(Second Part: Of Man’s Redemption—Questions 12-85)
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.
48. But are not, in this way, the two natures in Christ separated from one another, if the Manhood be not wherever the Godhead is?
- By no means; for since the Godhead is incomprehensible and everywhere present, it must follow that it is indeed beyond the bounds of the Manhood, which it has assumed, but is yet nonetheless in the same also, and remains personally united to it.
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.
