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    The Ascension and Return of Jesus Christ
    The Ascension and Return of Jesus Christ
    The Ascension and Return of Jesus Christ
    Ebook85 pages1 hour

    The Ascension and Return of Jesus Christ

    By Grace Communion International

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    About this ebook

    Some people think that all of Jesus' work was done when he was resurrected, and all he needed to do then was to go home. But his work still continues in heaven on our behalf. In this series of articles, Grace Communion International authors discuss the significance of the ascension, and of Jesus' return to finish his work of the salvation not just of his people, but of the entire creation.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGrace Communion International
    Release dateMay 20, 2015
    ISBN9781310318085
    The Ascension and Return of Jesus Christ
    Author

    Grace Communion International

    Grace Communion International is a Christian denomination with about 30,000 members, worshiping in about 550 congregations in almost 70 nations and territories. We began in 1934 and our main office is in North Carolina. In the United States, we are members of the National Association of Evangelicals and similar organizations in other nations. We welcome you to visit our website at www.gci.org.

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      Book preview

      The Ascension and Return of Jesus Christ - Grace Communion International

      The Ascension and Return of Jesus Christ

      Grace Communion International

      Copyright 2015 Grace Communion International

      www.gci.org

      Cover art: Rembrandt, from ChristusRex.org

      Scripture quotations, unless noted, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

      Table of Contents

      The Ascension and the Return of Christ

      Celebrating Jesus’ Ascension

      Resurrection and Ascension: What It Means to Be ‘In Christ’

      Jesus Is Still a Human

      Stay Focused on Jesus

      Jesus’ Benediction

      The Coming of the Lord

      No One Knows When Christ Will Return

      Here He Comes, Ready or Not

      About the Authors

      About the Publisher

      Grace Communion Seminary

      Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

      ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

      Editor’s note: More articles about Jesus are in the volume titled Exploring the Word of God: The Four Gospels. See other e-books for articles about the birth of Jesus, the incarnation, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

      The Ascension and the Return of Christ

      In Acts 1:9, we are told: After Jesus said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

      I would like to address a simple question: why? Why was Jesus taken up in this way? But before we get to that, let’s read the next three verses:

      They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. Men of Galilee, they said, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. (verses 10-12)

      This passage makes two basic points— that Jesus ascended into heaven, and that he will return. Both of those items are important in the Christian faith, and both are included in the Apostles’ Creed, for example. First, Jesus ascended into heaven. This is commonly known as the Ascension, which is celebrated each year 40 days after Easter, always on a Thursday.

      The second point this passage makes is that Jesus will return— he will return in the same way that he ascended. I believe that this latter point is the reason that Jesus ascended in a visible way— to emphasize that he will return in a visible way.

      It would have been easy for Jesus to simply tell his disciples that he was going to his Father, and that that he would come back — and then he would simply disappear, as he did on other occasions, just this time never t be seen again. I don’t know of any theological reason why Jesus would have to ascend in a visible way. He did this to make a point, to teach a particular lesson, to the disciples — and through them, to us.

      By visibly going up into the air, Jesus made it clear that he wasn’t just disappearing— he was going to heaven, and there, he would be at the Father’s right hand to intercede for us as our eternal High Priest. As one writer put it, Jesus is our Man in heaven. We have somebody in heaven who understands who we are, understands our weaknesses, understands our needs, because he is a human. Even in heaven, he is still a human as well as being God.

      Even after the Ascension, Scripture calls him a man. When Paul was preaching to the Athenians at the Areopagus, he said that God would judge the world by a man he has appointed, and that man is Jesus Christ. When he wrote to Timothy, he called him the man Christ Jesus. He is still a human, and he still has a body. His body rose from the dead, and his body ascended into heaven.

      Which leads to the question: where is that body right now? How can a God who is omnipresent, not limited to space and matter, also have a body that is localized in a particular place? Is the body of Jesus floating somewhere in outer space? I don’t know. I don’t know how Jesus appeared behind locked doors, either, and I don’t know how he could ascend into the air, contrary to the law of gravity. Apparently the laws of physics don’t apply to the body of Jesus Christ. It’s still a body, but it doesn’t have limitations that we think are part of having a body.

      That still doesn’t answer the question of where the body is right now, but that’s really not the most important thing we need to worry about, is it? We need to know that Jesus is in heaven, but we do not need to know just where that is. It is more important for us to know about the spiritual body, the way in which Jesus is living on earth right now in the church. He is doing that by means of the Holy Spirit.

      When Jesus ascended bodily into heaven, he was giving a visible sign that he continues to be human as well as divine.

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