Christians with Christ have been crucified, died, buried, resurrected and ascended into heavenly places. However the latter, ascension, is not common property to most believers.
Ascension follows resurrection. So ascension stands on Christ’s finished death and resurrection, which becomes the background for a next phase. We are now seated with Christ on the victory level far above satan and all of the rest. The life of ascension says we are now ready for the harvest. Ascension is now an outgoing life where sacrificial life of Christ is poured out as us. There has to come a time when the cross and resurrection blends into the ascension life. Crucifixion and resurrection complete our personal deliverance, but ascension put us in the spiritual warfare from our heavenly position.
Ascension also means that we are above all appearances of things which is indispensable in all spiritual warfare. This armor is Christ Himself and can only be applied apart from appearances. Christ is our truth (John 14:6), our righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30), our peace (Eph. 2:14), our faith (Gal. 2:20), our salvation (Ps. 118:14). Christ is also God’s word (logos) (John 1:1), the ‘Logos of God’ (Rev. 19:13). God’s Logos is God’s thought behind everything, which is Christ expressing Himself through the eternal cross in the heart of Father, His Self-for-others life. Because Christ is as us, Christ is also our logos, always living up to the self-denying cross.
The key question is how we come to the life of ascension. Thomas à Kempis said that a man is lifted up from earthly things with two wings; they are simplicity and purity. Simplicity is the singleness of eye and purity is singleness of heart. So the keyword to ascension is ‘singleness’. So “if your eye is single” means seeing only ONE. A single eye sees what Christ sees and it is His seeing in us and where the focus is that Christ is all in all. The single eyed are the ones who entered His rest.