What is Ascension Day?

This term is constantly applied to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to heaven from where He came. John 3:13. Leading His eleven apostles out as far as Bethany, on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, in the act of blessing them He ascended up to heaven, and a cloud hid Him from their sight. Mark 16:19; Luke 24:50-51; Acts 1:9. The ascension of the Lord Jesus is a momentous fact for His saints: the One who bore their sins on the cross has been received up in glory, and sits on the right hand of God.

In Acts 1:2, 9, 11 and 22 there are four references to the Lord Jesus being "taken up," a universal testimony to the truth of the angelic word — "He is not here, for he has risen, as he said" (Matthew 28:6). From the very earliest moment the glorious truth of our Lord's ascension was attested by those who actually witnessed it; there remains no possibility of doubt! Mark records in his Gospel that after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat at the right hand of God. Luke says that while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. This was no apparition wrapped in mystery; wonderful indeed was the event, yet it was seen and understood by His disciples, who as inspired by the Holy Spirit have recorded its precious details.

Clearly, our Lord needed to be glorified in order for the Spirit to be given this way. He, "being exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing," so says Peter in the course of preaching in Acts 2:33. Christ being where He is at God's right hand, of necessity — as He had done on the cross — must accomplish redemption. Praise Him! This is just what He did by His dying and blood shedding. As raised from the dead and glorified He has given the Spirit. There are, in consequence, three things true which never could be before: there is a Man in the glory; a divine Person, the Holy Spirit, here upon earth; and a new company in union with Christ where He is, in the power of the indwelling Spirit.

As forerunner He has entered into heaven for the saints, and has been made a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. Heb. 6:20. His ascension assured, according to His promise, the descent of the Holy Spirit, which was accomplished at Pentecost. John 16:7; Acts 1:4, 8; Acts 2:1-47. As ascended He became Head of His body the church, Eph. 1:22, and gave gifts to men, among which gifts are evangelists who preach to the world, and pastors and teachers to care for and instruct the saints. Ps. 68:18; Eph. 4:8-13.

Nothing is more prominently brought forward in the New Testament than the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. This was the first comfort of the angels to the sorrowing disciples: "This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven," Acts 1:11.

There are many who object to anything that might look like approval of Christendom's observance of the days named above, an observance resting wholly, as we know, on a traditional basis, and having no authority whatever in holy Scripture… It is not that the mere fact of the world's observing these days should lead us to object, for on that ground we should also refuse to observe the Lord's Day; but then we must remember the words of the apostle, "You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain."