Christ's exaltation consisteth in his rising again from the dead on the third day, in ascending into heaven, in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last day. As we look at, last week we looked at Christ's humiliation, where Christ had come down humiliating, and his humiliation came to the world. And his condescension into this world in real time, in a real way, he being God, coming down to earth. And a kind of a transitional verse I wanted to read was John 17, five. And it says, and now, O Father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was. So Christ had glory. He was glorious. He came down to this earth, humiliation and being born of a virgin, suffered, died, was crucified. So we see it coming down, but then now we start to see, with this question, Christ's exaltation. And that starts with the resurrection. Kind of a key distinction in our faith. If Christ hadn't died, our sins would not be forgiven. If he hadn't been exalted yet again, our faith would not be built on, that is what our faith is built upon. And as this says here, and now, O Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had before the world was. So he is beginning to be built back up by the Lord. So his resurrected body, and I wanted to kind of point out here, that body that he was given, that died on the cross, that was the same body that resurrected. It's kind of something that we'll talk about as we kind of stepped through the steps of his exaltation. That body that he was given, nailed to the cross, put in the grave, was exalted. It was lifted up. We see in the upper room where Jesus is speaking to his disciples, and so I see my hands, see my feet, see my side, same body. He is man. He has been given a human nature. His nature is now human and God. He's God-man. And I also wanted to read from Luke. which that's where we're talking about. And Jesus said, why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands, behold my feet. This is that it is I myself. Handle me, see me, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. So it's a key distinction that we need to make that Jesus had a human body. And so, and again, as we work through this, there's gonna be four steps of his exaltation. Again, first one being his resurrection. That's the beginning of his exaltation. The next one will be his ascension. So he, as we know, as scripture fulfilled, that he would rise and he ascended into heaven. And we see in Acts chapter one, And verse nine says, now when he had spoken these things, while they watched, 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, who also said, men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will so come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven. So he was taken up. So after his resurrection, he appeared for about 40 days to the disciples, to various people, after which time he ascended. His ascension is a glorification, a reglorification of his holy nature, his rising back to ascend to the Father. We see it described as him going up. We don't, heaven isn't exactly what we would, I would say, we can't place it. Christ ascended, it says, so he was raised up, but heaven isn't up there. It's not a place that we can go to, as if it's somewhere in outer space or something like that. It's interesting, there's a lot of, been a lot of discussion as to, well, did he really ascend? Is heaven really up? up out there somewhere. We don't know where the heaven is. We can't describe it. That infinite God cannot help us understand where heaven is any more than we can understand where hell is. But he ascended. The disciples watched this happen. And there was angels that appeared that says, hey, why are you waiting for? he will come back again. You watched him ascend, he will come back. So he ascended, and where did he ascend to? Is the fourth point is that he ascended to the right hand of God. So the right hand of God is a place of honor. There's only one person that can sit at the right hand of God. That is a place of ultimate honor that can only be given to him. I'm going to read from Ephesians 2. Sorry. Philippians 2, excuse me, Philippians 2, 9. And so, therefore, God has also highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So we see in this this passage here, he ascended to God's right hand who has given a name that was above every name. He's being exalted. He's been given the place of honor. God can only confer that honor to Christ, the God-man. We shouldn't think of it as a specific right arm of God. God does not have a body like He is a spirit, not a man, Jesus is. But it is a place of honor, and only God can give that. We must be giving God, Jesus Christ, that same glory because of that position that he was given. We want to kind of point again about the body part. Jesus does have a body. He came down as a God. He arose. as a God man. He also had that human nature that ascended with him. And so when we see this Jesus being exalted above all others, above every other name that every knee should bow and every tongue should confess, we see Jesus is in heaven and he is there physically, his body being there. Something that we want to make a distinction of is that a lot of other A lot of other sections of belief are that Jesus is present in us, present in this world, in this earth. We don't see that in this particular passage, in this way. Jesus is a human and a God in heaven. interceding, we talked about that last time, interceding on our behalf, interceding before us. He is just as active at the right hand of God as he was here on earth, ministering to all of the people and to us through his messengers. But Jesus's presence, his body, is a human. And as a human nature, he's not an omnipresent, whereas we have the Holy Spirit. He's given us the Holy Spirit to dwell with us forever. That is the part that is omnipresent. God is omnipresent, Holy Spirit omnipresent. Jesus is a body. He does not come, and a lot of people will say this, especially the Roman Catholics will say, well, when we have the sacraments, he's present. We're eating actual parts of Jesus. Well, that's not what we believe. That is something that in different ways people have tried to attribute that Jesus is here present with us now, but no, he is at the right hand of God. He's been exalted to that place and they're interceding. We need him there interceding. That exaltation, that place of exaltation is where Jesus needs to be. And he will be there until coming again. And as we saw in Acts, he will come back the same way that he went up. So there will be a visible body coming back. So we see the first three of the exaltation is resurrection, his ascension, his sitting at the right hand of God, and then we also, his coming again. That will be his final exaltation. There will be no other humiliations. Jesus was not coming to be humiliated in any other way. He is exalted. He's going to stay exalted till the end of time. There is no more coming back down. He will come back in that visible form. We don't know for sure, but I mean, I would assume he's gonna have those scars, those scars on his hands and feet. He's that same body that was that died on a cross will be risen again, rose again, and will come back down, as scripture says, in the same way that he ascended. And so we look into that same body part in Matthew, where we kind of getting into a little bit of eschatology this morning. In Matthew chapter 24, it's called the Olivet Discourse, where Jesus talks about the temple being destroyed and being raised again. Oftentimes is a very misunderstood passage of scripture, but what we want to see here is the word coming. When he comes again, the word that is used in Matthew 24, it talks about, him coming again. The word coming in the Greek in this passage is called, his name is Perusia. It's the second coming. It's another better, perhaps better way to say it is advent. His presence, his humanly formed presence is coming again. The parousia, which is translated coming in our Bibles, but the parousia is the second coming of Christ. So this is him coming back, having the same body, and coming to us to separate the sheep and the goats. He's coming to judge the world. coming to judge all sin and bring those that are his elect and restore them to heaven. So we don't know when that day is. We don't know when the second coming is. That's been a matter of much speculation, much thought, much discussion. Pretty much it's always kind of the idea, if someone says, oh, he's gonna come in 2000, that was a big one, 2000, maybe that's when Christ will come. We don't know the day or the hour that Christ will return. have people say that he's going to come tomorrow, we can almost guarantee that that's not going to happen. It's going to come in an hour when we least expect. His exaltation when he comes back to this world to judge the living and the dead will be a great exaltation. It says, like I said, in Philippians, where every knee should bow, every tongue shall confess, That's gonna happen. There is going to be a great judgment at that point, and we need to be prepared for that. That second coming, though, has been described as a flood, like the flood. It'll become like a thief in the night, or like lightning that crosses from the east to the west. It will be sudden. It will be glorious. I don't think there's going to be any doubt that Christ has returned. It's going to be quite something to behold. Whether we get to see that in our lifetime, we have no idea. We are simply to live in a way and manner being prepared for that day. We don't know when that'll happen, if that'll happen in this generation. I think I've spoken to a number of people from other generations who thought that they were going to see Christ's return. We're still here. And so it's still coming. It's closer now than it was yesterday. And we are to continue to walk in faith in that way. So that fourth aspect is that he's coming again. The idea of his presence, his bodily presence in this world Again, it will be continuing in his exaltation. So I wanted to read in Thessalonians here. First Thessalonians. Five, three. Yeah, for when we say peace and safety, and then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon our pregnant women, and they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness so that this day should overtake you as a thief. You are the sons of light and the sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. And so this is how we are to live in light of this exaltation. We are needing to be prepared for his exaltation, this second coming, this final exaltation of Christ when he comes again. We need to recognize all four of these pieces that obviously pivotal and central to our faith is that resurrection and that ascension and considering that he is sitting at the right hand of God, interceding on our behalf, acting as mediator between God and us. We need him there. We should be very grateful that he is there doing that very work. We look at the scriptures and we see Jesus being very busy through his three years of ministry on this earth. He's just as busy now, if not perhaps more so, I would think. But he is busily interceding on our behalf and making intercession for us, and that's a big job. And we should be mindful of that. But those are the four main points of his exaltation. Like I said, we wanna make sure that we understand how exalted he truly is and how much he deserves that exaltation and that he emptied himself and came to this world to be there and then exalted by the Lord. It's interesting to note that God restored him to what he once was before. Like I read in that first passage, John 17. And now, this is Jesus' words. And now, oh Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was. So Christ has always had the glory. He had the glory before the world was. That's an interesting thought, that he had the glory, he gave up that glory to come and condescend and to humiliate himself before all of men and all of humanity, to die on a tree, which was a cursed thing to die on a tree, it says, that we are, that anyone who dies on a tree is considered cursed. That's why people, some people in the Jewish day and age, they rejected him, because only Someone that is cursed dies on a cross. But that was part of his humiliation that he did for us, he paid for our sins in that way. And so we, but then God raised him up and bestowed back upon him that honor of that name above every other name, that every knee should bow, then every knee should confess. Little diversion here, but that verse there is often twisted verse, that every knee will bow. It's not will, it's should. When Christ comes again, we will see it, and I suspect there will be many people who will bow the knee at that point, where they see that, and I would guess that if you see Christ coming in the clouds, there's gonna be some new believers. Whether they're believers, I don't know, but it's not that everyone will be saved. It's not, as again, this isn't a universalism. This isn't a point where everyone gets to be saved because Christ will come and then everybody's going to bow. We see that through scripture. I've seen that through preaching, like no matter how many good sounding arguments you make, no matter how much, I mean, people saw Jesus's miracles and they still rejected him. they still refused to believe in him. The Jews, many of them at that time, refused to believe in him. The Pharisees, they saw him raise people from the dead. They saw him restore people. They saw the miracles, still refused. So I don't suspect when he comes again, everyone is not going to bow. Everyone will still have, only his elect will be bowing before him. Only those he has chosen and called. But we see, that passage often twisted, that every knee will bow. No, it should. Every knee should bow, that every knee should confess. And it's not a universal thing. And so, does anyone have any questions about that?