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What is an Ascension?

The Bible clearly tells us that Jesus “passed through the heavens." But what exactly did this mean? Did Jesus rise bodily into the air like a helium balloon? Stories of such an event would, naturally, inspire skepticism. Why would New Testament writers have made up such an unlikely episode?

In the twentieth century, it was common to claim that the New Testament writers adhered to a primitive cosmology in which the (flat) earth lay at the center of the universe, with hell, or hades, located physically below ground and God and his angels dwelling up in the sky. Thus, the description of the Ascension of Jesus, of Jesus being “lifted up” to heaven, merely reflected this primitive cosmology, it was said.

But of course, the ancient Jews understood very well that God did not live up in the sky the way the Greeks imagined the gods dwelling above the clouds on Mount Olympus. In fact, in the record of the oracles of the ancient Jerusalem prophet Isaiah, who lived around 750 BC, it’s easy to see that the ancient Israelites viewed God as so far above the known universe that even the sun, the moon, and all the stars were his handiwork.

For the early followers of Jesus, ascension meant that Jesus “was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God." It meant that Jesus now somehow reigned “with” God in a dimension beyond space and time. This is an idea that is clearly repeated throughout the New Testament epistles. Jesus was not merely restored to life in some luminous state as a reward for his trials. Rather, he was exalted above all of creation.

After Jesus left them, Luke reports that two men in white garments, presumably angels, appeared next to them. They asked Jesus’ followers, “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" - a comment that has led Christians ever since to expect Jesus’ return. But before that would happen, the followers of Jesus knew they had a lot of work to do.