The ascension

He ascended into heaven

For forty days the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples and spoke about the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). Then, while they watched, he was taken up:

After He had said this, they watched as He was taken up, and a cloud hid Him from their sight.

Acts 1:9

In Scripture the cloud often signals the presence of God. The ascension is less a journey to somewhere in space than the risen Lord's entry, with his human body, into the glorious presence of God. Hebrews calls him "a great high priest who has passed through the heavens" (Hebrews 4:14). Chrysostom asks what difference it makes to us that one of our nature has gone up, and answers: "For as is the head, so also is the body; as the beginning, so also the end" Chrysostom.

Seated at the right hand of God

The Apostles' and Nicene Creeds confess that he ascended and sits at the right hand of the Father. The words come from "Sit at My right hand" (Psalm 110:1), a psalm the New Testament applies to Jesus again and again (Acts 2:34). God's right hand is not a seat somewhere but the position of authority and glory. Augustine says that "by the right hand itself we understand the power which He as man received from God" Augustine. Sitting also means the sacrifice is finished: "when this Priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God" (Hebrews 10:12).

The ascended Christ is not idle. He "is at the right hand of God— and He is interceding for us" (Romans 8:34). He told his disciples, "it is for your benefit that I am going away" (John 16:7), and once exalted he poured out the promised Spirit (Acts 2:33). The Heidelberg Catechism sums up the benefits:

First, that he is our Advocate in the presence of his Father in heaven. Secondly, that we have our flesh in heaven, as a sure pledge that he, as the Head, will also take us, his members, up to himself.

Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 49

And the angels promised that he "will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11). The ascension is a step in his exaltation, and at its end stands the second coming.

Where the traditions differ

All churches confess that the ascended Christ is truly present with his church, but Lutherans and the Reformed teach differently about where and how his human nature now is. Lutherans teach that God's right hand is not a place in heaven but God's power everywhere, and that the exalted Christ shares that majesty in his human nature too, so that he can be present bodily where he has promised, above all in the Lord's Supper Formula of Concord, art. 8. The Reformed teach that Christ's body, a true human body, is in heaven until the restoration of all things (Acts 3:21); the Heidelberg Catechism confesses that according to his human nature he is not now on earth, but according to his Godhead, majesty, grace and Spirit he is never absent from us Q. 47. The root of the difference lies in how each explains the hypostatic union.

Many churches keep Ascension Day on the fortieth day of Easter, a Thursday. See also the lesson The ascension and Christ’s reign and Will Jesus come again?