On things unseen this week, we've been thinking about the ascension of our Lord Jesus.

Yesterday was Ascension Day in the Christian year, and we've been reminding ourselves of the way the Lord Jesus continues his ministry as prophet and

priest and king. There are some fine explanations of this in the Westminster Catechisms. And I commend to

you questions 43 to 45 in the larger Catechism and questions 23 to 26 in the shorter catechism.

But I especially love the answer the shorter catechism gives to the question,

how doth Christ execute the office of a king?

It focuses on what Jesus is doing now.

Christ executeth the office of a king in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us,

and in restraining and conquering all His and our enemies. Earlier in the week when I said that Christ's ascension was his journey through the heavens to his coronation at the right hand of God,

I hinted at the big picture of Christ's kingly ministry.

He's now begun to exercise the dominion or authority that he's won as the second man and

the last Adam, recovering and then completing the dominion that Adam was given and called to

extend but in his sin actually lost. And he's doing that now, according to Matthew 28, verses 18 to 20, through the spread

of the gospel. But what does this mean for us as individuals when we become Christians? Well, the first

implication is that when we become Christians, we come under the dominion or lordship

of Christ.

He subdues us to himself.

You know, I feel I shouldn't really need to say this, but because there's so much confusion

today, I think I should.

We don't come to Christ as our Savior without simultaneously coming to him

as our Lord. And for the simple reason that you can't have half a Christ any more than you can

have half a wife. Yes, it's important, and perhaps for some it's helpful to say that our trust in,

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