza of “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.”

 Finish then thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be; Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee: Changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place, Till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise.

[1] Myers, The Apostles’ Creed, 88.

[2] Hart, Confessing and Believing, 148.

[3] Hart, Confessing and Believing, 147.

[4] Hart, Confessing and Believing, 159.

[5] Myers, The Apostles’ Creed, 93.

[6] Daniel L. Migliore, “From There He Will Come to Judge the Living and the Dead,” 179, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.

[7] Daniel L. Migliore, “From There He Will Come to Judge the Living and the Dead,” 181, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.