A Homily on the 2nd Article of the Apostles’ Creed
In this installment of our series on Catechetical Foundations, we will finish up the 2nd Article of the Apostles’ Creed, the section of the Creed on our Lord Jesus Christ. The previous two entries discussed the “State of Humiliation” in our Lord’s work. That is, we talked about his Incarnation, Suffering, Death, Burial, and Descent into hell. Today we will talk about the Lord’s “State of Exaltation” in his Resurrection, Ascension, Session, and Return. By way of reminder, here is the 2nd Article of the Apostles’ Creed:
[I believe] in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary: Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead: He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty: From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.[1]
While we often follow St. Paul in summarizing the Gospel as “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), it is the Resurrection of Christ that seals the Gospel for us. In Romans 4, St. Paul tells us that Jesus “was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification” (v25). Our second Collect for Easter Sunday puts it this way in the address: “Almighty God, who for our redemption didst give thine only-begotten Son to the death of the Cross, and by his glorious resurrection hast delivered us from the power of our enemy…”[2] That is, the crucifixion of our Lord paid the penalty for our sins, and his resurrection set us right with God. Being declared and made right with God is what “justified” means in Romans. This justification delivers us from our enemy and brings us into fellowship with God.
But there’s also another sense of the word “justified,” meaning that one is vindicated. In this sense, Jesus’ resurrection also justified him! In 1 Timothy 3:16, St. Paul writes, “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: he[3] was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” The phrase “justified in the Spirit” refers (among other things) to Christ being raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Ghost.[4] That is, the Resurrection proved Christ’s claims of being the Promised Messiah and of being God’s Son. The Resurrection vindicated Christ’s earthly ministry and proved that God accepted Christ’s death on the cross as the ultimate sacrifice for sins.
Furthermore, the Resurrection of Christ was his proclamation of victory over sin and death. This victory extends to all who have been joined to Christ by faith and baptism. Death could not hold him, nor can it hold us. Because of this victory over death, we also have victory over sin. In the verses from Romans 6 and 1 Corinthians 15 that we chant as the Pascha Nostrum in Morning Prayer during Easter Week, St. Paul phrases it like this:
Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no dominion over him.
For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Christ is risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.[5]
As Christians, the Resurrection means that we are now dead to sin and to our old lives, and are now raised to new life in God. This is echoed in our Baptismal Liturgy when we pray for the newly baptized:
And humbly we beseech thee to grant, that he, being dead unto sin, may live unto righteousness, and being buried with Christ in his death, may also be partaker of his resurrection; so that finally, with the residue of thy holy Church, he may be an inheritor of thine everlasting kingdom; through Christ our Lord. Amen.[6]
We are raised to new life in Christ, and we will also be raised from physical death, just as Jesus was raised from the dead. His resurrection was a true, physical resurrection, in a glorified, but still human and physical, body. Commenting on St. Thomas’ insistence to touch the wounds of the risen Lord, St. Cyril of Alexandria emphasizes this physicality, writing, “He was no phantom or ghost, fashioned in human shape… Christ had indeed risen again, and risen in the flesh.”[7] Our resurrected bodies will also be physical and human, even as they are glorified bodies. We don’t fully know what that glorified state means; Scripture only gives us hints. But we do know that it will no longer be subject to sickness, death, and sin. Our Lord’s Resurrection is the downpayment, the surety, the firstfruits, of our own resurrection.
Forty days after the Resurrection, Jesus then ascended into heaven with his glorified human body. Our Provincial Catechism, To be a Christian, sums up the significance of the Ascension like this:
Jesus was taken up out of human sight and returned in his humanity to the the glory he had shared with the Father before his incarnation. There he intercedes for, and receives into heavenly life, all who come to him in faith. Though absent in body, Jesus is always with me by his Spirit and hears me when I pray.[8]
In the Ascension, our Lord returns to his heavenly glory, but he does so remaining both God and Man. Since the Incarnation, the Lord Jesus has eternally joined our humanity to his divinity. He is, and will always remain, one of us, even as he has always been God. St. Leo the Great writes: “In its ascension, our human race did not stop at any other height until this same nature was received at the seat of the eternal Father. Our human nature, united with the divinity of the Son, was on the throne of his glory. The ascension of Christ is our elevation.”[9] That is, one of us is now on God’s throne.
The Epistle to the Hebrews points out that because Jesus remains one of us, he can intercede for us as our great high priest. Speaking of the Old Testament priests, the Apostle writes:
The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them (7:23-25, ESV).
Because Jesus is our perfect and eternal high priest, his intercession is perfect, providing perfect reconciliation between us and God. Indeed, as both God and Man, Jesus perfectly represents us before the Father and perfectly represents the Father to us. The Ascension makes this intercession possible. St. Gregory Nazianzan writes:
Even at this moment he is, as human, interceding for my salvation, until he makes me divine by the power of his incarnate humanity. “As human,” I say, because he still has with him the body he assumed, though he is no longer “regarded as human,” meaning the bodily experiences, which, sin aside, are ours and his. This is the “advocate” we have in Jesus.[10]
Jesus is our advocate and intercessor, and he prepares a place for us with him in heaven. As we say in the Ascensiontide Proper Preface, Jesus ascended “to prepare a place for us; that where he is, thither we might also ascend, and reign with him in glory.”[11] Indeed, as our advocate and intercessor, he meets us in prayer and in the Sacrament though the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In our Ascension Day collect we pray:
Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell.[12]
As we move into the main Communion liturgy each Sunday and Holy Day, following the ancient pattern, the priest says, “Lift up your hearts,” to which the faithful reply, “We lift them up unto the Lord.”[13] This is unmistakably language from the Ascension. While still here on earth we ascend to him spiritually through prayer and the Sacrament, for he has ascended into heaven. When we die, our souls will ascend to be with him in heaven.
The Lord’s Ascension naturally leads to the next part of the Creed: Jesus “sitteth on the right hand of the Father.” Our Lord’s “session,” his “sitting,” speaks to his divine authority. Our Provincial Catechism puts it this way:
The throne on the king’s right hand was traditionally the seat of one appointed to exercise the king’s own authority. Ruling with his Father in heaven, Jesus is Lord over the Church and all creation.[14]
In his catechetical lectures, St. Cyril of Jerusalem points out that this authority is not something Jesus earned through his earthly ministry but is something that he has always had. “For the Son gained not his throne by advancement,” he writes, “but through his being.”[15] Indeed, Cyril goes on to note that Isaiah, the Psalmist, and other Old Testament prophets saw God the Son seated on his throne centuries before the Incarnation.
Nevertheless, because the Son is now forever incarnate, we have access to the Throne in a way that even those Old Testament prophets did not. As we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews:
Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (4:14-16).
The enthroned Lord came among his people to tabernacle among us. He came to be one of us, and then he returned to his throne. He knows what we’ve been going through, because he himself went through the same kinds of things. Though without sin, he is nevertheless just like us. This means that we can trust him, that we can come before him with boldness, that we don’t have to fight the war against sin and the flesh on our own. We can be people of prayer and people of holiness who follow him with faithfulness, because our high priest who is constantly praying for us is also on the throne. He is Lord of Creation, Lord of the Church, and Lord of you and me.
And he has promised return in the same way that he departed. “From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” St. Cyril puts it this way: “We preach not one advent only of Christ, but a second also, far more glorious than the former.”[16] Unlike Jesus’ first advent, at his second advent his “glory and power will be seen by all people and will bring this age to an end.”[17] All will be set to rights, all creation will be renewed, and (as we read in Revelation 21), heaven and earth will be joined together with God himself as the Holy Temple.
At this time, the Lord Jesus will judge, both the “quick” (i.e., living), and the dead. This is the final judgement when all must give account. Though we often think of judgement in negative terms, for those who have been wronged or oppressed, righteous judgement is a good thing. For such folks, judgement means vindication. It means justification. Judgement is only bad for those who are wrongdoers. So here is the question: upon whom are you relying for justification? Your own righteousness or the righteousness of Christ?
One of the reasons we recite either the Decalogue or Summary of the Law every Sunday is that God’s Law brings us face-to-face with our own wickedness. We do not love the Lord with our whole heart. We do not love our neighbors as ourselves. Indeed, after the Creed we will be looking more in depth into the 10 Commandments to show how they touch on every aspect of human life. And when we see that, we must come to the conclusion that we cannot justify ourselves. We are not righteous on our own. So, if we are relying on our own righteousness, the coming judgement should be terrifying indeed.
But if we have been justified by Christ, if we are relying on his righteousness to set us right with God, his judgement is not something we should be afraid of. Our Provincial Catechism puts it this way:
The unrepentant should fear God’s judgement, for “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness” (Romans 1:18). But if I am in Christ, I need not fear God’s judgement, for my Judge is my Savior, Jesus Christ, who loves me, died for my sins, and intercedes for me.[18]
We do not need to live in terror of Jesus because he is our loving savior and high priest. Rather, proper fear of the Lord for the Christian is to be “mindful of his presence, walking in humility as his creature, resisting sin, obeying his commandments, and reverencing him for his holiness, majesty, and power.”[19] Justification does not mean that we can ignore good works or the call to holiness. Rather, it means that we we walk in the Spirit, and with his help we strive for holiness and good works. We keep our eyes on our Savior rather than on ourselves. And we trust him to save us and to eventually set the world to rights.
And thus, we close out the Second Article of the Creed with this Prayer for the Son’s Mission from our Provincial Catechism. Let us pray:
O Jesus, God the Son, in your incarnation you manifested your heart of mission in the world: Help me so to know and practice your presence, that I may always live for your glory and the spread of your Kingdom; who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, now and forever. Amen.[20]
- BCP 1928, 15. ↑
- Ibid., 165. ↑
- This reflects most manuscripts. KJV has “God,” and other manuscripts have “which.” Regardless, context indicates that Christ is the one who is referred to in this verse. ↑
- See, e.g., Ray Van Neste’s notes on the verse in The ESV Study Bible, Wheaton: Crossway (2008), 2330. This is echoed in several online articles by The Gospel Coalition. Jaimeson, Faucest, and Brown list the resurrection as “especially” related to Christ’s justification but also include other aspects of his ministry (A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments, Volume 3, Peabody: Hendrickson (2002), 489-490, originally published in 1871). Similarly, Robert Hawker includes the Resurrection among other events that demonstrate the Spirit’s work in Christ’s ministry (The Poor Man’s New Testament Commentary, Volume 3, Birmingham: Solid Ground Christian Books (n.d.), originally published in 1815, 139).
↑ - BCP 1928, 163. ↑
- Ibid. 280-281, emphasis in the original. ↑
- Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 12.1., quoted in ACCS.NT.4b, 368. ↑
- Anglican Church in North America, To be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism, Approved Edition, edited by J.I. Packer and Joel Scandrett, Wheaton: Crossway (2020), 43. ↑
- Leo the Great, Sermon 73.3-4, quoted in ACCS.NT.3, 393. ↑
- Gregory of Naziansus, On the Son, Theological Oration 4(30.14), quoted in ACCS.NT.10, 117. ↑
- BCP 1928, 78. ↑
- Ibid., 177. ↑
- Ibid., 76. ↑
- Anglican Church in North America, 44. ↑
- Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, Lecture XIV.27, in NPNF2.7, 102. ↑
- Ibid., Lecture XV.1, 104. ↑
- Anglican Church in North America, 44. ↑
- Ibid., 45. ↑
- Ibid., 46. ↑
- Ibid. ↑
