He Has Ascended! (Acts 1:9-11)

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  1. The ascension of Christ was an historical event.
    • 1:9-11; Luke 24:50-53. In John’s Gospel, Jesus refers to it when speaking to Mary Magdalene – John 20:17. The rest of the New Testament refers to it often enough – Eph.1:20-21; Heb.1:3, 13.
    • Luke 4:20. The same language is used to describe the witnessing of the ascension.
    • Adolf von Harnack: this is ‘quite useless to the historian’. Not so. This is not poetry or symbolic truth; this is history that had we been there we would have seen.
  2. The incarnation of the Son of God is forever.
    • John 6:61-62; Col.2:9.
      • Oh, the love that drew salvation’s plan!
      Oh, the grace that brought it down to man!
      Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span
      At Calvary!

      The cross is over, the pain is over, the sense of being forsaken is over, and now there is joy forever – Heb.12:2. But Christ remains one with us as well as one with God.

  3. The ascension of Christ means He is enthroned and will return.

    The ascension was rather private. Perhaps only the eleven disciples were there to witness it. But with the second coming, nobody will miss seeing it – Rev.1:7; 1 Thess.4:14-17.

    • Heb.9:24-28.