Necessity of Jesus' Ascension

The ascension of Jesus Christ, occurring 40 days after His resurrection, is a pivotal event that completes His redemptive mission, affirming His victory over sin and death and establishing His ongoing intercession for believers. Far from being a mere historical footnote, it underscores Christ’s dual nature as fully God and fully man, as He ascended in His glorified, immortal human body into heaven, now seated at the right hand of the Father. This act signifies His exaltation as Prophet, Priest, and King, where He intercedes for His people, sustains the Church through the Holy Spirit, and prepares for His return. The ascension is not a departure but a divine appointment—Christ’s humanity now occupies the throne of heaven, securing our hope and union with Him, and guaranteeing our future resurrection and eternal life. Rooted in Scripture, affirmed in early creeds, and essential to the Christian faith, the ascension is a vital truth that must be recovered in the church’s worship and teaching.

Bible Insights with  Wayne Conrad
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Transcript

Title:  Necessity of Jesus' Ascension

Date: May 13, 2026

Scripture: 1 Timothy 3:16; Acts 1:9

AI TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Bible Insights with Wayne Conrad. God's word is a lamp to our feet and a light on our path. 

Today's topic is the ascension of Jesus of Nazareth into heaven. It occurred on the 40th day after Jesus rose from the dead. Now, in many ways, the event of the ascension is not appreciated as much as it should be in today's church. We do celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, which is a great teaching of the descent of the word who was with God from all eternity into human flesh through the Virgin Mary. We celebrate it with songs and with scripture and with plays. And it is a wonderful event, but it requires something else.

It requires the life of Christ perfectly lived righteously before God enduring all the temptations of the human being. And it requires his sacrificial death in the body of his incarnation. That's spoken of in the book of Hebrews, quoting from Psalm 40, where the psalmist says, a body you have prepared for me. That's the body of the incarnation. It's very much a human body, just like your body. If you pinch it, it hurt. If you cut it, it bled.

Jesus Christ is a human, a full human male of the line of David. Got hungry, had to sleep. And he had human relationships with his mother, with his friends, with his apostles, and interactions with those who rejected his claims. A true human, but never ceasing to be what he always was, that is, undiminished deity, undiminished divinity, undiminished godness. for he comes from God and is also God, along with the Father and the Spirit.

Jesus, in the body of his incarnation, after some 33, 34, somewhere in there, years, was put to death on the cross, and in dying on the cross, he endured not only the human suffering, but also the divine wrath against the sin of man. Three days later, he rose from the dead. Now, if you have a Christ who is born, has come from heaven and is born of man, with the Virgin Mary and he's put to death on the cross under both the judgment of Pilate and spiritually under the curse of God.

But there is no resurrection, then you do not have a savior because he has been conquered by sin and death. So, his resurrection is absolutely central and is at the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Without the resurrection, there is no gospel. But the resurrection is real, factual, historical, and attested to by many witnesses who saw him in the flesh after his resurrection from the dead.

But Jesus was resurrected from the dead. in an immortal human body, no longer subject to sickness or death or weakness. It's now a perfect human body, incapable of ever dying. It is immortal. Jesus in this immortal body, this immortal flesh, after his resurrection, lived among men with his disciples some 40 days.

But then he ascended into heaven. That is, he went up from the earth back into heaven. That's on the 40th day after Jesus rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven. This means that his resurrected, immortal human body ascended, went up, and it's recorded for us in both Luke 24 and Acts 1.

It went up in front of his disciples who were looking at him as his body suddenly began to be lifted, lifted, lifted, and went into a cloud. the Shekinah cloud of the presence and glory of God. And then he was seen no more. He had met with his disciples many days, but especially on the day of his resurrection and the next week on the first day of the week. So the disciples began early meeting together on the first day. They also were Jews who kept the Sabbath, but they began meeting on the first day, possibly hoping that Christ would once again make his appearance as he had before.

But Christ had prophesied and foretold the ascension in what we call the upper room discourse found in John. 14, 15, 16, and then also mentioned in his prayer to the Father, recorded in John 17. And then mentioned on the day of his resurrection to Mary Magdalene, when she grabbed ahold of his feet and said, I'm not gonna let you go. By her actions, she said that. And he told her to stop clinging to me, stop touching, holding on to me, because I must ascend to the Father. I must ascend back from where he came, back to heaven with the Father. That's what happened on the fourth day after his resurrection. Now, he didn't go there to just disappear. He went there on a very important mission, which continues to this day.

If you have a resurrection of Christ from the dead, but you do not have the ascension, you have an incomplete story. Not only a story, you have an incomplete mission. Because though he has died for the sins of men and has been raised for our justification, we are still here on earth. We need an advocate. We need one who has taken us with him into the heavens.

And that's exactly what Christ did in his ascension, in his human body. He took us with Him, for we are in union with Him through faith and by means of the Holy Spirit. So the life of Christ penetrates us by the resurrected, regenerating power of the Spirit of God that brings our dead spirits and souls into life. And so we have, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have eternal life dwelling within us. but the body will die and the body will be resurrected in union with the resurrected body of Christ.

He's described as the first fruits, which means that we follow after as the full harvest of resurrection at the end of the ages. So, the ascension is a very important event in the life of Christ and it should be, I believe, recovered in the worship of the church and of all branches.

It's Protestants who sometimes do not truly do this in their service. I'm not saying that they have sinned or we have sinned by not doing it. After all, the observance of the days of Christ, the life event are not commanded in scripture for us, but they function, you see, very importantly. They function to bring us, drive us to the scripture that describes these events and then the interpretation of those events, which is the heart of the Christian gospel.

Certainly, this should be in the worship of the church because it brings the gospel constantly to the people in a yearly cycle. We relive the events of Christ incarnate life all the way to the Ascension. And in so doing, we hear the gospel, we preach the gospel, we read the gospel, we sing the gospel.

So, the recovery of the Ascension, emphasis, of Jesus' ascension on the 40th day, it should be definitely observed in the church. Now, many churches do make mention of it on the Sunday after. My own congregation will do that this Sunday, although in actuality, the day of ascension is on Thursday. It's always on a Thursday, because Easter, the resurrection of Christ, is always on a Sunday, on the first day of the week.

So, Jesus arose, and 40 days later, he ascends into heaven, in front of his disciples, into the cloud, and he extends or enters into heaven itself. Now, you might want to think about space travel but remember there's dimensions of reality. And it doesn't necessarily require Jesus going through all outer space in his human body because he is both God and man. He then disappearing into the cloud is instantly into heaven itself.

So, I think we need to explore what the event of the apocalypse, the event of the ascension teaches us. What is its role? What is it telling us? And how important is it? Well, it's so necessary in the life of Christ that it finds itself in the early creeds of the church. And you say, Wayne, are you talking about the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed?

That was written many years later. No, I'm talking about the creeds found in the pages of Holy Scripture. Let me read them to you. Philippians chapter two, written by Paul. Now, whether Paul himself composes or whether he is quoting what is already being confessed in the churches, we'll let the scholars talk about that. We just want to read what it says in the words he's written. This is what he's written. I'm reading from the ESV. He says, let each one of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

He's applying the Christian truth to Christian life. Have this mind, this mindset, this attitude among yourselves. which is yours in Christ Jesus. He's talking about our union with Christ. This is Christ mindset. It therefore is the mindset of those who believe in him. Have this mindset among yourselves. He's talking about the fellowship, the life of Christians in relationship to one another. This mind among yourselves, which was yours in Christ Jesus.

Now he's going to talk about the Messiah, Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with a thing to be grasped, a thing to be held on to, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. It doesn't mean that he ceased being God, but he took to himself a body of humiliation. He is born into human flesh. He's taking the form of a servant. Being born in the likeness of men, of mankind, and being found in human form, being a human being, though retaining his deity, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore, In response to this, because of this, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now the title Lord is indicative of his deity. He reigns as the God-man. He ascended into heaven. God the Father exalted him and bestowed on him this name above all. So, this speaks to the resurrection, yes, but the resurrection is completed by his ascension into heaven.

1 Timothy chapter three and verse 16. Now, Paul is writing to Timothy, his son in the faith and one who is in Christian ministry. He says, I hope to come to you soon, wherever Timothy was serving, but I'm writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress to the truth." What's the truth he's referring to? Well, he gives it to us.

1 Timothy 3, 16, great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness. He, the he refers to Jesus. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up in glory. Taken up in glory is the reference to the ascension of Jesus Christ.

So where is Jesus today? If you look for Jesus, the man of immortal flesh, you will not find him in a temple in Jerusalem. You will not find him in the palaces of kings because he is not here on earth in his body. Physically, the immortal flesh the immortal body of Jesus of Nazareth is in the heavens.

It's in the throne room of God. That's where he went. He ascended to the Father. So, you see, the resurrection requires the ascension. The ascension of Jesus is absolutely necessary. He who came from heaven, the son of God, the son born of Mary, made flesh through her conception by means of the Holy Spirit. That made flesh human. God-man returns to heaven in the body of his incarnation after his sacrifice for sin. and he is seated at the right hand of God the Father, where he shares now the throne, the throne room of heaven. The scripture describes it as being seated at the right hand of the Father on high.

Now, although the actual event of the ascension of Christ is true, recorded as far as the actual seeing of it only in Luke 24 and Acts 1, yet the Acts is occurring at the same time that these epistles of Paul and Peter are being written. And these letters often mention and talk about the ascension of Christ Everything in the New Testament proceeds from the reality of the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus Christ.

And that includes the last book of the New Testament called the Apocalypse or the Revelation, the Unveiling. That'll be part two of our message on the ascension of Jesus Christ. The fact that Jesus Christ is mentioned in two of the earliest creeds of the church record not only his resurrection but record his ascension. And so, Philippians 2, 5 through 11 and 1st Timothy 3, 16 are passages of scripture which we need to be very familiar with. And although the doctrine of the ascension of Christ is only briefly recorded, Jesus gave full teaching concerning it in the upper room with the disciples before his death. And it is frequently mentioned by both Paul and Peter in the letters of the New Testament.

As you have opportunity, together with other believers on the day we remember the ascension of Christ. It is not on that day, perhaps on the Sunday after, you can focus on what Christ has accomplished and how much the ascension of Christ really means for us. Let me conclude this first broadcast concerning the Ascension with a question and answer from a combined catechism that I had drawn up. What do we believe concerning the Ascension of Christ?

Using the material found in the Westminster Larger Catechism and the Belgian Confession, here is the confession. We believe that Christ, having risen from the dead, stayed on earth 40 days to confirm his resurrection and instruct his apostles, Acts 1-3.

Afterward, in our human nature and as our head, Ephesians 1, 22-23, he visibly ascended, that is, went up into the highest heavens Acts 1, 9 through 11. And he was received into glory, where now, today, he sits at the right hand of God the Father. Mark 16, verse 19. And he is seated far above all principalities and powers. Ephesians 1, 20 through 21.

So, what is Christ currently doing for us in heaven? Well, he went into heaven as our prophet. He went into heaven as our great high priest. He went into heaven as our king. And so in this threefold office of mediator, Christ is sustaining us, saving us as his people in our journey here on earth. We come to faith in Christ by means of the new life given by the Holy Spirit in evidence in our repentance and faith. We must endure; we must live our life now as believers in union with Christ. And we need his ministry in heaven and his ministry here on earth that's brought to us by the Holy Spirit.

As we await the day of his return, the glorious conqueror, the king of heaven. And he shall return and we shall rise from the dead in resurrected bodies like him to meet him, to be forever with him on the new heaven and the new earth. Even so come, Lord Jesus. 

This has been Wayne Conrad with Bible Insights.