‘He ascended into heaven…’

Christ’s ascension into heaven was a historical event: “When he had said these things, while they looked on, he was raised up. And a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they were beholding him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments. They said: ‘You men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven will come as you have seen Him going up to heaven’” (Acts 1:9-11).

The expression “at the right hand of the Father” is not to be taken literally but symbolically. Christ as God is said to sit at the right hand of the Father because he is equal with the Father. As man, he is seated at the Father’s “right hand” as being closest to God in the possession of the highest possible perfection for a created nature.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us this is what the devil craved when he said, “I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars…I will be like the most high” (Isaiah 14:13-14). But Christ alone rose to that height. This is what he meant when he applied to himself the messianic prophecy of David: “The Lord said to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand’”(Psalm 109:1).

David said this a thousand years before the Christ’s birth; announcing the Lord’s enthronement at the Father’s right hand. No other psalm is so frequently quoted by the Gospel writers. When the disciples struggled with the concept of Jesus’ death, he told them he was going back to the Father (John 14:12). And, while on trial before the Sanhedrin, Jesus announced to the high priest that presently he would be “sitting at the right hand of Power” (Matthew 26:64). Perhaps we can say his “ascension” was one of the tests of Christ’s prophetic credibility.

The ascension of Christ is an integral part of the proposition that Christ is the “Lord” who has the right to exercise “all authority” (Matthew 28:18; Ephesians 1:20-23). On Pentecost, after arguing for the resurrection and ascension, Peter contended: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly, that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36).

Without the ascension there could never have been the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. And these supernatural events are what authenticated the establishment of the Church of Christ as something divinely orchestrated and ordained. The Christian regime, as Peter says, is from God, not man.

The ascension of Christ into heaven clearly reveals that, contrary to Jewish expectations (and even that of the misguided disciples), the Lord’s mission to this planet was not to overthrow Rome  and establish an worldly, political administration reminiscent of David.

The ascension of Christ also demonstrated the manner of Christ’s final return. The disciples “beheld” Jesus vanishing into the clouds (using the verb theaomai to indicate this is not meant in a figurative sense); they literally saw Christ ascend.

Additionally, Luke emphasises that the Lord will return “in like manner,” that is in a visible fashion.

The combination of these terms clearly indicates that Christ’s second coming will be a literal coming. This eliminates the spurious notion that Christ’s representative “coming” (via the Roman armies—Matthew 22:7), in the overthrow of Jerusalem (Matthew 24:30), was his second coming (cf. Heb. 9:28).

And yet the advocates of “realised eschatology” contend otherwise. Luke’s language also eliminates the theory that the Lord’s next “coming” will be an invisible “rapture-coming”, as dispensationalists would have us believe.

The ascension of Jesus provides us with a supreme confidence that we have a heavenly High Priest who, having been “crowned with glory and honour” (Hebrews 1:13; 2:7,9), ever lives to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25; cf. 1 John 2:1-2).

Jesus entered heaven as one who goes in advance for us (Hebrews 7:20). By his return to heaven, Christ “dedicated for us” a new and living way that is not earthly in nature (Hebrews 10:20). That is, he opened a door into our sharing of the divine nature.