And he led them out as far as Bethany, and having lifted up his hands, he blessed them.
Luke's Gospel does not end with a sermon or a command. It ends with a gesture. The risen Jesus walks His disciples out to a familiar village, raises His hands, and blesses them. The place, the posture, and the timing all carry meaning — and the blessing was still going on when He left.
Of all the places on earth, He chose one that was dear to Him. Rising from the dead did not cool His love for what He loved before.
William KellyIt was a spot that used to be most precious to Him, and, notice it well, was not less precious to Him after He rose from the dead. There is no greater mistake than to think that He loved someone before He died and stopped loving them once He rose. So it seems to stand in open contradiction to those who deny the reality of the resurrection body and its proper affections. He was indeed a real man, though the Lord of glory.
The choice held more than memory.
W T TurpinBethany is remarkable as the spot where He ties the hearts of those attached to Him to the place He was going… So Bethany connected heaven with the person of Jesus.
They did not wander there. The leading out is part of the blessing.
W T TurpinI fully accept, and I believe it is perfectly true, that the words "He led them out" express the character of all real blessing. They describe exactly what must happen to every person who receives blessing of this kind. And you will find this. The more heavenly and distinct the blessing is, the more you will have to be led out for it… Could anything be more precious than to see the blessing coming from those pierced hands, the very same hands?
The raised hands repeat an older scene. Aaron was Israel's first high priest. After he offered the sacrifices, he lifted his hand toward the people and blessed them.
Edward DennettAll these offerings picture the one sacrifice of Christ. He was sin offering, burnt offering and peace offering alike. He is the reality behind all the sacrifices found in Leviticus. With this in mind, we can see the wonderful match between what Aaron did and what our blessed Lord did. The Lord had finished offering His sacrifice, and His resurrection proved that God had accepted it… On the foundation of that one perfect and effective sacrifice, He had become the channel between the heart of God and His people, carrying all the blessing He had secured by His death.
One writer sets Aaron's blessing beside this one.
F. B. HoleWhen we read the four verses that close the Gospel of Luke, we feel at once how far more wonderful were the uplifted hands and the blessing of the Lord Jesus. He blessed them just as He ascended into heaven, to take up His High Priestly work there. He had accomplished propitiation by His blood on earth.
Look at who stood under those hands. They had earned nothing.
F. B. HoleHe went up in the very act of blessing His disciples. When we remember what they had proved themselves to be, this is indeed touching. Six weeks before, all had abandoned Him and run away. One had denied Him with oaths and curses, and to all of them He might have said what He did say to two: "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe." Yet on these foolish, faithless, cowardly disciples He lifted up His hands in blessing. And His blessing still comes down on us too. We live in the day when the Spirit is given, and yet we are very like these men.
Luke told this moment twice — here, and again at the start of Acts. The two accounts do not report the same thing.
C E StuartIn the Gospel we learn what the Lord was doing at the moment He parted from them. He was blessing them — a blessing which was not finished (Luke 24:51), and we may say will never be exhausted. His instructions were completed in Acts 1:9. His blessing was not ended in Luke 24:51.
The last scene answers the first.
W T TurpinIt has been well said that the Gospel of Luke ends in perfect keeping with the way it began. It opened by showing you the priest of the order of Levi serving on earth in the temple. It closes with the Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek going up to heaven.
- Led — You do not stumble into blessing of this kind. He walks His own out to it, and the more heavenly it is, the further He leads them.
- Lifted — The raised hands are a priest's hands after sacrifice, and they are pierced hands. The blessing flows from finished work, not from good behaviour.
- Loved — Bethany shows a risen Christ who still loves what He loved before. His resurrection body is real, and so are its affections.
- Undeserved — The men under those hands had fled, denied, and doubted. That is precisely who the blessing falls on, then and now.
- Unfinished — His words to them ended; His blessing did not. He left in the act of it, and it has never been exhausted.
And it came to pass as he was blessing them, he was separated from them and was carried up into heaven.
The last thing the disciples saw of Jesus on earth was His hands raised over them in blessing. He left in the middle of that act, and Luke's wording raises a question: did the blessing ever stop?
Luke does not say Jesus blessed them and then went. He says the parting happened while He was blessing . One writer weighs what that wording means:
Scripture QuarterlyThe real sense of the expression is that His blessing was an unfinished act! Although His position is changed since He has gone on High, He is still in the process of blessing His people.
Luke tells the ascension twice — here, and again at the start of Acts. The two accounts do different work:
C. E. StuartLuke is the only historian of the ascension; Mark just mentions it, but gives no details about it... In Acts we learn what the disciples had been asking, and how the Lord finished answering them before He left. The gospel tells us what the Lord was doing at the moment He parted from them. He was blessing them — a blessing that was not finished, and we may say will never be exhausted. His instructions ended in Acts 1:9. His blessing did not end in Luke 24:51.
Why could He bless them at all? An older pattern gives the answer — Aaron, the priest who offered Israel's sacrifices:
C. E. StuartThe moment that Aaron had finished offering the sacrifices, he could bless the people. Until that moment he had never acted that way toward them... it shows us on what ground it is that people can be blessed, namely, the acceptance of the sacrifice. Without Christ's death, pictured in those offerings, this could not have happened. Once God has accepted the sacrifice, He can bless righteously.
Aaron's hands and the Lord's hands did not look the same:
Michael HardtAaron also raised his hands to bless (Lev. 9:22), but his hands had not been pierced. Those of the Lord Jesus had indeed been pierced, and that is how the disciples saw Him ascend.
The words "carried up" say something about what went into heaven:
F. B. HoleIn that same body He was "carried up into heaven"... "a cloud took him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9). You could not say that a spirit was carried up, and no cloud is needed to take a spirit out of human sight. He was still a Man.
One writer sets this parting beside the fall that began human history:
William KellyJesus had often gone to that spot outside Jerusalem. There was the family that He loved. There He leads the disciples for the last time on earth. From there, in the act of blessing, with uplifted hands, He parts from them and is carried up into heaven — the risen Man, the Lord from heaven. What a contrast with the man who fell, and all the earth through him, passing on the curse to his sad descendants! Here it is not the first Adam, but the Last.
Luke opened his account in the temple, with a priest named Zechariah at his duties. The last scene answers the first:
W. T. TurpinThe Gospel of Luke ends in perfect keeping with the way it began. It opened by showing you the priest of the order of Levi serving on earth in the temple. It closes with the Priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek, going up to heaven. The Gospel of Luke began with Zechariah, but it ends with Jesus about to begin His priestly work on high.
Watching Him go might have crushed them. Instead they were full of joy, because they knew where He had gone:
J. T. MawsonWith hands uplifted in blessing He was parted from them. They knew He had gone to the exaltation of God's throne. They knew that place was the only one worthy to receive Him — it was His due. Infinite perfection had received its just recognition, and as they felt this, their hearts were filled with exultant joy and praise.
- Sacrifice first. Aaron could bless only after God accepted the offerings. Christ's raised hands rest on a death already accomplished — and that is the ground on which God can bless.
- Blessing unbroken. Luke says He was parted while blessing. The act was never finished, and that blessing has never run out.
- Pierced hands. The disciples' last sight of Him was of pierced hands, lifted over them in blessing.
- Carried up as Man. No one would say a spirit was "carried up." The risen Lord entered heaven in a real body — the Last Adam, unlike the first man, who brought the curse.
- Joy as the result. They knew He had reached the throne that was His due, so they went back praising God. The Gospel that opened with a priest on earth closes with the Priest at work on high.