As the One in ascension, He was made Lord—the Lord of all to possess all (10:36)—and Christ—God’s Anointed to carry out God’s commission (Heb. 1:9). In fact, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit is a proof that God has exalted the Lord Jesus and has made Him both Lord and Christ.
Acts 2:36 says, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you have crucified.” As God, the Lord was the Lord all the time (Luke 1:43; John 11:21; 20:28). But as man, He was made the Lord in His ascension after He brought His humanity into God in His resurrection. God has always been the Lord, but now a man is on the throne as the Lord. After Jesus was crucified and buried, God resurrected Him and set Him at His right hand, making this Jesus, a Nazarene, the Lord of all the universe. For God to be the Lord, there is no need of any kind of inauguration. But for a small man from a lowly town in a despised country to be made the Lord requires a real inauguration. Now this man from Nazareth was inaugurated to be the Lord of all. By the ascension Peter realized that the very man Jesus, whom he had been following for three and a half years, was inaugurated to be Lord of all. Now the Lord of the universe, the Lord of heaven and of earth, is a real man whose name is Jesus. This is why we declare, “Jesus is Lord,” and why we call, “O Lord Jesus.”
Christ in His ascension was inaugurated as Lord of all, not only of all men, but also of all things (Acts 10:36). As the Lord, Christ now possesses the whole universe, God’s chosen people, and all positive things, matters, and persons. Christ is the Lord not only of God’s chosen people, but also of the angels and of all those who will be in the millennium and in the new heaven and the new earth. Therefore, He is the Lord of the heavens, the earth, and everything and everyone He has redeemed. In ascension He is the Lord of all to possess all.
The lordship of Christ is one of the most important aspects of what He has obtained in His ascension. Since the lordship of Christ was fully established in His ascension, we—the members of His Body identified with Christ the Head—only need to realize this heavenly fact (Eph. 1:20-23). Once we realize that Christ has obtained the lordship, we, the church as His Body, have to apply it. We may exercise His lordship through our prayer for believers and sinners who are in a poor condition (Matt. 16:18-19; 28:18-19). In our prayer for them, we should take the ground of His ascension, proclaim His lordship, and tell Him that His lordship must be exercised over them. In this kind of bold and extraordinary prayer, we claim what the Lord has obtained in His ascension—His lordship. Instead of begging the Lord to do something for us, we need to learn to pray by claiming what the Lord has obtained in His ascension.
Christ in His ascension has not only been made the Lord of all but also the Christ of God to work out the spreading of the gospel and the building up of the church that God’s chosen people may be saved and perfected for the constitution of the New Jerusalem to be God’s eternal habitation and manifestation according to God’s New Testament economy for God’s eternal satisfaction. As God’s sent and anointed One, He was Christ in eternity and from the time that He was born (Dan. 9:26; John 1:41; Luke 2:11; Matt. 1:16). He was called Christ from His birth, was anointed at His baptism (3:13-17), and was called the Christ by Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (16:16). This was for Him to accomplish the first part of God’s economy for the accomplishment of God’s redemption and the release of the divine life by His earthly ministry. But in His ascension He was officially inaugurated into the position of God’s Christ, God’s appointed One, to carry out the second part of God’s economy for the producing and the building up of the church by His heavenly ministry.
Although He was anointed in His divinity in eternity and was anointed at His baptism, He was not officially inaugurated as the Christ until His ascension. When Jesus ascended on high, God made the appointment official. Christ has been not only chosen, appointed, and anointed by God, but also inaugurated by God into His office. In this way God declared to the whole universe that this is the very One whom He appointed to accomplish His eternal plan, which is to build up His temple, the New Jerusalem. Therefore, as the One in ascension, Christ was made both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36) that He might possess all and that He might carry out God’s commission through His heavenly ministry to accomplish God’s plan (10:36; Heb. 1:9).