The first thing Christ did after His ascension was to give repentance and forgiveness of sins to men (Acts 5:31) that they might believe and be saved (Acts 16:31).
Christ saves sinners in this age to make them His members for the building of the church (Matt. 16:18), His Body (Eph. 1:22b-23), that God may be manifested in Him and through the church (1 Tim. 3:15-16).
In building the church in this age Christ is establishing the kingdom of God in the church (Matt. 16:18-19). The church life is the kingdom life (Rom. 14:17). As the kingdom of God in this age, the church is the place in which God rules and carries out His will on the earth (Matt. 6:10).
After Christ established the new covenant on the earth through His death (Matt. 26:28), He ascended to the heavens to be the Mediator of the new covenant (Heb. 8:6). Today He is executing the bequests in this new covenant, such as the efficacy of His all-inclusive death, the power of His resurrection, and His divine life with the law of this life, causing them to be our supply and enjoyment.
In the heavens today Christ is also the Minister of the true tabernacle, ministering to all the believers the heavenly life and the heavenly supply of the divine riches (Heb. 8:1-2).
In the heavens today Christ is also our High Priest (Heb. 4:14), interceding before God for us that we may be saved to the uttermost (Heb. 7:24-26). He is also like Melchisedec (Heb. 6:20), supplying the bread of life and the wine to us who are still on the earth living and fighting for Him (Gen. 14:18).
In the heavens today Christ is also our Advocate before the righteous God (1 John 2:1-2). He is our propitiation. If we sin, He pleads for us by this propitiation to restore our interrupted fellowship with God, that we may once again abide in the divine fellowship, enjoying God as light and love.
When the Lord comes again, descending from the heavens, He will transfigure the body of our humiliation according to the operation of Him who is able even to subject all things to Himself (Phil. 3:20-21), so that our body may be redeemed and we may enjoy the full sonship (Rom. 8:23). Our spirit has been regenerated and our soul is being transformed; when the Lord comes again He will transfigure our vile and corrupted body, conforming it to the body of His glory, that we may enter into His glory to enjoy God’s full salvation (Eph. 1:5).
When the Lord comes again He will restore all things. Because of Satan’s rebellion and man’s fall, God’s entire creation has come under the slavery of corruption and is subjected to vanity, and it is eagerly expecting that it will be freed into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Furthermore, we who have enjoyed the firstfruit of the Spirit also groan in ourselves, eagerly expecting sonship, the redemption of our body, that we may enter into His glory (Rom. 8:20-23). In His second coming the Lord Jesus will not only redeem our body that we may enter into God’s glory, but will also free the creation from the slavery of corruption that it may enjoy the freedom of glory that we will enjoy. Although the creation cannot share in the glory that we will enjoy, it will enjoy the freedom brought to it by our enjoyment of the glory in the restoration to be brought in by the Lord.
The Lord was resurrected and ascended to the heavens to receive the kingdom (Luke 19:12). At the end of this age, the Lord will receive the kingdom from God (Dan. 7:13-14) and will come back to the earth with God’s kingdom (Luke 19:15). At that time the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of God and of Christ (Rev. 11:15; 12:10), which will be the millennial kingdom in the coming age, in which the overcoming saints will reign with Him for one thousand years (Rev. 20:4).