The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 2 — Section 267

desoending valleys, into the de:pths of the supemBtural appearance3 vouchsafed to <listBnt JordBn Bnd its myatenous IBke" them since the Resurrection were now at an (Dean Stanley, 'BinBi and PBlestine,' end. Nor were they grieved at this final eh. iii.). Ke lifted up his hands, and parting ; for we read- ble11ed them. In Acts i. 4 we read how Ver. 52.-And they worshipped him, and Jesue, having 111180mbled (<1vv~,\1(&µ•va,) the returned to J'eruaalem with great joy. Thi~ Bpostles, gave them some lBSt commands "great joy," on first thoughts, is singular before he left them. It is not expressly till we read between the lines, and see how stated that only the eleven were present on perfectly they now grasped the new mode of this occasion. When he had finished speak- the Lord's connection with his own. They ing, "he lifted up his hands, and blessed knew that henceforth, not for a little time them." There is now no laying on of as before the cross, not fitfully as since the hands. "JBm nrm imposuit manus," com- Resurrection, but that for ever, though their ments Bengel. Those hands, as they were eyes might not see him, would they feel hid lifted up, were already separated from them, blessed presence near (see John xiv. 28; xvi. the space between the Risen and those he 7). One question more connected with the was blessing grew greater every moment. Ascension presses for an answer. Much Ver. 51.-And it oame to pass, while he modem criticism regards this last scene bleesed them, he wae parted from them, and simply as one of the ordinary disappearances oarried up into heaven; more accurately of the forty days, and declines to admit any rendered, while lie blessed them, he parted. external, visible fact in which the Ascension from them, and wa, carried up into heaven. was manifested. But St. Lake's description, The last clause, " was carried up into both in his Gospel and in the Acts, is plainly heaven," is absent from some, but not from too circumstantial to admit of any hypothesis the moijority of the older authorities, The which limits the Ascension to e. purely Acts (L 9) describe the act of ascension spiritual elevation. At the end of his thus : " As they were looking, he was taken earthly ministry, the evening before the up: and a cloud received him out of their cross, Jesus asked back bis glory:" Now, 0 sight.'' The eleven and those chosen to Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, witness the last earthly scene of the Lord's with the glory which I had with thee before ministry came together, in obedience prob- the world was" (John xvii. 5). The Ascen- ably to some command of their Master, to sion and consequent session at the right some meeting-place in Jerusalem, possibly hand wo.s the answer to the prayer of Christ. the well-known upper room. Thence he It was necesso.ry for the training of the first led them forth from the saored city, past teachers of Christianity that the great fo.ct the scene of the agony and the scene of the should be represented in some outward a.n<l weeping, on to some quiet spot hard by visible form. "The physical elevation," loved Bethany, talking to them as they writes Dr. Westcott, "wo.s a speaking went: and as he spoke, suddenly he lifted parable, an eloquent symbol, bat not the up his pieroed hands and blessed them ; Bnd truth to which it pointed, or the reality in the very net of performing this deed of which it foreshadowed. The change which love, he rose, they still gazing on him-rose, Christ revealed by the Ascension was not a as it appears, by the exercise of his own will change of place, but a cho.nge of state: not into the air, and, while they still gazed, o. local, but spiritual. Still, from the neces- cloud co.me and veiled him from their eight. sities of our human condition, the spirituo.l He was parted from them, and carried up cho.nge WM represented sacramentl!.lly, so to into heaTJen. Among the appearances of speak, in e.n outl"mrd form .... He passe,I the Risen to his followers during the forty beyond the sphere of mnn's sensible exist- days (ten of these distinct o.ppearo.neee 11re ence to the open presence of God" (' The related in the Gospels and Epistles), this Revelation of the Risen Lord '). The ,essioo last notably differs from 1111 thBt preceded at tho right hand of God (Mark xvi. 19) it. As at other times when he showed him- cannot designate any particular place. The self to his friends during these forty days, Bsoension, then, of Jesus is not the exchange so on the" Ascension" day Jesus apparently of one loc111ity, earth, merely for o.nother we came forth suddenly from the invisible term hea·ven. It is a change of state; it is world: but not, as on former occasions, did a passing from Bll confinement within the he suddenly vanish from sight, as if he limits of space to omnipreaence. might shortly return ae ho had done before. Ver. 53.-And were oontinually in the But on this fortieth day he withdrew in a temple, praising and blessing God. Amen. different way; llS they go.zed he rose up These Iaat words of the Gospel just alluded into the uir, and so ho po.rted from them, to tho IHe of the first teo.chers, which i..t thus solemnly suggesting to them that d wolt upon with oonsidero.ble detail in the not only wns he "no more with them" (ver. Acts. In the early dt\ys which sucoeeded 44), but tho.t even those occnsiono.l o.nd the Ascension, tho templo and its court~  278 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. [en. xx1v. 1-63.