This coming Lord’s Day, we will be considering Luke 24:50-53 in the preaching of God’s Word. Most weeks, as we profess the Apostles’ Creed in worship, we declare that “He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.” The Ascension is a cardinal Christian doctrine, but we often overlook its significance for our daily life as believers. The language of the Heidelberg Catechism is helpful in understanding the comfort this doctrine brings to our lives and to our deaths. For your edification, consider these words below.

46. How dost thou understand the words: He ascended into Heaven? 
That Christ, in sight of His disciples, was taken up from the earth into heaven; and in our behalf there continues, until He shall come again to judge the living and the dead.

47. Is not then Christ with us even unto the end of the world, as He has promised? 
Christ is true Man and true God: according to His human nature, He is now not on earth; but according to His Godhead, majesty, grace, and Spirit, He is at no time absent from us.

49. What benefit do we receive from Christ’s ascension into heaven? 
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 us, His members, up to Himself. Thirdly, that He sends us His Spirit, as an earnest, by whose power we seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, and not things on the earth.