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By Grant Macaskill

In the Christian calendar, today is Ascension, the day that marks the translation of Jesus from earth to heaven. While Christmas and Easter are widely celebrated, not just by those actively involved with the church, Ascension will pass unnoticed for most.

This is paralleled both in popular and academic theology or biblical studies: while the significance of the incarnation, and of the death and resurrection of Jesus are discussed at length in relation to salvation, less tends to be said about the Ascension. It is not entirely neglected, but it does not receive the attention that it deserves and its meaning is often limited to the Ascension of Jesus to a position of rule, to the throne of God. This, though, is to neglect some important further threads in the New Testament.

My own recent thinking on the Ascension has been influenced by the work of my colleague, David Moffitt, and by numerous conversations with him as we have taught together. He has highlighted the necessity of a bodily resurrection and Ascension within the logic of the book of Hebrews, precisely because of what Jesus is described as doing in heaven to effect salvation.

Jan Luyken’s Jesus 34. Ascension. Phillip Medhurst Collection. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

This epistle represents Jesus as fulfilling the role of a high priest in the heavenly temple on which the earthly one is patterned, enacting a decisive Yom Kippur for his people and performing acts of ritual cleansing for the heavenly sanctuary, using his own blood (see Hebrews 9). Only once he has completed this work does Jesus seat himself (Heb 10:12), prior to which he stands, as all priests do in the work of the temple (Heb 10:11).

For the author of Hebrews, then, the atonement is not completed with the death or even the resurrection of Jesus; it is completed by his work in heaven. Hence, it is important that “we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens” (Heb 4:14). That underlies his basic and remarkable hope: that we can now draw near to the presence of God, without fear as sinners (Heb 10:19-22).

Hebrews is often seen as an oddity in the New Testament, with its high priestly representation of the atonement, but there are other texts that suggest the same conceptuality is operative, if tacit, more broadly in the New Testament. The description of Jesus as ‘exalted to the right hand of God’ in Acts 2:33, for example, is echoed in Stephen’s vision of heaven in Acts 7:55-56, but there Jesus is twice specified to be ‘standing’ in that position.

Interestingly, a similar emphasis is found in the description of Jesus in Revelation: he is the Lamb “standing” between the throne and heavenly entourage (Rev 5:5). This carries a different set of connotations than does “sitting”; it suggests active service. Once this is taken into account, the priestly imagery of Hebrews begins to appear less eccentric and must instead be taken seriously as an outworking of a common early Christian presentation of atonement, one rooted in Jewish conceptuality.

Alongside this emphasis on the priestly activity of Jesus made possible by the Ascension, another theme emerges in the New Testament: the connection between the Ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The book of Acts, for example, effectively begins with the Ascension of Jesus into heaven (Acts 1:9). This event is linked within the narrative to the subsequent event of Pentecost, the Jewish Feast of Weeks on which the Spirit will be poured out.

Before he ascends, Jesus tells his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for this “promise of the Father” (1:4-5), later understood to be the fulfillment of Joel 2:28ff. This same link between the Ascension of Jesus and the giving of the Spirit is reflected also in Ephesians 4:8, where Psalm 68:18 is quoted and adapted: where, in the original form of the Psalm, God ascends on high in a royal procession and receives gifts from men, here Jesus ascends and gives gifts to men.

Contextually, in Ephesians, this gift (or “grace,” Eph 4:7) comprehensively governs the communal life and mission of the church, associated with the sacramental reality of baptism: “one Lord, one baptism, one Spirit.”

A similar emphasis, though one developed in different terms, is found in John 16:7, where the departure of Jesus is the necessary condition for the coming of the Spirit. In fact, while the Ascension is seldom mentioned in the Fourth Gospel, the bodily absence of Jesus from the community is presented as key to salvation, so that even the joy of the resurrection gives way to an awareness of Jesus’s impending departure.

Thus, in John 19:17, following the resurrection, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene not to cling to him and then directs her specifically to tell the other disciples that he is to ascend. John thereby emphasizes the Ascension and, importantly, he associates it with the coming of the Spirit, by whom God’s presence will be mediated.

This last point is, perhaps, the key to the place that the Ascension has within the theology of the New Testament: access to the presence of God. The priestly work of Jesus is represented in Hebrews as allowing free access to the presence of God in the heavenly temple and is accompanied by the exhortation: “Let us draw near [to God]” (Heb 10:19-22). The gift of the Spirit, meanwhile, is presented as “God’s empowering presence,” to borrow the title of Gordon Fee’s definitive study of the Spirit in Paul’s theology.

Both reflect a powerful theological conviction that the gift of salvation is nothing less than God himself. For those theologians, academic or not, who consider the New Testament to have a normative role in Christian theology, marking Ascension ought to demand reflection on the place that such a doctrine of presence has in their own work.

Grant Macaskill is Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. His book Union with Christ in the New Testament was published by Oxford University Press (2013).

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As you know, last week was a majorly crummy one, mostly spent crying about having to put the dog down, or comforting crying kids about having to put the dog down. I struggled to meet my column deadline on Friday, because I just couldn't concentrate.

Well, on Thursday afternoon, I got an e-mail from the_webmeister asking if someone was going to be home between 3-5 on Friday afternoon because he was sending us a surprise. I replied in the affirmative, and then immediately started wondering when he'd sent.

Friday morning was crummy again, because daughter's blood sugar was through the roof (I HATE DIABETES) and it meant I couldn't get to the gym for a much needed workout. I texted The Webmeister telling him I needed a hug.

He texted me on Friday about 3:30 asking if the surprise had arrived yet. Nope.

At 5:30 I texted him saying that UPS still hadn't arrived. He wrote back saying he had "every confidence" that the parcel would arrive that evening, and that he'd let me know when he got the delivery confirmation.

At about 6:30 daughter and I were leaving through the garage to go see a movie. I'd told son to text me as soon as the parcel arrived. Across the street was a UPS truck. I was just saying to daughter, "Hmm, I wonder if they're going to deliver our parcel?" when a car pulled into our driveway. I'm half looking at the UPS truck and half thinking, "Who's that? We're not expecting anyone?" when all of a sudden I notice the make of the car and the Massachusetts plates and realize - it's HIM!! It's the Webmeister!

He'd come to deliver my much-needed hug in person. There are times when the ((((((((hug)))))) won't do, and he obviously realized that this one one of them, bless him.

Anyway, he and daughter and I went to see "27 Dresses", which I really enjoyed. Last night, he and I went to see "Atonement". I'd been half anticipating and half dreading seeing the film, because I'd loved the book so very much - I was utterly distraught when I read the last chapter and spent the next half hour crying my eyes out.

I'd grabbed a huge wadge of tissues before heading to the cinema, because I figured I was in for another sobfest, but I was curiously dry eyed. Curious because I normally cry at the drop of a hat, and also because I'd been so emotional at the end of the book. But although the film was beautifully done, and well acted (after seeing this and The Last King of Scotland, I now have a major thing for James McAvoy) I just didn't connect to the characters the way I did in the book.

More proof for my theory that with the possible exception of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the book is ALWAYS better than the film.

The Magic Horse of Han Gan by Chen Jiang Hong (Enchanted Lion, 2006)(originally published in French as Le Cheval magique de Han Gan (2004)). A look into the life of painter Han Gan, who lived in China 1,200 ears ago, that incorporates a legend about one of the horses in his paintings coming to life. It's always a high burden to offer art reflecting a great artist, but Hong more than succeeds. Magical, indeed, with an underlying theme of the relationship between art and peace. Ages 6-up. See a review from the February 2007 issue of The Edge of the Forest. See also my bibliography of children's books with Chinese and Chinese American characters.