Friday, July 9, 2010

Heidelberg Catechism: Lord's Day 18

Q. 46. How do you understand these words, "he ascended into heaven"?
A: That Christ, in sight of his disciples, was taken up from earth into heaven; and that he continues there for our interest, until he comes again to judge the quick and the dead.

Q: 47. Is not Christ then with us even to the end of the world, as he has promised?
A: Christ is very man and very God; with respect to his human nature, he is no more on earth; but with respect to his Godhead, majesty, grace and spirit, he is at no time absent from us.

Q: 48. But if his human nature is not present, wherever his Godhead is, are not then these two natures in Christ separated from one another?
A: Not as all, for since the Godhead is illimitable and omnipresent, it must necessarily follow that the same is beyond the limits of the human nature he assumed, and yet is nevertheless in this human nature, and remains personally united to it.

Q: 49. Of what advantage to us is Christ's ascension into heaven?
A: First, that he is our advocate in the presence of his Father in heaven; secondly, that we have our flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that he, as the head, will also take up to himself, us, his members; thirdly, that he sends us his Spirit as an earnest, by whose power we "seek the things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God, and not things on earth."

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Let the saints be joyful in glory, let them sing aloud on their beds, let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance on the nations, and punishments on the peoples; to bind the kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron. Psalm 149:5-8