And what does it have to do with us?
If asked to recount the main events of Jesus’ life, most will probably list His birth, death and resurrection. But what about His ascension?
Jesus’ ascension is probably easily overlooked because of how minimally the Scriptures directly mention it. A disputed longer ending of Mark includes it (Mark 16:19), but otherwise only Luke mentions it briefly in Luke 24:51 and Acts 1:9. Compared to Christ’s death and resurrection, ascension seems to get short shrift. Yet ascension is important theologically. Why?
First, the ascension marks the beginning of Jesus’ triumphal kingship. The Old Testament signals a descendent of King David would sit on an eternal throne. Isaiah says this person "will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever" (Isaiah 9:7).
The New Testament therefore associates Jesus’ ascension as the historical event when He returned to heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father, fulfilling Old Testament prophecy (Acts 2:25; Psalms 110:1).
Given how often the world seems to be spinning out of control, the ascension reminds us King Jesus is already sitting on the throne of God and governing the affairs of this world. Whenever tempted to despair we should remember Jesus is already on the throne.
Second, the ascension of Jesus signals He is now our great high priest. In 1 Timothy 2:5 we read, "There is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Jesus Christ." Note Paul insists it is not simply the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Son, who is the mediator, but the "man Jesus Christ." It is the historical Jesus Christ in His birth, death, resurrection and ascension who is our eternal high priest, mediating on our behalf before God the Father.
In his great City of God, Augustine argues Jesus alone can function as a mediator because He alone shares in both the divine and human natures. As the divine Son of God, only He can represent God to humans, but as the sinless Son of Man, only He can represent humans to God.
It’s because Jesus is now ascended to the Father that we have access to the heavenly throne (Hebrews 8:1) through the Holy Spirit given to us (Romans 8:26–27, 34). Jesus ascended ahead of us to represent our cause before God long ahead of our own appearance.
Finally, the ascension reveals Jesus will be our eternal heavenly host.
Over many years of teaching, I’ve regularly had people express surprise to learn that when Jesus ascended into heaven, He retained His human body and will retain it forever. As the two men dressed in white declare to the onlookers who witnessed Jesus’ ascension, "This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11b).
The astounding impact of Jesus’ perpetual humanity is hard to fathom and demands nothing short of our worship.
This is also confirmed by the writer of Hebrews who declares, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). Yes, that means the bodily Jesus – who spoke, ate, had scars of crucifixion – will be the same Jesus who welcomes us into the great forever Kingdom of God at His second coming. As Jesus told His disciples, "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also" (John 14:3 NKJV).
The fact Jesus ascends – and will return – in human flesh speaks to the truth that when the second person of the Trinity took on a human body ("for our sake and for our salvation," as the Nicene Creed puts it), He freely chose to do this for the rest of eternity!
The astounding impact of Jesus’ perpetual humanity is hard to fathom and demands nothing short of our worship. When Scripture tells us the eternal divine Son of God took on human flesh (John 1:14; Philippians 2:7), it means Jesus freely chose to unite Himself with our humanity, not just so that He could die and be resurrected for our sins, but to prepare to be our future personal heavenly host.
In this Jesus displays the mindboggling hospitality of God. God made us not to be mere minions of His will, but to be adopted sons and daughters of the Father through Jesus in our Holy-Spirit-raised bodies forever.
And so in this ascension season, we can joyfully sing words like these (from a Charles Wesley hymn), "Rejoice, the Lord is King! / Your Lord, and King adore!"
David Guretzki is the EFC’s president and CEO. Read more of these columns at FaithToday.ca/CrossConnections.