Regarding the historical circumstance of the psalm, it must be connected to some movement of the ark into Jerusalem. We know this from the first verse of the psalm, which is taken from Moses in Numbers 10:35. Whenever the ark moved, Moses said, “Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee.” And when the ark rested, Moses said, “Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel” (v. 36). So David called upon God in those terms in the first verse of Psalm 68 in connection with the movement of the ark, probably when the ark was moved into the city of Jerusalem.

The ark was the visible sign of God’s presence and royal government in Israel. The ark was God’s throne and the seat of judgment from which he ruled among his people Israel by his grace and over the whole world by his sovereign might. The ark was the place at which he was propitiated with blood and prayers at the seat of mercy and where he forgave the sins of his people and so dwelt graciously among them. From the ark all his grace and blessings flowed to Israel. With God among them Israel was invincible and the center of the whole world.

The Israelites had long lain under distress and misery. The ark had been in exile for a time in the land of the Philistines. When the ark was returned, it was installed in the houses of individuals. Especially during the reign of wicked King Saul, the nation reached its nadir. The priests were slain, and the tabernacle of God lay dilapidated. With the coming of the kingdom of David, God returned visibly to rule the nation and to bless his people. The movement of the ark into Jerusalem must be connected with the coming of David’s throne and kingdom. Raising up David and setting him on his throne, God fulfilled his promise. God’s king sat upon the throne. Through his appointed king God ruled the nation by his grace. The movement of the ark to Jerusalem was a visible symbol of God’s presence among and rule in the nation whom he blessed with the kingdom of David.

But David was only a shadow and a figure of good things to come. With the ascension of the ark in David’s kingdom, we have the type of the ascension of Jesus Christ to reign in his kingdom. In Christ’s ascension God’s ark went up, and God’s king ascended on high in might to reign as God set his king upon Zion’s holy hill.

In the ascension Jesus left the earth and bodily entered into heaven to sit at the right hand of the majesty on high. Forty days after his resurrection, Jesus went out to a mountain; and in the presence of his disciples, he was lifted up from the earth, and a cloud of glory received him from their sight. From the earth he entered into heaven itself. As high priest of our profession, Jesus passed within the veil, opened a new and living way into the presence of God, and went to make intercession for us. As king Jesus went up on high in might to reign, to receive the book of God’s counsel with seven seals, and to sit down to rule over all things as Lord of lords and king of kings in order to bring about his coming again on the clouds of glory. As prophet he went away to return with the gifts of apostles, evangelists, prophets, pastors, and teachers.

A wonder of grace!

Like the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection, and Pentecost, the ascension was a wonder of grace. It was a wonder of grace for the glorification of Jesus Christ. It was a wonder of grace for the salvation and blessing of the church of Christ. In the glorification of Christ, the head of the church, the church is also glorified. In the entrance of the head of the church into heaven, the church is also taken into heaven.

The ascension is a heavenly doctrine. It directs our hearts to heaven. It directs our whole lives to heaven. The ascension teaches us that on this earth we have no abiding place but that we are pilgrims and strangers here, whose home is in heaven, whose citizenship is in the eternal city, and whose hope is in heaven as an anchor of our souls, drawing us ever toward heaven as the goal of our salvation.

God’s will for his people is that they know him, are blessed in him, understand him, and enjoy him as their covenant God in the perfection of his covenant in the new heaven and the new earth. God’s will for his people is not this life but that which is to come.

God’s will for his people never was everlasting life in Eden, even perfect Eden. He never had a plan for his people in Adam, even perfect Adam. Adam would not be the head of the human race to glorify it. The best the human race could be in Adam was earthly. Adam, even perfect Adam, could not go to heaven. Flesh and blood do not inherit the kingdom of God.

God’s will for his people is not everlasting life in this sin-cursed creation; this valley of tears; this world that is the habitation of devils and of ungodly men; this world that is a place of guilt, death, sin, and wickedness. This world is not our home. Our blessedness does not consist in food, raiment, money, gold, silver, or earthly health and well-being.

Heaven is God’s will for his people. Heaven is where righteousness and peace dwell. Heaven is where there is an eternal city, the New Jerusalem. In heaven every tear is dried away. The souls of just men made perfect are gathered into heaven. Heaven is destined to be united with the earth in the peaceful and everlasting kingdom of God, when the tabernacle of God is with men. Heaven is heaven because God is there!

Thou hast ascended; Thou hast led captivity captive; Thou hast received gifts for men.

How theological—God-centered—that is.

Jehovah God! The i am that i am who is the unchanging, omnipotent, sovereign, gracious, faithful God of his covenant, so that we sons of Jacob are not consumed but are brought into the eternal kingdom of God and go to heaven.

How is it that God ascended, received gifts, and led captivity captive? Is he not already fullness and blessedness itself? Does he not already inhabit eternity as the absolutely independent one? Is he not in heaven, into which he must stoop to reveal himself even there to the sons of God who are gathered around his eternal throne?

In Christ, Jehovah God ascended up on high in might to reign.

Man has no place in that work of God except as a sinner. Besides, being only flesh and blood, we are sinners too—black, filthy, guilty sinners. And against such sinners the doors of heaven are completely shut. We are the rebellious! Sunk down deep in the miry clay of sin and guilt, wrapped in the sleep of death, implacable enemies of God, with no thoughts or desires for heaven.

Spiritual rebels do not desire heaven because God is there, and they hate God. They want to be in the earth, and in the earth they want sin. Understand that the rebellious are those who—when God comes to them and speaks of salvation, of heaven, of blessedness, of grace and glory—try to kill the messenger. When God comes in all the goodness of his divine being—comes as blessedness itself—the rebellious hate God and seek to destroy him. Such man has been since Eden.

The fall was the great rebellion. It was the rebellion of the whole human race against God out of hatred for God in their hearts. God made man to love, to serve, and to glorify him as man’s highest good and blessedness. Man was created to consecrate himself to God with all that man was and with all that he had, so that the entire creation was to be consecrated to God through the heart of Adam. Man rebelled, and all the light in him was turned to darkness. He is of the earth earthy with no thoughts of heaven. All man’s thoughts are carnal, sensual, and devilish.

God must open the doors of man’s prison and take him out. God must bring man to heaven, and God must open the doors of heaven. God must draw man unto heaven and translate him into heaven by a wonder of grace. That is what you must understand about the ascension: it is a wonder of grace, a wholly divine act.

God ascended!

And that wonder of grace that is the ascension did not start with the ascension. He that ascended, what is it but that he first descended into the lower parts of the earth? As soon as you speak of someone ascending, you immediately imply that he had been low. Behind that word ascension and explaining the wonderful grace of the ascension, is the condescension of God. Before he went up he had gone down into the lower parts of the earth. God had pity on the rebellious.

Oh, not on all of them! No, that is part of the wonder of grace; it is not grace for all but a grace for his people, sovereign and particular grace. God had pity on his people. He willed that they know him and be glorified in him in the highest possible sense, and he chose the way of sin and grace, death and resurrection. He thus willed to lift them out of that misery of sin and death, hell and the grave, and to bring them to himself in heavenly glory.

God descended!

Wonder of grace. Was he not already in the world and present to every creature and in every point of space and time with the whole of his divine being?

God descended and entered the world as a man. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven!

He entered the womb of Mary and took on himself human flesh. He took on himself the form of a servant. As a man, God took the rebellion of his people on himself. He took all their sin and guilt, all their evil, and all their blackness. He took it, and he made himself responsible for it. He was made sin for us, who knew no sin. He was made a curse. And taking all of that misery on himself, he made himself the object of the wrath of God.

All his life long, from the moment he was conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary, he walked down a steep and terrible road that went down. Down into the lower parts of the earth and down into hell.

And all along that road that he walked, bearing the sin and iniquity of his people, you see rebellious man on display. When God came to man in human flesh, then man opposed God. When Jesus spoke of heaven and heavenly realities, they laughed, mocked, and ridiculed him. They said he was a glutton and a winebibber and that he had power over devils by the work of the devil. They plotted and planned his overthrow. They betrayed him and captured him; they tried him and accused him of being a rebel. The lovely and obedient Christ—a rebel!

They condemned him and hung him on a tree to curse him before God and men. Then the darkness came. The sun ceased its shining, the stars did not give their light, and the moon did not rise in the darkness. The very powers of heaven were shaken in the great and terrible day of Jehovah. In the darkness hell came upon Jesus Christ as God came against him in the terror of his wrath against our rebellion.

Oh, yes, he who ascended on high in might to reign, what is it but that he first descended into the lower parts of the earth?

When Jesus had exhausted the wrath of God against the sin of his people, they laid Jesus in the grave. On Sunday morning he arose from the dead. He arose the victor over sin, death, hell, and the grave. They could not hold him.

And forty days later he gathered his disciples on Mount Olivet and talked with them, instructed them, and blessed them; and then he went up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. He went up to heaven. He ascended on high, far above principalities and powers; he ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things. He entered our prison, and by that he opened the doors of heaven.

He entered first through those doors as the conqueror. He had the right to command those doors to open before him. Lift up, ye everlasting doors! The king of glory shall come in! And who is this king of glory? Who is this king of glory? The Lord, the Lord, he is that king of glory.

Understand that it was not the deity of Jesus that went up. The man went up. Heaven was barred by the wrath of God against man. The presence of God was shut against man. And a man went up and entered into the very presence of God for us. The man, Christ Jesus, who is God in the flesh, went down into the lower parts of the earth. The man, Christ Jesus, entered the very presence of God. A man sat down on the throne of God. A man received from God glory and honor and all authority in heaven and on earth and over hell itself.

That man is our head. Because he is our head, he took our sins on himself and took those sins away for us. As our head he opened heaven for us. As our head he went to heaven for us. And in him we enter into heaven. In him we are reconciled to God. In him we stand before the presence of God. In him we sit now in heavenly places. In him we ascended up on high.

A wonder of grace!

Salvation is of the Lord!

We do not see that with our eyes.

We believe the ascension!

We do not see the reigning Christ. Just as with the naked eye you could not see Christ at the cross, conquering the world, sin, and hell. If you would have looked with the eye of the body at the cross, you would have been as offended as the disciples, and that sight would have revolted you as it did the Romans and all the Jews.

Now you do not see all things put under Jesus’ feet. What you do not see, you believe. You look around, and you see sin and wickedness everywhere. You see the devil raging and roaring yet. You see the world in upheaval and turmoil. You see that fear and anguish and despair rule in the world. You see the church very small and threatened on every side, from within and without. You see pain and trouble and turmoil in your lives. You see your sins, and you say, “How can I possibly go to heaven?”

When you say that you believe he ascended, you are saying that Jesus Christ rules and has all authority in heaven and on earth and that nothing can happen apart from his will and his working. You are saying that we have our flesh in heaven; we have our head in heaven; we have an advocate before the face of our Father in heaven. When you say that you believe the ascension, you are saying that you are already in heaven, with Jesus Christ and in the presence of God, over against the testimony of all your sins that you cannot go to heaven. You say that by the power of his Spirit, whom he has sent to you as the earnest of your heavenly inheritance.

Because Jesus led captivity captive!

Captivity explains the state of rebellious man naturally. Captivity explains the impossibility of man’s saving himself in any sense. You might say to me that man is a big sinner, and that is why he cannot go to heaven, and I will agree with you. But man’s misery is a matter of captivity. When man rebelled against God, man went into captivity.

Captivity means to be held by a greater power than your own. That captivity in four words is sin, death, hell, and grave. All men are in this captivity by nature. Also, God’s elect people are by nature captive to sin, death, hell, and the grave. They are by nature no different from the reprobate. God’s people are in a terrible prison—the deepest, darkest, most cruel dungeon of misery.

There is a horror and a depth to that captivity. Can you imagine being in the worst prison that man could ever conceive? You would be yearning for freedom and trying with all your might to get out of that prison. But this is the reality of man’s bondage to sin: he loves it! He loves it because in his heart he loves sin and hates God. If anyone would come and offer to take man out of that bondage, would show him the key and the way out, man would tell him, “Go away. I do not want it.” That is a terrible captivity.

In the great rebellion man became the fierce foe of God; and all his life long and all history long, he descends deeper and deeper into bondage and captivity. He tightens his own chains around his wrists and his legs. He walks down the steps of that prison deeper and deeper into the foul recesses of the dungeon.

That captivity of man is due to the justice of God. Justly, God delivered man to captivity. Man does not have the right to be free. Man’s salvation, then, is not a matter of mere strength. Oh, the one who delivers him must be mighty. He must be God himself. But that might is exerted in the service of justice. In man’s rebellion God judged man guilty and delivered him to captivity. The heart of man’s captivity and thus of his misery is his guilt before God. Man—all men—sinned against the most high majesty of God, and thus man deserves temporal and eternal punishment. Only the satisfaction of the justice of God can deliver from that prison, so that God releases the prisoner. God’s justice cannot be satisfied apart from bearing the wrath of God and bearing that wrath of God so as to finish it. Then to go to heaven, a righteousness that is worthy of heaven must be obtained. Adam had a righteousness fit for the earth. To go to heaven, you must have the righteousness of the Lord from glory.

That is the miracle of Jesus’ condescension. He bore the wrath of God against the sins of his people so as to satisfy God. And in all Jesus’ suffering, he performed the perfect act of obedience in love for God and obtained everlasting righteousness.

By his might! Only Jesus could suffer that wrath, for he is God come in human flesh. In Jesus, God paid God what God was owed. In Jesus, God accomplished our salvation by satisfying his own wrath. In his mercy toward us, God heaped on Jesus all our sins, in order that he might bear our punishment in our place and that we might escape that punishment and be received into the favor of God. Jesus earned the right to deliver us from our captivity because he paid our debts, and he earned the right to take us to heaven because he obtained a righteousness that is worthy of heaven.

And when we confess that Jesus Christ led captivity captive, it means that he had sin, death, hell, and the grave in his power. He overcame them. He triumphed over them. He put them under his feet. He entered into them and all their horrors in order to defeat them as a matter of strict justice. Since they have no right to hold him—it is impossible that they should hold him—he arose.

And he went up on high. That was his right. In him God opened heaven as a matter of right.

Jesus received from God gifts. A superabundance of gifts. Gifts beyond description in richness and glory. So glorious was Jesus’ suffering that he earned for himself unspeakable glory. He merited for himself glory and honor and dominion and principalities and power. God loaded Jesus with the spoils of his victory. Gifts for men, even for the rebellious.

What gifts? Can we enumerate all those gifts? Daily he loads us with his benefits!

I can speak of at least one of those gifts. Liberty! Freedom from sin, death, guilt, hell, and the grave. We are free from them. It is not possible that they bring us back into bondage. God gives his people the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

And what is involved in that liberty?

Sin, death, and hell can never hold the people of God because they are free from the condemnation of the law. Never again can the law say to the children of God that they must do this or that to enter heaven. Jesus did all that the law requires. He forgives their sins. He takes away their guilt in their own consciences. He speaks the peace of God into their hearts.

He adopts us. He brings us into God’s family. He enlightens our hearts and our minds with his Spirit. He lifts us out of our prison. He calls us into the glorious kingdom of God. He causes the light of the knowledge of God to shine in our hearts. He transforms us in the depths of our beings from being rebels and makes us God’s children. His Spirit testifies with our spirits that we are the children of God, and he causes us to walk in that glorious liberty of the children of God.

He puts his life into our hearts. He makes us heavenly creatures, whose life is hid with God in Jesus Christ. He causes us to think and to yearn for heaven. He calls us to lift up our hearts to where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Jehovah gives blessing and strength to his people.

That Jehovah God might dwell among them! That simply means that Jesus Christ ascended to realize and perfect God’s covenant.

That was God’s will for us. Not this life. But heaven. Jesus went to heaven so that we also will go to heaven.

And heaven is the perfect realization of God’s covenant. That God dwells with us and that we dwell with him.

And that purpose he accomplishes.

Now already! That is the glory, the safety, the security of the church and the believer. That is the richness and life of the believer and the church. God dwells among us.

That is what my whole life is because Jesus went up on high.

That is what my life will be forevermore because he went up.

Salvation is of Jehovah!