Acts 1:6
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is
this the time you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7He replied, “It is not for
you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own
authority. 8But you
will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my
witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth.” 9When he had
said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of
their sight. 10While he was going and they were gazing up toward
heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by the. 11They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand
looking up toward heaven? This
Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as
you saw him go into heaven.”
In this text we see that upon Jesus
rests the hopes of the disciples to restore Jerusalem to its former glory. This is known as the day of the Lord,
the coming of the son of man or what have you. Here Jesus somewhat side-steps the question of the disciples
“Will you now finally bring about the kingdom of Israel?” He replies saying that those days are
not known to any but the Father, and then directs the conversation in a
seemingly whole other direction.
In answering the question of “When will the kingdom of God come?” Jesus
says, “Go and be my witnesses.”
And then he floats up into the clouds.
The
ascension is a holistically bizarre account, not least of all to our
empirically oriented minds. It
seems to be one of the miraculous events in the Bible that we feel
uncomfortable with, perhaps even more so compared to the resurrection. Whereas the resurrection signifies what
we can expect when Christ comes again, and embodies the hopes of the Christian,
the ascension appears to be an oddly placed, seemingly unnecessary fairytale
rendition of Christ going back to heaven.
As a result, the ascension is an often overlooked and drastically
neglected marker on the church calendar.
This is rather unfortunate because, within the ascension is the
validation of the resurrection, without the ascension, the resurrection is
nothing.
But
what does the ascension mean? How
can we understand it? In a series
of articles written for Bibliotheca Sacra, Peter Toon, a distinguished Anglican
scholar and clergyman helps to explain the importance of the ascension for both
Christ and therefore, for us believers.
Regarding Christ:
First,
the Ascension meant and means for Jesus a position and state of
glorification. Second, the
Ascension meant and means for Jesus that He has become and is the fullness of
all divine blessing to His people. Third, the Ascension meant and means that
Jesus is and will be the Conqueror and Judge of the enemies of God.[1]
Regarding Us:
As
head of the body, which is the church, Christ went ahead of us by ascending, we
therefore now have hope. Hope for
the “victory over the devil and its implications for the church.” Christ entered heaven to intercede for
us. The Presence of his human nature in heaven is itself an intercession for
us; for God, who exalted the human nature in Christ, will also show mercy
towards those for whose sake this nature was assumed. Because Christ is our Head we share in what has been
conferred upon him: since Christ was raised, we will be raised, since Christ
has a place in heaven, we will have a place in heaven, since Christ is at the
right hand of the father, we will be at the right hand of the father.[2]
In
short, the ascension helps us to recognize the divinity of Christ and to be
reassured in the promises of our heavenly home with God. For we have a savior both fully divine
and fully human that has taken on our sins, who knows what it is to be human
and who loves us. For not only is
our past made his past by his humanity, but his heavenly residence will be made
ours by his divinity.
[1] Peter Toon, “Historical perspectives
on the doctrine of
Christ's ascension, pt
2: the meaning of the ascension for Christ,” Bibliotheca
sacra 140 no 560 (O-D 1983): 294.
[2] Peter Toon, “Historical perspectives on the doctrine of Christ's ascension, pt 3: the significance of the ascension for believers,” Bibliotheca
sacra 141 no 561 (Ja-Mr 1984): 18.
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