Ascension of Jesus

“ It was therefore at the time of the ascension that Jesus entered “into his glory.” Then it was that his body was transformed, made deathless, “spiritual,” celestial, immortal; and then he again began to share the divine glory which he had with the Father “before the world was.” The ascension, therefore, is a pledge and type of the glory which yet awaits his followers. It is an assurance that he yet will fulfill his promises and will again appear; emerging from the sphere of the unseen he will be manifested to all mankind as both the ideal Man and as the Saviour of the world. ”

“ If one evangelist testifies that the ascension took place from the Mount of Olives, and another is equally sure that it was from Bethany, about three miles from the former place, it is evident that only one of them can be correct, if Jesus ascended at all. The only good reason for more than one inspired account of Jesus' life is that given by a great pillar of the early church, namely, there had to be as many Gospels as there were corners to the earth, or winds of heaven. ”

“ The Kingdom was coming—had to come at last—“on earth as it is in heaven”; and one day, just as his disciples saw him passing away out of their experience and sight, would they see him coming back into their experience and their sight, and into his perfected Kingdom of Humanity.
Now, I am sure that what people in modern times chiefly want to know about the Ascension is whether it really happened. Did Jesus in his physical body go up like a balloon before the eyes of the faithful, and disappear behind a cloud, or did he not? That is the plain issue, and Dr. Gore seems to avoid it. ”

“ It is right when the Bridegroom is taken away, a phrase which certainly does not cover all this space between the Ascension and the Second Advent, since Jesus still reveals Himself to His own though not unto the world, and is with His Church all the days. Scripture has no countenance for the notion that we lost by the Ascension in privilege or joy. ”

“ Matthew and John, both of whom are declared to have been apostles, and the only Evangelists who are supposed to have witnessed the ascension, know nothing of it. The last twelve verses of Mark, it is admitted, are spurious; while the words, “carried up into heaven,” of Luke do not appear in the Sinaitic version, the oldest version of the New Testament extant. With this forged appendix to Mark and this interpolated passage in Luke eliminated, the Four Gospels contain no mention of the ascension.
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Had any man ever ascended to heaven before Jesus? ”

“ The earth being still the place of imperfection and sin the scene of death and judgment the Church is to be taken out of it. We shall meet Him in the air. When Christ descends the Church ascends. The earth's atmosphere is about two hundred miles in height room enough for the Church to meet Christ in it. I suppose the rapture of the Church will resemble somewhat the ascension of Jesus after His resurrection. ”

“ Matthew and John do not speak of this ascension. If we leave it to them, we must say, that Jesus is still on earth according to the first of these evangelists, his last words to his disciples gave them to understand, that he would "remain with them until the end of the world." To fix our ideas on this subject, Luke tells us, as we have seen, that Jesus ascended into heaven the very evening of the day of the resurrection. But he afterwards informs us, that Jesus tarried forty days after his resurrection with his disciples. Faith only can extricate us from this embarrassment. ”

“ Worshipfully and with great joy the apostles returned to Jerusalem, there to await the coming of the Comforter. The Lord's ascension was accomplished; it was as truly a literal departure of a material Being as His resurrection had been an actual return of His spirit to His own corporeal body, theretofore dead. With the world abode and yet abides the glorious promise, that Jesus the Christ, the same Being who ascended from Olivet in His immortalized body of flesh and bones, shall return, descending from the heavens, in similarly material form and substance. ”

“ They are as difficult to us who keep the festival of the Ascension every year—who say every day, 'I believe that Jesus ascended on high'—as they were to those who heard them first. Nay, unless we seize strongly the first words of this Gospel—unless we believe that the 'Word was with God, and was God,' and that Jesus was the 'Word made flesh'—I believe they may be often more difficult ”

“ But after ten days from the ascension, which from the first Lord’s day is the fiftieth day, do ye keep a great festival: for on that day, at the third hour, the Lord Jesus sent on us the gift of the Holy Ghost, and we were filled with His energy, and we “spake with new tongues, as that Spirit did suggest to us;” [75] and we preached both to Jews and Gentiles, that He is the Christ of God, who is “determined by Him to be the Judge of quick and dead.” ”

“ By our Lord’s Ascension I understand, that Jesus Christ, after having completed the Mystery of our Redemption, ascended, as Man, with Body and Soul into Heaven, where he had been all along as God, being present in all Places by his Deity ”

“ We have now read the narrative of Luke concerning Christ's ascension; we will now turn our consideration to the other evangelist Mark, who said in the present day's gospel, that Jesus appeared to his apostles, and chid them, because they would not at first believe his resurrection from death, when it was announced to them. Then said the Lord to his disciples, "Go over all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature: he who believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he who believeth not shall be damned. ”

“ In the Gospel story we find five great points of special importance; the birth, the life on earth, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension. In these we have what an old writer has called "the process of Jesus Christ;" the process by which He became what He is to-day—our glorified King, and our life. In all this life process we must be made like unto Him. ”

“ From henceforth 'ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.' So, then, the fleeting vision was a transient revelation of a permanent reality, and a faint foreshadowing of the true communication between heaven and earth. Jesus Christ is the ladder between God and man. On Him all divine gifts descend; by Him all the angels of human devotion, consecration, and aspiration go up. This flat earth is not so far from the topmost heaven as sense thinks. ”

“ In the place of Jupiter, we bring you a revelation of the God and Father of Christ Jesus our Lord—creator of the universe, who will call all men into judgment at last, rewarding or punishing according to what they have done. Through Jesus, we preach also a resurrection from the dead. We show, by arguments which cannot be refuted, that this Jesus, when he had been crucified and slain, and had lain three days in the tomb, was called again to life, and taken up to Heaven, as an example of what should afterwards happen to all his followers. ”

“ He looked upon the enthusiastic but mistaken throng who in Galilee would force upon Jesus an unwelcome crown; then upon the multitudes who hailed him with hosannas on Olivet; then the maddened crowd who shouted through the streets of Jerusalem, "Crucify Him." He witnessed Christ's movements when the multitudes gathered about Him for instruction and healing, and when he withdrew from them to pray. His eyes were dazzled by the brightness of the transfiguration as he looked upon the form which at last was enshrouded in darkness on Calvary. With another vision he beheld that form in Heaven itself. ”

“ How far then shall we push our babbling ignorance and blasphemy, professing to explain what is hidden in the mystery of God? He that descended is the same also that ascended. Can we longer doubt that the Man Christ Jesus rose from the dead, ascended above the heavens and is at the right hand of God? We cannot say His body descended into Hades, which lay in the grave. ”

“ A new view of the heavens has quietly come, for the earth's axis has changed its place. Similarly, it is the work of the spirit of the ascended Jesus to advance the axis of the Church of God from glory to glory. ”

“ Walk while you have this light so that the oncoming darkness and confusion may not overtake you. He who walks in the darkness knows not where he goes; but if you will choose to walk in the light, you shall all indeed become liberated sons of God. And now, all of you, come with me while we go back to the temple and I speak farewell words to the chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, and the benighted rulers of Israel."
Having thus spoken, Jesus led the way over the narrow streets of Jerusalem back to the temple. ”

“ But furthermore, if I believed Jesus to be the Son of God when mine eyes were opened to discern him after his resurrection, much more do I believe it now; because all the years as they pass by, yea, and all the seventy nations of the earth, are as so many angels of God, which do cry aloud with a clear voice and say, "Jesus of Nazareth is our King; Jesus of Nazareth, though he be in heaven, is ruling on earth." For whithersoever I look throughout the Empire, I behold the love of Christ beginning already to rule over the tribes of the earth, though as yet it be in small beginnings. ”

“ And what was the transfiguration on the holy hill but the same? Jesus had been speaking to the disciples of His death, and encouraging them (as He would us, beloved) not to love their lives in this world, when, soon after, six or eight days, as we read, the holy hill shines suddenly with the light of resurrection or millennial regions. And what was all that visitation of glory, but the grapes of Eshcol brought from Canaan to the camp of God in the desert; or as the return of the dove to Noah, with the olive-leaf in her mouth? ”

“ Our regeneration is indeed an image of it, but the glorification of Jesus infinitely transcended our regeneration; for we never ascend into oneness with the Divine that dwells in our Inmost, or Holy of Holies, whereas Jesus ascended into the bosom of the Father, and, as "sitting on the right hand of the Father," exercises all Divine power—is, in other words, the one and only Divine. He who has "all power in heaven and earth" is the only God of heaven and earth. ”

“ 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 would seem that Christ did not ascend above all the heavens, for it is written (Ps. 10:5) : "The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven." But what is in heaven is not above heaven. Therefore Christ did not ascend above all the heavens. ”

“ Some tore off branches of palms, and stood by the way and waved them in front of Jesus; others took off each his talith and threw it down in front of the young ass on which Jesus rode, as if to pave the way into the Holy City with choice linen. But when I looked upon the face of Jesus, there were no signs there of the coming triumph; he sat with his head bent forward, his eyes downcast, and his face all sad. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such as we are, however, we will not delay, but will feel about the words of life which have been spoken to us and strive to lay hold of that power in them which flows to him who touches them in faith. Now Jesus is the word of God which goes into the soul that is called Jerusalem, riding on the ass freed by the disciples from its bonds. ”

“ Such is the great vision in these Hebrew pages of the plan for the coming One. There is a throne on a high mountain peak bathed in wondrous sublime glory, but the writers are puzzled at a dark valley of the shadow of death through which the king seems to be obliged to pick His way up to the throne.
Jesus is to be God's new Man leading man back on the road into the divine image again, with full mastery of his masterly powers, and through mastery into full dominion again; but the road back seems to be contested, and the new Man gets badly scarred as He fights through and up to victory. ”

“ And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, "Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!"
And Jesus answering said unto him, "Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down."
And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, "Tell us, when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?" ”