“WHAT and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?” (John 6:6262What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? (John 6:62).) Hitherto none but the Lord Jesus has “gone into heaven,” by His own power.
For centuries men have been trying to get there, both morally and physically, but without success. Many inventions have been tried, and all have proved man’s inability to rise higher than himself by any sort of wings. Enoch did go up to heaven, but “God took him”; Elijah was equally powerless, for he “went up by a whirlwind into heaven.”
With the Lord Jesus, how different! “No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven” (John 3:1313And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. (John 3:13)). He came from God, and He went to God. When death could no longer hold Him, He who had power over death, not only left this earth, but vanquished every foe, and in His own glorious rights ascended into heaven, declared Son of God by the resurrection from the dead. No one had gone there before in the same sense — no one had come out from among the dead never to return thither again. The widow’s son, the Shunammite’s son, the man in Elisha’s grave — all these ultimately returned to their tombs. The ruler’s daughter, the widow’s son, and Lazarus, did likewise. Of the Lord it is said, “Now no more to return to corruption” (Acts 13:3434And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. (Acts 13:34)).
The other night I was dreaming. I dreamed that I was walking about a, well-known village, the observer of a spectacle enacted in honor of some favorite preacher. The entertainments and illuminations were to conclude with the supposed fall from heaven of some form of darkness; and secondly, the projection into heaven of some earthly body which was meant to remain up there! I saw in my dream the first mentioned descend and vaguely disappear; then I saw the second sent up, but come down again so rapidly that its resounding thud on the ground suddenly awoke me!
“Only a dream,” I thought, “but how true! Nothing of the earth, earthy, can reach heaven of itself, much less stay there!” And yet how many are enacting this farce, how many are trying to reach God and heaven by their own efforts?
And it has been much the same thing ever since Eden. God shut Adam out of paradise “lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life.” Cain brought of the toil of his own hands an offering unto the Lord. At Babel, men said, “Let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven.” Aaron made a molten calf, and said, “These be thy gods, O Israel.” Can we not see the like around us today? Oh, my reader, search your own heart, and see whether it be not so in its hidden recesses. Herod was smitten because “he gave not God the glory” (Acts 10), and many of us are still putting man before God. But there is coming a day wherein “the Lord alone shall be exalted.” Let any of us who study God’s thoughts ante-date that time, and say now, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain!”
Dear reader, do you value Jesus, or are you trying to get to heaven by some means of your own? You may soar like a projectile into the sky, but you will surely come down again. Only He who came down from heaven can take you thither. “He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens.” He knows the way, He is the way. Every poor, lowly, sin-burdened one who goes there or seeks to go there by Him will surely reach, not only heaven but, God — for we are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, and by Him we “believe in God, who raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory; that our faith and hope might be in God” (1 Peter 1). Amen.
H. L. H.