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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 4

Section 1 Subsection 3

"Ascend Hither."


 
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"Ascend hither, and I will exhibit to thee things which must come to pass after these" (iv. 1).

After resurrection is ascension; but not necessarily instantaneously after. This is evident from the example given in the case of the Lord Jesus. He first came out of the sepulchre; and then, after a certain interval, "ascended to the Father;" an ascent which is not to be confounded with his assumption from the Mount of Olives, forty-three days after his crucifixion (John xx. 17; Acts i. 11). He ascended to the Father before he was "taken up." The ascent was a necessary preparation for the taking up of the resurrected body; for a body such as he had, when he forbid Mary to touch him, was unfit for translation through the higher regions of our atmosphere, and the airless ethereal beyond. It was necessary that he should be "in spirit" and so become spirit, that he might be with the Father. So John "looked" and "heard," which are vital actions; but though living and looking he saw nothing until after the invitation to ascend, with the promise, that subsequently to the ascent he should see an exhibition of things which should come to pass when "the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom" (Dan. vii. 22); which implies their resurrection and ascent after the similitude of the dramatic resurrection and ascension of John.

The invitation to John to ascend into the heaven was equivalent to inviting him to "meet the Lord in the air;" and by implication, an invitation to all whom he represented to do so likewise at the appointed time. This is the only place in the apocalypse where it is said to John anaba hode, ascend hither! In ch. xvii. 1, and xxi. 9, it is said deuro, come here, or "come hither;" and in doing so, he is "in spirit borne away into a wilderness;" and "upon a great and high mountain." In the wilderness he sees the Mother of Harlots, and the ensanguined Sin-Powers by which she is sustained; and from upon the mountain that overtops all other mountains, he beholds "the House of the Elohim of Jacob" (Isa. ii. 3), or, the New Jerusalem Community, in the light of which the nations of the Millennial Aion walk in peace and goodwill. But when "a door in the heaven is opened," John is not borne, or carried away; he is called up. He is invited to "ascend" -- to ascend to the kingdom and throne to be established in the heaven. There is a testimony analogous to this in ch. xi. 12, where a class of persons not represented by John are addressed in the words, anabete hode, ascend ye hither! And it says "they ascended into the heaven in the cloud which ascended." This cloud of witnesses was the political element of the "Two Witnesses," which had been politically dead, but unburied, for 105 years, at the end of which, that is, in 1789-’90, they rose again, and ascending to the heaven in the sight of their terrified enemies, became the ruling power in the state. Hence for John to ascend into the heaven dramatically was indicative of those he represents, who have been prevailed against by the Sin-Powers of the Habitable, trodden under foot for the previous forty two months of years, and sleeping in the dust, ascending from these depths of humiliation and degradation, to the high and exalted position of kings and priests for the Deity, through whom the world shall be ruled for a thousand years.

 

 


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