ASCENSION The Ascension is the name ap- plied to that event in which the Risen Christ finally parted from His disciples and passed into the heavens. The traditional view is based on the passage Ac l'-'^, supported by Mk 16'», Lk 24*-'-=' (which narrate the event), Jn &■ 20" (which look forward to it), Eph 48"', 1 Ti S^\ 1 P 3-^ He 4'-' (which imply it). To the foregoing list many would add references of Christ to His departure (from the context not identifiable with His death), Mt 91= 26"- ="• ''^ Jn 7-^ 14-16 ; and allusions in Acts, Epistles, Revelation, to Clirist being ' seated at the right hand of God ' (Ac ^ 3=i 5^' 7'« IS*^-'', Ph 2», He P 2" 12=, Rev P^ 5« etc. ). The details are drawn from Ac 1 : the .scene, the Mt. of Olives ; the time, forty day.s after the Resurrection ; the occasion, a conversation concerning the Kingdom ; the act of parting in being taken up ; the vanish- ing in a cloud ; the vision of two men in white apjjarel and their announcement of His coming again : all indicating a bodily disapjiearance by an upward movement into the sky.
The bodily Ascension is vindicated as possible, as necessary, and as adequately evidenced.
1. Possibility. — The wondertulness of the event is not denied, but its acceptance is urged by a varied appeal. Sometimes the reference is to the Divine power operating in the fulfilment of the Divine purpose of salvation. The Ascension is then re- garded as part and parcel of the redemptive scheme, and not more wonderful than the other redemptive facts, e.g. Incarnation, Resurrection, etc. Or the reference is to our ignorance of the physical uni- verse and its constitution. ' Miraculous Chris- tianity ' does not ' imply an anti-scientific view of the world' (cf. Goldwin Smith, Guesses at the Riddle of E.cistcnce, p. 165). There is a vast un- comprehended region in nature not yet within tlie sweei> of human faculties, which Science has not fathomed and to whose existence she has become recently profoundly sensitive. The world, as science interprets its phenomena, is not the com- plete world which may hold potentialities permissive of such an event as the Ascension. Or, again, the reference may be to our ignorance of the nature of the ascending body. Grant the cogency of the scientific objection to a body having gravity and normal dimensions rising in upward flight to a distance, is it certain that such was the body of Christ? There are hints which furnish the op- posite suggestion. The only sure statement that may be affirmed with regard to it is that it was the saiiie, yet not the same, as the pre-Resurrection
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body : it v as a body which issued f loiu the sepulchre with identity complete, yet physically changed, existing under new conditions of which we have only the faintest apprehension. Physically, the Ascension meant a complete change of conditions, the passing into a mode of existence having no longer direct physical relations with our ordinary experience, whither we cannot follow by the exer- cise of our sensitive intelligence, and which in our lack of material for comparison we cannot even imaginatively picture. The conjecture, further, is hazarded that if the process of spiritualizing the body was at the time of the Ascension so complete as to render it invisible to ordinary sense, the pro- cess of preparing the spiritual perception of the disciples was by that time also complete, so that what was hidden from others was manifested to them. Recent research also into psychical ac- tivities, l)oth conscious and sub-conscious, has brought the question into renewed prominence especially among scientific men, and that in no spirit of hostility to the traditional view.
2. Necessity.— The necessity of the Ascension is obvious. It was at once the natural conseriuence of all that preceded and the only sufficient cause of the marvellous experiences that followed. The risen state and the forty days demanded its occur- rence. Apart from any explicit teaching on the sub- ject during those days, the situation of itself must nave provoked reflection and pointed to an exit from earthly scenes not by way of mortal dissolu- tion but rather of glorification. The interval is clearly transitory. The relationship between Jesus and the disciples evinces a certain reserve on His side, a certain surprise and peri^lexity on theirs. It partakes in all the mystery that hangs over the world of spirits in general, as well as in that per- taining specially to the borderland of that world, the region where thought and matter meet. His appearances are only occasional. His movements are mysterious. His life is not of the bodily order. Whether the theory of progressive spiritualizing be tenable or not,— the conception is very obscure, — the facts of physical transformation and spiritual enhancement are indubitable. The disciples are convinced by the empty tomb and the apparitional body that He had not seen corruption in the grave, yet do not always recognize Him as He appears. He is no longer of them. Their mind must have been challenged again and again to inquire, What next? It was neither fitting that He should die arain, nor that He should remain on the earth in His then state : death He had already sounded and survived, while for His departure He had aforetinie_ prepared them. Furtlier, His Person claimed it. His self- consciousness during tlie earthly ministry, and the teaching it prompted ; the definite impression of these on the minds of the disciples leading to the expectation of further developments of His Being ; as well as the most distinct intimations of the preparatory character of His present activity, the specialty of His saving mission, the uniqueness of His relation to the Father and heaven,— all combined in an impressive witness to the assurance that not this world but the heavenly life was His proper and rightful si)here, and that until He had attained to it He was not in possession of His own, the glory He had with the Father before the world was, which was as yet for the most part hid, revealing itself only in hints, and which He was bound to re- assume, accentuated, so to speak, with all that virtue He had won in His human nature for be- stowal on men. In His human life He had been the subject of development in time,— a develop- ment, it is true, not from evil or imperfection to tlie good and perfect, but from strength to strength, involving living growth, a process pre-