In Hebrews 6:19, 20 we have a sure guide as to what Paul understood in this matter: “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.”, Our hope is WITHIN THE VEIL. 1:3; 8:1; 10:12; and 12:2). After Jesus' ascension the disciples went to Jerusalem and prayed for ten days, as Jesus commanded: Acts 1:4. It is one of the great facts of the gospel that Christ, after His death and resurrection, ascended to heaven and took His place at the Father’s right hand. Mrs. E. G. White says, “And what was done in type in the ministration of the earthly sanctuary, is done in reality in the ministry of the heavenly sanctuary” (Great Controversy, edition of 1911, p. 420). He was simply saying, “Don’t get preoccupied with when it is to occur.”. We are guilty of misunderstanding the words of our Lord upon the cross, when He cried out, “It is finished” (John 19:30). And God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power” (Acts 2:23,24). Bob was born and raised in a Christian home i... More, The Net Pastor’s Journal, Eng Ed, Issue 37, Fall 2020. Christians have a responsibility to spread the good news about Jesus to all who have not heard. But even now there were truths that they could not bear. Peter then learns he will die a martyrs' death. [29] Paul has already moved away from this apocalyptic tradition towards a position where Christology and soteriology take precedence: Jesus is no longer the one who proclaims the message of the imminently coming Kingdom, he actually is the kingdom, the one in whom the kingdom of God is already present. I received by revelation from Jesus Christ") and from God ("God ... was pleased to reveal His son in me"). That in 1844 God and Christ and the throne and the ministry were all transferred to the most holy place. Local: 704-401-2432 We turn again to the ninth chapter of Hebrews. I am not saying we should not study prophecy. A careful reading of this chapter should be sufficient for anyone who can understand to see that Paul is referring to the most holy place in several instances where he speaks of it as the holy place. They were frustrated with Roman oppression and may have envisioned an overthrow of Rome. [10] This development can be linked to the changing make-up of the Christian community: Paul and the earliest Christ-followers were Jewish, and Second Temple Judaism emphasised the life of the soul; the gospel-writers, in an overwhelmingly Greco-Roman church, stressed instead the pagan belief in the hero who is immortalised and deified in his physical body. Having completed His work on the cross in His flesh, He now intercedes for us as a sympathetic High Priest, as One Who has experienced our afflictions: “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Mark says: “...he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God” (chap. But it was also an indication of the extent of the power which was made available to complete the task set before us. Believers point to them as evidence of his resurrection and identity as Messiah, seated in Heaven on the right hand of God (the doctrine of the Exaltation of Christ). (6) Anticipation. Dates of Jesus' appearances are listed in the below timeline in both Roman (modern) and Biblical (Hebrew) calendar formats. The word vail (or veil, as it is also spelled) referring to the temple is found six times in the writings of the apostles of the Christian era. Peter places Him “by the right hand of God exalted” (Acts 2:23 and 1 Peter 3:22). Christ is risen up after advising them to stay in Jerusalem until the arrival of the Holy Spirit. This is good news! The result is that we are asked to accept the following positions: 1. One last passage remains to be considered in our study of the ascension of Christ and its importance to us. [43] These interpretations were later classed the "subjective vision hypothesis",[note 3] and "is advocated today by a great majority of New Testament experts. The argument is not that the priests of the Aaronic order entered once every year into the first apartment but into the second. 3. Unlike Christians today, the disciples lived and walked and talked, and touched the Savior while He was on the earth in bodily form. 8:2 and Heb. 8: 34). We cannot conceive of any place more holy than that of the immediate presence of God. This article gives convincing light! [33], In Paul and the first three gospels, and also in Revelation, Jesus is portrayed as having the highest status, but the Jewish commitment to monotheism prevents the authors from depicting him as fully one with God. Are we convinced of the truth of the Gospel, and are we seeking to tell others the good news of Christ’s salvation? Whether we call it the holy place, the most holy, or the holiest, it matters little. The parallel is that Christ entered once for all, and it would be absurd to turn the apostle’s reasoning to refer to Christ’s entrance into a first apartment, as it is attempted. by his own blood . [32] He goes beyond the ordinary Greco-Roman forms, however, by having Jesus claim "all authority ... in heaven and on earth" (28:18) – a claim no Roman hero would dare make – while charging the apostles to bring the whole world into a divine community of righteousness and compassion. The ascension of Jesus Christ was central to the initiation and continuation of this work. [web 1], According to Biblical scholar Géza Vermes, the resurrection is to be understood as a reviving of the self-confidence of the followers of Jesus, under the influence of the Spirit, "prompting them to resume their apostolic mission." All of these things must have come together, and the disciples were almost ready to burst with anticipation. That place, in the immediate unveiled presence of almighty God is plainly taught in the Scriptures to be the highest and holiest in all the universe. “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them,” was the divine commandment. The place where God dwells must be the highest and holiest of heaven. According to Exodus 26:33, “within the veil” was the portion where the ark of the testimony rested. And this is why those first Christians were willing to risk their lives to tell others about Christ. [27] Chapter 21, the appearance in Galilee, is widely believed to be a later addition to the original gospel. Who most needed assurance of His spiritual presence and power? It cannot be denied that both these writers, while using the expression “holy place,” refer specifically to what they would call the second apartment in heaven, or the most holy place. These writers were not trying to convey to us that at some far-off distant date Christ would approach the throne of the Father. Jesus did not go to “hell” or the suffering side of hades; He went to “Abraham’s side” or the blessed side of hades. [16] In 2 Corinthians 12, he tells his readers of "a man in Christ who ... was caught up to the third heaven. [9][37][38][39][40] A physical resurrection was unnecessary for the visionary mode of seeing the risen Christ, but when the gospels of Matthew, Luke and John were being written, the emphasis had shifted to the physical nature of the resurrection, while still overlapping with the earlier concept of a divine exaltation of Jesus' soul. While His glory was somewhat veiled by His humble surroundings at His incarnation, His return was with even greater glory and honor because of the work He had accomplished. . And since Christ was in the most holy place in the days of Paul, then He did not move from the holy to the most holy on October 22nd, 1844. A study to determine when Christ entered the most holy place in the heavenly sanctuary, whether: at His ascension or some 1,813 years later. 9:7). While the ascension may not be prominent in the gospels, it is paramount in the book of Acts. 9:24, R.V.). The same is true for John’s gospel. Jesus’ suffering ended the moment He died. It is even a transition in the ministry of Christ as well. This was a desperately needed event for who but His most intimate followers would sense most deeply His bodily absence? What a beautiful way to dovetail a two-fold response to this pressing question of the disciples. In his book, Hebrews Verse by Verse, William R. Newall comments thus: “Notice that ‘within the veil’ indicates Heaven itself, the very presence of God” (page 207). The ascension symbolized that the work which our Lord was sent to accomplish in His physical body on earth has been finished. 1 Corinthians 15:4-8), served well the purpose of convincing the disciples of the fact of our Lord’s resurrection. Undoubtedly this is true because, ironic as it may seem, our Lord’s departure inaugurated a time of even greater intimacy through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. God dwelt in the holiest, and the high priest went in to be with God, “alone, once every year” (Hebrews 9:7). It is not that the ascension of Christ is unimportant, then, but that it is largely irrelevant to the purpose of the gospel accounts. He contends that the more detailed accounts of the resurrection are also secondary and do not come from historically trustworthy sources, but instead belong to the genre of the narrative types. ©2020 BGEA First of all it was designed to convince the disciples of the fact of our Lord’s physical, bodily resurrection (cf. As Jesus neared death, He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Matthew 19:28; Mark 10:37f.). 'ascent of Jesus') is the Christian teaching that Christ physically departed from Earth by rising into Heaven, in the presence of eleven of his apostles. Mark it well; Jesus corrected His disciples on the matter of the time of the Kingdom’s arrival, not on its essential nature. But more than this the ascension itself was the most forceful and satisfying answer to the question of the disciples: And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. Those who saw him were Peter, John, James, Thomas, Nathanael, and two other unnamed disciples (likely Andrew and Philip, who lived in the general area). So it was Bethany that was the point of origin for the triumphal entry. As John put it. The teaching to be accepted is, of course, the one which can be sustained by Holy Writ, and having the correct knowledge of this matter is important, because without it one cannot understand or appreciate the mediatorial work of Christ. Peter and John are preaching as a result of the healing of the cripple who was outside of the temple, and who was healed. And, have you also entered into the holiest of all “within the veil” through the blood of Christ? The theory necessitating these accommodating moves is that Christ at His ascension entered into only the first apartment of the heavenly sanctuary. There is nothing confusing in this issue. The reason was because they believed beyond doubt that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, sent from Heaven to save us from our sins. What a Savior! Now He could speak plainly of His work upon the cross and they could understand His teaching. 1:20). [12], The earliest report of the post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus is in Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. In Acts we learn that there was a period of 40 days that our Lord continued to manifest Himself to His disciples on the earth: “To these He also presented Himself alive, after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the Kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). In the epistle to the Hebrews that which is spoken of in one place as the “sanctuary which the Lord pitched” is elsewhere described as “heaven itself” (see Heb.