Luke 24:50

Luk_24:50-53

While He blessed them He was parted from them

The ascension

I.

CONSIDER THE ASCENSION AS THE CROWNING FACT OF CHRISTS LIFE. It was the consummation of all His glorious work for man, and henceforth man through Him becomes a conqueror too. He led captivity captive, He received gifts for men. And with the baptism of these we are conquerors, in our temptations over the devil, in our gardens of agony over sorrow, and in the end over death and the grave, when we shall ascend to be with Him in glory.

II. CONSIDER HIS ASCENSION AS HIS ENTHRONEMENT AS KING OVER ALL. Unseen but ever present. Ruling from His throne in heaven over all the affairs of the world till His enemies become His footstool.

III. CONSIDER HIS ASCENSION IN RELATION TO HIS COMING AGAIN Act_1:11). (R. Davey.)

Our Lords ascension

I. NOTICE THE PLACE FROM WHICH OUR LORD ASCENDED. Near Gethsemane. Near Bethany. A familiar haunt.

II. NOTICE THE WITNESSES OF OUR LORDS ASCENSION. His faithful apostles.

III. NOTICE THE LAST ACT OF OUR LORD BEFORE HIS ASCENSION. Blessing.

IV. THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST HELPS OUR THOUGHTS, AND GIVES DEFINITENESS TO OUR CONCEPTIONS OF THE FUTURE LIFE OF THE REDEEMED.

V. CHRISTS ASCENSION IS THE PLEDGE OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE OF THE REDEEMED.

VI. WHEN OUR LORD ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN HE GAINED FOR US A GREAT AND UNSPEAKABLE BLESSING, THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. (W. Bull, B. A.)

The ascension

In this quiet and unostentatious manner did our Saviour take His departure from this world. His exit was as noiseless--as little attended with pomp--as His entrance. He has finished the redemption of a world--He has vanquished the powers of hell--He has triumphed over death and the grave.

1. From His ascension, therefore, we may learn that heaven has been opened for us. He became our brother. He stood as our representative. There is not only comfort for us in the assurance of admission, but in the thought, that when admitted we shall find One so closely related to us occupying such an exalted place.

2. Our Saviours ascension in the nature He wore while on earth may teach us that, though He be so highly exalted, He has sympathy with us still; though far removed from us as regards His bodily presence, the brotherly tie which united us has not been severed.

3. The presence in heaven--the exaltation to the throne of universal dominion of One so closely related to us, and having such sympathy with us, should give confidence to our prayers, leading us to desire and expect great blessings at His hands.

4. Finally. Let us be thankful for the privilege we enjoy in the exaltation of One who bears our nature. (W. Landels.)

On the ascension of Christ

First, let us consider the TIME of the occurrence-of this event. This interval, also, was sufficient in order to afford Him an opportunity of detailing much that to them would be highly interesting, in relation to His kingdom, to the preaching of His gospel, and to the establishment of His empire through the world. Once more, He continued a sufficient period of time on earth in order to afford the strongest evidence of the love He bore to His Church and people; that He would not even take possession of the promised crown, nor enter upon the joy set before Him, till He had ordered all things relating to His kingdom. We notice, in the second place, the SITE OR SPOT at which this occurrence took place. He led them out as far as to Bethany. I pass on, in the third place, to consider the MANNER in which the ascent of our Lord Jesus Christ took place. You will observe, first, that it was while He prayed--as He blessed them. Observe, again, that it was while they werelistening to the interesting communications which our Lord had to impart. It belongs to this part of the subject to observe their solemn adoration of Him after that they saw Him no more. He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven: and they worshipped Him. I hasten to the last point of our discourse--to consider THE GREAT ENDS AND OBJECTS OF THIS MOST IMPORTANT TRANSACTION. Christ has left our world--He is gone--He has gone to the mansions of heavenly glory; and for what purposes has He taken His departure. First, in order that He might celebrate a signal triumph over all His enemies. He has gone, secondly, to take possession of the well-earned reward, the stipulated recompense, to which His obedience and His suffering have so well entitled Him. Thirdly, He has gone to receive and to communicate that fulness which the Father had entrusted into His hands; and especially the gift of the Holy Ghost, which he bestows upon the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them. Fourthly, He has gone to ensure and prepare a place for all His believing followers. I only add that He has gone thus to heaven in order to give an example and specimen of the manner in which He will come again in the clouds of Heaven. And is He gone? and have the heavens received Him? Then, first, let us send our hearts after Him. Secondly, in the absence of our Lord, let us abide closely in the fellowship of His Church. Like the disciples, let us resort to the temple; like the disciples, let us keep together. Let us not be scattered and disunited. Thirdly, this subject should lead us to cherish a cheerful confidence with respect to our entrance into eternity. And let this soothe our spirits when we are mourning over our dead. (G. Clayton, M. A.)

The Lords farewell

I. THE LAST ACTS OF THE REDEEMER ON EARTH.

1. He selects a suitable place from which to take His departure.

2. He solemnly blesses His disciples.

3. He ascends up to heaven.

4. It came to pass, while He blessed them, He was taken up. Did His ascension, then, interrupt and cut short the blessing? No; He still continued to bless as He went up. No--nor is the blessing yet at an end: for this is that Christ who, as St. Paul says, is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

II. THE FIRST ACTS OF THE REDEEMED AFTER HIS DEPARTURE.

1. They worshipped Him. Remember that! The appointed teachers of the Christian religion worshipped Christ; it was their very first act after they had ceased to behold Him.

2. They were filled with joy--great joy.

Now therefore they rejoiced--

1. On their Lords account. If ye love Me, He had said, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go to the Father. And this their joy is now fulfilled.

2. On their own account. All was now plain in the system of that redemption, concerning which they had long formed such erroneous expectations.

3. In the use of appointed means they sought and expected His gifts of grace. In Jerusalem were they to receive the promise of the Father; therefore they at once returned thither. On their arrival, behold them continually in the temple, praising and blessing God! continually--that is, at every appointed service. (J. Jowett, M. A.)

Our Lords attitude in ascending

I. HIS HANDS WERE UPLIFTED TO BLESS.

1. This blessing was no unusual thing. To stretch out His hands in benediction was His customary attitude. In that attitude He departed, with a benediction still proceeding from His lips.

2. This blessing was with authority. He blessed them while His Father acknowledged Him by receiving Him to heaven.

3. This blessing was so full that, as it were, He emptied His hands. They saw those dear hands thus unladen of their benedictions.

4. The blessing was for those beneath Him, and beyond the sound of His voice; He scattered benedictions upon them all.

5. The blessing was the fit finis of His sojourn here; nothing fitter, nothing better, could have been thought of.

II. THOSE HANDS WERE PIERCED. This could be seen by them all as they gazed upward.

1. Thus they knew that they were Christs hands.

2. Thus they saw the price of the blessing. His crucifixion has purchased continual blessing for all His redeemed.

3. Thus they saw the way of the blessing; it comes from those human hands, through those sacrificial wounds.

4. A sight of those hands is in itself a blessing. By that sight we see pardon and eternal life.

5. The entire action is an epitome of the gospel. This is the substance of the matter--hands pierced distribute benedictions. Jesus, through suffering and death, has power to bless us out of the highest heaven. This is the last that was seen of our Lord. He has not changed His attitude of benediction, He will not change it till He shall descend in His glory.

III. THOSE HANDS SWAY THE SCEPTRE. His hands are omnipotent. Those very hands, which blessed His disciples, now hold, on their behalf, the sceptre--

1. Of providence: both in small affairs and greater matters.

2. Of the spiritual kingdom: the Church and all its work.

3. Of the future judgment and the eternal reign. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Saviours hand

That wonderful hand of Christ! It was the same hand which had been so quickly stretched out to rescue Peter when sinking in Galilees waves. It was that same hand which had been held in the sight of the questioning disciples on the third evening after they had seen it laid lifeless in the tomb. It was that same hand which incredulous Thomas must see before he would believe its risen power; it was that same hand which was extended to him not only to see, but to touch the nail-prints in its palm. It was that same hand which the disciples last saw uplifted in a parting blessing when the cloud parted Him from them. It was only after ten days that they realized the fulness of blessing which came from that extended, pierced hand of Christ. Peter at Pentecost must have preached with that last sight of it fresh in his memory, when he said, God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. That hand, with its nail-prints, knocks at the hearts door for entrance. That hand, with its deep marks of love, beckons on the weary runner in the heavenly way. (F. B. Pullan.)

Lessons from the ascension

The ascension was the appropriate bloom and culmination of the resurrection.

I. SINCE OUR LORD HAS ASCENDED, WE ARE NEVER TO THINK OF HIM AS DEAD, He has rounded the black and inscrutable Cape of Storms, and changed it for us henceforth into the Cape of Good Hope. It follows that all the great offices pertaining to His exaltation are in active exercise.

1. He stands in heaven to-day the Living Head of His redeemed Church.

2. He stands in heaven to-day our Priestly Advocate.

3. He stands in heaven to-day as the Controller of all things in Gods providential government.

II. SINCE OUR LORD HAS ASCENDED, WE ARE NEVER TO THINK OF HIM AS DISTANT. Contact of spirit with spirit--nothing can be nearer, more intimate. Christs inner presence by the Holy Ghost is the special boon and issue of His ascension.

III. SINCE OUR LORD HAS ASCENDED, WE ARE NEVER TO THINK OF HIM AS DIFFERENT. He has not laid aside His brotherhood with us. To our Brothers heart prayer must find its way; from Him to us a perfect sympathy must ever flow. (W. Hoyt, D. D.)

On the ascension of Christ

I. In the first place, BY OUR SAVIOURS ASCENSION INTO HEAVEN IT WAS MADE TO APPEAR THAT THE GREAT DESIGN FOR WHICH HE DESCENDED TO THE EARTH WAS COMPLETELY FULFILLED. A solemn attestation was thus given by God to the virtue and efficacy of that great sacrifice which He offered by His death for the sins of the world. The ascension of Christ was the signal of His triumph over all the powers of darkness.

II. It is, in the next place, to be viewed by us WITH RESPECT TO CHRIST HIMSELF, AS A MERITED RESTORATION TO HIS ORIGINAL FELICITY. As the Son of God, all glory belonged to Him for ever.

III. In the third place, Christ ascended into heaven THAT HE MIGHT ACT THERE, IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD, AS OUR HIGH PRIEST AND INTERCESSOR. (H. Blair, D. D.)

The ascension of Christ

1. This event had been foretold and typified in the Old Testament. See especially Psa_68:1-35; Psa_110:1-7. Moses, ascending the mount to receive the law, may be a type of Christ ascending to receive spiritual blessings for men. Elijah, taken up into heaven, and imparting a double portion of his spirit to his successor, was probably typical of Christ ascending and imparting the Pentecostal gift of the Holy Ghost. And the Jewish high priest, in passing from the holy place, which represented earth, to the most holy, which figured heaven, also foreshadowed the ascension of our Lord.

2. These predictions and types were now to be fulfilled.

3. To the top of this mountain our Saviour led His disciples, purposing to ascend visibly from thence. He might have taken His departure unseen by them, but He ascended openly, to confirm their faith in Him as the promised Messiah, to assure them of the certainty of the life in the world to come, and of their own exaltation to the place whither He had gone before.

4. The manner in which Christ was taken up from the midst of His disciples, as described in our text, was most interesting, and is worthy of our attention. In the very act of blessing them He was taken away. Oh, what a delightful consistency and loveliness of character we have in Jesus from the beginning of His mission to its close! The first assurance of His birth was accompanied by the cry of peace on earth and good-will to men; and here, He goes from the world with hands outstretched in benedictions upon those He left below. Surely if any man love not such a Saviour he deserves to be Anathema, Maranatha.

5. But what feelings must have possessed the hearts of the disciples when they witnessed these things.

6. And where was He from whom they had been separated? His place on the eternal throne of glory had been resumed, and He sat there now not as God merely, but God-man, the great mediatorial king.

7. Such ware the leading circumstances attending the ascension of our Lord. (W. H. Lewis, D. D.)

The ascension of Jesus

I. THE WITNESSES OF THE ASCENSION. Only friends. Only the small band of the eleven apostles.

II. THE PLACE. In the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which had been the scene of many of our Lords great miracles, where His most violent enemies resided, and where He had suffered death in the most public manner. Also near Bethany, a spot sufficiently retired to permit the assemblage of the eleven without exciting the vigilance of enemies.

III. THE MANNER of Christs ascension. The ascension seems to have been slow and gentle. The apostles could therefore view it distinctly and deliberately, so that they might be assured of its reality, and be able to describe it to others. No chariot nor horses of fire were seen like those which wafted the prophet Elijah to heaven; no violent whirlwind agitated the air, no blaze of glory dazzled the eyes, or overpowered the feelings of the anxious spectators. Every part of the scene accorded with the character of the mild and benevolent Jesus. Though a parting scene, there was nothing in it to terrify or depress the minds of the apostles. They were indeed surprised and filled with astonishment, but it was an astonishment which expanded, elevated, and delighted them; for we are told they returned to Jerusalem with great joy.

IV. Let us next inquire WHAT REASONS CAN BE ASSIGNED FOR THE ASCENSION OF JESUS,

1. First, then, it was necessary to complete the proof of His exalted rank and Divine mission.

2. The ascension was necessary in order that the Lord Jesus should complete His mediatorial functions.

3. It was necessary that Jesus should ascend to heaven, to receive the approbation and honour from His heavenly Father, which were to be given to Him as the Mediator and Redeemer of man.

V. THE BENEFITS WHICH WE MAY DERIVE FROM THE ASCENSION OF JESUS.

1. It tends to complete our faith in Him. His miracles proved His Divine power; and His prophecies, His Divine knowledge. His death proved His own declaration, that He had power to lay down His life; His resurrection, that He had power to take it again. In addition, His ascension showed that all the purposes of His coming to this world were finished, that He was going to return to the glory which He had with the Father before the world was; nay, that the glory of His human nature was to be increased in a high degree. Hereby, then, is our faith in Him enlarged, strengthened, and completed, for we have full assurance of the dignity and perfection of Jesus, and that the grit and benevolent purposes for which He visited this world were fully accomplished.

2. We are assured, also, as connected with the ascension of Jesus, of another event resembling it in manner, namely, the second coming of the Lord Jesus.

3. By the ascension of Jesus His promises to the righteous are fully ratified. (J. Thomson, D. D.)

Tile Lords ascension

I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF OUR LORDS ASCENSION.

1. The time. Not until after He had appeared to His disciples frequently, and conversed with them freely. He tarried with them forty days, to convince them of His resurrection, to instruct them in the knowledge of the truth, and to encourage them to stedfastness in the cause of the gospel.

2. The place of His ascension. Mount Olivet. This was a place to which He frequently resorted for secret prayer. So, also, the bed of sickness, though the believer may endure much agony there, is generally the spot whence his soul, released from trouble, ascends to the joys of heaven.

3. The ascension of Christ took place in the presence of numerous witnesses. There was no necessity for any persons being present when our Lord rose from the dead, because His appearing after His resurrection to those who knew Him before His crucifixion was a sufficient proof of His resurrection.

4. Another circumstance of which we are informed is, that this event took place while our Lord was employed in blessing the disciples. By this action He showed the strength and the duration of His affection for His disciples.

5. We are told, in Act_1:9, that a cloud received Him out of their sight. Clouds are frequently mentioned in Scripture as a medium through which the Lord in some degree manifested Himself to men.

6. The last circumstance we have to notice is, that our Lords ascension was attended by angels.

II. ITS ENDS, or the chief purposes for which He ascended.

1. Christ ascended in order to send down the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

2. Jesus Christ ascended into heaven in order to make intercession for His people.

3. Jesus Christ ascended in order that He might receive infinite power, happiness, and glory, as the reward of His humiliation. He is set down on His throne of glory to exercise dominion over the universe, but especially over His Church.

4. Our Lord ascended into heaven that He might prepare a place for His followers, and bring them home to Himself.

III. Having considered the chief circumstances and ends of our Lords ascension, we now come to consider, in the last place, THE PRACTICAL EFFECTS WHICH THE CONSIDERATION OF THE EVENT SHOULD PRODUCE ON US.

1. It should lead us to pay the Redeemer that Divine homage which is so justly due to His name.

2. It becomes us to rejoice on account of our Lords ascension.

3. Our Lords ascension should lead us unhesitatingly to trust in Him for salvation.

4. Christs ascension should encourage us to engage with liveliness in religious exercises.

5. The consideration of our Lords ascension should raise our thoughts and affections to heaven.

6. Our Lords ascension should carry forward our thoughts to His second coming. (James Foote, M. A.)

From home to heaven

It seems natural to wish to pass away from this world from the place which we call our home. How many persons--when they are in search of health in the mountains of Switzerland or by the lake side, in the watering places, or bright sunny spots, where they seek to fan the dying embers of life--when they find that their end is approaching, desire to go home to die. Those who go out to India in the Civil Service have this hope before them, that they shall spend their last days in England and die at home. So it was natural that our Saviour should choose to pass away from the familiar slope of Olivet, within sight of Bethany, the nearest place to a home that the Son of Man knew during His public ministry, that from this oft-frequented haunt He should ascend to His Father and our Father, to His God and our God. (W. Bull, B. A.)

The parting blessing

He departed from them in the act of blessing; He was still blessing when the cloud received Him out of their sight. And what was this but the natural climax of all our Lords precedent life? That life had been one of continual blessing. And before we turn from this subject of connection, does it not see m as though heaven and earth are here represented as connected with blessing? The lark, soaring up on high, seems nevertheless to connect the skies and earth by her train of song; thus binds Christ the heaven and the earth now. There is no sight; but from the height above drops blessing--blessing for all who will take it; no less blessing on His part because it may be refused by us; blessing which shall fall upon all believers now; and which shall soak into the thirsty bosom of the millenial earth when He is owned as King of all its kings and Lord of all its lords. And with this thought of connection comes that of activity also. We have not presented before us any careful thoughts of Christ about His own glory; the activity of His mind--yea, even of His body--was all being put forth on behalf of others. We can easily imagine how comforting thoughts flowed in upon the disciples when they remembered this. He ascended into the heavens while blessing them; and, if so, what but blessing could they look for from that other world? Those who knew Him not might look up with fear and trembling, and see the Judge upon His throne. The heavens contained nothing but woe for them; but Jesus, by entering heaven in the very act of blessing, taught His people how to look up, what there to see, and what thence to expect. There is yet one more thought which presses upon our minds in connection with this parting aspect of Christ. What He dropped on them they in turn were to drop upon the world. The last impression of their Lord was to exercise its peculiar power upon their after lives; and we may be well assured that so it did. Activity in blessing marked Jesus career to the very last; He was unwearied in well-doing. He has carried His energy with Him into heaven. Remembering, then, that all good things are given to us for others as well as for ourselves, let us use for others this word while, in whatever teaching it conveys to our souls. Good things most truly perform their mission to us when they pass on through us to perform a ministry to others also. We never know the power of a good thing--how really good it is--until we begin to use it, to put it in the way of evolving its fragrance. (P. B. Power, M. A.)

Christ departs while blessing

Oh, what a fitting close to such a life as that of the Redeemer! He had come to bless the world, and He spent His every moment on earth in communicating blessings; and now, as though He were going within the veil to carry on the same gracious purpose, He quits the earth with extended hands, and the last words that He utters in mortal hearing are words of Divine benediction. What could be more worthy of His character? what more likely to assure and comfort His followers? It was not, you observe, when He had finished His benediction, but while He was pronouncing it, that Christ commenced His ascent; so that His departure may be said to have interrupted the blessing. And we are disposed to think that there was something in this which was designed to be pre-eminently significant. At all events, we are certain that the fact may be interpreted into lessons of general application and of no common merit. It was no proof, you see, that Christ did not love His disciples, and that He was not consulting their good, that He withdrew Himself from them. On the contrary, He was blessing them in leaving them. If there had been nothing in the departure itself from which to argue a blessing, there might have been place for suspicion; but the mode of departure irresistibly proves that Christ went away not in anger, but in tenderness. And though when anything analogous to His departure occurs it may not be possible to assure ourselves that the departing One has left us in the act of blessing us, it cannot be unreasonable to regard the history before us as in some measure a parable, and argue from it something general. When, for example, the spiritually-minded have enjoyed seasons of communion with the Saviour--seasons most blessed, which assuredly there are, though the cold and the worldly may think it merely enthusiasm to speak of the manifestations to the soul of the invisible Mediator--and when these seasons have been followed by others of less intimate fellowship, how apt are Christians to be troubled and cast down, as though it must have been in wrath that the Redeemer withdrew the tokens of His presence! But they should rather go in thought to the Mount of Olives, and behold how Christ parts from His disciples. Oh, it is not necessarily in displeasure that the Saviour withdraws Himself. If you could see Him depart, it may be that you would behold those extended arms, and hear the lingering benediction, and thus learn that He went away only because it was expedient for you--because He could bless you better and more effectually by temporal removal than through unbroken continuance amongst you. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The ascension and exaltation of Christ

I. THE PREPARATION FOR THE ASCENSION. The small procession of Christ and the eleven apostles gradually increases till it consists of five hundred persons. They reach and climb the Mount of Olives. Then the arms which not long before had been stretched out upon the accursed tree are uplifted in prayer. A last smile He leaves for a legacy behind Him ere He quits the world--a smile involving whole oceans of meaning; and who can venture to fill up the outline, or clothe in words that blessing which He gives to His little flock whom He is leaving alone in the world? All He has to leave them is a blessing, and yet a blessing which is felt to be a shield of defence and a security in trial to them all. And, lo! while He is thus employed in blessing, the cloud that has been approaching on the breath of the gentle breeze rests on Christs head and conceals His face, and obliterates His smile, and gathers around His uplifted arms, and surrounds His whole form and hides it from view.

II. LET US FOLLOW CHRIST UPWARDS WITH THE WING OF FAITH. AS through a veil, though the disciples may not see Him, He sees them, and counts their tears. He sees, too, Jerusalem itself, and perhaps weeps over it again. But night has come over the landscape. The land below fades away from His view. Olivet, the Moabite mountains, the loftiest peak of all the Sinaitic range, have disappeared, and the cloud chariot plunges amidst the stars. Orion on the south, and the Great Bear on the norris, are left behind. The moon becomes Christs footstool, and is then spurned away as He mounts higher still. Through the milky way, as through the multitudinous laughter of an oceans billows, He pursues His course. The last star which, like a giant sentinel, keeps its solitary watch, and treads its enormous round on the verge of the universe, ceases to be seen, and the hollow and blank space which lies beyond is found to be peopled with an innumerable company of angels, who have come out to meet and to welcome their King and their Lord. And then the gates of the heavenly city appear, flaming with diamond and gold as with the lustre of ten thousand suns. From the angelic cavalcade the cry arises, Open, ye everlasting gates, that the King of glory may enter in; and it is met by the challenge from the walls, Who is this King of glory? and the reply comes, The Lord of hosts, that is also the Man of Nazareth, the mighty in battle, He is the King of glory. And, lo! the gates fly open, and the everlasting doors are unbarred, and thus the King of glory enters in, and the Man of Nazareth, amidst the acclamation of ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, takes His seat upon the right hand of the Majesty on high.

III. CONSIDER THE SPIRITUAL SENSE IN WHICH CHRIST MAY BE SAID TO HAVE ASCENDED TO BE EXALTED.

1. Christ is in the ascendant as the highest example of moral excellence.

(1) No character, confessedly, can be named beside His in richness and depth, in pureness and simplicity, in dignity and truthfulness and affection.

(2) No death, in grand unconsciousness, in profound submission, in absolute renunciation of self, in the spirit of forgiveness which pervades it, in its meekness, gentleness, and patience, can be named with that of Calvary. Truly said Rousseau, If the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God.

2. Jesus is the best specimen of the risen man. No other risen man has got beyond the lowest step in the stage leading up to the footstool of the throne on which the Man of Galilee is thus exalted.

3. Christ is one the history of whose faith is the most wonderful of all histories.

4. The moral and spiritual principles which were the teaching and the glory of Christ are those on which the happiness of the world present and the prospects of the world future are felt to be dependent.

In conclusion:

1. What a cheering doctrine is that of Christs exaltation. God has recognized His principles as the laws of universal government.

2. Let us seek to ascend. Excelsior. (G. Gilfillan.)

Great joy

A strange joy, yet explicable

They had parted from their beloved Master; they had to face a trying life now, without having Him near to counsel or to help; they would never see Him again, till they died. And yet they were glad. From the place of that last earthly parting they went away, not stricken to the earth, not stunned and stupefied, as we are after the like heart-breaking wrench, but in high spirits, cheerful and elate. They returned to Jerusalem with great joy! Well, it is very strange. Perhaps the disciples, coming back to Jerusalem, could not easily have sorted out and explained to other people the reasons of their great joy. First, there was something very cheering about all the surroundings of Christs departure. It was to be, the disciples knew; and the whole event was so different from what such a parting might have been. For one thing, it was so triumphant, so glorious, so miraculous, that it was proof irresistible that the work which brought the Redeemer to this world was finished successfully. And it was blessing His servants that the Redeemer left them. Sometimes, while here, He had spoken severely, and that not to His enemies only, but to His friends--to the great apostle Peter, Get thee behind Me, Satan; but all that was gone, and there was only kindness in the departing heart and voice. Now, as a second reason for this strange joy, let us remember that there was one great definite gain which was to come of Christs going; and upon the enjoyment of that gain His Church was soon to enter now. The blessed Spirit, the Holy Ghost, could not come till the Saviour went; and He Himself had declared strongly that it would be gain for His disciples to lose Him if thus they received the blessed Spirit in His stead. They hardly understood, perhaps, the disciples, on the day Christ went--they did not understand, as we do now, all that the Holy Ghost would be, of light, strength, wisdom, joy, peace, strong consolation. It needed experience of His sympathy, His faithfulness, His patience, His almighty power, to make Christian people know what He is. But the disciples knew enough to make them anticipate His coming with joyful expectation; and for this reason, doubtless, among others, even from the spot where they had seen their Saviour for the last time in this life, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. We can think of a third reason for this joy on that parting day. It was a parting quite by itself. He went away, in visible form. It was better for His Church that He should; but, after all, He never left it. He went away, as concerns the material presence, which must be here or there. He abode yet in that Divine, real though unseen presence, which can be everywhere. Even as He departed from sight and sense, He uttered the sure and hopeful promise, Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world. He could be with the disciples He left, He can be with us day by day, as God is with us; present that is, to faith, not to sense, but as really, substantially, influentially present, as any thing or person we can touch or see. Beyond these spiritual consolations which might cheer under the departure of their Saviour, the disciples had yet another hope, which some might esteem as having something more substantial in it. Master and servants were to meet again. This same Jesus, now gone, is to come again in glory; and since that day, the Church is waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. That will be the consummation of all things. Then, all will be well at last. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)

Joy in working for Christ

In a recent great European war, the soldiers of both countries, when they were ordered to the seat of war, received the order enthusiastically, and marched to the front with waving of banners and singing. The joy of the disciples when called to win the world for Christ, seem to have been similar (Luk_24:52-53). If a father entrusts his son with a difficult piece of work, the boy does it joyfully and proudly. Should we have less joy in performing a great work entrusted to us by Christ?

The counterbalance

This statement is of more interest and importance to us than appears at first sight. It embodies a great principle; and that, one which enters continually into the Christians life. The inward counterbalancing the outward--this is the great idea brought before us; and it will unfold itself, as we proceed to examine the circumstances under which the apostles were placed, when they thus returned to Jerusalem with great joy. At the first glance, we should have supposed joy to have been the very last emotion, which, at this particular time, would have swayed the apostles minds. We shall find no cause for it in anything outward. Nature seemed to indicate everything but joy. We should not have been surprised, had we been reading merely an ordinary narrative, to have heard that terror instead of joy was the leading feeling in the apostles minds. Another class of feelings, also, was calculated to arise within their breasts; and whatever emotions these were likely to be productive of, they were certainly not those of joy. The feelings which nature would have engendered under these circumstances were those of indignation and revenge. Then, there was the natural shrinking from sad associations. Were they to be affected by the outward only, almost every stone in Jerusalem would have a mournful voice for them, saying, Here He once was, but He is gone; and His place knoweth Him now no more. But there were other and higher influences at work; there must have been, for we read, not of resignation, but of joy; and not only of joy, but of great joy; and to produce this, there must have been a great counterbalancing principle within the heart. The actual feeling of the apostles was that of great joy; and whence this great joy came we can easily see. All doubts were now removed. Coldly and damply, unbelief, from time to time, had struck in upon them; but it was now dispelled for ever. The veils last fold was removed from their eyes; and they now stood forth upon firm ground, prepared to meet the world in the power of clear, inward light. Wherever there is full, clear, unclouded faith, and that in unhindered exercise--there, there is joy, and all the power that flows forth from a light and joyous heart. The disciples had seen also the exaltation of the One they loved. Moreover, they had now a union with the unseen. We can understand how a new light was now thrown on all old scenes; how a new destiny lay outstretched before the disciples eyes; how they felt that they had that which the world had not given, and which the world, therefore, could not take away; and, rich in all this, they turned from the place whence their Lord had ascended up on high, leading captivity captive, and re-sought the place where He had been bound, and led as a lamb to the slaughter; all tears now wiped from their eyes, and their hearts filled with great joy. Here, then, was the power of the inward to counterbalance the outward; and what says it to us as regards our own experiences? First of all it says: As with the disciples, so also with you; look not always for a change in the outward aspect of things, but look for the introduction of a new element therein, modifying, compensating, supporting, as the case may be. The outward remains unmoved; but it is met by the inward which pervades it, and puts forth its more than compensating power; there is, as the apostle says in 1Th_1:1-10., much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost. And now, with regard to ourselves. What is the power of the inward with us? In the first place, have we an inward living power within us which exercises an unmistakeable influence; and can compensate, energize, or support, as circumstances may require? It is surely impossible to have this without knowing it, there are so many circumstances which are calculated to call it into exercise, and in which, if it existed, it must have acted. Have we a felt and realized union with God, which influences us, so that we feel we have something which the would cannot see; and which, indeed, is not of the world at all? Our perceptions may be more or less vivid on these points, but have we a perception, so that there is as distinct an inward life as there is an outward? Moreover, are we conscious of how this inward has acted? Have we felt when disappointed of earthly things, or in them, that, after all, there was nothing unduly to depress us: for that we had something else of infinitely more importance, in which we could not be disappointed? When darkness closed in upon us in the outward world, have we had distinct inward light, in which we could move, and see, and rejoice? When called upon to sacrifice any of the outward, have we been enabled to do so because it was as nothing compared with the inward--the possession of which soothed and comforted us, and kept us from being down-trodden by poverty, and being made to feel ourselves miserably poor? Let the believer also never be a gloomy man. If ever any men on earth had cause for gloom the apostles had, when they returned to Jerusalem; but they returned with great joy. Let us not be gloomy in the world or to the world; let us show it that we have something more than it has. Perhaps men will believe that faith is a real power when they see if able to do something; when, acting from within, it can make us cheerful in times of sadness, and contented in times of reverse and poverty, and patient in times of weariness and pain, and ever hopeful for the future--our horizon being, not the valley of the shadow of death, but the glorious land which lies beyond. And who knows whether, thus looking beyond this earth, we may not lead others to ask whereon our eyes are fixed, and, it may be, that they also will look onward and upward and join us on our way. One Adrianus, in ancient times, seeing the martyrs suffer such grievous things in the cause of Christ, asked, What is that which enables them to bear such sufferings? Then he was told of the inward counterbalancing the outward; for one of them replied, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. And thus was Adrianus won not only to conversion, but to martyrdom also, for he laid down his life manfully for Christ. (P. B. Power, M. A.)

Continually in the temple, praising and blessing God

Christian worship

I. THE OBJECT OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP.

1. A human Christ.

2. A living Christ.

3. A glorified Christ.

4. A crucified Christ.

II. THE PLACE OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. The temple. Where two or three are met together in Christs name.

III. THE TIME OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. Continually. Every day. No opportunity of doing homage to the Saviour should be missed.

IV. THE FORM OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. Praising and blessing God. Magnifying His mercy, and speaking good of His name.

V. THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. With great joy. The Christian rejoices in the Saviours exaltation--

1. For Christs sake. Reward of redeeming work.

2. For his own sake. A pledge and guarantee of his acceptance and salvation.

3. For the worlds sake. (T. Whitelaw, M. A.)

Earnestness in using means of grace

Continually in the temple! Observe that! The disciples were now thoroughly assured that they had an Advocate in the heavenly temple, but this did not withdraw them from the earthly. On the contrary, they seem to have resorted with greater frequency to the courts of the Lords house, well convinced, by the circumstance of their Masters departure, that they had an Advocate with God, and we may be sure that there is something radically wrong when a sense of the privileges of Christianity produces listlessness, and does not produce earnestness in the use of Christian ordinances. He is not a strong Christian who feels that he can do without sermons and sacraments, any more than it is the appetite of an energetic man, when there is no relish for food. It is no sign of good faith or well-grounded hope that the Christian seems beyond needing the means of grace; as well might you think it a sign of knowledge and security against shipwreck that the mariner was above consulting his chart or making observations. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 24:50-53. And he led them out as far as Bethany — Not the town, but the district: namely, to the mount of Olives, which was within the boundaries of Bethany. And he lifted up his hands — In a most solemn and devout manner; and blessed them — As one that had authority, not only to desire, but to command a blessing upon them. And while he blessed — Or was blessing them, and while they beheld, (Act 1:9,) by which it appears that this event took place in the day-time; he was parted from them — Miraculously and unexpectedly; and carried up into heaven — Not suddenly, but leisurely, that they might behold him departing, till a cloud received him out of their sight, Act 1:9. It was much more proper that our Lord should ascend into heaven, than that he should rise from the dead, in the sight of the apostles. For his resurrection was proved when they saw him alive after his passion; but they could not see him in heaven while they continued on earth. And they worshipped him — Not only prostrated themselves before him, as the word προσκυνεω, here used, often means; but, being fully satisfied of his divine power and glory, they worshipped him in the strictest sense of the word, or paid him divine honours, though now become invisible to them; which it is certain they continued to do during the whole course of their ministry; confiding in him in all their dangers and trials; loving him and living to him; and making him, together with the Father, the great object of their prayers, praises, and obedience. And returned to Jerusalem with great joy — On account of the glorious discoveries which he had made to them, the glorious work to which he had called them, the extraordinary qualifications with which he had promised to endue them, and the great success which he had engaged to give them therein; especially for the full proof they had now received, that he was indeed the true Messiah, their Saviour, and their Lord; and that they had not been deceived in attaching themselves to him as his disciples, but had been guided by the truth and grace of God. And were continually in the temple — That is, constantly attended there at the hours of service; praising and blessing God — As for all his other benefits, so in particular for sending the Messiah for the redemption and salvation of mankind, for raising him from the dead, after he had been unjustly and cruelly crucified by a cabal of wicked men; for his glorious ascension into heaven in their sight, and the promise made them of his return; and for performing such wonders to confirm and perfect their faith in him. Amen — May he be continually praised and blessed!

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

§ 156. JESUS’S ASCENSION, Luk_24:50-53.

Mar_16:19-20; Act_1:9-12.

Inasmuch as Luke alone of the Evangelists explicitly describes the visible and bodily ascension of Jesus, adverse criticism has questioned the reality of the fact. The New Testament, they admit, does plentifully assume that Christ is in heaven; but, perhaps, his soul only. (Mat_26:64; Joh_20:17; Act_2:33; Eph_4:10; 1Pe_3:22.) But, 1. Since the body of Jesus rose, in possession of supernatural qualities belonging to a resurrection body, either he must have passed through another death, and that a death of a resurrection body, or he must have gone corporeally to heaven. 2. The representation of his bodily return at the Judgment Advent (Mat_25:31) necessarily implied a bodily ascension. 3. The unanimous and intense faith of the Church in his ascension can be no otherwise explained than upon the ground that his ascension was visibly witnessed. 4. The explicit and circumstantial narrative of one Evangelist would be sufficient, without either of the preceding reasons; with them, we hold any doubt to be superfluous and foolish. All assume the fact, but he supplies the mode.

50. Led them out—From Jerusalem, where, doubtless, they tarried after their return from Galilee.

As far as to Bethany—Εως εις, as far as into. That is, to the point where the into commenced; to the entrance, but not into Bethany. Luke implies in Act_1:12, that the ascension took place from the Mount of Olives, which agrees with the present passage; for Bethany is upon the eastern slope of that mountain. Barclay, in his “City of the Great King,” identifies a hillock overhanging the margin of Bethany as clearly the true place. The summit of the Mount, where now stands the Church of the Ascension, certainly could not have been the spot.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luke

THE TRIUMPHANT END

THE ASCENSION

Luk 24:50 - Luk 24:51. - Act 1:9.

Two of the four Evangelists, viz., Matthew and John, have no record of the Ascension. But the argument which infers ignorance from silence, which is always rash, is entirely discredited in this case. It is impossible to believe that Matthew, who wrote as the last word of his gospel the great words, ‘All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth . . . lo! I am with you alway. . ..’ was ignorant of the fact which alone makes these words credible. And it is equally impossible to believe that the Evangelist who recorded the tender saying to Mary, ‘Go to My brethren, and say unto them I ascend to My Father, and your Father,’ was ignorant of its fulfilment. The explanation of the silence is to be sought in a quite different direction. It comes from the fact that to the Evangelists, rightly, the Ascension was but the prolongation and the culmination of the Resurrection. That being recorded, there was no need for the definite record of this.

There is another singular point about these records, viz., that Luke has two accounts, one in the end of his gospel, one in the beginning of Acts; and that these two accounts are obviously different. The differences have been laid hold of as a weapon with which to attack the veracity of both accounts. But there again a little consideration clears the path. The very places in which they respectively occur might have solved the difficulty, for the one is at the end of a book, and the other is at the beginning of a book; and so, naturally, the one regards the Ascension as the end of the earthly life, and the other as the beginning of the heavenly. The one is all suffused with evening light; the other is radiant with the promise of a new day. The one is the record of a tender farewell, in the other the sense of parting has almost been absorbed in the forward look to the new phase of relationship which is to begin. If Luke had been a secular biographer, the critics would have been full of admiration at the delicacy of his touch, and the fineness of keeping in the two narratives, the picture being the same in both, and the scheme of colouring being different. But as he is only an Evangelist, they fall foul of him for his ‘discrepancies.’ It is worth our while to take both his points of view.

But there is another thing to be remembered, that, as the appendix of his account of the Ascension in the book of the Acts, Luke tells us of the angel’s message;-’This same Jesus . . . shall . . . return.’ So there are three points of view which have to be combined in order to get the whole significance of that mighty fact: the Ascension as an end; the Ascension as a beginning; the Ascension as the pledge of the return. Now take these three points.

I. We have the aspect of the Ascension as an end.

The narrative in Luke’s gospel, in its very brevity, does yet distinctly suggest that retrospective and valedictory tone. Note how, for instance, we are told the locality-’He led them out as far as Bethany.’ The name at once strikes a chord of remembrance. What memories clustered round it, and how natural it was that the parting should take place there, not merely because the crest of the Mount of Olives hid the place from the gaze of the crowded city; but because it was within earshot almost of the home where so much of the sweet earthly fellowship, that was now to end, had passed. The same note of regarding the scene as being the termination of those blessed years of dear and familiar intercourse is struck in the fact, so human, so natural, so utterly inartificial, that He lifted His hands to bless them, moved by the same impulse with which so often we have wrung a hand at parting, and stammered, ‘God bless you!’ And the same valedictory hue is further deepened by the fact that what Luke puts first is not the Ascension, but the parting. ‘He was parted from them,’ that is the main fact; ‘and He was carried up into heaven,’ comes almost as a subordinate one. At all events it is regarded mainly as being the medium by which the parting was effected.

So the aspect of the Ascension thus presented is that of a tender farewell; the pathetic conclusion of three long, blessed years. And yet that is not all, for the Evangelist adds a very enigmatic word: ‘They returned to Jerusalem with great joy.’ Glad because He had gone? No. Glad merely because He had gone up? No. The saying is a riddle, left at the end of the book, for readers to ponder, and is a subtle link of connection with what is to be written in the next volume, when the aspect of the Ascension as an end is subordinate, and its aspect as a beginning is prominent. So regarded, it filled the disciples with joy. Thus you see, I think, that without any illegitimate straining of the expressions of the text, we do come to the point of view from which, to begin with, this great event must be looked at. We have to take the same view, and to regard that Ascension not only as the end of an epoch of sweet friendship, but as the solemn close and culmination of the whole earthly life. I have no time to dwell upon the thoughts that come crowding into one’s mind when we take that point of view. But let me suggest, in the briefest way, one or two of them.

Here is an end which circles round to, and is of a piece with, the beginning. ‘I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father.’ The Ascension corresponds with, and meets the miracle of, the Incarnation. And as the Word who became flesh, came by the natural path of human birth, and entered in through the gate by which we all enter, and yet came as none else has come, by His own will, in the miracle of His Incarnation, so at the end, He passed out from life through the gate by which we all pass, and ‘was obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross,’ and yet He passed likewise on a path which none but Himself has trod, and ascended up to heaven, whence He had descended to earth. He came into the world, not as leaving the Father, for He is ‘the Son of Man which is in heaven,’ and He ascended up on high, not as leaving us, for He is ‘with us alway, even to the end of the world.’ Thus the Incarnation and the Ascension support each other.

But let me remind you how, in this connection, we have the very same combination of lowliness and gentleness with majesty and power which runs through the whole of the story of the earthly life of Jesus Christ. Born in a stable, and waited on by angels, the subject of all the humiliations of humanity, and flashing forth through them all the power of divinity, He ascends on high at last, and yet with no pomp nor visible splendour to the world, but only in the presence of a handful of loving hearts, choosing some dimple of the hill where its folds hid them from the city. As He came quietly and silently into the world, so quietly and silently He passed thence. In this connection there is more than the picturesque contrast between the rapture of Elijah, with its whirlwind, and chariot of fire and horses of fire, and the calm, slow rising, by no external medium raised, of the Christ. It was fit that the mortal should be swept up into the unfamiliar heaven by the pomp of angels and the chariot of fire. It was fit that when Jesus ascended to His ‘own calm home, His habitation from eternity,’ there should be nothing visible but His own slowly rising form, with the hands uplifted, to shed benediction on the heads of the gazers beneath.

In like manner, regarding the Ascension as an end, may we not say that it is the seal of heaven impressed on the sacrifice of the Cross? ‘Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name, which is above every name; that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow.’ We find in that intimate connection between the Cross and the Ascension, the key to the deep saying which carries references to both in itself, when the Lord spoke of Himself as being lifted up and drawing all men unto Him. The original primary reference no doubt was to His elevation on the Cross, ‘as Moses lifted up the serpent.’ But the final, and at the time of its being spoken, the mysterious, reference was to the fact that in descending to the depth of humiliation He was rising to the height of glory. The zenith of the Ascension is the rebound from the nadir of the Cross. The lowliness of the stoop measures the loftiness of the elevation, and the Son of Man was glorified at the moment when the Son of Man was most profoundly abased. The Cross and the Ascension, if I might use so violent a figure, are like the twin stars, of which the heavens present some examples, one dark and lustreless, one flashing with radiancy of light, but knit together by an invisible vinculum, and revolving round a common centre. When He ‘parted from them, and was carried up into heaven,’ He ended the humiliation which caused the elevation.

And then, again, I might suggest that, regarded in its aspect as an end, this Ascension is also the culmination and the natural conclusion of the Resurrection. As I have said, the Scripture point of view with reference to these two is not that they are two, but that the one is the starting point of the line of which the other is the goal. The process which began when He rose from the dead, whatever view we may take of the condition of His earthly life during the forty days of parenthesis, could have no rational and intelligible ending, except the Ascension. Thus we should think of it not only as the end of a sweet friendship, but as the end of the gracious manifestation of the earthly life, the counterpart of the Incarnation and descent to earth, the end of the Cross and the culmination of the Resurrection. The Son of Man, the same that also descended into the lowest parts of the earth, ascended up where He was before.

Now let us turn to the other aspect which the Evangelist gives, when He ceases to be an Evangelist, and becomes a Church Historian. Then he considers

II. The Ascension as a beginning.

The place which it holds in the Acts of the Apostles explains the point of view from which it is to be regarded. It is the foundation of everything that the writer has afterwards to say. It is the basis of the Church. It is the ground of all the activity which Christ’s servants put forth. Not only its place explains this aspect of it, but the very first words of the book itself do the same. ‘The former treatise have I made . . . of all that Jesus began both to do and teach’-and now I am to tell you of an Ascension, and of all that Jesus continued to do and teach. So that the book is the history of the work of the Lord, who was able to do that work, just because He had ascended up on high. The same impression is produced if we ponder the conversation which precedes the account of the Ascension in the book of Acts, which, though it touches the same topics as are touched by the words that precede the account in the Gospel, yet presents them in a different aspect, and suggests the endowments with which the Christian community is to be invested, and the work which therefore it is to do, in consequence of the Ascension of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Peter had caught that thought when, on the day of Pentecost, he said, ‘He, being exalted to the right hand of the Father, hath shed forth this which ye see and hear,’ and throughout the whole book the same point of view is kept up. ‘The work that is done upon earth He doeth it all Himself.’

So there is in this narrative nothing about parting, there is nothing about blessing. There is simply the ascending up and the significant addition of the reception into the cloud, which, whilst He was yet plainly visible, and not dwindled by distance into a speck, received Him out of their sight. The cloud was the symbol of the Divine Presence, which had hung over the Tabernacle, which had sat between the cherubim, which had wrapped the shepherds and the angels on the hillside, which had come down in its brightness on the Mount of Transfiguration, and which now, as the symbol of the Divine Presence, received the ascending Lord, in token to the men that stood gazing up into heaven, that He had passed to the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Thus we have to think of that Ascension as being the groundwork and foundation of all the world-wide and age-long energy which the living Christ is exercising to-day. As one of the other Evangelists, or at least, the appendix to his gospel, puts it, He ascended up on high, and ‘they went everywhere preaching the word, the Lord also working with them, and confirming the word with signs following.’ It is the ascended Christ who sends the Spirit upon men; it is the ascended Christ who opens men’s hearts to hear; it is the ascended Christ who sends forth His messengers to the Gentiles; it is the ascended Christ who, to-day, is the energy of all the Church’s powers, the whiteness of all the Church’s purity, the vitality of all the Church’s life. He lives, and therefore, there is a Christian community on the face of the earth. He lives, and therefore it will never die.

So we, too, have to look to that risen Lord as being the power by which alone any of us can do either great or small work in His Church. That Ascension is symbolically put as being to ‘the right hand of God.’ What is the right hand of God? The divine omnipotence. Where is it? Everywhere. What does sitting at the right hand of God mean? Wielding the powers of omnipotence. And so He says, ‘All power is given unto Me’; and He is working a work to-day, wider in its aspects than, though it be the application and consequence of, the work upon the Cross. He cried there, ‘It is finished!’ but ‘the work of the ascended Jesus’ will never be finished until ‘the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ.’

There are other aspects of His work in heaven which space will not allow me to dwell upon, though I cannot but mention them. By the Ascension Christ begins to prepare a place for us. How could any of us stand in the presence of that eternal Light if He were not there? We should be like some savage or rustic swept up suddenly and put down in the middle of the glittering ring of courtiers round a throne, unless we could lift our eyes and recognise a known and loving face there. Where Christ is, I can be. He has taken one human nature up into the Glory, and other human natures will therefore find in it a home.

The ascended Christ, to use the symbolism which one of the New Testament writers employs for illustration of a thought far greater than the symbol-has like a High Priest passed within the veil, ‘there to appear in the presence of God for us.’ And the intercession which is far more than petition, and is the whole action of that dear Lord who identifies as with Himself, and whose mighty work is ever present before the divine mind as an element in His dealings, that intercession is being carried on for ever for us all. So, ‘set your affection on things above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.’ So, expect His help in your work, and do the work which He has left you to carry on here. So, face death and the dim kingdoms beyond, without quiver and without doubt, assured that where the treasure is, there the heart will be also; and that where the Master is, there the servants who follow in His steps will be also at last.

And now there is the third aspect here of

III. The Ascension as being the pledge of the return.

The two men in white apparel that stood by gently rebuked the gazers for gazing into heaven. They would not have rebuked them for gazing, if they could have seen Him, but to look into the empty heaven was useless. And they added the reason why the heavens need not be looked at, as long as there is the earth to stand on: ‘For this same Jesus whom ye have seen go into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go.’ Note the emphatic declaration of identity; ‘this same Jesus.’ Note the use of the simple human name; ‘this same Jesus,’ and recall the thoughts that cluster round it, of the ascended humanity, and the perpetual humanity of the ascended Lord, ‘the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever,’ Note also the strong assertion, of visible, corporeal return: ‘Shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go.’ That return is no metaphor, no mere piece of rhetoric, it is not to be eviscerated of its contents by being taken as a synonym for the diffusion of His influence all over a regenerated race, but it points to the return of the Man Jesus locally, corporeally, visibly. ‘We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge’; we believe that Thou wilt come to take Thy servants home.

The world has not seen the last of Jesus Christ. Such an Ascension, after such a life, cannot be the end of Him. ‘As it is appointed unto all men once to die, and after death the Judgment, so Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear the second time, without sin unto salvation.’ As inevitably as for sinful human nature judgment follows death, so inevitably for the sinless Man, who is the sacrifice for the world’s sins, His judicial return will follow His atoning work, and He will come again, having received the Kingdom, to take account of His servants, and to perfect their possession of the salvation which by His Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, He wrought for the world.

Therefore, brethren, one sweet face, and one great fact-the face of the Christ, the fact of the Cross-should fill the past. One sweet face, one great fact-the face of the Christ, the fact of His Presence with us all the days-should fill the present. One regal face, one great hope, should fill the future; the face of the King that sitteth upon the throne, the hope that He will come again, and ‘so we shall be ever with the Lord.’

END OF VOL. II.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

THE ASCENSION

Luk 24:50-53. “And He led them out even unto Bethany, and lifting up His hands, He blessed them. And it came to pass, while He was blessing them, He departed from them, and was borne up into heaven.” His eleventh and last appearing was in Jerusalem, where He began His ministry and sealed it with His blood. You see that His ascension took place during His final benediction, while, with uplifted hands, pronouncing blessings on them, they saw Him rise up from the earth, ascending perpendicularly toward the apex of the blue dome of the firmament, eventually passing into a cloud of unutterable whiteness and splendor, and thus disappeared from their vision.

“And saying these things, they gazing on Him, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him from their eyes. And while they were gazing up into heaven, He ascending, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who truly said, Ye Galilean men, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? The same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come, in the manner in which you saw Him going into heaven.” (Act 1:9-12.)

These angels are called men by way of accommodation to human senses, because they had the form of men, though invested in apparel whiter than the snow and brighter than the light. Their testimony is unmistakable, assuring the disciples that the very same Jesus is coming back, and in the same manner that the glorified Man Jesus ascended. So rest assured the very same glorified human body will come back. He went up amid clouds of unutterable splendor, whiteness, beauty, grandeur, sublimity, and glory, accompanied by the angels. So, rest assured, He will return amid the clouds of His glory, accompanied by mighty hosts of angels. If you are not expecting the very same glorified Man Jesus who went up to come back, get on your knees, and ask God to forgive your unbelief, and give you grace to believe His precious Word; not because it suits your creed or your opinion, but for the simple reason that it is the Word of God, by which you are saved, sanctified, and will be judged in the last day.

“Then they returned into Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, having a Sabbath-day’s journey.” Luk 24:52 : “And they, worshipping Him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were constantly in the temple, praising and blessing God.” On the summit of Mount Olivet there is a church-edifice claiming to occupy the spot from which He ascended. There is also a stone tower, two hundred feet high, erected for the accommodation of pilgrims who desire to follow their Lord in His upward flight as far as possible. During both of my tours, I climbed it to its pinnacle.

You see in the above Scriptures that He led them out to Bethany, which is on the southeastern slope of Mount Olivet, and nearly a mile from the summit. However, a spur of the mountain runs down that way, jutting out over the village. The town was much larger in the days of Christ than now, and doubtless a portion of it was built on that mountain spur. Following the inspired history, stating that He led them to Bethany and ascended from Mount Olivet, I believe the above mentioned spur, hanging over the present village, to be the spot whence He ascended, rather than the summit of the mountain, which is pointed out to pilgrims as the place where the feet of our Lord last rested upon the earth. As Mount Olivet extends down to the bottom of the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which is very near the city — i. e., under the wall — the statement, “A Sabbath-day’s journey,” favors the conclusion of the more remote site of the ascension; i. e., at Bethany, which is one and seven-eighths miles, and just about the distance recognized as admissible for a Jew to travel on the Sabbath without desecrating it.

As to the statement of the disciples being “constantly in the temple, praising and blessing God,” you must remember that the Holy Campus, containing thirty-five acres of ground, with many great and valuable buildings besides the temple proper, and a vast open area for the congregating multitudes of Israel, was all designated “the temple.” Every Jew enjoyed free access to these holy grounds and many of the buildings, while the temple proper was used only by the priests.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

24:50-53 Luke also narrates Jesus’ ascension in Acts 1:1-11. For Luke, Jesus’ ascension confirmed his vindication, exaltation, and enthronement at God’s right hand as Messiah and Lord (Acts 2:24-36). From his position of glory and authority in heaven, Jesus guides and directs his church.

24:50 Bethany: See study note on 19:29; see also Acts 1:11-12; cp. Zech 14:4.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 24:50. [Ἐξήγαγεν δὲ, and He led them forth) Mark and Luke make express mention of the Ascension in its own proper place; John (ch. Joh 20:17), as also Matthew (ch. Mat 28:18; Mat 28:20), only in passing. He who believes the Resurrection of Christ, must, as a consequence, believe all things that follow upon it. Therefore the Gospel History strictly reaches in its extent up to the Resurrection: Act 1:22 (“Beginning from the baptism of John unto that same day that He was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection”); Rom 10:9 [“If thou—shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved”].—Harm., p. 613.]—ἔξω, out) to that place, where He suffered. [A remarkable place was the Mount of Olives, Act 1:12, and Bethany especially so, in respect of all those things which are recorded in Joh 11:1, et seqq. (as to the raising of Lazarus), Luk 12:1, et seqq. (the anointing at Bethany); Luk 19:29, et seqq. (the royal entry into Jerusalem from Bethany); Mat 21:17 (His lodging at Bethany during Passion week), Luk 24:3 (His prophecy on the Mount of Olives as to the end of Jerusalem and of the world): Luk 22:39 (His agony in Gethsemane, which is at the side of Olivet). Comp. Zec 14:4.[275]—Harm., p. 612.]—εἰς) towards.—ἑπᾴρας, having lifted up) The gesture of one in the act of praying or pronouncing a blessing. He did not now any more lay on them His hands. Comp. Joh 20:22, note. [After His resurrection He did not touch mortals, although He allowed Himself to be handled by His disciples. “He breathed on them.”]—εὐλόγησεν, He blessed, them) This benediction appertains to all believers; for the Eleven, and those who were with them, were at the time the representatives of these.

[275] “His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives.” From which it appears the same mount is to be the scene of His return, as of His Ascension. Comp. Act 1:11.—E. and T.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_24:50. Ἐξήγαγε κ.τ.λ.] namely, from Jerusalem (Luk_24:33; Luk_24:49), and that after the scene just related (Luk_24:36-49). Observe in respect of this(1) that this ἐξήγ. κ.τ.λ. does not agree with Act_10:40-41, because Jesus had openly showed Himself. (2) The immediate linking on by δέ, and therein the absence of any other specification of time, excludes (compare also the similar circumstance in Mar_16:19-20) decisively the forty days, and makes the ascension appear as if it had occurred on the day of the resurrection. Comp.Zeller, Apostelgesch. p. 77 f.; Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 463. The usual naive assumption is nothing else than an arbitrary attempt at harmonizing: οὐ τότ ἀλλʼ ἐν τῇ τεσσαρακοστῇ ἡμέρᾳ μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν· τὰ γὰρ ἐν τῷ μέσῳ παρέδραμεν ὁ εὐαγγελιστής, Euthymius Zigabenus. Comp. Theophylact, Kuinoel, Ebrard, and many others, including Gebhardt, Auferst. Chr. p. 51 f. Luke himself could neither wish to leave the reader to guess this, nor could the reader guess it. That Luke also in other places goes on with δέ without any definite connection (in discourses: Luk_16:1, Luk_17:1, Luk_18:1, Luk_20:41; in events: Luk_20:27; Luk_20:41; Luk_20:45, Luk_21:1; de Wette, comp. Ebrard) in such an extension as this (according to de Wette, he forgot in Luk_24:50 to specify the late date), is an entirely erroneous supposition. There remains nothing else than the exegetic resultthat a twofold tradition had grown upto wit(1) that Jesus, even on the day of the resurrection, ascended into heaven (Mark 16, Luke in the Gospel); and (2) that after His resurrection He abode still for a series of days (according to the Acts of the Apostles, forty days) upon the earth (Matthew, John). Luke in the Gospel followed the former tradition, but in the Acts the latter. Hence we may infer in regard to the latter account, either that he did not learn it until after the compiling of his Gospel, or, which is more probable, that he adopted it as the correct account. As to the variation in the traditions regarding the locality of the appearances of the risen Lord, see on Mat_28:10.

ἔξω] with verbs compounded with ἐκ; see Lobeck, ad Aj. p. 334, ad Phryn. p. 10; Bornemann, Schol. p. 166.

ἕως εἰς Βηθ.] as far as to Bethany, not necessarily into the village itself, but (comp. Mat_21:1) as far as to the part of the Mount of Olives where it enters into Bethany. Comp. Act_1:12.

ἐπάρας τ. χεῖρας] the gesture of blessing, Lev_9:22.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 24:50-53 . Farewell ! ( cf. Mar 16:19-20 , Act 1:9-12 ).

Luk 24:50 . ἐξήγαγε : does this imply that Jesus walked through the streets of Jerusalem towards Bethany visible to all? Assuming that it does, some ( e.g. , Holtz. in H. C.) find here a contradiction of the statement in Act 10:41 that Jesus was manifested after His resurrection only to chosen witnesses. ἕξω : the best MSS. leave this out, and it seems superfluous after ἐξήγ .; but such repetitions of the preposition are by no means uncommon in Greek (examples in Bornemann). ἕως πρὸς ( εἰς T.R.): this reading adopted by the revisers they render: “until they were over against,” which brings the indication of place into harmony with that in Act 1:12 . Possibly harmonistic considerations influenced transcription, leading, e.g. , to the adoption of πρὸς instead of εἰς (in [208] [209] [210] , etc.). Bethany lay on the eastern slope of Olivet, about a mile beyond the summit.

[208] Codex Alexandrinus of the fifth century, a chief representative of the “Syrian” text, that is, the revised text formed by judicious eclectic use of all existing texts, and meant to be the authoritative New Testament.

[209] Codex Ephraemi

[210] cod. Monacensis. 9th or 10th century (fragments of all the Gospels).

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6. The Ascension: Luk 24:50-53.

The resurrection restored humanity in that one of its members who, by His holy life and expiatory death, conquered our two enemies—the law which condemned us because of sin, and death, which overtook us because of the condemnation of the law (1Co 15:56). As this humanity is restored in the person of Christ by the fact of His resurrection, the ascension raises it to its full height; it realizes its destination, which from the beginning was to serve as a free instrument for the operations of the infinite God.

Vers. 50-53. The Ascension.

Luke alone, in his Gospel and in the Acts, has given us a detailed view of the scene which is indicated by Paul, 1Co 15:7, and assumed throughout the whole N. T. Interpreters like Meyer think themselves obliged to limit the ascension of Jesus to a purely spiritual elevation, and to admit no external visible fact in which this elevation was manifested. Luke’s account was the production of a later tradition. We shall examine this hypothesis at the close.

The meaning of the ἐξήγαγε δέ, then He led them, is simply this: “All these instructions finished, He led them...” This expression says absolutely nothing as to the time when the event took place.

The term συναλιζόμενος, having assembled, Act 1:4, proves that Jesus had specially convoked the apostles in order to take leave of them. — ῞Εως εἰς (T. R.), and still more decidedly ἕως πρός (Alex.), signifies, not as far as, but to about, in the direction and even to the neighbourhood of...There is thus no contradiction to Act 1:12. Like the high priest when, coming forth from the temple, he blessed the people, Jesus comes forth from the invisible world once more, before altogether shutting Himself up within it, and gives His own a last benediction. Then, in the act of performing this deed of love, He is withdrawn to a distance from them towards the top of the mountain, and His visible presence vanishes from their eyes. The words καὶ ἀνεφέρετο εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν are omitted in the Sinaït., the Cantab., and some copies of the Itala. Could this phrase be the gloss of a copyist? But a gloss would probably have been borrowed from the narrative of the Acts, and that book presents no analogous expression. Might not this omission rather be, like so many others, the result of negligence, perhaps of confounding the two καί? We can hardly believe that Luke would have said so curtly, He was parted from them, without adding how. The imperfect ἀνεφέρετο, He was carried up, forms a picture. It reminds us of the θεωρεῖν, behold, Joh 6:62. The Cantab. and some MSS. of the Itala omit (Luk 24:52) the word προσκυνήσαντες, having worshipped Him, perhaps in consequence of confounding αὐταί and αὐτόν. The verb προσκυνεῖν, to prostrate oneself, in this context, can mean only the adoration which is paid to a divine being (Psa 2:12).

The joy of the disciples caused by this elevation of their Master, which is the pledge of the victory of His cause, fulfilled the word of Jesus: “If ye loved me, ye would rejoice because I go to my Father” (Joh 14:28). The point to be determined is, whether the more detailed account in Acts (the cloud, the two glorified men who appear) is an amplification of the scene due to the pen of Luke, or whether the account in the Gospel was only a sketch which he proposed to complete at the beginning of his second treatise, of which this scene was to form the starting-point. If our explanation of Luk 24:44-49 is well founded, we cannot but incline to the second view. And the more we recognise up to this point in Luke an author who writes conscientiously and from conviction, the more shall we feel obliged to reject the first alternative.

The numerous omissions, Luk 24:52-53, in the Cantab. and some MSS. of the Itala cannot well be explained, except by the haste which the copyists seem to have made as they approached the end of their work. Or should the preference be given, as Tischendorf gives it, to this abridged text, contrary to all the other authorities together? D a b, which read αἰνοῦντες without καὶ εὐλογοῦντες; א. B. C. L., which read εὐλογοῦντες without αἰνοῦντες καί, mutually condemn one another, and so confirm the received reading, praising and blessing God. Perhaps the omission in both cases arises from confounding the two —ντες. Αἰνεῖν, to praise, refers to the person of God; εὐλογεῖν, to bless, to His benefits. The disciples do here what was done at the beginning by the shepherds (Luk 2:20). But what a way traversed, what a series of glorious benefits between those two acts of homage! The last words, these in particular: “They were continually in the temple,” form the transition to the book of Acts.

On the Ascension.

At first the apostles regarded the ascension as only the last of those numerous disappearances which they had witnessed during the forty days (ἄφαντος ἐγένετο, Luk 24:31). Jesus regarded it as the elevation of His person, in the character of Son of man, to that μορφὴ Θεοῦ (Php 2:6), that divine state which He had renounced when He came under the conditions of human existence. Having reached the term of His earthly career, He had asked back His glory (Joh 17:5); the ascension was the answer to His prayer.

Modern criticism objects to the reality of the ascension as an external fact, on the ground of the Copernican system, which excludes the belief that heaven is a particular place situated above our heads and beyond the stars. Those who raise this objection labour under a very gross misunderstanding. According to the Biblical view, the ascension is not the exchange of one place for another; it is a change of state, and this change is precisely the emancipation from all confinement within the limits of space, exaltation to omnipresence. The cloud was, as it were, the veil which covered this transformation. The right hand of a God everywhere present cannot designate a particular place. Sitting at the right hand of God must also include omniscience, which is closely bound up with omnipresence, as well as omnipotence, of which the right hand of God is the natural symbol. The Apocalypse expresses in its figurative language the true meaning of the ascension, when it represents the glorified Son of man as the Lamb with seven horns (omnipotence) and seven eyes (omniscience). This divine mode of being does not exclude bodily existence in the case of Jesus. Comp., in Paul, the σωματικῶς, bodily, Col 2:9, and the expression spiritual body applied to the second Adam, 1Co 15:44. We cannot, from experience, form an idea of this glorified bodily existence. But it may be conceived as a power of appearing sensibly and of external activity, operating at the pleasure of the will alone, and at every point of space.

Another objection is taken from the omission of this scene in the other Biblical documents.

But, 1. Paul expressly mentions an appearance to all the apostles, 1Co 15:7. Placed at the close of the whole series of previous appearances (among them that to the 500), and immediately before that which decided his own conversion, this appearance can only be the one at the ascension as related by Luke. This fact is decisive; for, according to Luk 24:3; Luk 24:11, it is the παράδοσις, the general tradition of the churches, proceeding from the apostles, which Paul sums up in this passage.

2. However Mark’s mutilated conclusion may be explained, the words: “So then, after the Lord had thus spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God,” suppose some sensible fact or other, which served as a basis for such expressions. The same holds of the innumerable declarations of the epistles (Paul, Peter, Hebrews, James), which speak of the heavenly glory of Jesus, and of His sitting at the right hand of God. Doctrines, with the apostles, are never more than the commentary on facts. Such expressions must have a historical substratum.

3. No doubt, John does not relate the ascension. But can it be said that he does not mention it, when this saying occurs in his Gospel (Higb6:62): “What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?” The term θεωρεῖν, strictly to contemplate, and the pres. partic. ἀναβαίνοντα, ascending, forbid us to think of an event of a purely spiritual nature (comp. Bäumlein, ad. h. l.). Why, then, does he not relate the historical scene of the ascension? Because, as his starting-point was taken after the baptism, which on this account he does not relate, his conclusion is placed before the ascension, which for this reason he leaves unrelated. The idea of his book was the development of faith in the minds of the apostles from its birth to its consummation. Now their faith was born with the visit of John and Andrew, chap. 1, after the baptism; and it had received the seal of perfection in the profession of Thomas, chap. 20, before the ascension. That the evangelist did not think of relating all the appearances which he knew, is proved positively by that on the shores of the Lake of Gennesaret, which is related after the close of the book (Luk 20:30-31), and in an appendix (chap. 21) composed either by the author himself (at least as far as Luk 24:23) or based on a tradition emanating from him. He was therefore aware of this appearance, and he had not mentioned it in his Gospel, like Luke, who could not be ignorant of the appearance to the 500, and who has not mentioned it either in his Gospel or in Acts. What reserve should such facts impose on criticism, however little gifted with caution!

4. And the following must be very peculiarly borne in mind in judging of Matthew’s narrative. It is no doubt strange to find this evangelist relating (besides the appearance to the women, which is intended merely to prepare for that following by the message which is given them) only a single appearance, that which took place on the mountain of Galilee, where Jesus had appointed His disciples, as well as the women and all the faithful, to meet Him, and where He gives the Eleven their commission. This appearance cannot be any of those which Luke and John place in Judaea. It comes nearer by its locality to that which, according to John 21, took place in Galilee; but it cannot be identified with it, for the scene of the latter was the sea-shore. As we have seen, it can only be the appearance to the 500 mentioned by Paul. The meeting on a mountain is in perfect keeping with so numerous an assembly, though Matthew mentions none but the Eleven, because the grand aim is that mission of world-wide evangelization which Jesus gives them that day. Matthew’s intention was not, as we have already seen, to mention all the different appearances, either in Judaea or Galilee, by which Jesus had re-awakened the personal faith of the apostles, and concluded His earthly connection with them. His narrative had exclusively in view that solemn appearance in which Jesus declared Himself the Lord of the universe, the sovereign of the nations, and had given the apostles their mission to conquer for Him the ends of the earth. So true is it that his narrative must terminate in this supreme fact, that Jesus announced it before His death (Mat 26:32), and that, immediately after the resurrection, the angel and Jesus Himself spoke of it to the women (Mat 28:7-10). Indeed, this scene was, in the view of the author of the first Gospel, the real goal of the theocratic revelation, the climax of the ancient covenant. If the day of the ascension was the most important in respect of the personal development of Jesus (Luke), the day of His appearance on the mountain showed the accomplishment of the Messianic programme sketched Luk 1:1: “Jesus, the Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” It was the decisive day for the establishment of the kingdom of God, which is Matthew’s great thought. Criticism is on a false tack when it assumes that every evangelist has said all that he could have said. With oral tradition spread and received in the Church, the gospel historiography did not require to observe such an anxious gait as is supposed. It was not greatly concerned to relate an appearance more or less. The essential thing was to affirm the resurrection itself. The contrast between the detailed official enumeration of Paul, 1 Corinthians 15, and each of our four Gospels, proves this to a demonstration. Especially does it seem to us thoroughly illogical to doubt the fact of the ascension, as Meyer does, because of Matthew’s silence, and not to extend this doubt to all the appearances in Judaea, about which he is equally silent.

The following passage from the letter of Barnabas has sometimes been used in evidence: “We celebrate with joy that eighth day on which Jesus rose from the dead and, after having manifested Himself, ascended to heaven.” The author, it is said, like Luke, places the ascension and the resurrection on the same day. But it may be that in this expression he puts them, not on the same day taken absolutely, but on the same day of the week, the eighth, Sunday (which no doubt would involve an error as to the ascension). Or, indeed, this saying may signify, according to Joh 20:17, which in that case it would reproduce, that the ascending of Jesus to heaven began with the resurrection, and on that very day. In reality, from that time He was no more with His own, as He Himself says (Luk 24:44). He belonged to a higher sphere of existence. He only manifested Himself here below. He no longer lived here. He was ascending, to use His own expression. According to this view, His resurrection and the beginning of His elevation (καὶ-καὶ) therefore took place the same day. The expression: after having manifested Himself, would refer to the appearances which took place on the resurrection day, and after which He entered into the celestial sphere.

In any case, the resurrection once admitted as a real fact, the question is, how Jesus left the earth. By stealth, without saying a word? One fine day, without any warning whatever, He ceased to re-appear? Is this mode of acting compatible with His tender love for His own? Or, indeed, according to M. de Bunsen, His body, exhausted by the last effort which His resurrection had cost Him (Jesus, according to this writer, was the author of this event by the energy of His will), succumbed in a missionary journey to Phenicia, where He went to seek believers among the Gentiles (Joh 10:17-18; comp. with Luk 24:16); and having died there unknown, Jesus was likewise buried! But in this case, His body raised from the dead must have differed in no respect from the body which He had had during His life. And how are we to explain all the accounts, from which it appears that, between His resurrection and ascension, His body was already under peculiar conditions, and in course of glorification?

The reality of such a fact as that related by Luke in his account of the ascension is therefore indubitable, both from the special standpoint of faith in the resurrection, and from the standpoint of faith in general. The ascension is a postulate of faith.

The ascension perfects in the person of the Son of man God’s design in regard to humanity. To make of sanctified believers a family of children of God, perfectly like that only Son who is the prototype of the whole race,—such is God’s plan, His eternal πρόθεσις (Rom 8:28-29), with a view to which He created the universe. As the plant is the unconscious agent of the life of nature, man was intended to become the free and intelligent organ of the holy life of the personal God. Now, to realize this plan, God thought good (εὐδόκησε) to accomplish it first in ONE; Eph 2:6: “He hath raised us up IN CHRIST, and made us sit IN HIM in the heavenly places;” Luk 1:10: “According to the purpose which He had to gather together all things under ONE head, Christ;” Heb 2:10: “Wishing to bring many sons to glory, He perfected THE CAPTAIN OF SALVATION.” Such was, according to the divine plan, the first act of salvation. The second was to unite to this ONE individual believers, and thus to make them partakers of the divine state to which the Son of man had been raised (Rom 8:29). This assimilation of the faithful to His Son God accomplished by means of two things, which are the necessary complement of the facts of the Gospel history: Pentecost, whereby the Lord’s moral being becomes that of the believer; and the Parousia, whereby the external condition of the sanctified believer is raised to the same elevation as that of our glorified Lord. First holiness, then glory, for the body as for the head: the baptism of Jesus, which becomes ours by Pentecost; the ascension of Jesus, which becomes ours by the Parousia.

Thus it is that each Gospel, and not only that which we have just been explaining, has the Acts for its second volume, and for its third the Apocalypse.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Christ ascendeth into heaven, and departing bodily from his disciples, filleth their hearts with the holy Ghost.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

This evangelist omits the solemn meeting between Christ and his disciples in Galilee; but what he said to them there, and at other interviews, he subjoins to what he said to them at the first visit he made them on the evening of the day he rose; and has now nothing more to account for but his ascension into heaven, of which we have a very brief narrative in these verses, in which we are told,

I. How solemnly Christ took leave of his disciples. Christ's design being to reconcile heaven and earth, and to continue a days-man between them, it was necessary that he should lay his hands on them both, and, in order thereunto, that he should pass and repass. He had business to do in both worlds, and accordingly came from heaven to earth in his incarnation, to despatch his business here, and, having finished this, he returned to heaven, to reside there, and negotiate our affairs with the Father. Observe, 1. Whence he ascended: from Bethany, near Jerusalem, adjoining to the mount of Olives. There he had done eminent services for his Father's glory, and there he entered upon his glory. There was the garden in which his sufferings began, there he was in his agony; and Bethany signifies the house of sorrow. Those that would go to heaven must ascend thither from the house of sufferings and sorrow, must go by agonies to their joys. The mount of Olives was pitched upon long since to be the place of Christ's ascension: His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, Zac 14:4. And here it was that awhile ago he began his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, Luk 19:29. 2. Who were the witnesses of his ascension: He led out his disciples to see him. Probably, it was very early in the morning that he ascended, before people were stirring; for he never showed himself openly to all the people after his resurrection, but only to chosen witnesses. The disciples did not see him rise out of the grace, because his resurrection was capable of being proved by their seeing him alive afterwards; but they saw him ascend into heaven, because they could not otherwise have an ocular demonstration of his ascension. They were led out on purpose to see him ascend, had their eye upon him when he ascended, and were not looking another way. 3. What was the farewell he gave them: He lifted up his hands, and blessed them. He did not go away in displeasure, but in love; he left a blessing behind him; he lifted up his hands, as the high priest did when he blessed the people; see Lev 9:22. He blessed as one having authority, commanded the blessing which he had purchased; he blessed them as Jacob blessed his sons. The apostles were now as the representatives of the twelve tribes, so that in blessing them he blessed all his spiritual Israel, and put his Father's name upon them. He blessed them as Jacob blessed his sons, and Moses the tribes, at parting, to show that, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. 4. How he left them: While he was blessing them, he was parted from them; not as if he were taken away before he had said all he had to say, but to intimate that his being parted from them did not put an end to his blessing them, for the intercession which he went to heaven to make for all his is a continuation of the blessing. He began to bless them on earth, but he went to heaven to go on with it. Christ was now sending his apostles to preach his gospel to the world, and he gives them his blessing, not for themselves only, but to be conferred in his name upon all that should believe on him through their word; for in him all the families of the earth were to be blessed. 5. How his ascension is described. (1.) He was parted from them, was taken from their head, as Elijah from Elisha's. Note, The dearest friends must part. Those that love us, and pray for us, and instruct us, must be parted form us. The bodily presence of Christ himself was not to be expected always in this world; those that knew him after the flesh must now henceforth know him so no more. (2.) He was carried up into heaven; not by force, but by his own act and deed. As he arose, so he ascended, by his own power, yet attended by angels. There needed no chariot of fire, nor horses of fire; he knew the way, and, being the Lord from heaven, could go back himself. He ascended in a cloud, as the angel in the smoke of Manoah's sacrifice, Jdg 13:20.

II. How cheerfully his disciples continued their attendance on him, and on God through him, even now that he was parted from them. 1. They paid their homage to him at his going away, to signify that though he was going into a far country, yet they would continue his loyal subjects, that they were willing to have him reign over them: They worshipped him. Luk 24:52. Note, Christ expects adoration from those that receive blessings from him. He blessed them, in token of gratitude for which they worshipped him. This fresh display of Christ's glory drew from them fresh acknowledgments and adorations of it. They knew that though he was parted form them, yet he could, and did, take notice of their adorations of him; the cloud that received him out of their sight did not put them or their services out of his sight. 2. They returned to Jerusalem with great joy. There they were ordered to continue till the Spirit should be poured out upon them, and thither they went accordingly, though it was into the mouth of danger. Thither they went, and there they staid with great joy. This was a wonderful change, and an effect of the opening of their understandings. When Christ told them that he must leave them sorrow filled their hearts; yet now that they see him go they are filled with joy, being convinced at length that it was expedient for them and for the church that he should go away, to send the Comforter. Note, The glory of Christ is the joy, the exceeding joy, of all true believers, even while they are here in this world; much more will it be so when they go to the new Jerusalem, and find him there in his glory. 3. They abounded in acts of devotion while they were in expectation of the promise of the Father, Luk 24:53. (1.) They attended the temple-service at the hours of prayer. God had not as yet quite forsaken it, and therefore they did not. They were continually in the temple, as their Master was when he was at Jerusalem. The Lord loves the gates of Zion, and so should we. Some think that they had their place of meeting, as disciples, in some of the chambers of the temple which belonged to some Levite that was well affected to them; but others think it is not likely that this either could be concealed fRom. or would be connived at by, the chief priests and rulers of the temple. (2.) Temple-sacrifices, they knew, were superseded by Christ's sacrifice, but the temple-songs they joined in. Note, While we are waiting for God's promises we must go forth to meet them with our praises. Praising and blessing God is work that is never out of season: and nothing better prepares the mind for the receiving of the Holy Ghost than holy joy and praise. Fears are silenced, sorrows sweetened and allayed, and hopes kept up.

The amen that concludes seems to be added by the church and every believer to the reading of the gospel, signifying an assent to the truths of the gospel, and a hearty concurrence with all the disciples of Christ in praising and blessing God. Amen. Let him be continually praised and blessed.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

to Bethany--not to the village itself, but on the "descent" to it from Mount Olivet.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 50. He led them out as far as to Bethany] The difficulties in this verse, when collated with the accounts given by the other evangelists, are thus reconciled by Dr. Lightfoot.

"I. This very evangelist (Ac 1:12) tells us, that when the disciples came back from the place where our Lord had ascended, they returned from mount Olivet, distant from Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey. But now the town of Bethany was about fifteen furlongs from Jerusalem, Joh 11:18, and that is double a Sabbath day's journey.

"II. Josephus tells us that mount Olivet was but five furlongs from the city, and a Sabbath day's journey was seven furlongs and a half. Antiq. lib. 20, cap. 6. About that time there came to Jerusalem a certain Egyptian, pretending himself a prophet, and persuading the people that they should go out with him to the mount of Olives, Ὁ και της πολεως αντικρυς κειμενον, απεχει σταδια πεντε; which, being situated on the front of the city, is distant five furlongs. These things are all true:

1. That the mount of Olives lay but five furlongs distant from Jerusalem.

2. That the town of Bethany was fifteen furlongs.

3. That the disciples were brought by Christ as far as Bethany.

4. That, when they returned from the mount of Olives, they travelled more than five furlongs. And,

5. Returning from Bethany, they travelled but a Sabbath day's journey.

All which may be easily reconciled, if we would observe: - That the first space from the city was called Bethphage, which I have cleared elsewhere from Talmudic authors, the evangelists themselves also confirming it. That part of that mount was known by that name to the length of about a Sabbath day's journey, till it came to that part which is called Bethany. For there was a Bethany, a tract of the mount, and the town of Bethany. The town was distant from the city about fifteen furlongs, i.e. about two miles, or a double Sabbath day's journey: but the first border of this tract (which also bore the name of Bethany) was distant but one mile, or a single Sabbath day's journey.

"Our Saviour led out his disciples, when he was about to ascend, to the very first region or tract of mount Olivet, which was called Bethany, and was distant from the city a Sabbath day's journey. And so far from the city itself did that tract extend itself which was called Bethphage; and when he was come to that place where the bounds of Bethphage and Bethany met and touched one another, he then ascended; in that very place where he got upon the ass when he rode into Jerusalem, Mr 11:1. Whereas, therefore, Josephus saith that mount Olivet was but five furlongs from the city, he means the first brink and border of it. But our evangelist must be understood of the place where Christ ascended, where the name of Olivet began, as it was distinguished from Bethphage."

Between the appearance of Christ to his apostles, mentioned in Lu 24:36, c., almost all the forty days had passed, before he led them out to Bethany. They went by his order into Galilee, Mt 26:32; Mt 28:10; Mr 14:28; Mr 16:7; and there he appeared to them, as is mentioned by Matthew, Mt 28:16, &c., and more particularly by John, Joh 21:1, &c. See Bishop PEARCE.

Lifted up his hands] Probably to lay them on their heads, for this was the ordinary way in which the paternal blessing was conveyed, See Ge 48:8-20.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(50) And he led them out as far as to Bethany.—It must be admitted that this narrative, taken by itself, would leave the impression that the Ascension followed with not more than a day’s interval on the Resurrection. We must remember, however, that even the coincidences between the close of St. Luke’s first book and the beginning of his second, show that he was already looking forward to resuming his work, and that the interval of forty days is distinctly recognised in Act_1:3, though there also, as here, there is no mention of any return to Galilee in the interval. Is it a conceivable solution of the problem that the devout women, who were St. Luke’s informants, remained at Jerusalem in almost entire seclusion, and hardly knew of what had passed outside the walls of their house from the day of the Resurrection onwards to that of the Ascension? To them, as to others who look back upon periods in which intense sorrow and intense joy have followed one on the other, all may have seemed, when they looked back upon it in after years, as a dream, the memory of which was in one sense, as to its outcome, indelible, but in which the sequence of details could no longer be traced with clearness. If we may distinguish between two words often used as synonymous, it was with them, not recollection, but memory. On the brief narrative that follows, see Notes on Act_1:9-11.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

50-53. The Ascension.

50. he led them out] Not of course at the conclusion of the last scene, but at the end of the forty days, Act_1:3.

as far as to Bethany] Rather, as far as towards Bethany (pros, א, B, C, D, &c.). The traditional scene of the Ascension is the central summit of the Mount of Olives (Jebel et-Tur); but it is far more probable that it took place in one of the secluded uplands which lie about the village. See a beautiful passage in Dean Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine, ch. 3.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

50 And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.

Ver. 50. As far as to Bethany] Where his three dear friends dwelt, Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. From hence he went to his cross, and from hence he would go to his crown.

He lift up his hands] As a good householder; or rather as the high priest of the New Testament: benedixit, id est, valedixit, he blessed them, and so bade them farewell.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

To Bethany - See the notes at Mar 16:19. Bethany was on the eastern declivity of the Mount of Olives, from which our Lord was taken up to heaven, Act 1:12. Bethany was a favored place. It was the abode of Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus, and our Saviour delighted to be there. From this place, also, he ascended to his Father and our Father, and to his God and our God.

While he blessed them - While he commanded his benediction to rest upon them; while he assured them of his favor, and commended them to the protection and guidance of God, in the dangers, trials, and conflicts which they were to meet in a sinful and miserable world.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

This must be understood to have happened forty days after our Saviour’s resurrection, for so Luke himself tells us, Act 1:3.

And he led them out as far as Bethany; not the village Bethany, but that part of the mount of Olives which belonged to Bethany. Our Saviour had been often there praying; from thence he now ascendeth into heaven.

And he lifted up his hands and blessed them: some think that by blessing here is meant praying, and the lifting up of his hands was accommodated to that religious action. Others think that blessing here signifieth a more authoritative act; and that his lifting up of his hands was a stretching out of his hands, as a sign of that effectual blessing of them.

While he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven; that is, he moved upward as if he had been carried, for it is certain that our Saviour ascended by his own power. Luke saith, Act 1:9, He was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. As Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind, 2Ki 2:11, so Christ went up in a cloud; but with this difference, Christ ascended by his own power, Elijah could not without the help of an angel.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vers. 50-53. THE ASCENSION. In considering the questions which suggest themselves in connection with the ascension of our blessed Lord, we are met on the threshold with the fact that only St. Luke, in his Gospel in this place, and in the Acts (Ac 1), has given us a detailed account of the scene. But the fact is referred to plainly by St. John (Joh_3:13 Joh 6:62 Joh_20:17) and by St. Paul. (Eph_4:9, 10 1Ti_3:16) A vast number of passages besides, in the Epistles of SS. Paul, Peter, and James, and in the Revelation of St. John, presuppose the Ascension, when they describe the heavenly glory of Jesus and of his session at the right hand of God.

St. John"s triple mention of the Ascension (see above) is exactly in accordance with his constant practice in his Gospel; he avoids rewriting a formal narrative of things which, when he wrote, were well known i, the Churches; yet he alludes to these things in clear and unmistakable language, and draws from them his lessons and conclusions.

Notably this is the ease in the Fourth Gospel with regard to the sacraments. "It contains," says Dr. Westcott, "no formal narrative of the institution of sacraments, and yet it presents most fully the idea of sacraments.

Neander writes with great force on this apparent omission of the Ascension: "We make the same remark upon the ascension of Christ as was before made upon his miraculous conception. In regard to neither is prominence given to the special and actual fact in the apostolic writings; in regard to both, such a fact is presupposed in the general conviction of the apostles, and in the connection of Christian consciousness. Thus the end of Christ"s appearance on earth corresponds with its beginning. Christianity rests upon supernatural facts stands or falls with them. By faith in them has the Divine life been generated from the beginning. Were this faith gone, there might indeed remain many of the effects of what Christianity has been; but as for Christianity in the true sense, as for a Christian Church, there could be none.

And he led them out as far as to Bethany; more accurately, and he led them out until they were over against Bethany. The scene of the Ascension could scarcely have been the central summit of the Mount of Olives ( Jebel-el-Tur), according to ancient tradition; but it is more likely that it took place on one of the remoter uplands which lie above the village. "On the wild uplands which immediately overhang the village, he finally withdrew from the eyes of his disciples, in a seclusion which, perhaps, could nowhere else be found so near the stir of a mighty city; the long ridge of Olivet screening those hills, and those hills the village beneath them, from all sound or sight of the city behind; the view opening only on the wide waste of desert-rocks and ever-descending valleys, into the depths of the distant Jordan and its mysterious lake" (Dean Stanley, "Sinai and Palestine," ch. 3). He lifted up his hands, and blessed them. In Act_1:4 we read how Jesus, having assembled (sunalizomenov) the apostles, gave them some last commands before he left them. It is not expressly stated that only the eleven were present on this occasion." When he had finished speaking, "he lifted up his hands, and blessed them." There is now no laying on of hands. "Jam non imposuit manus," comments Bengel. Those hands, as they were lifted up, were already separated from them, the space between the Risen and those he was blessing grew greater every moment.

Vers. 50-53. The farewell and the Ascension.

Once more the old relation is resumed. The Shepherd of Israel goes before his little flock. They see him, as in the former time, at their head. The well-known route is taken, the well-known place is reached. And the crowning memory of Bethany is imprinted on their hearts. It is the scene of the last adieu, of the Ascension (ver. 50). In the earlier history of Israel (2Ki 2) there was a day when the sons of the prophets, referring to Elijah, said to Elisha, "Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day?" And his answer was, "Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace." There were no sons of prophets thus speaking to the eleven. But whispers, no doubt, in their hearts raised shadows of some coming event. Something like the old amazement and fear (Mar_10:32) would be felt as, in silence, they followed their Leader. He is to be taken from their head; but better far than the mantle thrown on Elisha from the vanishing prophet is to be their portion. Observe Christ as he is revealed in the concluding verses of the Gospel; observe those whom he is to leave behind.

I OBSERVE CHRIST AS HE IS HERE REVEALED. See:

1. The action of the Lord towards them. "He lifted up his hands" (ver. 50). Before he suffered he had lifted up his eyes to heaven, and the voice of intercession had been raised for them (John 17). As the high-priestly prayer closed, the voice had passed from the tones of earnest but humble pleading into those of the Sovereign expressing his will: "I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am." Now the Priest, about to ascend to his throne, extends those hands in which is the print of the nails. It is the first time in which we are introduced to this attitude in the Gospels. The uplifted hands are the sign of the accepted sacrifice ever potent to cleanse. They are the sign of the righteousness ever ample to clothe. They are the sign of the protection ever sufficient to overshadow his Church. The uplifted hands constituted the last recollection of the Christ whom the disciples had seen; they mark the abiding truth of the Christ whom the eye sees not. And, as the hands are lifted, the lips are opened to bless. What were the words of the blessing? Perhaps the benediction (Num_4:24) which the sons of Aaron were commanded to pronounce was included in it. But who can measure all that it comprehended all the wealth of grace and truth with which it was charged? Let us say rather, with which it is charged for the Church until the end of the age. "Lo, I am with you alway, blessing and keeping, my face shining on you, my will gracious to you, the light of my countenance lifted on you, my peace possessing you.

2. The ascending Lord. "While blessing" (ver. 51). While the accents of his tenderness are flowing over the soul, lo! he moves from the soil on which he and his have bees standing. Upward, ever upward, he is borne; they gaze in wonder as the form in which they have beheld him is sublimated and passes whither their adoring vision can no longer follow. The apostle who was "born out of due time" completes, as far as thought of mortal can, the account of the evangelist, (Eph_1:20-23) when he describes the ascent "far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come;" all things put under the feet of the glorified Man, "Head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." He is "parted from them;" but only to be more nearly and entirely with them; only to bear with him the humanity through which Highest God is in touch with the whole life of man; only that, in the unchangeable Priesthood, he may ever live to make intercession; only to make good the word as to the promise of the Father. When ten more days have passed, the gates which had opened that the King of glory might enter, shall open again, and the Paraclete, Christ"s other self, shall descend from the heaven into which he has gone, to fill the little company with his presence. And in that day they shall know that he is in the Father, and they in him, and he in them.

II OBSERVE THE DISCIPLES.

1. The new worship. They had followed him, and had called him Master. His appearances during the forty days had prepared them for something higher still. Now, in deepest reverence, they kneel before the Lord. Thomas learns the whole reality of his answer, "My Lord and my God." Mary learns that which is higher and holier than the touch with which, on the resurrection-morning, she had sought to detain him. John learns the word which afterwards he wrote," This is the true God, and the Eternal Life." Peter learns that which moves him to interpret the consciousness of faith, "Whom having not seen ye love." Then first sounds the music which burst forth, in later years, in the sublimest hymn of the Church: "We praise thee, O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord Thou art the King of glory, O Christ." And this worship is the true life of the Church. It is the outcome of the faith in the Resurrection. "Christ died, yea rather, is risen again, and is even at the right hand of God, making intercession for us. " Wanting this, there may be such an apostrophe as that with which Renan concludes his "Life of Jesus;" but worship full and adoring there cannot be. It is this worship which is the spring of all energy, the pledge of all victory, the bend of union between heaven and earth. "Salvation to our God who sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

2. The new joy. "They returned to Jerusalem" (ver. 25). But what a difference! They had left it dispirited, weighed down by many thoughts. Now "they come again rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them." "Parted from them!" Might they not feel as sheep without a Shepherd? Nay; for they know that their Shepherd is with them. Their hope had been sealed and confirmed, and they are flushed with "a great joy." Should not this joy thrill the Church? Enthusiasm is essential to its vitality. To be strong, it must be sanguine, triumphant. Times of worshipful faith are always times of great joy. "We triumph in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we received the reconciliation.

3. The new life. "They were continually in the temple" (ver. 53). But the temple had a new meaning to them. Rite and offering, house of prayer and songs of praise, were all clothed with a new character. It was their Father"s house, and he had given a new song to their lips. Continually are they "praising and blessing God." This is the life; for they are sitting in the heavenly places, and partaking of the heavenly things. "Day by day we magnify thee." Beautiful as the first days of summer is this picture of the waiting Church. Would that the impression of this life of praise and blessing were more evident in the Church, witnessing, working, and still waiting. May the Church be "found unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ"!

The Ascension.

Many thoughts offer themselves to us as we think upon this last scene.

I THE FITNESS OF THE PLACE WHENCE JESUS ASCENDED. Not, indeed, that Jerusalem could claim to be worthy of such an honour Jerusalem that had but lately dyed its hands in the blood of its Messiah. But as the ancient dwelling-place of God, as the seat and source of heavenly truth, as the metropolis of religion upon the earth, as the place that furnishes the name and type of the city of our hope, as the joyous gathering-place of the good, it was well that, from without its walls, he whose presence makes the home and the joy and the glory of his people should pass to his throne. For from that moment "Jerusalem" meant another thing to mankind, Christ took up its meaning as he rose. All the associations of love and hope, of grandeur and gladness, which had belonged to the earthly are transferred to the heavenly city, where he dwells in glory, where he reigns in power. There is a transference, not formal but actual, of the centre and metropolis of religious thought from the Jerusalem below to the Jerusalem above.

II THE NATURE OF THE LAST SCENE. "They climb the hillside; they cross its summit; they are approaching Bethany. He stops; they gather round. He looks upon them; he lifts his hands; he begins to bless them. What love unutterable in that parting look! What untold riches in that blessing! His hands are uplifted, his lips engaged in blessing, when slowly he begins to rise. Earth has lost her power to keep him; the waiting up-drawing heavens claim him as their own. He rises, but still, as he floats upward through the yielding air, his eyes are bent on those uplooking men; his arms are stretched over them in the attitude of benediction, his voice is heard dying away in blessings as he ascends. Awe-struck, in silence they follow him with straining eyes as his body lessens to sight, till the commissioned cloud enfolds, cuts off all further vision, and closes the earthly and sensible communion between Jesus and his disciples" (Dr. Hanna).

III THE RECEPTION THE SAVIOUR HAD IN HEAVEN. There have been "triumphant entries" in this little world of ours, and in the history of our human race, the pouring forth in loud acclaim of the pride and joy of many thousands of hearts. But to what a vanishing point do they sink when placed by the side of this entry of the conquering Saviour into heaven!

Though unable to form any conception that can approach the glorious reality, yet we may well love to linger in imagination over that blessed scene. His struggle over, his sorrows borne, his temptations met and mastered, his work finished, his great battle fought and his victory won, the victorious Lord passes through all the ranks of the angelic host, amid their reverent worship and adoring acclamations, to his throne of power and glory. "Look, ye saints I the sight is glorious: See the Man of sorrows now From the fight returned victorious; Every knee to him shall bow.

IV THE EFFECT IMMEDIATELY PRODUCED ON THE MINDS OF THE DISCIPLES. Blank dismay, inconsolable sorrow, should we think? So thinking, we should be wrong. They "returned to Jerusalem with great joy." Yet their Master was gone from them to return no more till that uncertain and distant day of which the angels spoke. (Act_1:11) How do we account for this? The explanation is found here they were now perfectly assured of the Divine mission of Jesus Christ. His death had cast a dark shadow of doubt and dread over their hearts. His resurrection had revived their confidence and their hope. But this final manifestation, this "sign in the heavens," this act of being taken up, like Elijah, into heaven, swept away the last fragment of doubt that may have been left behind; they were now absolutely sure, without any reserve or qualification whatever, that the Master they had loved and served was indeed their true Messiah, the Sent of God, worthy of their deepest veneration and their strongest attachment; so they "worshipped him" reverently, and went back to Jerusalem with the joy of faith and love filling their souls. There is no misery so unendurable as doubt, and there is no blessedness so sweet as rest of heart after spiritual disquietude.

V ITS PERMANENT EFFECT ON THE APOSTLES" MINDS. This was unreservedly good. It was "expedient for them that he should go away." His bodily absence changed the complexion of their dependence upon him. It had been that of childhood; it was now to be that of manhood. With him by their side, as he had been, they would not have become the "men in him" they did become after he left them. The deeper and fuller knowledge of him they gained by his departure led to an enlargement of faith and to a deepening of love, and also to that fulness of attachment and consecration we recognize and rejoice in during their later life. They came

to know him and love him and serve him as the Divine Saviour of mankind, and this made them worthier men and truer servants of their Lord. All earthly ambitions respecting the right and left hand of the throne were transformed into a noble consecration to the invisible Lord.

VI ITS PRICELESS VALUE TO OURSELVES.

1. Christ is accessible to us all. Had he lived and reigned at Jerusalem, or some other sacred metropolis, he would only have been accessible to those who dwelt or journeyed there. But now he is "with us all." For heaven is everywhere; the throne of grace is within the reach of the faintest whisper that comes from every burdened heart, from every seeking soul, wheresoever it may be breathed. A living faith can now realize the constant nearness of its living Lord; it has not to take even a sabbath day"s journey to find itself in his presence and to make known its request.

2. He is seated on the throne of power. To him who has passed into the heavens we can realize that "all power is given". (Mat_28:18) We can well believe that our Master in heaven can do for us what we ask of him; that his arm is one of glorious might; that his hand has plenteousness of bounty and of blessing. And in all our time of need we can go to him, with holy confidence, to ask of him the help, the guidance, the blessing, we require.

3. He has all rightful authority. If he still dwelt on earth, we might be dubious of this; but to the heavenly Saviour we unanimously and cordially ascribe all headship; to him we yield our willing and unquestioning obedience; and we rejoice to believe that he is ruling and governing the affairs of his Church, and reigning in the interests of the whole human race; that it is his hand that is at the helm, and that will safely guide the tempest-ridden vessel to the harbour.

4. He is our constant and ever-living Lord. With all that is earthly we associate change and death; with the heavenly we connect the thought of continuance and life. Of our heavenly Lord we can think, and we delight to think, that whoever changes he is evermore the same, "yesterday, and today, and for ever;" that while human ministers "are not suffered to continue by reason of death," he hath "an unchangeable priesthood," and is able to save evermore ("to the uttermost") all those "that come unto God by him." And as we look forward to the future, and realize our own mortality, we cherish the joyous thought that, if we do but "abide in him" until the evening shadows gather and "life"s long day" passes into the darkness of death, we shall, in heaven"s eternal morning, open our eyes to see the "King in his beauty," to "behold his glory," and shall "sit down with him on his throne," sharing for ever his own and his saints" everlasting rest. C.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He led them out as far as Bethany - Not the town, but the district: to the Mount of Olives, Acts i, 12, which stood within the boundaries of Bethany.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

as far as

until they were opposite Bethany.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The ascension:

v. 50. And He led them out as far as to Bethany. And He lifted up His hands and blessed them.

v. 51. And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.

v. 52. And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy;

v. 53. and were continually in the Temple, praising and blessing God. Amen. Luke here, in concluding his gospel, summarizes, giving a brief account of the ascension which took place forty days later.

On that day the Lord, having assembled His disciples for the last time, led them out to Mount Olivet, until they were over against, in plain view of, Bethany. The place of the ascension was probably near the summit of the mount, on the southeastern slope. Here, for the last time in visible form, the Lord lifted up His hands over His disciples to bless them. But while He was still in the act of blessing them, He was separated from them, slowly rising up into the air before their astonished gaze. Thus He ascended to heaven. But the disciples did not grieve on account of the removal of His visible presence from their midst. Having worshiped Him as their Lord and God, they returned to Jerusalem full of joy, the joy of men convinced that their Lord was truly risen from the dead and had been taken up into glory. And therefore they were continually, so long as the Temple was open for worshipers, in some part of that great building, probably in some of the halls, praising and blessing God for all the manifestations of His mercy and love which they had experienced, and knowing that great events were impending in connection with the promise of the Spirit. Thus the believers in Christ, by placing their trust in the promises of their Master, are able at all times to have hearts filled with a joy that surpasses the understanding of the children of this world. The visible presence of the Lord is removed, but He is still present with them that are His with His good gifts in the Word and with His Spirit, Mat 18:20; Mat 28:20.

Summary.The resurrection of Jesus, testified to by the open grave and by the word of angels, is not believed by the apostles, but Jesus appears to the Emmaus disciples and then to the eleven apostles, convincing them of His having risen from the dead, commissioning them to be His ministers for the preaching of the Gospel, and finally ascending before them from the Mount of Olives.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CXLIV. The Ascension].

CXLIV. THE ASCENSION. (Olivet, between Jerusalem and Bethany.) bMARK XVI. 19, 20; cLUKE XXIV. 50-53; eACTS I. 9-12.

b19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken unto them, e9 And when he had said these things, che led them out until they were over against Bethany: and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. 51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he parted from them [it is significant that our Lord's gesture, when last seen of men, was one of blessing], and eas they were looking, he was taken ccarried breceived cup into heaven. aand a cloud received him out of their sight. band [he] sat down at the right hand of God. c52 And they worshipped him, e10 And while they were looking stedfastly into heaven as he went, behold, two men [angels in human form] stood by them in white apparel; 11 who also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? this Jesus, who was received up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven. [Thus the angels add their testimony to the sureness of our Lord's promise that he will return.] 12 Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, cwith great joy; 53 and were continually in the temple, blessing God. b20 And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen.

[FFG 766]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

50–53. He led them out … over against Bethany. For other accounts of the Ascension, see Mark 16:19, 20 and Acts 1:1–9. Blessed them. The last act of the Savior upon the earth was a blessing.

Returned … great joy. Their Lord not only lived, but had ascended to his throne.

Were continually in the temple. Worshiping and teaching. See Acts2:46. Verse 53 is a link between Luke's Gospel and his Acts of the Apostles.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Jesus led them out

"Jesus led the disciples outside the city"

He lifted up his hands

This was the action that priests performed when they blessed the people. (See: Symbolic Action)

It happened

"It came about." This introduces a new event in the story. (See: Introduction of a New Event)

while he was blessing them

"while Jesus was asking God to do good to them"

was carried

Since Luke does not specify who carried Jesus up, we do not know if it was God himself or one or more angels. If your language would have to specify who did the carrying, it would be better to use "went" instead, as the UDB does. (See: Active or Passive)

translationWords

Bethany

bless

heaven

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

50–53. THE ASCENSION

50. ἐξήγαγεν. Not of course at the conclusion of the last scene, but at the end of the forty days, Act 1:3.

ἕως πρός. ‘As far as towards Bethany’ (πρός, אBCD, &c.), i.e. “over against,” R.V[422] The traditional scene of the Ascension is the central summit of the Mount of Olives (Jebel et-Tur); but it is far more probable that it took place in one of the secluded uplands which lie about the village. See a beautiful passage in Dean Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine, ch. 3.

[422] R.V. Revised Version.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

50.] The Ascension appears to be related as taking place after the above words were spoken—but there is an uncertainty and want of specification about the narrative, which forbids us to conclude that it is intended as following immediately upon them. This however can only be said as taking the other Gospels and Act_1 into account:—if we had none but the Gospel of Luke we should certainly say that the Lord ascended after the appearance to the Apostles and others on the evening of the day of His resurrection.

ἐξήγ. [ἔξω], i.e. probably, after the words ἐν τῇ πόλει just occurring, outside Jerusalem, as in ref. Mark: but the ἔξω might only apply to the house in which they were, see the other reff., and Mat 26:75.

ἕως πρὸς Β.] Not quite to the village itself, but over the brow of the Mount of Olives where it descends on Bethany: see Act 1:12. (The synonymousness of these two expressions may shew that the same is meant, when, Mar 11:11, our Lord is said to have gone out at night to Bethany, and, Luk 21:37, to the Mount of Olives.)

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

50-53. The Ascension and the Conclusion of the Gospel. It is not improbable that, at the time when he wrote his Gospel, Lk. did not know the exact amount of interval between the Resurrection and the Ascension. That was a piece of information which he may easily have gained between the publication of the Gospel and of the Acts. And while he does not state either here or ver. 44 that there was any interval at all, still less does he say that there was none: there is no ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ (ver. 13). Being without knowledge, or not considering the matter of importance, he says nothing about the interval. But it is incredible that he can mean that, late at night (vv. 24:29, 33), Jesus led them out to Bethany, and ascended in the dark. So remarkable a feature would hardly have escaped mention. Probably δέ both here and in ver. 44 introduces a new occasion.

50. ἕως πρὸς Βηθανίαν. It is doubtful whether this can mean “until they were over against Bethany.” Field regards πρός after ἕως as a mere expletive and compares καὶ ἀφίκετο ἕως πρὸς ἄνθρωπόν τινα Ὀδολλαμίτην (Gen 38:1). In LXX ἕως εἰς is common, and many texts (A C3 X Γ Δ Λ Π) substitute ἕως εἰς here for ἕως πρός (א B C* L). D has πρός without ἕως. The ἔξω after αὐτούς (A C3 D X etc.) is omitted by א B C* L 33, a c Boh. Syr. Arm.

The well-known passage in the Epistle of Barnabas (15:9) is probably only a clumsily expressed explanation for keeping Sunday as a day of joy; viz. because Jesus on that day rose from the dead, and (not to die again, as Lazarus and others,—on the contrary) manifested Himself and ascended into heaven. Διὸ καὶ ἄγομεν τὴν ἡμέραν τὴν ὀγδόην εἰς εὐφροσύνην, ἐν ᾗ καὶ ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀνέστη ἐκ νεκρῶν, καὶ φανερωθεὶς ἀνέβη ρἰς οὐρανούς. Grammatically ἐν ᾗ belongs to ἀνέβη as well as to ἀνέστη, and with Hefele we must admit the possibility that Barnabas believed that the Ascension took place on Sunday. But Funk is tight in saying that ἐν ᾗ is perhaps not intended to go beyond ἀνέστη ἐκ νεκρῶν. Dressel’s expedient however, of putting a full stop at ἐκ νεκρῶν, is rather violent. Harmer does not place even a comma between the clauses.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.