In anticipation of this we already have the Spirit of adoption in us, given to us by God, that we human beings may have a spirit of adoption, that is to say a spirit which is looking forward in an attitude of expectancy to being manifested as sons of God in the future. At that time the redemption of the body, which miracle we and the whole creation now groans for and awaits, will take place. The early Church had the opportunity of much clearer understanding of this than we have today, for the earliest followers of Christ had a very plain demonstration of it, namely the ascension of Christ. Faithfully those saints who witnessed this carried it forward with them and laid it in the foundation of faith for all the churches. The revelation of Jesus Christ to them, and all the truth they had learned, would have been incomplete without this; even as the crucifixion and burial of Christ would not have been sufficient unless there had been a resurrection, so the resurrection would have been incomplete without the ascension. The ascension completed that which God began with the annunciation to Mary of the Lord's birth. The human form He assumed then, He took back to heaven and God, from whence it originally came, having been formed from God's seed via the virgin by the Spirit. It was logical and right that Christ should do this, for that body was God's; it was the body of God the Son. Besides this, to a degree the observers of the event could not have imagined, it was basic in the plan of redemption that He should do so. Unless that body had been 'adopted' from earth to heaven, we could never have believed or have entertained any possibility of hope that the bodies of other men could be adopted. The hearts of those disciples who watched Him ascend from the Mount of Olives into the clouds must have been filled with an amazement as unexpected as it was unpredicted. Nothing that they had previously witnessed led them to expect this. Would there ever be an end to the stream of wonders and miracles associated with Him? They knew His body had undergone an amazing change through death and resurrection, and was now capable of things previously impossible to Him, and certainly beyond the powers of ordinary mortals. But visible bodily ascension! What next? Upon reflection later, when understanding had dawned upon them, and being in possession of greater revelation, they saw much more wonderful and exciting truth associated with the miracle than they had been able to grasp that day. That body, which had been brought into the world and given up to God for sin and the redemption of mankind, had itself been redeemed by God. God did not allow His Holy One to see corruption; He raised that glorious man from the tomb and received ('adopted') Him, spirit, soul and body, back to Himself in heaven and enthroned Him there. He is the ever-living Man, established at God's right hand to make intercession for every other man who comes to God by Him. The salvation He mediates is uttermost. That which He has entered into is limitless in its fulness; it lies beyond the last veil. The Spirit of adoption within all God's children, witnessing with their spirits, crying Abba Father within each one, is the earnest of uttermost redemption. When the time has come and the trumpet blows and Jesus shall descend from heaven with a shout, the great adoption shall take place. Men and women of Christ's election will ascend from wherever they are on earth to heaven just as He did from the Mount of Olives. Their bodies will be changed to resurrection bodies and adopted straight to heaven without passing through the grave. Those saints whose bodies have passed into the grave or into the flames, or have been eaten by men or beasts or some other creature, or have vapourised, as the case may be, will be given new resurrection bodies, and immediately caught up in the air, but those who remain to the Lord's coming will know the wonder of adoption. They will not know resurrection, for they will not die, but their bodies will be changed into resurrection bodies as Christ's was, and they will be adopted as He was. All this is yet in the future for us, but as a bodily experience it is in the past for Him; spiritually though it is in the present, He is still the same Jesus, and it is in this spiritual truth and power and life that He now intercedes for us in heaven, ministering to His Father and to us on earth.