A Study of Acts: The Ascension
Acts 1:9-11 - We must listen to the two men of God at the Ascension who compel the disciples to quit speculating about the eternal Kingdom and get to work bringing others to Him.
“And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.””
Acts 1:9-11 NASB1995
Forty days after the Resurrection, according to the writings of Luke in Acts, Jesus was lifted up and out of the sight of the disciples, being received by a cloud. Luke mentions this act of ascension at the end of the Gospel and repeats it here; it is also mentioned briefly in Mark 16. Jesus has been appearing and disappearing at will during these post-Resurrection days, but He wants to show completion of His earthly mission (for now) by having them witness this event.
As they stood there gazing intently into the sky, two men in white clothing suddenly stood beside them, asking them why they were looking into the sky. They told the disciples that Jesus will come again in the same way that they watched Him go into heaven. It seems like these two celestial beings were prodding the crowd to get to work on doing what Jesus wanted - to get back to Jerusalem and get prepared for the coming of the Holy Spirit, which will guide them on mission to the ends of the Earth.
Enduring Word has interesting commentary about His ascension:
He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight: Jesus was taken up from them as He blessed them (Luke 24:50). As He slowly disappeared into the sky, surrounded by a cloud they continued to gaze upward.
The cloud that received Him is suggestive of the cloud of glory (called the Shekinah) that is associated with the presence of God in the Old and New Testaments.
While they watched, He was taken up: It was important for Jesus to leave His disciples in this manner. In theory, He certainly could have simply vanished to heaven and the Father’s presence in a secret sort of way. But by ascending in this manner, Jesus wanted His followers to know that He was gone for good, as opposed to the way He appeared and reappeared during the 40 days after His resurrection.
Remember Jesus’ words to His disciples in John 16:7: It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. Now the disciples could know that that promise would be fulfilled. The Holy Spirit was coming because Jesus promised to send the Spirit when He left.
Why do you stand gazing up into heaven? The two men (apparently angels) told the disciples to put their attention in the right place (obedience to Jesus’ command to return to Jerusalem), not in wondering where and how Jesus went. Jesus told them to go to the ends of the earth, and they stood gazing up into heaven.
[G. Campbell] Morgan speculated that the two men were possibly Moses and Elijah. It seems best to say they were angels.
This same Jesus: This is a glorious phrase. It reminds us that the Jesus ascended to heaven and seated at the right hand of God the Father is the same Jesus of the Gospels. He is the same Jesus of love, grace, goodness, wisdom, and care.
Will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven: Jesus will return just as He left.
· He left physically and will so come in like manner.
· He left visibly and will so come in like manner.
· He left from the Mount of Olives and will so come in like manner.
· He left in the presence of His disciples and will so come in like manner.
· He left blessing His church and will so come in like manner.
I found other commentators who believed the cloud was the Shekinah, the visible manifestation of God’s glory and presence from both the OT and NT. God’s appearance was often in a cloud to hide His true glorious presence that cannot be seen by human eyes. Here is commentary from Precept Austin that talks about this glory (links go to Precept Austin):
…the Shekinah glory is the visible manifestation of the presence of God. It is the majestic presence or manifestation of God in which He descends to dwell among men. Whenever the invisible God becomes visible, and whenever the omnipresence of God is localized, this is the Shekinah Glory. The usual title found in Scriptures for the Shekinah Glory is the glory of Jehovah, or the glory of the Lord. The Hebrew form is Kvod Adonai, which means “the glory of Jehovah” and describes what the Shekinah glory is.
The Greek title, Doxa Kurion, is translated as “the glory of the Lord.” Doxa means “brightness,” “brilliance,” or “splendor,” and it depicts how the Shekinah Glory appears. Other titles give it the sense of “dwelling,” which portrays what the Shechinah Glory does. The Hebrew word Shekinah, from the root shachan, means “to dwell.” The Greek word skeinei, which is similar in sound as the Hebrew Shekinah (Greek has no “sh” sound), means “to tabernacle” . . . In the Old Testament, most of these visible manifestations took the form of light, fire, or cloud, or a combination of these. A new form appears in the New Testament: the Incarnate Word. (Arnold Fruchtenbaum)
The rebuke by the two men (angels?) dressed in white is one that has to be taken to heart. I must be completely honest - in my old days of “Bible in One Year” readings, this part of the Ascension story went right over my head. The two men are telling the disciples to quit the “spiritual stargazing” (a great term by John Stott) and get to work. We really do waste time speculating on His return. Jesus Himself told us more than once that the time is not for us to know (even He does not know but only the Father - Matthew 24:36). Yet the disciples just asked Him (again) in the previous verses about the coming of His kingdom; He told them (again) it was not for them to know the time. We should pray, serve and be prepared! We are to go to the ends of the Earth and preach His message of salvation on a mission to all the world. If we are looking for Him daily, we should be living for Him daily.
Preachers try to tackle Revelation and related prophecies in other books periodically and match them up to current events (this has been going on for centuries). We should assume His return could happen at any time and be ready for it, but we should also stop stirring the tea leaves that point to this world event or that political leader or other possible “indicators” that are going on. Let’s face facts, the world has suffered from trials and tribulations since the beginning! Peace and prosperity are rare commodities indeed and many have suffered under charismatic tyrants who could be likened to the Antichrist (like Hitler).
This commentary from J.B. Lightfoot quoted in Precept Austin is quite good; Lightfoot was a 19th century British preacher and this was from a sermon in St. Paul’s Cathedral:
The angels’ address is a rebuke to idle speculation in regions beyond the reach of human knowledge. It is a warning against substituting that which is visionary for that which is real in religion.
[But] aren’t we told that our citizenship is in heaven? Aren’t we commanded to store up treasure in heaven? In what sense then can we be required to avert our gaze from heaven and to fix our eyes on the earth?
The circumstances of the apostles will supply us with a first answer. What was a fault in them will be a fault in us also. They were eager to know the exact time—the day and the hour—when their King would come and claim his kingdom. He had told them again and again that this knowledge was hidden from them. It was hidden even from the angels of heaven. And still, the last words that they address to their risen Lord ignore the warning; still the last answer that they receive from his lips is a rebuke for desiring to fathom the unfathomable. “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set.”
The subject has exercised a strong fascination over Christians in all ages. Again and again people have predicted the time of the Second Advent. Again and again their predictions have been falsified.
And the wrong done by this lawless speculation is not trifling. It impairs that attitude of patient waiting that is enjoined on the church. It substitutes a spasmodic, feverish watchfulness for the calm and continuous expectation that suits the children of God. It is chargeable with still more fatal consequences than these.It has bred disappointment, and from disappointment has sprung skepticism and from skepticism, mockery and unbelief. It has given occasion to the enemies of Christ to blaspheme. And the guilt lies in no small degree with the speculation of believers. Strange that it should have been so; strange that people should not perceive how each such prediction falsified is a confirmation of the Master’s saying, “No one knows about that day or hour.”
Spend no more time on speculations; they only absorb energy and paralyze action. Stand no more gazing up into heaven, but return from the mount of ascension to your everyday life. There, continue in prayer and supplication; there await in confidence that outpouring of the Spirit; there live and bear witness to Christ. (“Christ’s Gift of Peace,” in Sermons in St. Paul’s Cathedral )
Amen to this!! I certainly did not expect in my study of these verses in Acts that I would discover a new nugget of wisdom about the fact that endless speculations, false predictions, spreadsheets of events and countless “end times” discussion groups are taking people away from the real message of Jesus and our mission for God. They fuel disbelief and mockery and lend credence to the skepticism of unbelievers who point at Christians with all of their false predictions being just as bad as a whacko cult that thinks a comet is hiding a spacecraft and is coming for them.
The other thing that I have speculated about is the location of Heaven. Is it beyond the edges of the universe or is it close at hand, like in another dimension? I must admit that I have a scientific curiosity about these things. But this commentary from Gotquestions.org brings us back to what is important:
…However, as J. I. Packer points out, “since God is spirit, ‘heaven’ . . . cannot signify a place remote from us which He inhabits. The Greek gods were thought of as spending most of their time far away from earth in sort of a celestial equivalent of the Bahamas, but the God of the Bible is not like this. Granted, the ‘heaven’ where saints and angels dwell has to be thought of as a sort of locality, because saints and angels, as God’s creatures, exist in space and time. But when the Creator is said to be ‘in heaven,’ the thought is that He exists on a different plane from us, rather than in a different place. That God in heaven is always near to his children on earth is something which the Bible takes for granted” (Growing in Christ, Crossway, 2022, pt. 3, ch. 4).
Examples of God being near to us, even though He is in heaven, include the psalmist’s assurance that “the Lord is close to the brokenhearted” (Psalm 34:18) and Paul’s teaching that “he is not far from any one of us” (Acts 17:27). Moses asked the children of Israel, “What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?” (Deuteronomy 4:7). Heaven is only a prayer away.
The New Testament mentions heaven with considerable frequency, yet, even then, details of its location are missing. We will never find heaven with telescopes, star charts, or deep space probes. We will only find heaven through faith in Jesus Christ.
More important than knowing where heaven is, is knowing the God of heaven, for the same reason that it’s better to know your neighbor than the details of his house. [My emphasis]. On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus told His disciples, “You know the way to the place where I am going” (John 14:4). Thomas immediately raised an objection: “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (verse 5). And Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (verse 6). We may not know the exact location of heaven, but we know the Way, for He is Jesus.
Jesus will come again. It could be tonight. It could be 2000 years hence. He will return in a similar way to the way He ascended. He will introduce me to Heaven at the right time and place (at my death or His return). He has sent the Holy Spirit to guide us in the meantime. Get to work!
My next devotional examines Acts 1:12-14 - The disciples return to Jerusalem.
Heaven on Wheels Daily Prayer:
Dear Lord - I have received the most powerful message from You today doing this devotional. I ask that I live my life for You every day and serve You here and now. Your ways are not our ways and Your thoughts are not our thoughts. You have given us enough to know with certainty that we can join with You through Your Son Jesus. Amen.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Commentary from Enduring Word by David Guzik is used with written permission.
Precept Austin was accessed on 7/11/2024 to review the commentaries for Acts 1:9-11.
Gotquestions.org was accessed on 7/11/2024 to see the answer to the question, “Where is Heaven?”.