Theology Archives - Page 47 of 68 - Kuyperian Commentary

On July 24, 2017 By Bill Smith In Theology 2

The Spirit of Sonship and Warfare.

Once upon a time, there was this little boy who was growing up in a horrid home situation. His parents were abusive to one another and to him. They were cooking Meth, shooting up heroin, engaged in sexual perversions, and living in squalor. They neglected him and left him for days at a time to fend for himself. The outlook for his life was bleak at best. As he grew up, this was the only life he knew. He thought that this was the way that life was to be lived. Consequently, he adopted this way of life for himself, following the pattern of his parents who had, by the culture they developed in the home, developed this way of thinking and living in him. He knew nothing else.

One day a man and his wife learned of the situation and decided to try to help the boy. The biological parents objected strongly (as parents in these situations are sometimes prone to do even though they don’t care at all for the child). However, the child saw something in this man and his wife that was attractive. He wanted to be a part of their family.

Arrangements were made, and, at great expense, the young boy was adopted by the man and his wife. His new life was beautiful. He was treated with great love. Life wasn’t always easy because his parents required discipline from him, but it was incomparably better than it was before. His new parents provided for him richly, not only with food, clothing, and shelter but with the affection he had never known. Living as their son he would not only be provided for now but in the future. He was an heir to everything his new parents owned.

He had been rescued from a horrible situation. He was grateful. However, the ways he had learned in the years he spent in his original home were not forsaken easily. He constantly fought attitudes and desires that pulled him back to that old culture. He hated those ways of his biological parents, but they were also comfortable in a sick sort of way. Now, on the one hand, he felt this obligation, this debt, as it were, to his biological parents. On the other hand, he felt a debt to his adoptive parents because of the kindness and love showed to him in rescuing him. This new life was beautiful and held great promise for the future. But was this what he really wanted?

If he goes back to his old way of living, he is forsaking his inheritance and it is certain misery and death. If he stays where he is, his future is secure and beautiful. What will he do?

I don’t know. You tell me. You are that child, Christian.

Because of our heritage in Adam, we still have a pull toward the thinking and ways of the flesh; thinking and living that questions the goodness of God’s purposes and commandments and wants to go in the opposite direction. There are times we might even think that we just can’t help ourselves because we are in these bodies of death (or mortal bodies; cf. Rom 6.12). However, we are not debtors to the flesh to live after the flesh (Rom 8.12). That old flesh was crucified with Christ in baptism (Rom 6.1-11). All the debts have been paid. There is no reason to be under the sway of sin. If we adopt the old fleshly ways of living, no matter the profession of our lips, we will die (Rom 8.13). That is the fruit of allegiance to the flesh.

We are no longer debtors to the flesh, but we are debtors: debtors to God the Father, his Christ, and his Spirit. The Triune God has bound us to himself in a covenant that requires that we pay the debt of loving him with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. This love expresses itself in willingness to engage in warfare against the flesh, putting to death the deeds of the body through the power of the Spirit. This is the way of life (Rom 8.13).

Those who engage in this battle with the sinful deeds of the body manifest that the Spirit of God is truly working in them. God’s Spirit bears witness with their spirits in this way. They are desiring the same thing. They are walking in the same direction. They love the Father and the Son as the Spirit loves the Father and the Son and want nothing more than to please them with the way that they are living. They want to hear, “Well done!” Those who live this way, those who are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

Being led by the Spirit doesn’t mean that the battle with the deeds of the body will be easy or without pain. In fact, it means just the opposite. The children of Israel were led by the Spirit of God into the inheritance of the Promised Land, but that leading meant doing battle with giants in the land. Jesus was led (actually driven!) by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. The Spirit leads us into and through battle, not around it. The Spirit has always led God’s sons into battle. The Spirit of adoption or sonship is the Spirit of warfare.

Furthermore, there is no silver bullet that will end the battle. God has called us into a fight that ends either in the death of the deeds of the body or our own eternal death. He gives us everything that we need through the power of his Spirit, but you will have to fight day in and day out.

One day the fight will end. It may not be this day, but that day is coming. Those who have suffered with Christ in these battles will inherit glory with Christ (Rom 8.17). Our promised rest is coming. Our future is beautiful and secure in Christ Jesus. Don’t turn back to the ways of the flesh. Keep fighting!

On July 11, 2017 By Mark Horne In Theology Like

Family Solidarity & Genesis

The Bible encourages love and community in families, and sees that love as a way to spread harmony in wider society, but it doesn’t assume family solidarity is natural.

A while ago I was listening to an expert on twin studies as an effort to come to some conclusions on the problem of “nature v. nurture.” She said something I didn’t expect and yet immediately reminded me of the Bible. She said there is no such thing as “identical twins.” Yes, that’s the name we give twins who are genetically identical. But in the womb, she stated, they don’t get equal access to limited resources. By the time they are born, they are already showing developmental differences.

Naturally, I immediately thought of Jacob and Esau.

In the Bible, family solidarity is often invoked as the key to social peace. When the tribes offered to be subject to David, they appealed to it: “Behold, we are your bone and flesh.”

But it is a mistake to assume this means that family solidarity is natural or in any way easy. Laban said the same thing to Jacob, yet that family connection meant exploitation and competition for limited resources. Jacob’s struggle in the womb with his twin brother became a struggle to get out of slavery and poverty against his father-in-law and his brothers-in-law.

I’ve understood the start and finish of Genesis as being significant. It starts with the exalted Adam who loses his kingdom when he seizes what is forbidden. It ends with Joseph who refuses to touch forbidden “fruit” though he is a slave, and is exalted to rule a kingdom as a result.

But thinking about twins has led me to another observation.

The first two brothers mentioned in the Bible, and indeed the first brothers in human history, are also the characters in the first homicide. The second Fall in Genesis is the story of Cain and Abel. Adam was driven out east of Eden, but Cain was driven further east to the land of Nod.

Genesis tells us that the first homicide was a fratricide.

The last story in Genesis is also about brothers. All Joseph’s brothers hated him. The majority of his brothers wanted to murder him. One of the brothers schemes to save his life but that plan is partially thwarted when an opportunity arises to profit by selling Joseph to slave traders.

The rest of the story of Joseph depends on that event: brothers acting in murderous hatred against a brother much like Cain and Abel.

Between those two stories, Genesis has several other stories recording God’s covenant to save humanity. The majority of those stories are about domestic strife. If they don’t feature sibling rivalry, they present us with other conflicts such as father against son, mother against father’s son, father-in-law against son-in-law, and father against daughters. Reading Genesis, one would think the kingdom of God depends on a soap opera. Perhaps Jesus was thinking of Genesis when he said

For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (Luke 12:52-53; ESV)

But why should this surprise us?

All the temptations and anxieties of life that would cause a person to selfishly try to exalt himself over others are concentrated in the family. Siblings compete for real and imagined rewards, whether financial resources or honor in the sight of their parents. Parents love their children but, in seeing their children as blessings, can impose themselves on their children, not even realizing how selfish they are being. Isaac and Laban have different motives but both exploited Jacob.

All the trials a person will face in outside life are there in his or her family relationships. If anything, the problems in the family as a society are more intense.

Perhaps that is why Genesis seems to spend so much space on soap-opera-like stories.

Family solidarity isn’t natural, but it is a great blessing to society. If one can master oneself in the way one functions in the family, one will be an asset in other relationships. If an entire family can do this, they will be a city on a hill.

Genesis starts with fratricide. It ends with the solution to fratricide: faith in God’s providence and forgiveness:

So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. (Genesis 45:4-8; ESV)

And then it repeats the lesson later, as a second witness that this is what the story of Joseph teaches us, as the climax of the stories of family conflict in Genesis.

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.”

Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. (Genesis 50:15-21; ESV)

Jesus our brother says the same thing to us.

On July 4, 2017 By Mark Horne In Theology Like

Upgraded Humanity: What was Biblical history for? (Part 1)

One of my favorite novels of the nineties was the “cyberpunk” thriller Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. (Content warning: not a Christian book.) The most unrealistic element in the book, however, was the posited “true meaning” of the story of the Tower of Babel. In the book’s retelling, humans used to be programmable using something a lot like machine code. Consciousness and free will came about through a virus introduced into the human race at Babel.

To repeat: this was the most unrealistic part of the novel, but it allows conflict as Hiro Protagonist (his real name—the novel doesn’t take itself too seriously) discovers a global conspiracy to reverse the virus and make humans programmable again. I took it as a metaphor for the quest for unity versus the value of freedom despite the social costs.

How Do You Upgrade Human Software?

But recently I’ve been thinking again about this fictional alternative to the Biblical story and the Bible’s own information about how humans are upgraded. After all, at Babel, something like a change in human “software” did miraculously take place. God wiped out a vocabulary and rules of grammar in people’s brains and uploaded new words and grammar rules in their place. The analogy to computer programs isn’t that much of a reach.

But when God called Abram (the story that follows the story of Babel and the scattering of humans into diverse nations), he does so in a way that makes clear that Abram is his “tower.”

And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:3-4; ESV)

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3; ESV)

We know from the miracle of Pentecost that God wanted the divisions imposed at Babel to be ameliorated so that a unity could be provided through the Gospel.

But what was the purpose of history between Babel and Pentecost? What was God doing?

Maybe we should ask ourselves how human “software” is normally “installed” or changed. Unlike what some science fiction may lead you to imagine, one can’t change thinking and behavior simply by plugging the brain into a computer. Brains are part of bodies, not machines.

How do people normally acquire language? Outside of the events of the special creation of Adam and Eve and the tower of Babel, we get our language from being immersed in a speaking and acting culture from the time we are born. We learn language not only by listening, or listening and watching, but by bodily interacting with others. We learn through our bodies.

And perhaps that’s the answer. Consider what the Bible tells us about God feeding Israel with manna in the wilderness. He gives them food to gather day by day six days a week. Any attempt to save up for the next day is frustrated because it becomes inedible except on the sixth day. On that day, they can gather for the daily bread and for the seventh day. And on the seventh day no manna appears on the ground.

God didn’t simply tell the people to work six days and rest on the seventh; he trained them to do so. (more…)

On July 3, 2017 By Steve Jeffery In Culture, Politics, Pro-Life, Theology Like

Abortion and moral schizophrenia

Last Saturday here in London, UK, we read about the heartbreaking case of the youngest victim of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, Logan Gomes. The child of Marcio and Andreia Gomes, Logan was as yet unborn when the fire struck. His mother Andreia was taken to hospital following her escape, where doctors discovered that poisonous fumes from the blaze had claimed the life of the unborn child. Logan was born while Andreia was in an induced coma, and Mr Gomes was faced with the unthinkable task of breaking the news of his youngest child’s death to his wife and the couple’s other daughters, Megan and Luana.

Just a few days previously, we read that “the UK’s largest doctors union”, the British Medical Association, “has called for the complete decriminalisation of abortion and for women to have access to terminations on demand.” The article continues, “If the BMA gets its way, medics would not face criminal sanctions for providing, or women for procuring, an abortion in any circumstances, at any stage in a pregnancy.”

That is to say, the largest union of doctors in the UK is calling for the legalisation of the deliberate killing of children at precisely the same stage of life as young Logan Gomes. The BMA (an association of doctors – people with the job of saving lives) wants the law make abortion legal for any reason whatever, at any stage of pregnancy, right up to birth.

What are we to make of this?

(more…)

On June 22, 2017 By Bill Smith In Theology, Wisdom Like

Face to Facebook

I sit here in my office and poke around on a keyboard that is not even physically connected to my laptop and characters appear on a screen. I have a phone in my pocket through which I talk to someone around the world, send a text message, and to which I can ask questions and give commands. Usually, when all things are working as they should, the phone responds. At times it will even talk back to me asking me clarifying questions or telling me it doesn’t quite understand me.

I still marvel at this technology. As a child, I watched television shows such as Star Trek and dreamed of a time when those communicators would be real. Not only did they become real. The flip phone that they resemble is already technologically passé. One generation’s science fiction dream world is the next generation’s relative necessity.

These technological dreams and advances are an aspect of our being created in the image of a creative God. As such, they are not only good; they are also necessary. We are created to take dominion over the world, making it fruitful in every way. When God created Adam and told him to tend and guard the Garden, Adam had to figure out new and creative ways to plow the ground and, eventually, fight the thorns and thistles. He and his descendants created new and more effective and efficient ways to accomplish their tasks, making the world an ever-increasingly fruitful place.

Throughout history, man has continued to create new technologies for these purposes. From farm implements to the vast array of computer technologies, we have made our lives and the world flourish. But there is something interesting about the technologies that we create. As Sherry Turkle observes in her book Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology And Less From Others, “We make our technologies, and they, in turn, make and shape us.”^a Our technology begins to drive and shape the culture.

This is not inherently bad. It is simply the statement of a fact. One generation invents the automobile. The culture of the next generation is driven (pardon the pun) by the automobile. Schedules, work, play, markets, and other cultural matters assume the use of the automobile. What was a luxury to the culture of one generation becomes the necessity of the culture in the next? Electricity, phones, and computers are now the staples of the culture. We have developed our technologies, and our technologies, in turn, have shaped the way we live our lives.

As a pastor, I have been especially intrigued by the world of “relational” or “social” technology; that is, technologies designed to keep us connected in some form of communication. How are these relational tools affecting our relationships? How do these technologies affect the expectations that people have when they come to be a part of a local church? Is there a dark side of these technologies that the gospel must address? As Christians, we are called to engage the culture. What kind of culture are we engaging? How much of that culture has affected (infected!) the church? How does the church counter those cultural trends?

It is becoming painfully evident that our social technology is being used in such a way to make us more lonely. We are connected more than ever by telephones and social media, yet we are more and more isolated from one another. This is not the conclusion of some Bible-thumping Luddite. Non-Christians are recognizing it. Ironically, I suppose, you can find articles online such as Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? , The Loneliness Epidemic: We’re More Connected Than Ever – But Are We Feeling More Alone? , and The Age Of Loneliness Is Killing Us. Here is a video that explains how our connectivity is isolating us. That video is based on a TED Talk delivered by Sherry Turkle summarizing her full-length treatment of the subject in her book Alone Together. None of these is an explicitly Christian evaluation of the situation, but they are all recognizing that our social technology is developing a culture that, while connected, is becoming disconnected from full human interaction.

This technology gives each of us the sense of control that we haven’t had in the past. We always have a measure of control to be sure, but today’s technologies give a perception that we are more in control than ever before. Looking at a sliver of the metanarrative of our culture, we can see huge cultural shifts and, consequently, how we have gained more and more control of our lives and interactions with others.

There was a time in our country when, by and large, to have a job, one had to go to a place of work, was forced to work with others he didn’t know and submit to “the man.” A man was “forced” to learn to interact with others in an amicable way and, generally, wanted to keep his job for forty years and retire with a gold watch. Though we still go to places of business, internet technology has changed our situations tremendously. Now we can be employed by a huge corporation and rarely go into “the office.” We connect online, control our schedules, and control our interactions with people.

This was brought home to me at a dinner with a young couple who were both urban professionals. We talked about their work. The lady to whom I spoke worked from her home and only chose to go to the coffee shop to work when she felt as if she needed to be around people. She was in control of her interactions. In the previous generation, unless you were a farmer, you weren’t able to isolate yourself to this degree. Now technology has allowed us to interact only as much as we feel comfortable doing so. (more…)

Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology And Less From Others (New York: Basic Books, 2011) 263. (back)

On June 21, 2017 By Steve Jeffery In Family and Children, Theology, Wisdom Like

How to fail in the pursuit of godliness

I want to say a few words about a common way in which we often fail to grow in godliness. As it happens, parents also sometimes make a similar mistake in raising their children, with the result that their kids go off the rails as they approach independent adulthood.

(more…)

On June 12, 2017 By Luke Welch In Interviews, Theology 2

Is Genesis History? – Changing the Question

Thomas Purifoy has set out to reframe a debate.

The maker of the documentary style film, “Is Genesis History?” is doing his part to provoke a public conversation about science and the Bible, and he wants to change the main question from being about science, to being about history.

The Film and the Interview

“Is Genesis History?” came to theaters in February – and in June, it has come to Netflix. You can find it on Amazon video as well. The recent video release of the film prompted me to call Thomas, who is an old friend, and discuss the film in an interview for Kuyperian Commentary – that interview will be the content of the podcast here on Wednesday.

An Evolution in Theological Thought

When Thomas and I spoke, he and I shared our common concern over what he called, “the incursion of evolutionary thought” into the current stream of evangelical theological (more…)

On June 7, 2017 By Uri Brito In Theology Like

Sola Scriptura is the Uniting Language of the Church, Part 2

In this last post, I wish to show how Scriptures is God’s own language and how it serves to unite God’s people (see the first post).

God’s Liturgical Language

Sola Scriptura is God’s language. Scripture shares God’s authority.^a For a man to put himself above scripture is to put himself above God. In the Bible, when Satan attacks he always attacks God’s word. But the Bible is always God’s answer to assaults on the Bible. God uses his language to defeat evil. We are well aware of that famous Lenten passage in Luke 4 when our Lord is tempted in the wilderness. Jesus, the Word of God, appeals to God’s word. Scripture alone is the language of Jesus. When the devil tempts our Lord, Jesus doesn’t say, “Well, remember the words of Rabbi Kushner who once said…” No. Our Lord says, “For it is written…” Again, when the Pharisees attack him, Jesus appeals to the Word of God. In Matthew 22, Jesus reminds the Pharisees of Psalm 110 to make a case for His divinity. In John 10:35, Jesus says, “The Scriptures cannot be broken.” Sola Scriptura is God’s language. It’s unbreakable because it comes by the inspiration of an unbreakable Spirit. When the late medieval church elevated unwritten tradition to the level of the Bible, the Reformers said, “No, Scripture alone is our highest authority.” The Bible must be supreme because it is God’s language.

Our Uniting Language

Sola Scriptura unites our language. It is the Church’s liturgical language, it manifests God’s inerrant language, but it is also uniting language. When we talk about the Scriptures, it’s important to make a distinction between Sola Scriptura vs. Solo Scriptura. Sola Scriptura means God’s Word is our final authority. There are other authorities like leaders and parents and creeds, but Sola Scriptura says that all these authorities must submit to God’s ultimate authority. Solo Scriptura teaches that the Bible is the only authority and there are no other authorities.

In the 16^th century, a group called the Ana-Baptists rebelled against the Roman Church, but they also rebelled against the Reformation. They wanted no one to have authority over the individual. They did not submit to pastors or civic leaders, in fact, many of them came to deny the doctrine of the Trinity. Only a proper understanding of the authority of the Bible can save God’s people from themselves, from anarchy or from becoming little popes. The Baptists and Reformed will differ on baptism; the Lutherans and Catholics will disagree on the Sacraments, but fundamentally if disagreement over the authority of the Bibe persists, there will never be a united Church. There is no future church, Peter Leithart says, if there isn’t a Bible-saturated church. We are shaped and built in the image of God revealed in the Bible. When we engage the text whether privately or publicly, we are becoming like Jesus Christ, the Logos of God. When we engage the text and encourage others to engage the text, we are uniting ourselves under the banner of Sola Scriptura.

Some thoughts from Rich Lusk’s lecture on Sola Scriptura (back)

On June 5, 2017 By Uri Brito In Theology, Worship Like

Sola Scriptura is the Church’s Language, Part 1

As we approach the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 1517, I would like to offer some thoughts on the implications of Sola Scriptura in the Christian experience. In these two short articles, I’d like to elaborate on at least three consequences of this doctrine:

First, Sola Scriptura is the Church’s language. Second, Sola Scriptura is God’s language. And finally, Sola Scriptura unites our language.

The Church’s Language

In the late medieval era, Sola Scriptura was the rallying cry of this new movement called the Reformation. The Reformers, led by Luther and Calvin and many others, expressed their gratitude to the God who made the heavens and the earth for His revealed word. The Apostle Paul says in I Thessalonians 2:13:

We thank God continually for this, that when you received the message of God from us, you welcomed it not as the word of [mere] men, but as it truly is, the Word of God, which is effectually at work in you who believe.

The Church of our Lord has since its early days feasted on the richness of God’s word. As Van Til once wrote: “The Bible is God’s love letter to his bride.” This love letter, through the body of Christ, has saved orphans, built hospitals, adopted, and contributed for the good of society because the Church believed what God commanded. The city of Geneva where Calvin pastored and where the Scriptures were taught faithfully was known all over the world for its generosity to the poor and needy. It is true that Christians have ignored biblical truth leading to some damaging practices, but the vast majority of the Christian population led by the authority of the Bible and the ministry of the Church has served this world in beautiful ways since the Early Church. Paul says that this word which you have received and welcomed is truly the Word of God. These are not the words of uninspired men, but the very words of God working in men and women in the Church to change and transform not only themselves but their surroundings.

The Roots of Sola Scriptura

In the Reformation, the Scriptures returned to their proper place, shaping the language, liturgy, and life of the Church. The classical and historical Christian worship found in many Reformed churches today reminds us weekly from where our language comes. It originated from an early church that believed in the authority and sufficiency of the Bible.

The authority of the Bible causes the church to develop habits of gratitude. One way the liturgical church makes this clear is that at the end of every Scripture reading the people respond together by saying, “Thanks be to God.” This is our way of expressing thanks for Sola Scriptura. When our children are nurtured in this environment each Sunday, they have no other option but to contemplate the Bible. The Church’s language ought to be scriptural language. It’s precisely when we abandon the church’s language that the Church abandons the authority of the Bible.

One of the most important studies on why people return to church after years of being away from church was done by Dr. Tom Rhainer. He observed that the main reason people once unchurched came back to church and stayed in the church was not primarily for the music—which by the way, out of the ten reasons, music was #8—but because churches taught the Bible. The second reason people come back to church after not being in church for many years is when churches hold firmly to their convictions. This explains the phenomenon of why mainline churches—that is, historic denominations that no longer believe in the authority of the Bible– are declining rapidly in the last two decades. The Church must proclaim in Word and Sacrament the authority of the Bible. Sola Scriptura must form our language.

Spurgeon once expressed marvel at a pastor who was saturated in the Bible and said:

“Why, this man is a living Bible! Prick him anywhere—his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him.”

Similarly, the Church needs to be bibline; living and singing God’s revelation as a demonstration of submission to God’s inspired Word.

On May 25, 2017 By Steve Macias In Theology 1

The Unlikely Ascension of Jesus

The Ascension of Jesus can be a confusing scene. It is to be counted among the high holy days of the church calendar. Events on the church calendar are limited to items of theological significance, which is why the nativity (Christmas), passion (Good Friday), and resurrection (Easter) of Christ are memorialized with such pomp. Yet the Ascension is easily the least understood of the great feast days. This is to the detriment of the modern church which desperately needs to recover the meaning of the Christ ascended on high.

A Textual Confusion

Part of the problem is that the Biblical authors have offered limited descriptions of what actually happened at the Ascension. Our Scriptural references to the event are limited to a few quotations. One such description comes from St. Matthew’s Gospel following the words of the Great Commission.^a Where Christ gathers his disciples at the mountain where he will presumably ascend. The Ascension in this account can only be inferred by its correlation with the descriptions offered by St. Luke in his Gospel and in the Book of Acts. St. Luke’s Gospel gives us a description of Jesus taking his disciples to Bethany, blessing them, and then, “He was parted from them and carried up into heaven.” ^b Later in the first chapter of Acts, St. Luke describes the scene as Jesus boarding a cloud rising up through the sky. ^c

So that the general picture we get from the text is that the resurrected Christ gathers his disciples, gives them a sort of farewell speech, and then zephyrs his way into Heaven.

Why does it matter that Jesus ascended and why does the Church calendar mark this event as significant in the theological history of the Church?

Sorrow in Separation

Perhaps the Apostles were expected to understand the Ascension in the context of the Old Testament? How often is Christ compared to the Prophet Elijah, who himself was taken up into heaven by a chariot of fire? ^d But is this event similar the Ascension of Christ? Do the disciples of Christ rend their garments in grief and anguish as did Elisha? No.

Christ’s words seem to imply the reverse. Rather than separation, Christ teaches that his presence has penetrated the two planes of existence by the reality of the Incarnation and by the work of the Holy Spirit. Where Elijah was taken away from Earth, Jesus teaches that in the Ascension the Kingdom of Heaven is coming into contact with Earth in a way that is only comparable to how his own divinity took on human flesh. (more…)