40
The Significance of the Ascension
(Luke 24:50–53)
And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they, after worshiping Him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising God. (24:50–53)
Our culture celebrates the birthdays of important people, even though there was nothing significant about their birth itself. No one, when he is born, has yet accomplished anything, nor can anything be determined for certain about what he might accomplish in the future. It is only when lives have been lived that achievements can be fully realized and appreciated.
The only person whose accomplishments were known before He was born was Jesus Christ. It certainly is right to celebrate His birth in honor of all that He would accomplish, although those things were still future when He was born. The massive celebration of Christmas reflects such a perspective. Generating far less interest is another event that should be celebrated, because it marked the completion of His incarnate work on earth. Except in some liturgical churches, it is generally ignored, but it also makes sense to celebrate with effusive joy and praise His ascension. His ascent back to where He came from ended His earthly journey not by going down in death, like everyone else, but by rising up to heaven in full view of His followers. Celebrating that glorious event would focus attention on all that He did accomplish during His earthly life and heaven’s affirmation that He had done perfectly everything the Father had sent Him to do.
Luke’s gospel began with the story of the Lord Jesus Christ’s arrival on earth, and ends with His departure from it. His life began with condescension and ended with ascension; it began with incarnation and ended with exaltation; it began with expectation and ended with consummation; it began with the Son of God being born of a virgin and descending to earth, and ended with the Son of God being born from the dead and ascending to heaven; it began with hope unrealized and ended with hope fully realized; it began with a promise and ended with a fulfillment and a new promise; it began with the praise of Mary, Zacharias, Simeon, Anna, and the angels in anticipation of Messiah’s arrival, and ended with the worship and praise of those who witnessed Messiah’s departure.
Only Luke was granted the privilege of recording the magnificent and monumental ascension, the culminating event of Christ’s earthly ministry. He describes it twice; in the last chapter of his gospel, and in the first chapter of Acts. The ascension is both the culmination of one volume of redemptive history and the inauguration of another. Luke’s gospel tells the story of Christ on earth; Acts tells the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit and the eventual fulfillment of the Great Commission through the establishment of the church. Those two overlapping, interlocking histories end and begin with the same event—the ascension, thus affirming its significance.
Luke’s account of the Savior’s ascent presents the ascension and the reaction, to which will be added the sweeping implications.
And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. (24:50–51)
In the usual understated manner common to the biblical writers, Luke described in simple language an event beyond human comprehension. The account does not provide the details that would satisfy curiosity as to how this staggering, stunning miracle could have taken place.
In the previous chapter of this volume (vv. 44–49), Luke recorded three components of the Lord’s interaction with the disciples after His resurrection. First, He gave them instruction on the Old Testament prophecies related to the Messiah’s suffering, death, and resurrection, His provision of forgiveness, and the need to declare that good news to all the nations. Second, He commissioned them to proclaim repentance for the forgiveness of sins to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem. Finally, He instructed them to remain in Jerusalem until they were “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49) through the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. Those three features are all that Luke records of the time between the resurrection and the ascension, although he described them in more detail in the book of Acts. The continued history in Acts also provided some new details about those events, including further convincing proofs of Christ’s resurrection and His correction of the disciples’ mistaken belief that the promised messianic kingdom was about to be inaugurated.
Luke does not say when or where the Lord’s interaction with the disciples took place. In Matthew’s account the Great Commission was given on a mountain in Galilee (Matt. 28:16), sometime during the forty days between the resurrection and the ascension. Luke may be describing that same event, or another occasion when Jesus gave that same commission in a slightly different form. In either case, all we know is that Luke’s account occurred in the weeks between the resurrection and the ascension.
When the time came for Him to leave the disciples, Jesus led them out as far as (or, “in the vicinity of”) Bethany. Bethany is a small village about two miles (John 11:18) east of Jerusalem near the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:12). It was a very familiar place to the Lord, since it was the home of His close friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus (John 11:1). Jesus spent the first few nights of Passion Week in Bethany (Matt. 21:17; Mark 11:11–12; cf. Luke 22:39; John 12:1). He was also very familiar with the nearby Mount of Olives, where He gave the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24:3), and where He went with the disciples after the Last Supper (Matt. 26:30). It was there that He agonized in prayer, to the point of sweating great drops of blood (Luke 22:39–46), and was betrayed and arrested (vv. 47–54). When He returns, “His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south” (Zech. 14:4).
In His last act before He ascended, Jesus lifted up His hands (a common gesture associated with blessing [cf. Lev. 9:22; Ps. 134:2] that pointed toward heaven, from where all blessing descends) and blessed them. This was not a mystical or symbolic act, but a pledge to them of the blessings they and all believers would receive. Paul described these as “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). In the words He spoke, the Lord may have repeated the blessings He promised them on the night before His death, such as heaven, the Holy Spirit, love, mercy, grace, power, and answered prayer (John 14–17). His blessing summarized everything that is pledged to them and to all who believe by the goodness and grace of God.
The disciples were able to appreciate those promised blessings, since their doubts had vanished, and their fears had dissipated. They understood fully who Christ is and why He had to die, because they, for the first time, had an accurate knowledge of the Old Testament. They knew that He was alive from the dead, the Scripture was fulfilled, redemptive history was on schedule, and He would return to establish the kingdom. Their final lessons on those matters had been given in the days after His resurrection. So in forty days, they went from the depths of fear and doubt during Passion Week to the most exhilarating confidence in the truth.
Then, dramatically, while He was in the process of blessing them with all the blessings that were theirs in Christ, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. Never has so little been said about such a monumental event. Only Enoch (Gen. 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11) had been taken to heaven in their physical bodies. Unlike what happened in Emmaus, where Jesus suddenly vanished, here He rose up into heaven in a physical, literal form as they watched. In the account of this scene in Acts 1:10–11, two angels asked the disciples, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking [longingly, as if they were losing someone] into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven”; in other words, in the same physical form. His bodily ascension and return shows that heaven is a place that accommodates humans in their glorified, resurrected bodies. It is also a preview of the bodily resurrection of believers. And although He left, the Lord would still be with them and all believers (Matt. 28:20) through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The New Testament records that when Christ arrived in heaven, He went to the right hand of God, the highest and most exalted place (Acts 2:33; 5:31; 7:55–56; Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; 1 Peter 3:22), signifying that His work was completed (Heb. 1:3; 10:12; 12:2). He was also given the name Lord, the name that is above every name (Phil. 2:9), and exalted “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Eph. 1:21).
THE REACTION
And they, after worshiping Him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising God. (24:52–53)
Now that the disciples understood fully the person and work of Christ, there was no other way they could have reacted, other than by worshiping Him. With all their doubts and fears gone, all their questions answered, fully convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer, the disciples were ready to preach the gospel—even if it cost them their lives.
After Jesus was gone, they returned to Jerusalem as He had commanded them (v. 49; Acts 1:4) with great joy, which caused them to be continually in the temple praising God. Their training was complete, and they were full of praise, ready to preach, and some of them even prepared to write portions of the New Testament.
THE IMPLICATIONS
The amazing implications of the ascension of the Son of God to heaven can be broken down into the following truths.
First, the ascension marked the completion of the work of salvation. After the cross and the resurrection, there was nothing further to be done to provide any aspect of salvation. Jesus’ words from the cross, “It is finished!” (John 19:30), signified that He had accomplished the work the Father had given Him to do.
Second, the ascension marked the end of Jesus’ limitations. During His incarnation, He had “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:7–8). At the ascension, He returned to the glory He had had with the Father before the world was created (John 17:5). Jesus had left heaven as spirit, but returned as the God-Man, whom He will remain forever.
Third, as noted earlier, the ascension marked Christ’s exaltation and coronation.
Fourth, the ascension signaled the sending of the Holy Spirit, who until then “was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39). “It is to your advantage that I go away,” Jesus had told the disciples, “for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7).
Fifth, the ascension marked the start of Jesus’ preparing believers’ heavenly home (John 14:1–3).
Sixth, the ascension marked the passing of the work of evangelism to His followers. Christ’s work is both finished and unfinished (Acts 1:1). His work of providing redemption is completed, and nothing can be added to it (John 17:4; 19:30; Heb. 9:12). But His work of proclamation is not finished. The rest of the New Testament describes the continuation of that work by the early church, and it will not be completed until He returns.
Seventh, the ascension signaled the Lord’s sovereign headship over the church (Eph. 1:20–23; Col. 1:18).
Eighth, the ascension marked Christ’s triumph over Satan. As the apostle John wrote, “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8; cf. Gen. 3:15; Heb. 2:14).
Ninth, the ascension signaled the Lord’s giving the work of the ministry to gifted men. When He ascended, Jesus sent the Spirit, who not only gave spiritual gifts to individual believers (1 Cor. 12:4–11), but also gifted men to the church (Eph. 4:11–13).
Tenth, the ascension marked the beginning of the merciful and faithful (Heb. 2:17) and sympathetic (Heb. 4:15) high priest’s work of intercession for His people (Heb. 7:25).
Finally, the ascension guarantees and secures Christ’s second coming (Acts 1:11).
All Christians should celebrate all that Jesus accomplished for them, which culminated in the ascension. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” wrote Paul, “that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).