He, the very one who descended, is also the one who ascended above all the heavens, in order to fill all things.
We are continuing in the vision of the ascended master, who first descended by choice, on an assignment for God, who died and rose again the third day.
When He descended, He was the gift; when He ascended, He gave gifts. How amazing!
And Paul is telling us, so that we do not get it confused, that the person who descended is the one who ascended. It is God the Word (John 1:1, 14) who took on flesh, who is Jesus Christ the Lord.
It is not one being that descended and another, humanity and all, who ascended to the right hand of the Father.
It is not one being who is the Lord of lords and another who is the King of kings; it is the same person.
There is not one Jesus and another Christ and another Lord. It is one Lord Jesus Christ.
It is not one person who hung on the cross and another whose body lay in the grave after giving up the ghost; it is the same person.
It is the same person who was eternal who was born in the manger (Luke 2:7) after there was no place for His parents in an inn (the irony of the eternal one having parents 🙂). It is not two people.
It is the one Messiah for the Jews who were expecting Him and the same for the Gentiles who knew nothing about Him and probably heard about Him for the first time at the point of their belief in Him.
It is the same Lord and master that the African has to submit to, and the same for the European; there are no two lords; there is only one.
There is not one savior and another lord; it is the same one who is lord and savior. The same one who was transfigured before Peter, John and James (Matthew 17:1–2) is the one who stood before the leaders of Israel and said nothing to defend Himself (Matthew 27:12–14).
The same one who is the ruling lion of the tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5) is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).
The same one who was nailed to the cross is the one to whom the Father has committed all judgments (John 5:22).
The one who lowered Himself is the one who is now elevated to fill all things.
The same one through whom God created the world (John 1:3) became man to die for the sin of the whole world (John 1:29).
The Word became flesh and dwelled among us, and then poured out the Holy Spirit on us (Acts 2:33).
He did not just ascend above all the heavens for the fun of it, but so that He would fill all things.
What does that even mean?
I guess it means: When we look back, we see him; when we look inward, we see him; and when we look forward, we see him. When we look up, we see him; when we look down, we see him; and even when we are not looking, we see him. Praise God!
So while the first Adam was given dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and the animals in the ground (Genesis 1:26), the second Adam's (1 Corinthians 15:45–47) dominion has zero constraint.
And when Paul said He ascended above all heavens, it tells you no place can contain Him, but the spaces are contained with Him.
And we are not being invited to begin to imagine things like the 10th heaven or 21 heavens and fill things with our imagination. We would do well to limit and preoccupy ourselves with what has been revealed.
The phrase “all heavens” may be referring to all realms of existence; there is no other being above Him. He is the glorious one.
We owe only Him allegiance. Do not forget that. There is nothing that is not coming under the control of Christ.
All things means all things. So you are not serving a local champion, not a territorial lord, but the one who has all authority in all realms. What a privilege!
He told the disciples that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him, and we should go everywhere talking about him (Matthew 28:18–19).
Even though He descended and ascended in about the same area in the Middle East, the relevance of that to all time and eternity, to all peoples, is what Paul is communicating when he said He ascended to fill all things.
He is not just the rejected Messiah of the Jews but the one who shed His blood for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2); He spoke of those who were going to believe in Him through the words of the apostles (John 17:20), not just in their immediate environment. To the ends of the earth and not just one nation.
The chaos of the world, and even in our hearts, or even in other people's hearts, does not belie the fact that He ascended beyond all the heavens to fill all things.
He occupies a place of honor, a place of prestige, a place of all authority, a place of dominion.
Paul, in this verse, is speaking of a vision that is beyond our horizon. But the things that directly concern us in the here and now, he will start talking about from the next verse, situating us in the grand scheme of things, in what God is doing at this time between Christ’s ascension and His second coming.
Glory to God.