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Jonathan Master (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is professor of theology and dean of the School of Divinity at Cairn University. He is also director of Cairn’s Center for University Studies. Dr. Master serves as executive editor of Place for Truth and is co-chair of the Princeton Regional Conference on Reformed Theology.

Article by Jonathan Master

The Ascension of Christ: Why We Must Believe It

October 14, 2015 •

Every year, I teach theology classes to people who’ve never formally studied theology in the past.  Some of my classes are with churches or on retreats; some are with undergraduate students; some for graduate students, training for gospel ministry.  In each case, I start by asking my students what they believe are the essential elements of the Christian faith – the irreducible minimum of the gospel and Christian doctrine.  I can’t recall a single person who mentioned the bodily ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven.

This is surprising because our earliest ecumenical creeds, though they don’t contain everything, do include the ascension of Jesus.  The writers of these creeds considered the event of the ascension – this historical fact – to be among the essentials of the Christian faith.  And of course, Jesus’ ascension is attested to clearly in the scriptures.  In fact, Luke records it both at the end of his gospel (Luke 24:51) and at the beginning of the book of Acts (Acts 1:9).  Clearly, it is a historical fact – and a significant one at that.  But why is it so important?

First, the ascension of Jesus Christ points us forward to his return.  Just as surely as we know that Jesus went up into heaven after his resurrection, so we also know that he will come down from heaven one day.  This is the promise to which the angels point the apostles in Acts 1.  While the apostles stand watching the sky, the angelic messengers dressed in white say to them, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?  This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”[1]  As the apostles began to reflect on the ascension, they were reminded of the second coming.

This promise of Jesus’ bodily return to earth is something we dare not forget.  The apostle Peter teaches us that people will forget about Jesus’ return from heaven, and even mock the very notion that Jesus will come again.  Peter writes, “Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.  They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming?  For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning.’”  Then he goes on to say this, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”[2]  Looking forward to the return of Christ should cause us to remember his coming judgment and his abundant patience.  And every time we think of the ascension, we remember these great truths.

But the ascension is not just about looking to the future, it is also about understanding the present.  When contrasting the ministry of the priests in Israel with the priestly ministry of Jesus, the writer of Hebrews tells us this: “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them.”[3]  He is the high priest who “is able to sympathize with our weaknesses.”[4]  Because Jesus ascended into heaven bodily, he still has that body today.  He is the high priest who is able to sympathize with our weakness.[5]  He is the “mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”[6]  So therefore, we can, “approach his throne of grace with confidence.”[7]

Because Jesus is in a body, in heaven for us, we know that he fulfills his priestly ministry on our behalf.  He is not an ethereal spirit-being, unable to sympathize with us in his intercession; rather, he is a high priest who intimately knows the human experience.  While fully God, he is our man in the middle, the only human mediator we could ever need in approaching God the Father.

This reminds us, of course, that we must affirm the bodily ascension into heaven of Jesus because it also underscores something vital in the history of redemption.  It is about the past, as well as the present and the future.  If we deny the historicity of the ascension or pretend that it is only a myth, we are only a short step away from denying the incarnation itself.  Some have done this.  They began by taking out those parts of the biblical record that seemed most fanciful and seemed to possess the least immediate theological significance.  The ascension, at first glance, might appear to fit into this category: it is hard to imagine, and its significance hardly discussed.  But the grounds on which we would deny the ascension are the same grounds on which we would deny the virgin birth and the coming of our Lord in the flesh. 

Now we begin to see why the ascension of Jesus into heaven is so significant in the Christian creeds.  It has implications for our future – the glorious hope of Christ’s return; it matters for our present, where we daily, even hourly, depend on the mediating work of our priestly intercessor in heaven; and it is an important record of the past – a past that includes a revelation of the one, “who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father.”[8]

 




[1] Acts 1:11

[2] 2 Peter 3:3-4, 9

[3] Hebrews 7:25

[4] Hebrews 4:15

[5]See Hebrews 4:15

[6] 1 Timothy 2:5 (italics mine)

[7] Hebrew 4:16

[8] Excerpted from the Nicene Creed (381)

Jonathan Master (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is professor of theology and dean of the School of Divinity at Cairn University. He is also director of Cairn’s Center for University Studies. Dr. Master serves as executive editor of Place for Truth and is co-chair of the Princeton Regional Conference on Reformed Theology.

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