Why should we believe in the Ascension?
First, we have the witness of the New Testament documents. It’s mentioned or at least alluded to in Hebrews, Romans, Ephesians, 1Thessalonians, and 1Peter,1 all of which probably predate any gospel. It’s treated in an off-hand manner, as if it’s something everyone should already be aware of. And that makes sense: New believers are immediately going to want to meet Jesus. They’re going to have to be told, “Yeah, sorry ... he left.”
Then it is explicitly described in Luke 24 and Acts 1, so that disciples can know the certainty of the things they’ve been taught (Luke 1:4). Luke is regarded as a careful historian by those who actually know about such things,2 and he claims to have “carefully investigated” these matters. His account should not be dismissed lightly.
Second, if we did not have any NT mention of Christ’s ascension, we would need to invent something like it to explain several teachings of the apostles. The scriptures teach that Jesus was raised bodily from the dead and that he would never again die (eg, Rom 6:9, Heb 7:24). Yet it also teaches that we’re waiting for Jesus to “return” (eg, 1Thes 4:13-18, James 5:7-9). Return from where? If he’s immortal, what is he doing? Hiding in a cave playing solitaire? No, the apostles also taught that Christ is “seated at the right hand of the Father” (eg, Eph 1:20, Heb 10:12). That seems to require he not be on earth.
We need some kind of event to explain how they know he’s gone. During the 40 days he appeared after the resurrection, Christ came and went, surprising the disciples on several occasions if not at all of his appearances. How were they to know that this last disappearance was going to be long-term? Otherwise they might spend six months, even years, wondering if Jesus was going to reappear and say, “Oh, one more thing ....”
Finally, we should believe in the ascension because it’s a pretty tame story. If we were going to invent it, we probably would have come up with something more flashy. At the very least, he would have been taken up in a chariot of fire like Elijah. Perhaps he would have been carried off by a team of angels. Surely the disciples would have seen the heavens “open” to receive him. Instead, he rises gently from the ground, is obscured by a cloud, and is simply gone. The story is too boring to be fiction.
Does the Ascension require a “three-tier cosmology”?
At the time the Bible was written, the common view of the cosmos was a flat earth with the underworld beneath it and heaven above it. Now we know the earth is round, and “up” in Israel is a completely different direction from “up” in Australia. So does Christ going “up” to heaven require us to believe in their three-tier cosmology? No.
When Christ left the earth, he could have done it in any number of ways. He could have walked into a rip in the fabric of space-time. He could have disappeared in a burst of glory. He could have stepped through a wardrobe. But the way he left told the disciples — with their three-tiered cosmology — exactly what was happening without his having to say a word. He went “up” and was gone because he was going to heaven. He employed their cosmology, but that doesn’t require us to share it.
Why did Jesus leave?
Before his ascension, the disciples asked, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority” (Acts 1:6-7).
It was not time for the Kingdom to come in full. It was at least 2000 years too early. We pray that he will come soon, but it may be another 2000 years. What exactly was Jesus going to do on earth in that time? Sing campfire songs? No. Preach? That’s our job. We now are to go out, doing “greater things” than Christ did (John 14:12) in the power of the Holy Spirit, who can be with all of us at once, rather than being in just one place as Christ was.
No, while we carry the gospel to “Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8), Christ has another role to play. He reigns. The apostles taught that Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father because that is what he said would happen. After his resurrection, it was necessary for him to fulfill what he said, to prove that “all authority in heaven and on earth” was his (Matt 28:18, cf Dan 7:13-14).
What else? Christ’s ascension was necessary to show us that our physical bodies will be part of God’s new creation. Jesus is still human, and his human body went into heaven — no, we don’t know how that works, but we know it does. This tells us once and for all that flesh doesn’t have to be evil, and there will be a renewed material world.
One author has called Christ’s ascension “the capstone of everything he has done in his passion” because it was necessary for Christ to complete the atonement by entering the heavenly Holy of Holies with the blood of his sacrifice (Lev 16:11-15, Heb 9:11-14). I won’t try to reproduce his argument; I recommend you read it.
As is so common in these things, there were probably many reasons why Christ had to leave after his resurrection. But it is clear that leaving was always part of the plan, just as his coming, dying, and rising were. This is no ad hoc myth to explain his absence but an important part of Christian theology.
It was necessary that Christ leave, but he did not leave us as orphans. He has a job to do, but he will return to us, and in the meantime, he has left us his Spirit and work to do until he comes. Jesus’ death, resurrection, ascension, and return have all been prophesied. Three of the four have been fulfilled. Let us look for his coming and live lives that will honor him, lives that he will reward when he returns.
1 eg, Heb 9, Rom 8, Eph 1, 1Thes 1, 1Pet 1
2 See, for example, Colin J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History
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