Theological glossary · FaithLogic

Ascension

Christ's bodily departure into heaven forty days after the resurrection, ending his visible earthly presence and beginning his session at the Father's right hand.

Latin ascensio, 'a going up'; Greek analēmpsis (Luke 9:51) and the verb of being 'taken up' (Acts 1:2, 11, 22).

Luke 24:50–51; Acts 1:9–11; John 20:17; Ephesians 4:8–10; 1 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 4:14; 1 Peter 3:22.

Confessed in every creed ('he ascended into heaven'). Often under-treated in Western theology; a modern recovery (Douglas Farrow, Gerrit Dawson) stresses that it secures the mediator as a located, embodied human being in heaven now, that Christ's humanity is not left behind, and that the church lives in the interval between ascension and return, sustained by the Spirit.

The ascension exalts the humanity Christ retains (Leo: 'the promotion of human nature'), relocates faith from sight to the ascended Lord, and is the precondition of Pentecost (John 16:7; Acts 2:33).

How to conceive 'heaven' and the location of Christ's body (the Lutheran genus majestaticum vs. the Reformed extra Calvinisticum); the degree of theological weight the doctrine should carry.

Open in the glossary for related terms and the doctrines this concept appears in.