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Leaving Luke 8, our journey continues as we follow the Saviour into the next few chapters:

In Luke 9v10 He is in a desert place - a deserted place.
There He feeds the five thousand with five loaves and two small fish.

By Luke 9v28 He has gone up to a mountain.
Then in 9v37 He is down in a valley.
In contrast, we can see His glory on the mountain, His grace in the valley.

On the mountain the Father declares from heaven, " This is my beloved Son: hear Him. "
In the valley, the father, in a sense, cries, " This is my son, heal him. "
Of the mountain we could say, " How tremendous ! "
Of the valley we could say, " How touching ! "
Both reveal the heart of a father.

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When we come to 9v51, we are coming to a change in this gospel.

Here we read of the Saviour:
" And it came to pass, when the time was come that He should be received up,

He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. "

Let us pause here.

Up until now His ministry and His movements have been mainly in Galilee and around Capernaum.
(What a privilege these places and these people have had!)

But now, " the time has come, that He should be received up "
What does this indicate to us?
It tells us that the Lord Jesus was moving to a Heavenly timetable.
It tells us that He knew exactly why He was here and where He was going.
It tells us that He deliberately began to go in the direction of Jerusalem, knowing He would die there.

Earlier in this very chapter that He speaks for the first time about His suffering and rejection, and His death and resurrection (Luke 9v22). The Saviour will go on in perfect obedience to His Father's will. No wonder the Father declared in 9v35, " This is my beloved Son: hear Him. "

The most important subject was His death and resurrection, His departure from this World; this was why He was going to Jerusalem: to bring to perfection the will of God.
But there is more implied in the words we are considering.

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Look again at 9v51:

" ... When the time was come that He should be received up ... "
The words " received up " point to His ascension.
The Saviour was going home; He was going back to Heaven, He was going back to His Father.

He was going to be received into Glory, the place He had left.
What a reception He must have had!

Later in the book of Acts, 1v9, Luke records, " And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; a cloud received Him out of their sight. "
And in Acts 3v21, Peter will say about the Saviour "... whom the Heavens must receive ... "
In 1Timothy 3v16 Paul wrote concerning Him: " ... God was manifest in flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, received up into glory. "

The epistle to the Hebrews tells us in 1v3:

" When He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."
In the same epistle in 8v1 we read that

"He is set ( or seated ) on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the Heavens. "

In chapter 10v12 we are told of Jesus Christ: " ... after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, He sat down on the right hand of God. "

Again in chapter 12v2: " Jesus ... is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God ".

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So the Saviour knew He was going to die at Jerusalem despised and rejected, be crucified and slain, but that He would rise again the third day.
And, after spending forty days proving He was alive again, He would be received up and be seated in glory at the right hand of the Majesty in the Heavens - that is, at the right hand of His Father.

His pathway - His steps - were taking Him to Jerusalem where the Jewish leaders would reject Him and hand Him over to the Gentiles, to be nailed to the cross and killed.
But His steps were also leading Him to that place of highest honour and glory.

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Peter in 1 Peter 1v11 wrote:

" ... of the sufferings of Christ and the glory (or, glories) that should follow. "

There was a glory in His resurrection, there was a glory in His ascension.

There is a glory where He is seated, there will be glory at His return,

there will be glory at His coronation.

There will be glory in His Kingdom; He will enjoy glory forever more.

No wonder Peter wrote of the glories that should follow His humility and shame upon the cross!

What was this all for?
It was the only means of providing Salvation for mankind.

Are you saved?

 

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Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou ( you ) shalt be saved

 

Acts 16 v 31

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