Why Don’t We Often Focus on the Importance of Christ’s Ascension?

Last updated on: May 21, 2020 at 8:30 am by Randy Alcorn

Why Don’t We Often Focus on the Importance of Christ’s Ascension? 2020-05-20T11:44:01-08:00 Randy Alcorn

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Today, May 21, is Ascension Day. A reader asked me, “I hear talk about Christ’s death and resurrection, but seldom about his ascension. Why is that?”

The ascension was considered more important to earlier generations of Christians than it is today. Gotquestions.org explains:

According to one of the early church fathers, Augustine of Hippo, the Feast of Ascension originated with the Apostles. It may be one of the oldest feasts practiced by the Church, possibly going as far back as AD 68. There is no written evidence, however, of the church honoring Ascension Day until Augustine’s time in the fourth century. Churches around the world have observed Ascension Day Feasts for centuries…

It’s true the ascension is a neglected doctrine today, perhaps because we fail to explore the full implications of it. Steve Mathewson writes,

Forty days after Jesus’s resurrection, the biblical storyline takes a remarkable turn: Jesus disappears. “He was taken up before their very eyes,” Luke tells us, “and a cloud hid him from their sight” (Acts 1:9). Two angels then tell the disciples that Jesus was “taken into heaven” (Acts 1:11)

So what do we make of this plot twist in the Bible’s story? How should we understand our crucified and risen Lord’s ascension? Michael Horton observes that we typically “treat the ascension as little more than a dazzling exclamation point for the resurrection rather than as a new event in its own right.”

Yet the ascension is a vital part of the redemption story. If we simply collapse the ascension into the resurrection, we miss stunning benefits tied directly to Jesus being taken into heaven.

(See the rest of Steve’s article 5 Ways the Ascension Benefits You.)

Nate Palmer says this: “Without an ascended Christ, there is no High Priest ruling and reigning over all creation, our assurance of heaven is in serious doubt, and we would not be living temples in which God’s Spirit resides helping us understand the things of God. In short, without an Ascension every book past John wouldn’t exist and our union with Christ stops at an earthly resurrection.”

One remarkable thing about the ascension is that it affirms Christ’s physical body went into Heaven following His resurrection. This is what the creeds call His “self-same body,” stating that likewise our self-same bodies will be restored in our resurrection. Some Christians imagine that Christ shed Himself of His humanity and returned to being a completely spiritual being when He went back to Heaven. But this is false. The ascension creates a paradigm shift. The truth is not that Jesus became a baby at Christmas, and then 33 years later came the resurrection and ascension and then He stopped being a man. The resurrection demonstrates the incarnation is not temporary. But still it could be wondered if having defeated death in the resurrection, when it came time to going back to Heaven, Christ might have said, “Time’s up, no sense in being a man any more” and shed Himself of a body and retake the form (or lack of form) inherent in being the second member of the trinity.

He could have “dissolved” or “disappeared,” but instead He physically ascended to a place, from which He will physically return to earth in the same physical body. So Jesus became a man (first coming, incarnation), defeated death and assumed His eternal body as a man (resurrection), and went back to Heaven as a man (ascension) and will return as a man (second coming; and as our firstfruits raising our self-same bodies as bodies like His). He will reign over the New Earth as the God-man. He has become a permanent member of the human race.

So if you’re ever wished you could walk the earth with Jesus, like His disciples did, good news…if you know Him, you will. You will have a new (raised) body and it will be a New (raised) Earth, but it will really be you, it will really be Jesus, and it will really be Earth. No sin, no death, no curse. I will be me without all the bad parts, and the Earth will be Earth without all the bad parts. (New bodies are not non-bodies, and new earth is not non-earth, any more than a new car is a non-car.)

As Job put it, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27)

So the second member of the triune God will be a human being for all eternity, and we will know Him not only as God, but as man. To not only worship God, but to see God, run alongside God, eat with God, swim with God, play catch with God…. Now, that is about as stunning a truth as there is. This is not “over-familiarizing” God. Had we come up with this idea, it would be blasphemy. The incarnation, resurrection and ascension was HIS idea, not ours. I for one wouldn’t have thought of it in a million years. But I’ll still be thanking Him for it in a million years, and I suspect I’ll be even more amazed about it then than I am now.

Here are some more quotes worth contemplating on the importance of the ascension:

He ascended as a conqueror, in a way of triumph. —Thomas Watson

The Lord, by his ascension into heaven, has opened up the access to the heavenly kingdom, which Adam had shut. For having entered it in our flesh, as it were in our name, it follows…that we are in a manner seated in heavenly places, not entertaining a mere hope of heaven, but possessing it in our covenantal Head. —John Calvin

At the ascension, Jesus leaves the space-time continuum and passes into the presence of the Father. He is still human, still our second Adam…and still our Advocate—yet now he has been so glorified that everything he does has a cosmic scope…any time-space limitation passes away. —Timothy Keller

The ascension of Jesus into heaven is designed to teach us that heaven does exist as a place in the space-time universe. —Wayne Grudem

The ascension of Christ is his liberation from all restriction of time and space. It does not represent his removal from the earth, but his constant presence everywhere on earth. —William Temple

What the ascension means is that Jesus Christ forever remains the Christ who is Jesus. He did not revert back to intangibility…The Incarnation is a miracle with no expiration date. —Jared C. Wilson

The Ascension was from one standpoint the restoration of the glory that the Son had before the Incarnation, from another the glorifying of human nature in a way that had never happened before, and from a third the start of a reign that had not previously been exercised in this form. —J.I. Packer

[As the ascended king] He controls all things for the church, and therefore you can face the world with peace in your heart…The man who died for you is not only at the right hand of the divine throne but he’s there as the Executive Director of history, directing everything for the benefit of the church. —Timothy Keller

Photo by Dhagna on Unsplash

Previous Post

May 18, 2020

Four Reasons Christians Distinguish Between Happiness and Joy

Next Post

May 25, 2020 Keep Your Eyes on the Prize: Discipline, Endurance, and the Christian Life

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category About Me Animals Books Books and Resources Christ Christian Life Christians Past and Present Church Creation Culture and Worldview Doctrine and Theology Eternal Perspective Ministries Fun Grace and Truth Grief Happiness Heaven Marriage and Family Missions Money and Giving Persecuted Church Politics Prayer Prolife Salvation Sexual Purity Sovereignty and Free Will Suffering and Evil Uncategorized Writing

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz