The Aftermath of Ascension Day

Why is it important to remind ourselves as Christians about the meaning of Christ's Ascension and further to acknowledge his Ascension on a special day?

Christ's Ascension was/is important because Jesus was going to:

1. send the Holy Spirit on his disciples 'not many days hence' (Act 1.5);
2. intercede for his saints (those who believe in Jesus) (Heb 1.3; 7.25);
3. war as the exalted Lord along with the Father until all the Son's enemies are subdued (Acts 2.34-35; 1 Cor 15.24-28);
4. come again to exercise compassionate judgement upon mankind both dead and alive.


Ascension Day is celebrated 40 days after Easter Day; and just as Easter is a movable feast so is Ascension Day (and also Pentecost too). In AD 2013, Ascension Day is Thursday May 9th. If we examine (a traditional version of) the Apostles' Creed we find a direct reference to Christ's Ascension:

the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick [living] and the dead.   

The Apostles' Creed (developed between c. AD215 and the 6th century AD) mentions Christ's Ascension to the place of authority at the right hand of 'God the Father Almighty'.

Christ the Warrior Lord

Christ is now exalted in heaven and on earth (Matt 28.18-19); yet he still waits until his enemies become his footstool (Acts 2.34-35). In fact, the apostle Peter in Acts is quoting Psalm 110.1 which happens to be the most quoted (e.g., Heb 1.13), or alluded to (e.g., Heb 1.3), verse in the NT!

In 1 Cor 15.24-25, we read how Christ is active now in 'putting down all enemies under his feet'. Interesting too is the observation that the Father is also said to have 'put all things under his [Jesus'] feet' (1 Cor 15.28). (The latter shows the close connection between the Father and the Son in the Godhead.) 

Hence, our Lord Jesus is not passively sitting in heaven but actively at war against anything that is in opposition to the Father's will. The Father's will is pre-eminent because although members of the Trinity are co-equal, co-substantial and co-eternal, the Son and the Spirit have subordinated themselves in love to the Father's will.   

Archaic Pronouns: Sometimes Important Words For Us Today

Many Christians today don't use Bible versions that have archaic words such as 'thou', 'thee', 'thine', 'thy', 'ye'.  

I've heard preachers ridicule such language as if using such language is so out of fashion that no church (or person) should be caught dead using it.

Before going on, I should make clear that I'm not trying to argue that we should go back to the King James Version (KJV) as it was in AD1611 or AD1769. For a number of reasons the Church probably cannot do that. 

However, many were brought up on the KJV and its rhythms are still alive for them. In my case, after deserting it for translation after translation I've now come to view it with much more respect.

The populist bandwagon of getting rid of the KJV altogether has only led to a succession of translations which makes for reasonable uniformity and a stable text for memorisation almost impossible. 

Let's consider a few well-known Bible texts and see how a knowledge of the KJV's language clarifies rather than obscures certain passages.


In fact in these same passages, the obscurity occurs in some of the last century translations.

'Luke 22.31-32'

In the 'old-fashioned' KJV this Lukan passage reads, 

And the Lord said to Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren [italics indicate words that the KJV translators added*]. 

We might think we understand this text and when we will look it up in some-not all-modern translations we would conclude that Simon's (Peter) welfare is the focus throughout; that is, that you = thee = thy!

However, when the above verses are examined one will find that Satan desired to have all of the apostles because in AD1611 (and 1769) 'you' was used in the KJV for the plural form of 'you' and meant the equivalent of 'you-all'. 'Thee', 'thy' and 'thou' denoted the singular. (See Table 1 below.) 

Hence Jesus was saying that Satan desired to sift as wheat all of the apostles-not just Simon-however Jesus has prayed specifically for Simon that his faith not lead to his ruin.

By the way, these differences in these pronouns were found in the Greek text the translators were translating. Hence, the translators deliberately used these more archaic forms (according to here) to overcome the diminishing social use of thee, thy, thou, ye, etc.

In fact, I found a number of more recent translations over the last 100 years that note this difference in their translations; the NIV (1985) notes the plural in the margin and in 2011 version it is in the translation itself (a better option).

The difficulty is that modern English does not use a different word for 'you' singular and 'you' plural but to get a right understanding of Luke 22.31-32 one needs to realise that we have an ambiguity with the English 'you' which isn't found in the KJV and some older translations too.**

'John 3.7'

Marvel not that I say unto thee, Ye must be born again.

I first heard this classic text emphasised in the local Brethren Sunday School my sisters and I attended early in our lives. We even had a chorus that made it quite clear that Jesus was speaking primarily to Nicodemus. It contained the two English pronouns, 'thee' and 'Ye' in the KJV which our chorus appeared simply to equate. 

So unfortunately, if my recollection is accurate, we just weren't taught correctly the meaning of 'thee' and 'ye'.

Although the first pronoun is directed to Nicodemus, the second is plural and means 'you-all', presumably all the Jewish leaders and Jewish people including Nicodemus. (See Table 1 below.)

Some translations do translate so as to make a difference as the KJV does such as the ASV, Darby's Translation, the ESV, JB Phillips NT, and others. Others make a marginal note about the issue. Others don't translate this important nuance at all such as the Amplified Bible, The Message, NASB, NKJV, RSV, and The Voice. 

Other Scriptures

A large number of texts can be produced which suffer at the hands of some modern translations because if the you/you-all distinction is ignored the passages become ambiguous. For some examples of this point, see Exod 4.15; 29.42; 2 Sam 7.23; Matt 24.64; Luke 5.24; Jn 3.11; 14.9; 1 Cor 8.9-12.

More can be adduced towards the end of this site from which the following Table is used with thanks.

Table 1. Personal Pronouns and Their Cases

		Nominative	Objective	Possessive
First Person	singular	I	Me	My (or mine)
	plural	We	Us	Our (or ours)
Second Person	singular	Thou	Thee	Thy (or thine)
	plural	Ye	You	Your (or yours)
Third Person	singular	He/She/It	Him/Her/It	His/Hers/Its
	plural	They	Them	Their (or theirs)

* Other translators don't bother to do this but the KJV translators had such reverence for the Word of God written that they believed that the reader was entitled to know what they had altered. 
**Interestingly, other modern languages such as French, Spanish and Italian have two forms for 'you' so it's easy to distinguish between the singular (you) and the plural (you-all). Also, some older translations mentioned above do translate this verse in the same way as the KJV.

A Pattern for Christian Worship

Just recently, I've again come across the writings of Dr J. I. Packer, now in his 80s, who has been a pastor and academic. 

He was once a great hero of mine when I was an orthodox Calvinist decades ago. He was an Anglican but recently left the Canadian church because of its well-publicised slide into liberalism.

Interestingly, although he classed himself as an evangelical he had a great love for The Book of Common Prayer (BCP: 1662). (Being an evangelical Anglican and having a love for the BCP seems rare today.)

Packer was brought up on the BCP and I can understand his strong affection for its rhythms and its implicit piety. (I was not nurtured in it but first encountered Anglicanism through An Australian Prayer Book (AAPA: 1978).)

Jesus was NOT a good man (?)

Met another Chinese lady on Valentine's Day. She (S) is a high school pupil with excellent English doing year 11. She has a Christian mother.

I asked S about the Christian faith and she said openly that she wasn't a Christian. It seemed then I got a prompt to ask her about Jesus and she told me she believed he was a good man.

A good man? Just a good man? I missed a golden opportunity to follow up here (but the shop was busy and S was there to help for the day).

Jesus Was NOT a good man

Of course, all Christians believe he was good but Jesus was far more than just a good man. He was the Christ that the righteous in Jewry were looking for and that the unrighteous shamefully rejected. Moreover, he was the Son of God (Jn 3.16f).

Later, I thought about C. S. Lewis' comment that you can call Jesus many things but you can't say he was a 'good man' because this 'good man' accepted the title of the Son of God on various occasions (e.g., Jn 10.36-38). But good men tell the truth and if this man accepted the title of the Son of God (e.g., Matt 26.63-64) then he cannot be good. He was either deluded or a liar.

With his disciples he asked, 'Who do people say that the Son of Man is?' (Matt 16.15-17). After getting the answers of 'John the Baptist', 'Elijah', 'Jeremiah', 'one of the prophets', he then asked the most important question for that age and this: 'But who do you say that I am?' 

Peter replied, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God' (Matt 16.16). In his response, Jesus not only accepted that Peter was correct but said that Peter's answer had been revealed to him by 'My Father who is in heaven' (Matt 16.17).

Interestingly, Jesus didn't go around saying He was the Son of God very often. (But then neither does the Prime Minister of a country do so either because everyone knows it to be so and acts on the basis that it is so.) But the New Testament is pervaded with the understanding that in Jesus, God's Unique Son has come to earth and been called the Son of God by God at his birth, baptism and transfiguration. (See here.)

The Gospel for Buddhists (3): Liberation

The Buddhist religion begins with doctrines known as the Four Noble Truths*. The first noble truth is that human existence is unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), that is, 'things are not as they should be'. (Even the happiest of times will end and hence, they too are unsatisfactory.) And life is that way because we crave and cling to what are the impermanent things and ideas of this life.

One author suggests that dukkha is derived from the image of riding in a horse-drawn vehicle where an ungreased axle on one side of the buggy is causing occupants to become nauseous through its lack of proper movement. No wonder humans feel uneasy and even despair at times as they ride in the buggy of normal life!

However, the way out of this unsatisfactoriness of life exists which consists in the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path. You will note in the graphic presented that it is a series of eight 'rights'. Right (correct) 'view', 'intention', 'speech', 'action', 'livelihood', 'effort', 'mindfulness', 'concentration'.

Buddhism, it should be noted, is not just a series of doctrines nor is it a matter of believing certain things. Buddhism is a way-of-life, a practice for true living. Hence, great stress is laid upon the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path.

And the reason for why anyone would want to practice these things is to be liberated from dukkha through an enlightenment or 'an awakening' which means that one sees reality for what it really is.

Enlightenment as Liberation from Dukkha

When the Buddha started to wander around India shortly after his enlightenment, he encountered several men who recognized him to be a very extraordinary being. They asked him: "Are you a god?" "No," he replied. "Are you a reincarnation of god?" "No," he replied."Are you a wizard, then?" "No." "Well, are you a man?" "No." "So what are you?" They asked, being very perplexed.  Buddha simply replied: "I am awake." Buddha means “the awakened one.” How to awaken is all he taught.

-Buddhist teaching
 
Enlightenment means to be liberated from dukkha: but what does that liberation actually mean? What happens to the seeker who practises this way and experiences this awakening which liberates?

According to Buddhism, uninitiated people are 'asleep' in a trance of ignorance. Their ignorance revolves around their lack of knowing the nature of the things around them and knowing what they are.

Their ignorance is found in their lack of knowing that every thing around them is conditioned and dependent on some thing else with no thing being eternal or permanent. Every thing comes into existence for a time and then ceases to exist.

Buddhist Liberation means Losing the 'I'

And what about us? Buddha said that we too are conditioned and dependent; we do not have immortal or eternal souls or selves.

Although it's all right to use the sentence 'I am walking' with 'I' in it as 'a way of speaking' after enlightenment we realise that no 'I' exists as a permanent reality. So, Buddhist enlightenment (at least for many schools) is being awakened to the conditioned and dependent reality of the 'I'. When the 'I' is experienced in this way, dukkha is no longer suffered. 

This 'awakening' is not primarily intellectual but achieved through the practice of the Eightfold Path.
  

A Christian Pathway

One thing that sets Buddhism and Christianity apart is the theistic basis of Christianity. Only a surface reading of Buddhist material is needed to realise that no god is talked about who is related to creaturely existence in any way. Whereas, in the Christian faith, God is the Father, Almighty, who made heaven and earth and who is met in Jesus Christ, his only Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The other clear difference is that Buddhists 'work out their own salvation'. (No god or higher power works on their behalf.) Buddhism requires diligent practice to achieve enlightenment.

That said, some parallels exist between some of the terms of Buddhism and the Christian faith.

Christians would say that the Bible teaches that those outside of Christ who are not disciples of his, live in the spiritual darkness that envelops the world (Eph 6.12). This darkness, however, is not primarily one of ignorance. It is one of sin.

Sin is a prideful defiance of God the creator centred in the human heart. Such defiance and infidelity alienates us from God; it means we live under the judgement of God.

To remain in this darkness under the judgement of God is to suffer eternal loss of one's life (Jn 3.16b); to receive Christ Jesus as Saviour is to be 'enlightened' (Acts 26.18; 2 Cor 4.6; Eph 1.18) as to Who Christ is and what His benefits to us are. To believe in Christ Jesus as Saviour is to be freed from the threat of God's future anger and punishment of all unrighteousness (e.g., Jn 3.36; Rom 1.18).

But this enlightenment does not come after a long (or short) effort of good works or right living to produce it. It comes by GRACE, the favour of God to those who deserve punishment. 

Nevertheless, the operation of God's grace does not take place without an active believing (trusting) in Jesus as the Resurrected Lord (Rom 10.9). So, we are not passive in this process of salvation. For 'it is by grace you are/have been saved, through faith' (Eph 2.8a).

Christianity as Liberation from Sin

To believe/trust in Christ is to be set free from the penalty of death which is the eternal consequence of sin (Rom 6.23). The consequences of past sins -reaping what has been sown- may still be experienced but not the eternal punishment for their sin. 

Second, they are now being freed from the power of sin. For now the Spirit of God is within them setting them apart for God. The Spirit is the Spirit of Truth (e.g., Jn 14.17) and leads us into all the truth (Jn 16.13) about themselves and the world.

One of the evil powers of the old sin nature is its ability to focus us on ourselves; the sin nature we are born with gets us to live life self-centredly, ego-centredly. We are turned in upon our selves. What are we to do about that? Well, firstly we ought to meditate on what God in Christ has done on the cross for us.

A central feature of the crucifixion of Christ was that the 'old man' of all believers was crucified with Christ (Rom 6.6) in order that 'the body of sin might be destroyed [rendered ineffective] that forthwith we should not serve sin' (Rom 6.6b). 

The 'old man' is our old self, the one under the power of the 'world, the flesh and the devil' who was operating before God's regenerating grace re-birthed us. The cross dealt with that person and its deeds (Gal 5.19-24) at Calvary 2000 years ago (Rom 6.11).

But, although the old self was 'crucified with Christ', Christians must also put the old self's deeds to death (Rom 8.13). We do this by taking off the old self daily as if we were removing an old coat. Further to that, the disciplines of prayer, bible reading and fasting should be planed. 

Finally, we will be one day saved from the presence of sin itself when they go to be with Christ (2 Cor 5.1-8) who is seated at God's right hand (Rom 8.34; Heb 12.2).

Liberation for Good Works

Corresponding to the putting to the death of the old nature, we are to 'put on the new nature' (Col 3.10, 12) as if we are putting on a new garment.

Paul said that for him 'to live was Christ and to die was gain' (Phil 1.21) and the context suggests that Paul wants to glorify, honour and make known the name of Christ whether he (Paul) is alive or dead (Phil 1.20). Serving Christ Jesus is all Paul cares about (2 Cor 5.15, 20).

Good works are a feature of the Christian life because Christians follow the One who himself, 'went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil' (Acts 10.38). See also Titus 2.14, 3.8, 14.

Conclusion

Although knowing something about Buddhism is helpful in presenting Jesus as the Way to the Father God, I have come to the conclusion that what Buddhists need to hear is the message of salvation itself through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In speaking with Buddhists from mainland China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma, they will often present as people who are endeavouring to do good works towards their goal of enlightenment. Some may not even have much knowledge of their religion and what it teaches, being more nominal Buddhists.

They will tend to major, therefore, on 'ethics' and 'morals'. Of course, that emphasis itself can provide a contact-point for speaking to them about the gospel.

As we know, just good works in themselves cannot secure true enlightenment according to the Christian revelation. Only trusting in Jesus who died to redeem us from our sin nature can do that.  
  
*A form of 'Four Noble Truths' can be observed in all religions after a fashion. The first describes the present alienated state of mankind; the second, the cause; the third the hope of a way out; and the last the way out itself. Of course, distinctive religions propose different content for the 'noble truths' and more importantly, a conflicting but definitive notions of the source for their assured knowledge.