From Ascensiontide to Pentecost, 2

In the previous post, we looked at what St Luke was getting at in telling Theophilus that his earlier gospel was only about "what Jesus began to do and teach" (Acts 1:1) and that the life of Jesus continues in His anointed disciples.

That was the subtle answer to St Luke's literary teaser.

There is, in fact, another answer, one that is somewhat less subtle:  Jesus continues to "do and teach" by way of His Lordship.

More to the point, Jesus exercises His Lordship by way of His Sevenfold Gift (Is 11:2-3, LXX).

St Matthew the Evangelist, in a act of literary deftness, condenses the entire Paschal Mystery into his succint 28th chapter, ending at Galilee (instead of the Mount of Olives, where the Ascension took place).  The condensing of Easter's glory is found in Jesus' words, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" (Mt 28:18).  This much is conveyed in the very Ascension itself, whereby Jesus took His throne beside the Father's--and where there is a throne, there is always authority.

The image at the top of this post--like yesterday's--shows the Ascension in the top panel and Pentecost in the lower panel, thus showing the connexion between Christ's authority and wielding that authority by the Holy Spirit.  This is the full sense of that passage in the Apocalypse, where the Seer of Patmos had a vision of the Holy Trinity:

...from him who is and who was and who is to come [= God the Father], and from the Seven Spirits who are before his throne [= God the Holy Spirit] , and from Jesus Christ, the Faithful Witness, the first-born of the dead, and ruler of kings on earth [= God the Son] (Apoc 1:4-5).

 The "Seven Spirit who are before his throne" makes an obvious connexion between the "Seven Spirits" described in the Greek version of Isaiah 11:2-3 and God's authority symbolized by the throne.

Further, in Apocalypse 4:5, a further connexion is made to the Menorah that once graced the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem temple:

From the throne issue flashes of lightning, and voices and peals of thunder, and before the throne burn seven torches of fire, which are the Seven Spirits of God.

In the Old Testament, the Holy of Holies was a mirror of the heavenly sanctuary (Heb 8:5).  As for the Menorah, the Greek text of Isaiah makes it clear what the Seer of Patmos is alluding to:

 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him:  the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness.  And He shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord (Is 11:2-3).

 In verse four, Isaiah makes it clear that this Sevenfold Gift, or the "Seven Spirits" is precisely how the future Anointed One--Christ--will exercise His judiciary power:

He shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of the ears.  But He shall judge the poor with justice, and shall reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips He shall slay the wicked.  And justice shall be the girdle of His loins: and faith the girdle of His reins (Is 11:3-6).

So Jesus exercises His Lordly authority by way of the Holy Spirit.  He said as much the night before He died:

...for if I do not go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.  And when he comes, he will convince the world of sin and of righteouness and of judgment:  of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more; of judgment becuase the ruler of this world is judged (Jn 16:7-11).

The Holy Spirit, then is how Jesus goes about His dominion--to convict the world of unbelief, to demonstrate His obedience to the Father by returning to Him by way of the Ascension, and to judge Satan.  Again, this is why the Seer of Patmos puts the "Seven Spirits" and the "throne" together.

That was the language of St John the Evangelist; St Paul the Apostle makes the same point but with a different set of vocabulary:

None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.  If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.  For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living (Rom 10:7-9).

In other words, the Paschal Mystery--the Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost--inaugurated Jesus' Lordship.  We will have something to say about a more explicit connexion between Jesus' Lordship and the very day of Pentecost in the next post.

Going back to what St John wrote (Jn 16:7-11), we see that the Holy Spirit extends Jesus' Lordship to thre different spheres:  unbelievers, believers, and apostate Lucifer.  Jesus wields His Lordship such that the world is given notice that everyone stands in need of grace ("because they do not believe in Me"); He wields His Lordship over Chrisians by the Holy Spirit directing their belief in Him whose earthly life culminated in the Ascension ("I go to the Father"); finally, the Anointed One wields His Lordship by the Holy Spirit by passing a sentence of eternal condemnation against Satan ("the ruler of this world is judged").

No-one escapes Jesus' Lordship; the only ones who are "marked safe" are those who are saved:

Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him (Rom 8:9).

In the next post, we will visit, in a more exact way, just how the Holy Spirit governs Christians.  The answer is hidden in the conjunction "but" right in the middle of Acts 1:6-8 and on the very day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1.