The Ascension of Christ

Recovering a Neglected Doctrine

Patrick Schreiner, Michael Bird

• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781683593980
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Teología sistemática y ética

It's essential to the Gospel, but we rarely talk about it.The good news of Jesus includes his life, death, resurrection, and future return--but what about his ascension? Though often neglected or misunderstood, the ascension is integral to the gospel.In The Ascension of Christ, Patrick Schreiner argues that Jesus' work would be incomplete without his ascent to God's right hand. Not only a key moment in the Gospel story, Jesus' ascension was necessary for his present ministry in and through the church. Schreiner argues that Jesus' residence in heaven marks a turning point in his three-fold offices of prophet, priest, and king. As prophet, Jesus builds the church and its witness. As priest, he intercedes before the Father. As king, he rules over all.A full appreciation of the ascension is essential for understanding the Bible, Christian doctrine, and Christ's ongoing work in the world.

CHAPTER 1

OVERLOOKING THE ASCENSION

It is remarkable how little mention the ascension gets these days. Once it was seen as the climax of the mystery of Christ.… Today it is something of an embarrassment.

—Douglas Farrow

PAUSING THE NARRATIVE

A few years ago, I started listening to audiobooks. One thing I immediately noticed with audiobooks is you end up stopping at odd junctures. I used the program when I was in the car, when I exercised, or when I got ready for the day. When that specific task was finished, it was time to hit pause.

This differs from reading a physical book, where typically a more natural ending point exists. With audiobooks, the hiatus might come at a key moment. I remember listening to the book Ready Player One. I pulled up to our house right when the protagonist said, “And then we all died.”

The same thing can happen when we summarize the story of the Scriptures. We too can regularly hit the pause button on the scriptural story before key events occur. A focus on certain aspects can come at the expense of others.

Usually when I hear a gospel summary, I hear people mention Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Rarely do I hear a whisper about the ascension. At times evangelicals have focused on the cross and the resurrection to the point that the ascent of Christ has been overshadowed. As Peter Orr states, “Christians have tended to focus their attention on what Jesus has done (his life, death and resurrection) and what he will do (return and reign).”1 Studies on what Christ is doing now or what happened after the resurrection are relatively rare.

However, if the ascension resolves the narrative, if it confirms Christ’s authority, if it is a vital step to bring the story full circle, if it is central to Christ’s work and Trinitarian theology, then we need to embrace it and teach it often.

FIVE REASONS THE ASCENSION IS NEGLECTED

This first chapter recounts five reasons for the neglect of Christ’s ascension and then five reasons we need to focus our attention on this central event.

THE BIBLE SPEAKS LITTLE OF IT

Christ’s ascent can be overlooked for many reasons, but one of the most obvious reason is that it seems that the Bible speaks little of it. Nowhere does the New Testament use the customary Greek word for “ascent” (anabasis). Only two places in the Scriptures narrate the event—the end of Luke and the beginning of Acts (Luke 24:50–53; Acts 1:9–11). The ascension narrative account covers a mere seven verses in the Bible, which, if you are counting, is 0.03 percent of all the verses in the Scriptures.

Some readers might be surprised to hear the end of Matthew does not portray Jesus ascending. The original conclusion to Mark does not include anything about it, and at the end of John, Jesus is still on the earth. Even Paul’s list of what is of first importance does not include the Messiah’s ascent (1 Cor 15:1–2). If this is a key part of the narrative, then why do the other Gospel writers not include it? Why is it given so little space in the narrative? Why is the word never used? And why does Paul not give it first importance?

IT SEEMS LIKE A BAD PLAN

The second reason the ascension can be neglected is that it can appear to be a bad plan. Jesus remaining on the earth seems intuitively like a better idea. This can be seen by the following premises and conclusions:

•Premise 1: Being with Jesus bodily in the new heavens and earth is the best end state.

•Premise 2: Jesus is no longer with us in his body.

•Conclusion: It would have been better if he had not left.

In some ways, the ascension appears like the worst plan ever. Jesus’ life is good. Jesus’ death is good. Jesus’ resurrection is good. Jesus’ ascension … we have questions. If Jesus were here on earth, a number of things would be easier. Take evangelism, for example. Talking to people about this figure who is long gone is not the easiest sell. But if Jesus were still on earth, it might be easier to convince people of his importance. We live in a world that prizes and prioritizes physical proof. People want tangible evidence for claims—not assertions impossible to prove.

People may also think it would be better if he were on earth because he could be more of a comfort to us. If Christ were physically beside us, his comforting hand would be with us as we go through sorrows. Currently, we must to pray to a Savior we cannot see and many times cannot hear. My children consistently ask me why God cannot come and show himself to us so that they can obtain more confidence. If we are honest with ourselves, we feel the same way. The Messiah’s ascent can seem like a bad plan.

THE IMPLICATIONS ARE UNCLEAR

The third and related reason people disregard Christ’s ascent is that it is hard to know why the event was necessary. The meaning of the ascension is a little blurry, or maybe it is our eyes. Why did he need to ascend? Was the resurrection not enough?

The disciples fell into this mode of thinking after Jesus’ resurrection. Before Jesus ascended they asked, “Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel at this time?” (Acts 1:6). They were not expecting the ascension. Was now the time when Jesus would set up his kingdom and conquer the forces against them? Maybe that is why they were caught staring into heaven and the angel told them to get to work. What they thought and hoped for was not as they imagined. Jesus was not supposed to leave, according to their plan.

Complicating it even more, the only two scriptural passages recounting the ascension contain little theological explanation for the purpose of the ascent (Luke 24:50–53; Acts 1:9–11). Modern readers find themselves staring into the heavens alongside the disciples with confused looks on their faces. This lack of explanation has sent interpreters on a search for the purpose and goal of Christ’s ascent. As I will show as we proceed, the rest of the Scriptures do fill this out for us, but the reasons are not all located on the same page, nor in the same Testament.

THE EVENT IS ABNORMAL

The fourth reason the ascension can be deserted is that the event is objectively strange and outlandish from a modern perspective. In the days following Galileo and astrophysics, Newton and neural exploration, Copernicus and cloning, the ascent seems ridiculous. The ascension involves a middle-aged man going up into the air (maybe fast, maybe slow, but I like to think at medium speed) and disappearing into the clouds. Where did he actually go? With our modern scientific worldview, we know he must have traveled through the atmosphere, and then what? And how did he survive without a NASA space suit?

Even if you accept supernatural healings and the resurrection from the dead, those miracles make more sense because people can then live restored lives. The disciples were left gaping into the heavens not knowing what to do. He did not die this time—he left. Though we like to think we are different from the disciples, we can find ourselves also staring into the sky wondering what has happened and why this event was necessary.

THE RESURRECTION SUBSUMES THE ASCENSION

The final—and maybe most influential—reason the ascension gets neglected is that the Scriptures sometimes conceptually combine the resurrection and ascension. They at times slide seamlessly from Jesus’ death to his glory, with the resurrection and ascension both included in the latter category. Luke 24:26 recounts how Jesus said the Christ would suffer and then enter into his glory. Luke moves quickly from Jesus’ death to his glorious state. Paul in Philippians 2:8–9 pivots from the cross straight to the Christ’s exaltation. Peter spent a significant amount of time in his first sermon on the fact that “God raised [Jesus] up” (Acts 2:24, 32). But all of Acts 2:24–36 is about the resurrection-ascension, sometimes making it hard to distinguish between the two.

In the apostles’ minds, the upward movement of Jesus rising from the dead continued in the ascension. As John Webster states, “Resurrection, ascension and heavenly session together constitute the declaration or manifestation of the lordship of Jesus Christ.”2 This could help explain why some people speak of the resurrection and then stop.

However, a harmful underside lurks beneath this. When most readers see these texts, they think only of the resurrection. This is not wrong; it is simply incomplete. When the New Testament writers refer to the exaltation, they think of the completed act of resurrection-ascension as a whole. But when we say “exaltation,” we are more prone to think only of the resurrection. Dawson rightly affirms in response, “The resurrection requires an ascension to be completed.”3 To put this another way, we cannot equate the resurrection with Christ’s full glorification. If the resurrection fully confirms Jesus’ lordship, then the ascension becomes an anticlimax. We can have the tendency to cut off what is implicit in the apostles’ presentation and only speak of the resurrection.4

The biblical authors viewed Christ’s act of rising as incomplete until Christ sat on his glorious throne. As Michael Horton says: we typically “treat the ascension as little more than a dazzling exclamation point for the resurrection rather than a new event in its own right.”5 Though the ascension might seem like another affirmation of God’s victory, the ascension represents progress—a new stage—in Christ’s exaltation, where he exercises his threefold office (prophet, priest, king) in a climactic way.

CONCLUSION

It might seem as if the Bible speaks little of the ascension. It might appear to be a bad plan. The implications might be unclear. The event may seem abnormal. And the resurrection can subsume the ascension. Yet, the ascension ultimately poses the question of the permanent centrality of Christ. If Christ is gone, is he still fundamental to work on the earth, or are we now simply in the age of the Spirit?

Christ’s ascension and session needs better narrative and theological positioning. Without it, the story of Christ’s work is incomplete. Without it, other doctrines become misaligned. Without it, our good news is truncated. Without it, Christ is not declared Lord and Messiah. The Son of God did not come down to earth to stay. He arrived in order that he might return, and then return again.

FIVE REASONS NOT TO NEGLECT THE ASCENSION

The rest of the book will argue that we cannot, that we must not, abandon the ascension. For now, I turn to five crucial reasons not to neglect the ascension. These pave the way for the rest of the book, where I will explain the theological significance of the Messiah’s ascent to the Father.

THE ASCENSION IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

Though Scripture narrates the ascension in only seven verses and the Greek word for “ascent” does not occur in the New Testament, these details can be misleading. Verbs that describe the ascension are plentiful. Consistently terms occur in reference to Jesus’ ascent: “to go up,” “to go away,” “to go into,” “to go through,” “to sit,” “to be taken up,” or “to be exalted.”6 In addition, references to the repercussions of the ascension are ubiquitous in the New and Old Testaments.7 Though the specific word “ascent” does not occur, the idea of exaltation and triumph is pervasive. All of what is written in the New Testament stems from the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.

While Luke alone directly narrates the ascension, this does not mean the other Gospels lack the ascension. In Matthew’s passion narrative, Jesus predicted the event: “You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matt 26:64). More notably, the end of Matthew contains two clear clues of Matthew’s acknowledgment of the ascension (28:16–20). First, the command to go to all nations in Matthew 28:16–20 mirrors the command in Luke 24:47, which connects Jesus’ instructions to his ascent. Second, readers attuned to the Old Testament will perceive that Matthew indirectly refers to the ascension in Jesus’ last words: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18). This alludes to Daniel 7:13–14, which recounts the ascent of the Son of Man.

Mark’s ending is no different, though he shocks and surprises. He intentionally leaves readers wondering what will come after the resurrection, which in its own way anticipates a further act (Mark 16:8). John’s Gospel contains the most references to the ascension. The Fourth Gospel emphasizes the Son’s unique relation to the Father and how he came from him and will return to him. Six times Jesus references going to the Father (John 14:9, 12, 28; 16:10, 17, 28), four times he makes reference to his ascent (1:51; 3:13; 6:62; 20:17), once to departing to the Father (13:1), and once to leaving the world and going to the Father (16:28). All of...