They saw Jesus go into heaven (1:9–12)

2.    They saw Jesus go into heaven (1:9–12)

9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes,
11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.

At least three questions form in our minds as we read this story of the ‘ascension’ of Jesus—literary, historical and theological. First, do not Luke’s two accounts of the ascension21 contradict each other? Secondly, did the ascension of Jesus literally happen? Thirdly, if it did, has it any permanent significance?

a.    Did Luke contradict himself?

It is certainly appropriate, as we have already seen, that Luke should conclude his first volume and introduce his second with the same event, the ascension of Jesus, since it was both the end of his earthly ministry and the prelude to his continuing ministry from heaven through the Spirit. It is antecedently improbable, however, that the same author, telling the same story, should contradict himself. Yet this is what some modern scholars assert. Ernst Haenchen writes, for example: ‘Two Ascensions—one on Easter Day (Lk. 24:51), the other forty days after (Acts 1:9)—are one too many.’22 But in fact there are no substantial discrepancies, and a harmonization of the two accounts is possible, without forcing the evidence.
    It is true that in his Gospel, Luke makes no mention of the forty days. But it is gratuitous to suggest that he must therefore have forgotten them, or that he thought that the resurrection and the ascension occurred on the same day. No, in the Gospel he is simply giving a condensed account of the resurrection appearances, without feeling the need to note their different times and circumstances. He is indubitably recording one ascension, not two.
    It is also true that each account includes details which the other omits, the Acts version being fuller than that in the Gospel. For [Acts, Page 46] example, at the end of the Gospel the ascending Christ raised his hands to bless them, and they worshipped him.23 Luke omits these actions at the beginning of his second volume, but adds there the cloud which hid him from their sight, and the appearance and message of ‘the two men dressed in white’, presumed to be angels. Yet these features of the story supplement, and do not contradict, each other.
    It is true, thirdly, that the Acts account seems to imply that Jesus ascended from the Mount of Olives (1:12), which is correctly said to be ‘a Sabbath day’s walk from the city’, namely (according to the Mishnah) 2,000 cubits or (NIV margin) about three-quarters of mile (about 1,100 metres)’, whereas the Gospel account says that Jesus ‘led them out to the vicinity of Bethany’,24 the village on the east slope of the mount, which is two or three miles further away from Jerusalem. Conzelmann declares that the latter ‘flatly contradicts the geographical reference in Acts 1:12’,25 and Haenchen assumes that Luke ‘did not possess any exact notion of the topography of Jerusalem.’.26 But Luke’s Gospel statement may well be intentionally vague. He does not say that Jesus ascended from Bethany, but only that he led the apostles in that direction, heoœs pros being quite properly rendered by NIV ‘to the vicinity of Bethany’.
    Having looked at what are said to be the three main discrepancies (regarding date, details and place), we may now note five points which the two accounts affirm in common. (i) Both say that the ascension of Jesus followed his commission to the apostles to be his witnesses. (ii) Both say that it took place outside and east of Jerusalem, somewhere on the Mount of Olives. (iii) Both say that Jesus ‘was taken up into heaven’, the passive voice indicating that the ascension like the resurrection was an act of the Father, who first raised him from the dead and then exalted him to heaven. As Chrysostom put it, ‘the royal chariot (was) sent for him’.27 (iv) Both say that the apostles ‘returned to Jerusalem’ afterwards, the Gospel adding ‘with great joy’. (v) And both say that they then waited for the Spirit to come, in accordance with the Lord’s plain command and promise. Thus the evident agreements are greater than the apparent disagreements. The latter are sufficiently explained by supposing that Luke used his editorial freedom in selecting different details from the account or accounts he had heard, without wishing to repeat himself word for word.

b.    Did the ascension really happen?

Many people nowadays, even within the church, deny the historicity [Acts, Page 47] of the ascension. Belief in a literal ascension would have been understandable in Luke’s day, they say, when people imagined heaven to be ‘up there’, so that Jesus had to be ‘taken up’ in order to get there. But that was a pre-scientific age; we have an altogether different cosmology. Must we not therefore ‘demythologize’ the ascension? Then we can retain the truth that Jesus ‘went to the Father’, while at the same time stripping it of its ‘primitive mythological clothing’ which depicts it as a kind of ‘lift-off’, followed by an ascent into the sky. Besides, Luke is the only Gospel-writer who tells the story of the ascension. The others omit it. In fact the New Testament authors in general hardly distinguish between the resurrection and the ascension; they seem to regard them as the same event, or perhaps two aspects of the same event. So Harnack could write that ‘the account of the Ascension is quite useless to the historian’.28 Even William Neil, who is usually quite conservative in his conclusions, tells his readers (without argument) that Luke, knowing that ‘theological truth can often be best conveyed by imaginative word-pictures’, is not to be interpreted literally. ‘It would be a grave misunderstanding of Luke’s mind and purpose to regard his account of the Ascension of Christ as other than symbolic and poetic.’29
    A number of sound reasons can be given, however, why we should reject this attempt to discredit the ascension as a literal, historical event.
    First, miracles do not need precedents to validate them. The classical argument of the eighteenth-century deists was that we can believe strange happenings outside our experience only if we can produce something analogous to them within our experience. This ‘principle of analogy’, if correct, would be enough in itself to disprove many of the biblical miracles, for we have no experience (for example) of somebody walking on water, multiplying loaves and fishes, rising from the dead or ascending into heaven. An ascension, in particular, would defy the law of gravity, which in our experience operates always and everywhere. The principle of analogy, however, has no relevance to the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, since both were sui generis. We are not claiming that people frequently (or even occasionally) rise from the dead and ascend into heaven, but that both events have happened once. The fact that we can produce no analogies before or since confirms their truth, rather than undermining it.
    Secondly, the ascension is everywhere assumed in the New Testament. Although Luke is the only evangelist who describes it (Mark 16:19 is not an authentic part of Mark’s Gospel, but a later addition [Acts, Page 48] to it), it is incorrect to say that it is otherwise unknown. John records the risen Jesus as telling Mary Magdalene to stop clinging to him because he has not yet ascended to the Father.30 Peter in his Pentecost sermon speaks of Jesus having been ‘exalted to the right hand of God’s as something different from and subsequent to his resurrection (Acts 2:31ff.), and he confirms it in his first letter.31 Paul frequently writes of the exaltation of Jesus to the supreme place of honour and power, and distinguishes it from his resurrection.32 And in the Epistle to the Hebrews the rising and the reigning of Jesus are not confused.33
    Thirdly, Luke tells the story of the ascension with simplicity and sobriety. All the extravagances associated with the Apocryphal Gospel are missing. There is no embroidery such as we find in legends. There is no evidence of poetry or symbolism. Even Haenchen admits this: ‘the story is unsentimental, almost uncannily austere.’34 It reads like history, and as if Luke intended us to accept it as history.
    Fourthly, Luke emphasizes the presence of eyewitnesses, and repeatedly refers to what they saw with their own eyes: ‘he was taken up before their very eyes, and a could hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going …’. The two angels then said to them, ‘Why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus … will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’ Five times in this extremely brief account it is stressed that the ascension took place visibly. Luke has not piled up these phrases for nothing. He has much to say in his two-volume work about the importance for the verification of the gospel of the apostolic eyewitnesses. And here he plainly includes the ascension of Jesus within the range of historical truths to which the eyewitnesses could (and did) testify. Indeed, when Judas is replaced, Peter will make John’s baptism and Jesus’ ascension the beginning and end of the public ministry to which the apostles must bear witness (1:22).
    Fifthly, no alternative explanation is available of the cessation of the resurrection appearances and of the final disappearance of Jesus from the earth. What happened to him, them, and why did his appearances stop? What was the origin of the tradition that they [Acts, Page 49] lasted for precisely forty days? In default of any other answer to these questions, we prefer the explanation for which there is evidence, namely that the forty-day period began with his resurrection and terminated with his ascension.
    Sixthly, the visible, historical ascension had a readily intelligible purpose. Jesus had no need to take a journey in space, and it is silly of some critics to ridicule his ascension by representing him as the first cosmonaut. No, in the transition from his earthly to his heavenly state, Jesus could perfectly well have vanished, as on other occasions, and ‘gone to the Father’ secretly and invisibly. The reason for a public and visible ascension is surely that he wanted them to know that he had gone for good. During the forty days he had kept appearing, disappearing and reappearing. But now this interim period was over. This time his departure was final. So they were not to wait around for his next resurrection appearance. Instead, they were to wait for somebody else, the Holy Spirit (1:4). For he would come only after Jesus had gone, and then they could get on with their mission in the power he would give them.
    At all events, the manner of his going (a visible ascension) had its desired effect. The apostles returned to Jerusalem and waited for the Spirit to come.

c.    What is the permanent value of the ascension story?

We have seen what the visible ascension did for the apostles; what can it do for us? If we were to give a thorough answer to this question, we would need to bring different strands of teaching together from all the New Testament authors, including the completed sacrifice and continuing intercession of our Great High Priest described in Hebrews, the glorification of the Son of man taught by John, the cosmic lordship emphasized by Paul and the final triumph when his enemies will become his footstool, foretold by Psalm 110:1, and endorsed by those who quote it. But it is not with these truths that Luke is concerned. In order to understand his primary interest as he tells the ascension story, we shall need to pay attention to those two men dressed in white (10) who stood beside them (the apostles) and spoke to them. Luke calls them ‘men’ because that is how they appeared, but their shining dress and authoritative tone indicate that they were angels. In his Gospel, Luke has recorded the ministry of angels at several crucial moments in his story. They announced and attended the birth of Jesus.35 According to some manuscripts an angel appeared in the garden of Gethsemane to strengthen him.36 And ‘two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning’, later identified as angels, proclaimed his [Acts, Page 50] resurrection to the women.37 So it was entirely appropriate that angels should now appear to interpret his ascension. They asked the apostles a searching question: Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky? (11a). The expression ‘into the sky’ or ‘into heaven’ (AV, RSV) occurs four times in verses 10 and 11; its repetition, especially in the angels’ implied reproof, emphasizes that the apostles were not to be sky-scanners. Two reasons are given.
    First, Jesus will come again. 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 (11b). The implication seems to be that they will not bring him back by gazing up into the sky. He has gone, and they must let him go; he will return in his own good time, and in the same way. To this angelic assurance of the Parousia we must attach full weight. But we must also be cautious in our interpretation of houtos (this same Jesus) and houtoœs (in the same way). We should not press these words into meaning that the Parousia will be like a film of the ascension played backwards, or that he will return to exactly the same spot on the Mount of Olives and will be wearing the same clothes. It is only by letting Scripture interpret Scripture that we shall discern the similarities and dissimilarities between the ascension and the Parousia. ‘This same Jesus’ certainly indicates that his coming will be personal, the Eternal Son still possessing his glorified human nature and body. And ‘in the same way’ indicates that his coming will also be visible and glorious. They had seen him go; they would see him come. Luke recorded Jesus as saying so himself: ‘they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.’38 The same cloud which had hidden him from their sight (1:9), which had previously enveloped him and the three intimate apostles on the Mount of Transfiguration,39 and which throughout the Old Testament was the symbol of Yahweh’s glorious presence, would be the chariot of his coming as it had been of his going.
    Yet there will also be important differences between his going and his coming. Although his coming will be personal, it will not be private like his ascension. Only the eleven apostles saw him go, but when he comes ‘every eye will see him’.40 Instead of returning alone (as when he went), millions of holy ones—both human and angelic—will form his retinue.41 And in place of a localized coming (‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’), it will be ‘like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other.’42
    Secondly, the angels implied, until Christ comes again, the apostles must get on with their witness, for that was their mandate. [Acts, Page 51] There was something fundamentally anomalous about their gazing up into the sky when they had been commissioned to go to the ends of the earth. It was the earth not the sky which was to be their preoccupation. Their calling was to be witnesses not stargazers. The vision they were to cultivate was not upwards in nostalgia to the heaven which had received Jesus, but outwards in compassion to a lost world which needed him. It is the same for us. Curiosity about heaven and its occupants, speculation about prophecy and its fulfilment, an obsession with ‘times and seasons’—these are aberrations which distract us from our God-given mission. Christ will come personally, visibly, gloriously. Of that we have been assured. Other details can wait. Meanwhile, we have work to do in the power of the Spirit.
    The remedy for unprofitable spiritual stargazing lies in a Christian theology of history, an understanding of the order of events in the divine programme. First, Jesus returned to heaven (Ascension). Secondly, the Holy Spirit came (Pentecost). Thirdly, the church goes out to witness (Mission). Fourthly, Jesus will come back (Parousia). Whenever we forget one of these events, or put them in the wrong sequence, confusion reigns. We need especially to remember that between the ascension and the Parousia, the disappearance and the reappearance of Jesus, there stretches a period of unknown length which is to be filled with the church’s world-wide, Spirit-empowered witness to him. We need to hear the implied message of the angels: ‘You have seen him go. You will see him come. But between that going and coming there must be another. The Spirit must come, and you must go—into the world for Christ.’
    Looking back, I think we may say that the apostles committed two opposite errors, which both had to be corrected. First, they were hoping for political power (the restoration of the kingdom to Israel). Secondly, they were gazing up into the sky (preoccupied with the heavenly Jesus). Both were false fantasies. The first is the error of the politicist, who dreams of establishing Utopia on earth. The second is the error of the pietist, who dreams only of heavenly bliss. The first vision is too earthy, and the second too heavenly. Is it fanciful to see a parallel here between Luke’s Gospel and the Acts? Just as at the beginning of the Gospel Jesus in the Judean desert turned away from false ends and means, so at the beginning of the Acts the apostles before Pentecost had to turn away from both a false activism and a false pietism. And in their place, as the remedy for them, there was (and is) witness to Jesus in the power of the Spirit, with all that this implies of earthly responsibility and heavenly enabling.