Only two books of the Bible describe Jesus’ ascent into heaven (Luke 24:51, Acts 1:9). Like the disciples, we are all too aware that because Jesus left in this way, he is no longer present here on earth in the way that he was before. It is natural to long for the days before he ascended, when they could see him in the flesh, but the fact is that he has gone and he is not here on earth in the flesh.
Since he is gone from earth, does it matter where he went to? Or did he simply disappear and cease to be? It seems to me that the New Testament says both too much and too little about where Jesus is now. The Letter to the Hebrews is an extended answer to the meaning of Jesus’ ascent but this ‘brief’ (Heb 13.22) letter is so long and so rich that we can easily miss the wood for the trees, namely that Jesus the man is in heaven, at the heart of the real tabernacle. On the other hand, the many other references to Jesus seated in heaven are so brief that it can feel difficult to put the pieces together to form a coherent whole. But when we step back to see the whole picture in its New Testament context, a wonderful sight meets the eyes of our heart. (And the good news is that it can be done in a short book!).
The Ascension of Christ is a truth to be enjoyed in our personal and corporate Christian life through worship, including Anglican worship. The Ascension is present enough in the New Testament to be expounded from passages in context, as I try to show in the later sections of the book.
It is far better for us that Jesus has ascended into heaven and I hope that by the end of the book you will not only rejoice at Christ’s ascension but also be equipped to show why that is so.
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