When Christ ascended to heaven and sat on the throne of God, He was put into a number of important offices. Based upon these offices, He is carrying out His heavenly ministry unto eternity.
When Christ ascended, He was made both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:33-36). 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. And as God’s sent and anointed One, He was Christ since He was born (Luke 2:11; Matt. 1:16; John 1:41; Matt. 16:16). But as such a One, He was also officially made the very Christ of God in His ascension. He was made Lord, as the Lord of all, to possess all; He was also made Christ, as God’s Anointed, to carry out God’s commission and accomplish God’s plan.
It was in His humanity with His divinity that Christ was raised from the dead, was exalted to the heavenlies, was seated on the right hand of God, the Majesty, had all things subjected to Him, and was given to be Head over all things to the church (Eph. 1:20-22). It was through God’s surpassingly great power that Christ received the headship in the whole universe. Thus, God has made Christ the Head over all things. Through all the dispensations of God in all the ages, all things will be headed up in Christ (Eph. 1:10) in the new heaven and new earth. This is God’s eternal economy.
“To the church” implies a kind of transmission. Whatever Christ, the Head over all things and the Head of the church (Col. 1:18), has attained and obtained is transmitted to His Body, the church. In this transmission, the church shares with Christ all His attainments and obtainments. Only as the Head over all things can He transmit all that He has attained and obtained through His death, resurrection, and ascension, into us to be our portion for us to enjoy and experience. He exercises His authority and life as the Head to infuse all the riches of the Head into His believers, His members, that they may grow and function in the divine life and build up His Body (Eph. 4:13, 16).
Acts 2:33 says, “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, He poured out this which you both see and hear.” This tells how Christ became the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit. For this He was exalted by God and received the promise of the Holy Spirit. In His incarnation Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit, having the Holy Spirit as His essence inwardly; in His baptism Christ was anointed with the Spirit economically for His ministry on earth (Matt. 3:16; Luke 4:18). After His resurrection and ascension, He still needed to receive the Spirit economically again that He might be the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:11b) to pour Himself out upon all His believers, baptizing them into one Body (1 Cor. 12:13), to carry out His heavenly ministry on earth for the accomplishment of God’s economy. As the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit, He has also become the Giver of the Holy Spirit who gives, not by measure, the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit, the ultimate consummation of the Triune God, to those who believe in Him and are saved (John 3:34) to be their bountiful and immeasurable supply (Phil. 1:19).
Through His death and resurrection, Christ rescued the captives out of Satan’s captivity; then when Christ ascended to the height, He led them captive and presented them to God. In His ascension Christ received these saints, whom He had rescued through His death and resurrection, from God as gifts. Then He gave them as gifts—as apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherd-teachers—to the church for the perfecting of the saints unto the building up of His Body (Eph. 4:8-12). Thus, He becomes the Giver of spiritual gifts.
In His ascension Christ was exalted by God to His right hand to be a Leader and Savior (Acts 5:31). Leader may also be rendered prince; in Greek it also means author (Acts 3:15; Heb. 12:2) or captain (Heb. 2:10). This indicates that Christ is the Author, the Captain, hence, the Leader, the Ruler. God exalted the Man Jesus, who was rejected and killed by the Jews, as the highest Leader and as the Ruler of the kings to rule over the world. At the same time, God also made Him the Savior. In His birth the angel announced Him as the Savior (Luke 2:11). In His ministry on earth He also took the status of the Savior (John 4:42). However, it was after His resurrection and in His ascension that God made Him officially the Savior, to save those who would repent and turn to God and who would believe in Him, according to the eternal redemption which He had accomplished. Leader is related to authority, and Savior, to salvation. As the Leader, Christ rules sovereignly over the earth with His authority that the environment might be fit for God’s chosen people to receive Him as their Savior and enjoy His salvation.