Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 16:19
So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.
19, 20. The Ascension
19. So then after the Lord ] Some MSS. here insert the word Jesus. Combined with Lord, it would be a term of reverence.
spoken unto them ] This does not mean immediately after our Lord had uttered the last words, but after He had on different occasions during the “Great Forty Days” spoken unto them of “the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Act 1:3). The original word here rendered “ had spoken unto them “has a much wider signification. It signifies to teach, to instruct by preaching and other oral communication. Compare its use in Mar 13:11; Joh 9:29, “We know that God spake unto Moses,” i. e. held communications with Moses; Joh 15:22, “If I had not come,” says our Lord, “and spoken unto them,” i. e. preached to them. So that here it denotes after our Lord had during the forty days fully instructed His Apostles by His oral teaching in all things appertaining to His kingdom and the planting of His Church.
he was received ] The original word only occurs here in the Gospels. It is applied three times in the Acts (Mar 1:2; Mar 1:11; Mar 1:22) to the Ascension, and is so applied by St Paul, 1Ti 3:16, “ received up into glory.”
into heaven ] What St Mark records thus concisely in his short practical Gospel for the busy, active, Christians of Rome, St Luke has related at much greater length. From him we learn how one day the Lord bade His Apostles accompany Him along the road from Jerusalem towards Bethany and the Mount of Olives; how, full of hopes of a temporal kingdom, they questioned Him as to the time of its establishment; how their inquiries were solemnly silenced (Act 1:7); and how then after He had bestowed upon them His last abiding blessing, while His Hands were yet uplifted in benediction (Luk 24:50-51), “ He began to be parted from them, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.”
and sat on the right hand of God ] The Session at the right Hand of God, recorded only by St Mark, forms a striking and appropriate conclusion to his Gospel, and “conveys to the mind a comprehensive idea of Christ’s Majesty and Rule.” Our Lord was “taken up,” and bore our redeemed humanity into the very presence of God, into “the place of all places in the universe of things, in situation most eminent, in quality most holy, in dignity most excellent, in glory most illustrious, the inmost sanctuary of God’s temple above” (Barrow’s Sermon on the Ascension). There, having led “captivity captive, and received gifts for men” (Psa 68:18; Eph 4:8), He sat down on the right Hand of God, by which expression we are to understand that in the heaven of heavens He now occupies the place of greatest honour, of most exalted majesty, and of most perfect bliss, and that God hath conferred upon Him all preeminence of dignity, power, favour, and felicity. See Pearson on the Creed, Art vi.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He was received up into heaven – In a cloud from the Mount of Olives. See Act 1:9.
The right hand of God – We are not to suppose that God has hands, or that Jesus sits in any particular direction from God. This phrase is taken from the manner of speaking among men, and means that he was exalted to honor and power in the heavens. It was esteemed the place of the highest honor to be seated at the right hand of a prince. So, to be seated at the right hand of God, means that Jesus is exalted to the highest honor of the universe. Compare Eph 1:20-22.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Mar 16:19
He was received up into heaven.
The Ascension and its effects
The hidden source of the Christians spiritual life is with Christ in God. To Him he looks as his treasure-his treasure in heaven; thither does he endeavour in heart and mind to ascend; he sets his affections on things above; he seeks those things which are at the right hand of God, with Christ, to be dispensed by Him, according to His promise. The ascension was the great consummation of Christs work. Observe in this connection-
I. The period at which He ascended: after He has spoken to the apostles. He did not leave them until His prophetical work on earth was done, and He had provided for the continued application of the benefits He had secured for mankind.
II. Whence He was received: from the Mount of Olives. A favourite spot, and one hallowed by frequent communion with His Father, and close to the garden where He rendered His will to God. The valley of humiliation was changed into the mount of triumph.
III. By whom He was received: by the holy angels. What joy for them! They ushered Him into the Presence chamber of Jehovah, and there He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High.
IV. The purpose for which He ascended.
1. To prepare a place for His people.
2. To rule and order all things for the glory of God.
3. To intercede for all who come to God by Him.
4. To send the Holy Spirit to dwell with His people and guide them into all the truth.
That Blessed Spirit is the true remedy for all the wants we feel, for the coldness of our hearts towards Him, for our many departures from His will, our many shortcomings and turnings aside from Him. (Bp. F. Barker, D. D.)
Christs Ascension
O happy parting, fit for the Saviour of mankind. O blessed Jesu, let me so far imitate Thee, as to depart hence with a blessing in my mouth; let my soul, when it is stepping over the threshold of heaven, leave behind it a legacy of peace and happiness.
I. From whence did He ascend? From the Mount of Olives. He might have ascended from the valley; all the globe of earth was alike to Him; but since He was to mount upward, He would take so much advantage as that stair of ground would afford Him. Since he had made hills so much nearer to heaven, He would not neglect the benefit of His Own creation. Where we have common helps, we may not depend upon supernatural provisions, we may not strain the Divine Providence to the supply of our negligence, or the humouring of our presumption. O God, teach me to bless Thee for means, when I have them; and to trust Thee for means, when I have them not; yea, to trust Thee without means, when I have no hope of them.
II. Whither did He ascend? Whither, but home into His heaven? From the mountain was He taken up; and what but heaven is above the hills? Already had He approved Himself the Lord and Commander of earth, of sea, of hell. It only remained that, as Lord of the air, He should pass through all the regions of that yielding element; and, as Lord of heaven, through all the glorious contiguations thereof. He had an everlasting right to that heaven; an undoubted possession of it ever since it was; but His human nature took not possession of it until now. O Jesu, raise Thou up my heart thither to Thee; place my affections upon Thee above, and teach me to love heaven, because Thou art there.
III. How did He ascend? As in His crucifixion and resurrection, so also in His ascension, the act was His Own, the power of it none but His. The angels did attend Thee, they did not aid Thee: whence had they their strength, but from Thee? Unlike Elias, Thou needest no chariot, no carriage of angels; Thou art the Author of life and motion; they move in and from Thee. As Thou, therefore, didst move Thyself upward, so, by the same Divine power, Thou will raise us up to the participation of Thy glory. (Bp. Joseph Hall.)
Comfort from Christs Ascension
O my soul, be Thou now, if ever, ravished with the contemplation of this comfortable and blessed farewell of thy Saviour. What a sight was this, how full of joyful assurance, of spiritual consolation! Methinks I see it still with their eyes, how Thou, my glorious Saviour, didst leisurely and insensibly rise up from Thine Olivet, taking leave of Thine acclaiming disciples, now left below Thee, with gracious eyes, with heavenly benedictions. Methinks I see how they followed Thee with eager and longing eyes, with arms lifted up, as if they had wished them winged, to bare soared up after Thee. And if Elijah gave assurance to his servant Elisha, that, if he should have beheld him in that rapture, his masters spirit should be doubled upon him; what an accession of the spirit of joy and confidence must needs be to His happy disciples, in seeing Christ thus gradually rising up to His heaven! O how unwillingly did their intentive eyes let go so blessed an object! How unwelcome was that cloud that interposed itself betwixt Him and them, and, closing up itself, left only a glorious splendour behind it, as the bright track of His ascension! Of old, here below, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud; now, afar off in the sky, the cloud intercepted this heavenly glory; if distance did not rather do it than that bright meteor. Their eyes attended Him on His way so far as their beams would reach; when they could go no further, the cloud received Him. Lo, even yet that very screen, whereby He was taken off from all earthly view, was no other than glorious; how much rather do all the beholders fix their sight upon that cloud, than upon the best piece of the firmament! Never was the sun itself gazed upon with so much intention. With what long looks, with what astonished acclamations, did these transported beholders follow Thee, their ascending Saviour! As if they would have looked through that cloud, and that heaven that hid Him from them Look not after Him, O ye weak disciples, as so departed that ye shall see Him no more; if He be gone, yet He is not lost; those heavens that received Him shall restore Him; neither can those blessed mansions decrease His glory. Ye have seen Him ascend upon the chariot of a bright cloud; and, in the clouds of heaven, ye shall see Him descend again to His last judgment. He is gone: can it trouble you to know you have an Advocate in heaven? Strive not now so much to exercise your bodily eyes in looking after Him, as the eyes of your souls in looking for Him. If it be our sorrow to part with our Saviour, yet, to part with Him into heaven, it is comfort and felicity: if His absence could be grievous, His return shall be happy and glorious. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly: in the meantime it is not heaven that can keep Thee from me; it is not earth that can keep me from Thee: raise Thou up my soul to a life of faith with Thee; let me ever enjoy Thy conversation, whilst I expect Thy return. (Bp. Joseph Hall.)
The enthroned Christ
How strangely calm and brief, this record of so stupendous an event. Something sublime in the contrast between the magnificence and almost inconceivable grandeur of the thing communicated, and the quiet words, so few, so sober, so wanting in all detail, in which it is told. The stupendous fact of Christ sitting at the right hand of God is the one that should fill the present for us all, even as the Cross should fill the past, and the coming for judgment should fill the future.
I. The exalted man. In His ascension Christ was but returning to His eternal Home; but He took with Him-what He had not had before in heaven-His humanity. It was the Everlasting Son of the Father, the Eternal Word, which from the beginning was with God and was God, that came down from heaven to earth, to declare the Father; but it was the Incarnate Word, the man Christ Jesus, who went back again. And He went as our Forerunner, to prepare a place for us, that where He is we also might be.
II. The resting Saviour. Christ rests after His cross, not because He needs repose, but in token that His work is finished, and that the Father has accepted it.
III. The interceding priest. There are deep mysteries connected with the thought of Christs intercession. It does not mean that the Divine heart needs to be won to love and pity; or that in any merely outward and formal fashion He pleads with God, and softens and placates the Infinite and Eternal love of the Father in the heavens. But it means that He, our Saviour and Sacrifice, is forever in the presence of God; presenting His Own Blood as an element in the Divine dealing with us; and securing, through His own merits and intercession, the outflow of blessings upon our heads and hearts.
IV. The ever-active Helper. The right hand of God is the omnipotent energy of God. The ascended Christ is the ubiquitous Christ. Our Brother, the Son of Man, sits ruling all things; shall we not, then, be restful and content? (A Maclaren, D. D.)
Design of Christs Ascension
1. To confirm the prophecies.
2. To commence His mediatorial work in heaven.
3. To send the Holy Ghost.
4. To prepare a place for His people.
He went up as our Representative, Forerunner, High Priest, and Intercessor, and as the King of Glory. (G. S. Bowes.)
Manner of Christs Ascension
The manner of Christs ascension into heaven may be said to have been an instance of Divine simplicity and sublimity combined, which scarcely has a parallel. While in the act of blessing His disciples (St. Luk 24:50-51), He was parted from them, and was carried up, and disappeared behind a cloud (Act 1:9). There was no pomp; nothing could have been more simple. How can the followers of this Lord and Master rely on pomp and ceremony to spread His religion, when He, its Founder, gave no countenance to such appeals to the senses of men? Had some good men been consulted about the manner of the ascension, we can imagine the result. (N. Adams.)
Ascension Day, on earth and in heaven
I. On earth. Think of the marvellous day when the disciples once more followed the Lord as far as unto Bethany, now truly on His way home. All the glimpses of the forty days had pressed it upon them that, while truly the same Jesus, He was yet drawing away from them. Still loving and tender, He is hedged about with divinity that makes a king. He bends not again to wash their feet; Mary does not touch Him, John does not lie in His bosom. Nature is losing its hold on His humanity. Suddenly He comes and goes, scarce recognized at first, then quickly hailed with rapturous confidence. They see Him no longer bearing unweariness, hunger, or the contempt of men. Jew and Roman are now out of the contest. Satan dares no more assaults. He has no sighs, no tears, no nights of prayer, no agony with bloody sweat. And now as they watch, that chiefest force of matter on which the systems stand, slips away from the particles of the form He wears, and He ascends in their sight, out of their sight, until swathed in the splendour of a cloud of glory.
II. In heaven. Dare we imagine the scene? Angels unnumbered, their faces solemn with a new awe at the great work of God; the first woman beholding at last the Seed; the first man Adam, rejoicing to see his fearful work undone and the race left free to join itself to a new Head; the patriarchs no longer pilgrims; priests no longer ministering at temple and altar; prophets finding prophecy itself looking backward on fulfilment; the heroes of the Church; the babes of Bethlehem slaughtered about His cradle-can we imagine the scene as He passed through the midst of these? Did they gaze on His form, with print of thorn and nail and spear, which mark Him forever as the Lamb that hath been slain? Up He passes through the bowed ranks, among saints and elders and martyrs, the four mystical living ones, beyond the glassy sea, amid the spirits seven burning flames, beneath the emerald glittering bow, to that glory whose brightness jasper and sardius cannot express, and on this highest height of the supreme throne of the ineffable God, He takes His Own place. (C. M. Southgate.)
The tomb and triumph
Whenever you think of our Lords resurrection and ascension, remember always that the background to His triumph is a tomb. Remember that it is the triumph over suffering; a triumph of One who still bears the prints of the nails in His hands and in His feet, and the wound of the spear in His side; like many a poor soul who has followed Him triumphant at last, and yet scarred and maimed in the hard battle of life. Remember forever the adorable wounds of Christ. Remember forever that St. John saw in the midst of the throne of God the likeness of a Lamb, as it had been slain. For so alone you will learn what our Lords resurrection and ascension are to all who have to suffer and to toil on earth. (C. Kingsley M. A.)
Christ is living now
What good would it do to you if you were suffering from some peculiar accident to a limb, and someone came and told you of a surgeon who lived a hundred years ago, and who had been wonderfully clever in resetting the same bone after that precise kind of fracture? You might feel that he would have been able and willing to relieve you from pain, and to prevent all subsequent deformity. But if you were told of some living man who had shown the same skill, and if it were explained how it was that he had acquired his special experience, and how he had succeeded in one case after another when every other surgeon was helpless, you would say, Now I have heard all this I will send for him at once, and put myself in his hands. This is just what men have to be persuaded to do in relation to Christ to realize that He is living still, and that He is not only willing but able to give every man who asks of Him forgiveness of all past evil and strength to do better in time to come. (R. W. Dale D. D.)
Jesus at the right hand of God
John Bunyan was walking one day in a field, in great trouble of soul at the discovery of his own vileness, and not knowing how to be justified with God, when he beard, as he imagined, a voice saying to him, Your righteousness is in heaven. He went into his house and took his Bible, thinking to find there the very words that he thus sounded in his heart. He did not discover the identical expression, but many a passage of Scripture proclaimed the same truth, and showed him that Jesus, at the right hand of God, is complete righteousness to everyone that believeth. (Handbook to Scripture Doctrines.)
The ascension of Christ
We cannot contemplate the characters of men who have benefited the world by the splendour of their talents or the lustre of their lives, without feeling a spirit of inquisitive solicitude to know how they finished their course, parted with their friends, and made their exit. We labour to catch the last glance of departing worth.
I. The period when Christ ascended.
1. After upbraiding His disciples with their unbelief and hardness of heart.
2. After assigning to them their work.
(1) The work was to preach the gospel, not false doctrines, not human opinions, not Jewish ceremonies.
(2) The sphere of their operation was all the world.
(3) Their commission was to every creature. Hence we infer that the gospel is suited to the circumstances of all-designed for the benefit of all-and that the ministers of truth should aim at preaching it to all.
3. After comforting them by the promise of a miraculous influence with which they should be invested.
II. The manner.
1. Christs ascension was accomplished by His own eternal power.
2. It was publicly witnessed by His disciples.
3. It was hailed with transport by ministering angels. St. Luke declares that a cloud received Him; who can tell what amazing scenes were unfolded beyond that cloud?
III. His subsequent situation. He sat on the right hand of God. This signifies-
1. The honour and dignity to which our Saviour is exalted.
2. The rule and government with which He is invested (Eph 1:20-22; Joh 3:35; Mat 11:27; Rom 8:34).
3. The tranquility and happiness of which He is possessed.
Conclusion: From this subject we learn-
1. Christ finished the work which He came upon earth to accomplish.
2. Christ has highly honoured human nature.
3. Christ is exalted for our sake (Heb 9:24).
This should give us confidence in our prayers, excite our emulation, and, above all, inspire our hopes. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
Our Lords Ascension
I. The fact of the ascension. Christ was, according to His humanity, translated by the Divine power into heaven. As God, He transferred Himself, as man, thither: to sit, thenceforward, at the right band of the Majesty on high. This signifies-
1. Preeminence of dignity, power, favour, and felicity.
2. The solid ground, the firm possession, the durable continuance, the undisturbed rest and quiet, of His condition.
3. The nature, quality, and design of His preferment. He is our Ruler and Judge.
4. His glorification.
II. Confirmatory considerations.
1. Ocular testimony. The apostles witnessed Christs ascension.
2. Rational deduction. His arriving at the supreme pitch of glory, and sitting there, is deduced from the authority of His own word, and stands on the same ground as any other point of Christian faith and doctrine.
3. Ancient predictions.
III. The end and effect of the ascension.
1. Our Lord did ascend unto, and doth reside in, heaven, at the right hand of Divine majesty and power, that as a King He may govern us, protecting us from all danger, relieving us in all want, delivering us from all evil.
2. Our Saviour did ascend, and now sits at Gods right hand, that He may, in regard to us, there exercise His priestly function.
3. Our Lord tells us that it was necessary He should depart hence, and enter into this glorious state, that He might there exercise His prophetical office by imparting to us His Holy Spirit for our instruction, direction, assistance, and comfort.
4. Our Lord also tells us that He went to heaven to prepare a place there for His faithful servants. He has entered heaven as our Forerunner, our Harbinger, to dispose things there for our reception and entertainment.
5. It is an effect of our Lords ascension and glorification, that an good Christians are with Him in a sort translated into heaven, and advanced into a glorious state, being made kings and priests to God.
6. I might add that God did thus advance our Saviour, to declare the special regard He bears to piety, righteousness, and obedience, by His so amply rewarding and highly dignifying the practice thereof.
IV. Practical considerations.
1. It may serve to guard us from divers errors with regard to our Lords human nature. Our Lord did visibly, in human shape, ascend to heaven, and therefore He continues still a Man; and as such He abides in heaven. He is indeed everywhere by His Divinity present with us; He is also in His humanity present to our faith, memory, affection; He is therein also present by mysterious representation, by spiritual efficacy, by general inspection and influence on His Church; but in body, as we are absent from Him, so is He likewise separated from us; we must depart hence, that we may be with Him in the place whither He is gone to prepare for us.
2. Is Christ ascended and advanced to this glorious eminency at Gods right hand? Then let us answerably behave ourselves towards Him, rendering Him the honour and worship, the fear and reverence, the service and obedience, suitable and due to His state.
3. These points afford ground and matter of great joy and comfort to us. Victory over enemies; exaltation of Him who has stooped to become one with us-our Elder Brother; the possession of a Friend in so high place and so great power, etc.
4. The consideration of these things serves to cherish and strengthen all kinds of faith and hope in us. We cannot surely distrust the accomplishment of any promises declared by Him, we cannot despair of receiving any good from Him, who is ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of Divine wisdom and power, thence viewing all things done here, thence ordering all things everywhere for the advantage of those who love Him and trust in Him.
5. These points likewise serve to excite and encourage our devotion. Having such a Mediator in heaven, so good and sure a Friend at court, what should hinder us from cheerfully addressing ourselves by Him on all occasions to God?
6. It may encourage us to all kinds of obedience, to consider what a high pitch of eternal glory and dignity our Lord has obtained in regard to His obedience, and as a pledge of like recompense designed to us if we tread in His footsteps.
7. The consideration of these points should elevate our thoughts and affections from these inferior things here below unto heavenly things (Col 3:1). To the Head of our body we should be joined; continually deriving sense and motion, direction and activity, from Him; where the Master of our family is, there should our minds be, constantly attentive to His pleasure, and ready to serve Him; where the city is whose denizens we are, and where our final rest must be, there should our thoughts be, careful to observe the law and orders, that we may enjoy the immunities and privileges thereof; in that country where only we have any good estate or valuable concernment, there our mind should be, studying to secure and improve our interest therein; our resolution should be conformable to that of the holy Psalmist: I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help. (Isaac Barrow, D. D.)
Christs ascension and cooperation
I. Contemplate these apostles witnessing the ascension of their Lord.
1. The place from which He ascended. Mount of Olives. Thither He had been accustomed to resort after the labours and fatigues of the day; there He had often spent a whole night in meditation and prayer; and now He Himself ascends from the same place. There His disciples had forsaken Him and fled; and there He was now parted from them, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.
2. The manner in which He ascended.
(1) Visibly. His disciples were eyewitnesses of His majesty, as He rose higher and higher from the mountain, till the cloud covered Him, and concealed Him from their sight.
(2) While He was in the act of blessing.
3. The place to which He ascended. Heaven. His own home. What rejoicings at His return!
II. Contemplate the apostles going forth to preach His Gospel.
1. The subject of their preaching. The gospel of Jesus Christ-the crucified, risen, and ascended Saviour.
2. They communicated this gospel to mankind by preaching.
(1) A Divine ordinance.
(2) A speedy way of teaching.
(3) A method admirably adapted for impressing the great truth of the gospel on mens hearts.
3. The extent to which they preached this gospel was universal. Everywhere. To every creature, was the command.
III. Contemplate the apostles experiencing their Lords cooperation with them in their labours. Wherever they worked as instruments, He worked also as the efficient agent; for His power is omnipotent; and the signs promised were the result.
1. These Divine influences qualified the preachers of the gospel.
2. These Divine influences confirmed the truth of the gospel.
3. These Divine influences ensured the success of the gospel.
A glorious conquest-a triumph over mind and heart. It was great and godlike even to plan the moral conquest of a world; but when the plan is all accomplished, when all the nations of the earth become one holy and happy family, then shall the world enjoy its millennial jubilee, and Christ the Mediator shall be Lord of all. (J. Alexander, D. D.)
An open way to heaven
When He ascended up on high, He opened and prepared a path, along which we may travel till we behold His face in righteousness. It has been said, that in the early ages an attempt was once made to build a chapel on the top of the hill from which Christ ascended into heaven; but that it was found impossible either to pave over the place where He last stood, or to erect a roof across the path through which He had ascended;-a legendary tale, no doubt, though perhaps intended to teach the important troth that the moral marks and impressions which Christ has left behind Him can never be obliterated; that the way to heaven through which He has passed can never be closed by human skill or power; and that He has set before us an open door which no man shall be able to shut. (J. Alexander, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 19. After the Lord had spoken] These things, and conversed with them for forty days, he was taken up into heaven, there to appear in the presence of God for us.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Matthew saith nothing of our Saviours ascension. Mark speaketh of it very shortly. Luke saith, And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And again gives us this part of this history most fully, Act 1:1-12. We shall in our notes on Luk 24:51-53 speak more fully to this. We are told, Act 1:3, that Christ was forty days upon the earth after his resurrection, and, Act 1:9, that a cloud did receive him. He is said to sit on the right hand of God, to distinguish him from angels, whose places are but places of ministration.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
19. So then after the Lordanepithet applied to Jesus by this Evangelist only in Mar 16:19;Mar 16:20, when He comes to Hisglorious Ascension and its subsequent fruits. It is most frequent inLuke.
had spoken unto them, he wasreceived up into heavenSee on Lu24:50, 51.
and sat on the right hand ofGodThis great truth is here only related as a fact in theGospel history. In that exalted attitude He appeared to Stephen(Act 7:55; Act 7:56);and it is thereafter perpetually referred to as His proper conditionin glory.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
So then, after the Lord,…. The Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions add, “Jesus”; and the Ethiopic version reads, “our Lord, the Lord Jesus”; and both Syriac and Persic read, “our Lord”; which is common in these versions, where the word “Lord” is used:
had spoken unto them; the disciples, the above words, which commissioned them where to go, what to do, and what to say; and what should follow them, for the confirmation of their mission and doctrine:
he was received up into heaven; in a cloud, angels attending him, and devils led captive by him, and with a welcome into his Father’s presence:
and sat on the right hand of God; the Ethiopic version adds, “his own Father”, and which is an evidence of his having done his work, and that to full satisfaction; and is an honour never conferred on angels, or any mere creature; and is a peculiar dignity conferred on the human nature of Christ, in union with his divine person; and here he will remain, till his second coming.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Ascension. |
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19 So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. 20 And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.
Here is, 1. Christ welcomed into the upper world (v. 19): After the Lord had spoken what he had to say to his disciples, he went up into heaven, in a cloud; which we have a particular account of (Acts i. 9), and he had not only an admission, but an abundant entrance, into his kingdom there; he was received up, received in state, with loud acclamations of the heavenly hosts; and he sat on the right hand of God: sitting in a posture of rest, for now he had finished his work, and a posture of rule, for now he took possession of his kingdom; he sat at the right hand of God, which denotes the sovereign dignity he is advanced to, and the universal agency he is entrusted with. Whatever God does concerning us, gives to us, or accepts from us, it is by his Son. Now he is glorified with the glory he had before the world.
2. Christ welcomed in this lower world; his being believed on in the world, and received up into glory, are put together, 1 Tim. iii. 16. (1.) We have here the apostles working diligently for him; they went forth, and preached every where far and near. Though the doctrine they preached, was spiritual and heavenly, and directly contrary to the spirit and genius of the world, though it met with abundance of opposition, and was utterly destitute of all secular supports and advantages, yet the preachers of it were neither afraid nor ashamed; they were so industrious in spreading the gospel, that within a few years the sound of it went forth into the ends of the earth, Rom. x. 18. (2.) We have here God working effectually with them, to make their labours successful, by confirming the word with signs following, partly by the miracles that were wrought upon the bodies of the people, which were divine seals to the Christian doctrine, and partly by the influence it had upon the minds of the people, through the operation of the Spirit of God, see Heb. ii. 4. These were properly signs following the word–the reformation of the world, the destruction of idolatry, the conversion of sinners, the comfort of saints; and these signs still follow it, and that they may do so more and more, for the honour of Christ and the good of mankind, the evangelist prays, and teaches us to say Amen. Father in heaven, thus let thy name be hallowed, and let thy kingdom come.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Was received up into heaven ( ). First aorist passive indicative. Luke gives the fact of the Ascension twice in Gospel (Lu 24:50f.) and Ac 1:9-11. The Ascension in Mark took place after Jesus spoke to the disciples, not in Galilee (16:15-18), nor on the first or second Sunday evening in Jerusalem. We should not know when it took place nor where but for Luke who locates it on Olivet (Lu 24:50) at the close of the forty days (Ac 1:3) and so after the return from Galilee (Mt 28:16).
Sat down at the right hand of God ( ). Swete notes that the author “passes beyond the field of history into that of theology,” an early and most cherished belief (Acts 7:55; Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; Heb 1:3; Heb 8:1; Heb 10:12; Heb 12:2; 1Pet 3:22; Rev 3:21).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
THE ASCENSION OF JESUS V. 19, 20
1) “So then after the Lord had spoken unto them,” (ho men oun hurios [lesous] meta to lalesai autois) “Therefore, after the Lord had spoken to them,” (as a body, a chosen church body) He led them out to Bethany, Joh 15:16; Joh 15:27; Mat 28:18-20; Luk 24:46-50.
2) “He was received up into heaven,” (anelemphthe eis ton ouranon) “He was taken (transported, carried) up into the heaven,” the third heaven, the dwelling place of God, while He blessed His church brethren from Galilee, for the last time, Luk 24:50-53; Act 1:10-11.
3) “And sat on the right hand of God.” (kai eka thisen ek deksion tou theou) “And sat out at the right hand of God,” when He reached heaven, where He now sits, making intercession for His own children, and church, Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20, Heb 1:3; Heb 7:25; 1Jn 2:1.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Mar 16:19
. And after the Lord had thus spoken to them. The Evangelist Matthew, having extolled in magnificent language the reign of Christ over the whole world, says nothing about his ascension to heaven. Mark, too, takes no notice of the place and the manner, both of which are described by Luke; for he says that the disciples were led out to Bethany, that from the Mount of Olives, (Mat 24:3,) whence he had descended to undergo the ignominy of the cross, he might ascend the heavenly throne. Now as he did not, after his resurrection, appear indiscriminately to all, so he did not permit all to be the witnesses of his ascension to heaven; for he intended that this mystery of faith should be known by the preaching of the gospel rather than beheld by the eyes.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Mar. 16:19-20. Mark the antithesis. The Lord, for His part, was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of Godthe seat of power; and they, for their part, went forth into the world to do as He had bidden them, and, doing it, they were sustained and reinforced by His almighty aid.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Mar. 16:19-20
(PARALLELS: Luk. 24:50-51; Act. 1:9.)
Christs ascension and co-operation.The words after the Lord had spoken unto them may refer primarily to the commission which He had just given to His disciples to go into all the world and to preach the gospel to every creature, and to the various instructions and promises with which that commission was accompanied. But the words probably refer also to all that Christ had spoken to His disciples after His resurrection from the dead; for we are told in His history that after His crucifixion He shewed Himself alive by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Eighteen hundred years have passed away since these events occurred, and we never saw either the Saviour or the apostles to whom they refer. But we believe the record that relates them to us, we make them the subject of devout and delightful contemplation, and we feel that we have an interest in them which will never cease to influence our hearts through time or through eternity.
I. Let us contemplate these apostles witnessing the ascension of their Lord.
1. The place from which He ascended was the Mount of Olivesthat part of it which was situated in the district of Bethany (Luk. 24:50). It was the place to which He had been accustomed to resort after the labours and fatigues of the day, and where He had often spent whole nights in meditation and in prayer; and now He Himself ascends from the same place whence His nightly supplications had so often ascended to His Father and to our Father, to His God and to our God. It was the place over which He passed as He made His last entry into Jerusalem, where He was crowned with thorns; and from which He now passes to the heavenly Jerusalem, to be crowned with glory and honour. It was the place to which He repaired with His disciples, after they had partaken of the Last Supper; for when they had sung a hymn they went into the Mount of Olives. There His disciples forsook Him and fled, and there He was afterwards parted from them, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.
2. The manner in which He ascended is minutely recorded (Luk. 24:51). His ascension was visible, and His disciples were eye-witnesses of His majesty, as He rose higher and higher from the mountain, till the cloud covered Him and concealed Him from their sight. But the most interesting fact connected with His ascension is that it took place whilst He was in the act of blessing His disciples. When the high priest among the Jews began to bless the congregation, he lifted up his hands and exclaimed, The Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord cause His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift upon thee the light of His countenance, and give thee peace. And in like manner our Great High Priest lifted up His handsthose hands which had so often given bread to the hungry, health to the sick, life to the dead, salvation to the lostthose hands which had so lately bled upon the Cross, and in which the print of the nails was yet visiblethose bountiful and wounded hands He lifted up, and then He began to bless His disciples. And it came to pass, while He blessed them (after His blessing was begun, but before it was concluded)it came to pass, while He blessed them (for how often does it happen that a blessing precedes a bereavement!)He was parted from them; and He rose from the mountain, with His hands still lifted up, and with the blessing still dropping from His lips, and brightening as He took His flight.
3. Having thus left the earth, our text declares that He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. As He had descended to earth in the likeness of men, and in order, through sufferings and death, to become the Mediator, He now, having procured eternal redemption for us, ascends in His mediatorial capacity, and rises far above all principality, etc. And what, think you, must have been the rapturous joy that thrilled through heaven, when the expectant and listening silence of its inhabitants was broken by the shout, Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in! And having thus entered, He was received by the Everlasting Father, who declared, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Let all the angels of God worship Him!
4. Such an ascension into heaven, and such a reception there, is in beautiful harmony with the dignity of the Saviours person, and with the glory which He had acquired as the Author of mans redemption; and it was also a pledge and a preparation for the triumphant spread of His gospel in the world.
II. Contemplate the apostles going forth to preach His gospel.The ministry of the gospel is represented by the apostle as one of the first gifts which the Ascended Saviour acquired and bestowed upon the world (Eph. 4:11-12). We therefore find that immediately after the ascension of their Lord these disciples went forth, and preached everywhere.
1. The subject of their preaching was the gospel of Jesus Christ, or the Word, as it is emphatically called in our text. And after what they had seen and heard and experienced themselves, on what other subject could they preach and what other name could they declare? It was not merely as an important fact that they contemplated His death, but as having essentially connected with it a moral meaning and design, as the only and the all-sufficient means of redemption to a ruined world. He was wounded; but it was for our transgressions. He was bruised; but it was for our iniquities. He suffered; but He suffered, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. He bled; but in His blood there is redemption, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. He died; but through death He destroyed him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and delivered them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. In preaching this doctrine the apostles warned sinners, as we warn you, to beware of rejecting Christ by trusting for salvation to your own works; and they exhorted sinners, as we exhort you, to go at once to Christ, and to go to Him laden with the full weight of all your guilt and condemnation, because He came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost.
2. They communicated this gospel to mankind by preaching. Nothing can equal the impressiveness of a living address from man to man, where numbers are assembled, where the place which they occupy is sacred, where the gospel is the theme, where the whole soul of the preacher feels and speaks, and where all are reminded that they are in the presence of God. Attention is awakened; emotions are excited; conscience is aroused; and the stream of sympathy flows from soul to soul, mingled with all those hallowed influences which render the gospel the power of God to our salvation.
3. The extent to which they preached this gospel was universal. They preached Christ first in the very place where He had lived, and died, and risen, and ascended. They preached His miracles to the very men who had witnessed them and experienced them. They preached His sufferings in the garden of Gethsemane and on the hill of Calvary where they had been endured. They preached His resurrection at the mouth of His deserted sepulchre. They preached His ascension on the very mount where He had been parted from them. But while Jerusalem was the centre of their operations the world was their circumference; and they went forth and preached everywhere, till they could say to the Colossians, The gospel is come unto you, as it is in all the world.
III. Contemplate the apostles experiencing their Lords co-operation with them in their labours.Wherever His disciples worked as instruments He worked also as the efficient agent; for His power is omnipotent. And by this presence and this power He graciously fulfilled His own declaration (Mar. 16:17-18).
1. These Divine influences qualified the preachers of the gospel. The change which took place in the sentiments and conduct of the apostles, after the reception of Christ into heaven, was most manifest and remarkable. To that same Divine Redeemer let every minister of the gospel look for the knowledge, and the holiness, and the energy, and the pathos, and the patient perseverance, and for every qualification which is necessary to render him a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, and instant in season and out of season, watching for souls as one who must give an account.
2. These Divine influences confirmed the truth of the gospel. As He sat at the right hand of God, He baptised them with His miraculous influences and power to such an extent that they could heal the sick and raise the dead whenever they invoked the name of Jesus. These miraculous influences are now indeed withdrawn. But as we can prove that these miraculous powers then existed, we can appeal to them as a standing evidence in our day that the gospel of our salvation is the Word of God. But though the miraculous influences are withdrawn, the spiritual and sanctifying influences are still continued.
3. These Divine influences ensured the success of the gospel. Though its original ministers were only the twelve fishermen of Galileemen without learning, without worldly wealth, and without worldly poweryet they became so mighty through God that heathen philosophers were confounded, heathen oracles were struck dumb, heathen temples were deserted, and so mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed that in about thirty years after the ascension of Christ the whole Roman world was conquered by the Cross. And it was a glorious conquest; for it was a triumph over mind and heart. And, thanks be unto God, the same Divine influences ensure the success of the gospel in every age; and many of you, my brethren, are living witnesses of its effectual working in the hearts of them that believe; for our gospel has come to you not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance. And believing as we do that the Ascended Redeemer possesses all power both in heaven and earth, we are sure that His moral government of the world will be productive of the purity and joy and universality of the Church, and that the time foretold by prophecy shall come, when to Him every knee shall bow and every tongue confess.J. A. Alexander, D.D.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Mar. 16:19. The significance of Christs Ascension.
1. It was the end of the work of redemption.
2. It was the final triumph of goodness.
3. It was the exaltation of humanity.
4. It told of the continuity of life.
5. It inaugurated the reign of blessing. Let us realise that all gifts, both spiritual and temporal, come from Him, and so live that His benediction may be able to rest on all that we do.A. G. Mortimer, D.D.
Received up into heaven.There is something remarkable in these words. We habitually speak of Christ as ascending, but Scripture more frequently declares that He was the subject of the action of Another, and was taken up. See Luk. 24:51; Act. 1:2; Act. 1:9. Physical interference is not implied; no angels bore Him aloft; and the narratives make it clear that His glorious body, obedient to its new mysterious nature, arose unaided. But the decision to depart and the choice of a time came not from Him: He did not go, but was taken.Dean Chadwick.
Why such slight mention of Christs Ascension?It may seem remarkable that so great an occurrence should be so little noticed by the sacred writers; for it is mentioned by two only, St. Mark and St. Luke, and these two who were not witnesses of it. And yet we need not wonder at this, nor that it should have held a less prominent place in the minds of the apostles than the Resurrection; for, indeed, that He who had risen from the grave, who had laid aside His earthly body and put on the heavenly, that He should go up to heaven, that He who had so clearly shewn that He came down from God should return to Godthis was but natural, and could not but appear natural to the enlightened minds of the apostles. What else could happen to Him who had risen from the grave, and clothed Himself with His house that was from heaven?A. Grant, D.C.L.
Ascension joy.Truly if we could ever live in this day all were joy; for the Ascension is the crown of all joys, the rapture of all creation, the wonder of the blessed angels, the union of all being, the finishing of the earthly course of the Son of God, His entrance into glory!E. B. Pusey, D.D.
We ascend with Christ.The Ascension of Christ is the great pledge and proof of our eternal state; our nature is for ever identified with His, so that as long as He is man we must be happy as one with Him. The great value of this transcendent fact is not merely that it is an example of our future ascension, but that it is our ascension begunwe in Him having risen to heavenwe in Him being at this time present before Godwe in Him being united with the eternal plans and procedures of heaven, so that we are for ever blended with ChristHis propertyHis purchased possessionthe very members of His body.Prof. W. A. Butler.
Thou hast raised our human nature
in the clouds to Gods right hand,
There we sit in heavenly places, there
with Thee in glory stand;
Jesus reigns, adored by angels; man
with God is on the throne;
Mighty Lord, in Thine Ascension we
by faith behold our own!
Bishop Chris. Wordsworth.
Christ on the right hand of God as our Intercessor.The Epistle to the Hebrews over and over again reiterates that thought that we have a Priest that has passed into the heavens, there to appear in the presence of God for us. And the apostle Paul, in that great linked climax in the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, has it, Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. There are deep mysteries connected with that thought of the intercession of Christ. It does not mean that the Divine heart needs to be won to love and pity. It does not mean that in any mere outward and formal fashion He pleads with God, and softens and placates the infinite and eternal love of the Father in the heavens. It at least plainly means this, that He, our Saviour and Sacrifice, is for ever in the presence of God, presenting His own blood as an element in the Divine dealing with us, modifying the incidence of the Divine law, and securing through His own merits and intercession the outflow of blessings upon our heads and hearts. It is not a complete statement of Christs work for us that He died for us. He died that He might have somewhat to offer. He lives that He may be our Advocate as well as our propitiation with the Father. And just as the high priest once a year passed within the curtain, and there in the solemn silence and solitude of the holy place sprinkled the blood that he bore thither, not without trembling, and but for a moment permitted to stay in the awful Presence, thus, but in reality and for ever, with the joyful gladness of a Son in His own calm home, His habitation from eternity, Christ abides in the holy place, and at the right hand of the Majesty of the heavens lifts up that prayer, so strangely compact of authority and submission: Father, I will that these whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am. The Son of Man at the right hand of God is our Intercessor with the Father. Seeing, then, that we have a Great High Priest that is passed through the heavens, let us come boldly to the throne of grace.A. Maclaren, D.D.
Mar. 16:20. The spread of Christs influence.As the ages pass the influence of the love of Christ is conquering the selfishness of mankind. Even the statute-books of civilisation attest His growing power. The regeneration of a world is a slow process, but the healing rays from His glorified presence at the right hand of the Fathercalling forth the verdure and fruitage of an ever wider imitation of His lifehave in them the pledge of a future in which their influence will extend over all lands.C. Geikie, D.D.
Christ with His Church throughout the ages.He has been with His Church, keeping her from fainting, from decay, declension, so that she has gone on conquering and to conquer; so that the hundred and twenty became three thousand at Pentecost; and before the end of the century the three thousand had become probably (Lange) half a million; by the eighth century the half-million had become thirty millions; by the Reformation one hundred millions. And to-day four hundred and forty millions of men give Jesus the Name which is above every name; multitudes that none can number doing so, not with lips only, but from the heart. He is with us still. A hundred years ago Carey reckoned up the population of the world with great accuracy, and found Christendom was only one-fifth of the whole; now it is nearly one-third. What another century of missions may make it will probably exceed the hope and prayers of the most daring believer. We must remember He is most richly with us when we are going into the world to preach the gospel, i.e. when we are on the move of mercy. Let us, for our personal consolation, remember He will be with us to the end of life and work and need. Let us remember that, in all work done for Him, He still is with us, and is ever making the foolishness of preaching and teaching omnipotent to bring men into His fold.R. Glover.
APPENDIX
[For this interesting review of the evidence for and against the Last Twelve Verses of St. Mark, I am indebted to my friend the Rev. F. W. Christie, M.A., Rector of St Marys. Aberdeen.]
NOTE ON ST. Mar. 16:9-20
THE great majority of modern scholars are agreed that with the eighth verse of this chapter the genuine work of St. Mark comes abruptly to an end, and that the twelve verses which follow are an addition by another hand in the earliest sub-apostolic age. Westcott and Hort insert these verses within double brackets, as an interpolation, probably Western in origin, containing important matter apparently derived from extraneous sources;[1] and Lightfoot ascribes them, together with the account of the woman taken in adultery (Joh. 7:53 to Joh. 8:11), to that knot of early disciples who gathered about St. John in Asia Minor, and must have preserved more than one true tradition of the Lords life and of the earliest days of the Church, of which some at least had themselves been eye-witnesses.[2] And so most scholars. On the other hand, such eminent critics as Dr. Scrivener, Dean Burgon, Prof. Salmon, Bishop John Wordsworth, and others, maintain, on grounds of external and internal evidence, that these verses are the genuine work of St. Mark. Dean Burgons elaborate monograph (The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to St. Mark vindicated: Oxford, 1871) won the admiration of Lagarde,[3] and is acknowledged to have proved that the external evidence against the passage has been greatly overstated and that the patristic evidence resolves itself into that (perhaps ultimately of Origen, but immediately) of Eusebius.[4] Without presuming to settle so difficult a controversy, it will be useful to review the evidence on which the decision depends.
[1] New Test., smaller edition, p. 583.
[2] On Revision of N. T.
[3] Expositor, September 1894, p. 226.
[4] W. H. Simcox, Writers of N.T., p. 11.
External evidence.The verses are wanting in the two oldest MSS., the great uncial Bibles of the fourth century, Codex Vaticanus (B) and Sinaiticus (). Tischendorf has, however, pointed out that these MSS. are here not independent witnesses, as in the last leaf of St. Mark has been written by the scribe of B.[5] In B there is a blank columnthe only one in the whole MS.after Mar. 16:8; and in the letters of the last page of St. Mark, which might easily have been written in one column, are spread out so as to carry over a few lines to the second column, as if to avoid leaving it quite blank. Dr. Salmon infers from these facts that both MSS. had, as first copied, contained the disputed verses, and that the leaves were then cancelled and rewritten by the original scribe of B. The scribe was evidently aware of the twelve verses, and rejected them. Eusebius (Bishop of Csarea 315 A. D., died 340 A. D.) says of these verses:[6] He that rejects Marks section as spurious will say that it is not current in all the copies. The accurate copies at least end with afraid. For this is the end in nearly all the copies. Eusebius himself, the great critic of that century, seems to have rejected this section, for the so-called Eusebian Canons were not carried beyond Mar. 16:8. The words of Eusebius just quoted are almost verbally repeated by Jerome (circ. 400 A. D.),[7] Hesychius of Jerusalem (circ. 400 A. D.), and Severus of Antioch (circ. 500 A. D.). Doubts about the genuineness of this section were therefore familiar to them. The evidence of the important Armenian Version made in the fifth century is specially interesting. All MSS. prior to 1100 A. D. omit the verses. Later MSS. containing them have Here ends Marks Gospel after afraid, and then after a pause continue with Mar. 16:9-20. There is, however, one old MS. in the Patriarchal Library at Etchmiadzin which not only gives the verses, but seems to throw light upon their origin. This MS. was examined by Mr. F. C. Conybeare in 1891, and in the Expositor for October 1893 he describes it and gives his conclusions. The MS. is an Evangeliarium written about 986 A. D., and purporting to have been copied from a true and accurate Armenian exemplar. St. Mark is written out to Mar. 16:8. Then there is a space of two lines, after which in the same uncial hand, only in reda distinction otherwise reserved for the titles of the four Gospels themselvesis written Ariston Eritzou, which means Of the Presbyter Ariston. This title occupies one whole line (the book is written in double columns), and then follow the last twelve verses, still in the same hand. This discovery of Mr, Conybeares is an important one. The heading no doubt embodies a very ancient tradition, and may meet with-verification elsewhere. Mr. Conybeare identifies this Ariston the Presbyter with the Ariston mentioned by Papias (Euseb., Hist. Eccl., iii. 39) as one of the elders who were disciples of the Lord. Dr. Resch[8] thinks he was Ariston of Pella, a Jewish Christian who wrote about 140 A. D., and whoDr. Resch thinks after this discoveryalso arranged the Canon of the Gospels. There are also MSS. which exhibit a duplicate ending. The uncial Codex L, eighth century, in the National Library at Paris, noted for its frequent agreement with and B, breaks off after Mar. 16:8, and then continues:[9] The following also is current: And they briefly brought word of all the things that were commanded them to Peter and his company: but after these things Jesus Himself also sent forth by them from the east even unto the west the holy and incorruptible preaching of the eternal salvation. But then is also current the following after for they were afraid, But when He was risen again, etc. The same duplicate ending is also found in a fifth-century MS. of the old Latin, the Codex Bobiensis. The alternative ending is added in the margin of the Harklean Syriac (616 A. D.), and is found in various MSS. of the Memphitic and thiopic versions. In the recently discovered Sinai Palimpsest of the Old Syriac, allied to the Curetonian, the text of St. Mark ends with Mar. 16:8, as in , B (see Guardian, October 31st, 1894). On the other hand, the twelve verses are found in the other two great uncial MSS., the Codex Bez (D) and the Codex Ephremi (C), both of the fifth century; in all the other uncial MSS.; in MSS. of the old Latin (including the important Codex Colbertinus); in the Vulgate; in three Syriac versions (Curetonian, Peschito, Jerusalem); in the Gothic and various Memphitic and thiopic MSS. Irenus (circ. 185 A. D.) quotes Mar. 16:19 as St. Marks (Adv. Hr., III. x. 6). Justin Martyr[10] seems to cite these verses; but decision seems impossible.[11] They are found in Tatians Diatessaron (160170 A. D.). Victor of Antioch (400450 A. D.) wrote a commentary on St. Mark which had a wide repute (see list of MSS, in Burgon). The last words of his commentary are these: Notwithstanding that in very many copies of the present Gospel the passage beginning, Now when [Jesus] was risen early the first day of the week, be not found (certain individuals having supposed it to be spurious), yet we at all events, inasmuch as in very many we have discovered it to exist, have out of accurate copies subjoined also the account of the Lords ascension (following the words for they were afraid) in conformity with the Palstinian exemplar of Mark which exhibits the Gospel verity: that is to say, from the words Now when [Jesus] was risen early the first day of the week, etc., down to with signs following. Amen.
[5] Salmon, Introd. to N.T., p. 161.
[6] Qust. ad Marinum, iv. 957, ed. Migne.
[7] Ep. 120, ad Hedibiam.
[8] See Thinker, October 1894, pp. 291, 292.
[9] McClellan, New Test., p. 681
[10] See Dr. Taylors article, Expositor, July 1893.
[11] Westcott and Hort.
Internal evidence.Against the genuineness it is urged:
1. There is a want of connexion between this section and the foregoing. St. Mark would never have written consecutively . , … Also Mary Magdalene is introduced in Mar. 16:9 as if she had not been mentioned before in Mar. 16:1.
2. The usual relation between St. Mark and St. Matthew fails in this section. Mar. 16:1-8 is parallel with Mat. 28:1-8, but there the connexion ceases. From Mar. 8:7 we might have expected a mention in the sequel of this appearance in Galilee, such as we find in St. Matthew. The twelve verses contain no mention of it, and must therefore be from another hand.
3. The diction is unlike St. Marks, ) is unique; in Mar. 16:2 Mark had written the usual (cp. Gen. 1:5, R.V.). is never used elsewhere in St. Mark without a substantive; here it occurs four times without a substantive. , , , , , , , , do not occur before in this Gospel. On the other hand, arguments for the genuineness of these verses based on internal evidence are not wanting. Dr. Salmon traces in the first fifteen verses of this Gospel a resemblance in style to the last twelve. These opening and closing sections are, he thinks, the framework in which St. Mark set the Petrine tradition. He also finds the characteristic ideas of the Gospel in these verses. Thrice does St. Mark alone of the Synoptics record the unbelief of men (Mar. 3:5, Mar. 6:6; Mar. 6:52), and thrice in this last section (Mar. 16:11; Mar. 16:13-14) does this thought appear. Westcott also notices this correspondence (Introduction to Study of Gospels, p. 334). But nowhere has it been stated so fully as in a university sermon of the present Bishop of Salisbury.[12] St. Mark, he thinks, depicts Christ as the strong Son of God, Lord of spirits and men and nature, contending with and overcoming evil and unbelief. Hence miracles occupy so large a space in this Gospel. Especially does St. Mark dwell on the moral resistance offered to Christ by the hardness of the human heart. These being the general lessons of this Gospel, the last chapter fits on to the rest with a perfect and exact harmony. What do we read, in fact, in the last chapter? It describes with greater fulness than any of the other Gospels, how hopeless and weak in faith the community of disciples was left by the Crucifixion,how slow of perception and hard of heart they still remained, notwithstanding all that had been done for them,how the women, going to anoint the body, found the tomb empty, and fled in trembling and astonishment and fear at the angels message,how the disciples disbelieved Mary Magdalene, to whom the Risen Jesus first appeared,how the two who met Him in another form, as they were going into the country, failed to convince the rest,how, at last, He appeared to all Himself, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart; and then, finally, and after a long and gradual process, gained a conquest over their wills. Then it was that He addressed them, bidding them to go and preach the gospel to the whole creation, offering salvation to those that believe and are baptised, foretelling the condemnation of those who reject the message, and promising fourfold miraculous powers, like His own, to His faithful followers and messengers. Then, and not till then, when He reveals His full majesty by the transfer of these gifts, does He receive the title of Lord from the Evangelists own lips. The word, though found not unfrequently in the reports of speeches in this Gospel, is used twice only in it as an historical title, and that in these last two verses. The Lord, it is said, after He had spoken with them, was received up to heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they, thus conquered by Him, are no longer faithless, but believing. Having gained them, He has gained the instrument which He came down to earth to fashion, the only instrument which in His wisdom He thinks fit to use in the conversion of the worldthe instrument of personal faith begetting faith. And thus endowed they go forth and preach everywhere, not in their own strength, but His; for the Lord works ever with them. And as in His own ministry He has supported and illustrated His teaching with appropriate miracles and mighty works, so now He confirms their word with signs following.
[12] Sermon II. in University Sermons on Gospel Subjects: Parker, 1878. See also Addendum by same author to commentary on St. Mark, in Bishop Chr. Wordsworths Greek Testament.
Whatever we may infer from the internal evidence as to the genuineness of these verses, one conclusion is forced upon us. These verses are certainly authentic. They have the ring of truth. This section, says Dr. Resch,[13] is free from all affectation, and from all legendary colouringsuch as, for example, we meet with in the pseudo-Petrine Gospel. It is rather characterised by a compendious abruptness, such as shews that the author of it says less than he knows. Compare the vague generalities of the alternative ending with the fulness of independent knowledge shewn in these verses. Although the statements that the first appearance was to Mary Magdalene and that she bore the message to the apostles might conceivably be derived from St. Johns Gospel, and Mar. 16:9; Mar. 16:12 seem to reflect expressions in St. Luke (Luk. 8:2; Luk. 24:13), yet the section taken as a whole is plainly not the work of a compiler. It adds to our knowledge by explicit statement and vivid detail. Here only in the Gospels is it stated that our Lord rose again on the first day of the week (Mar. 16:9); that the disciples mourned and wept (Mar. 16:10); that they disbelieved the tidings of Mary Magdalene (Mar. 16:11); that He appeared to the two in another form (Mar. 16:12); that the disciples again disbelieved the testimony of the two (Mar. 16:13); that the eleven were at meat when He appeared (observe the undesigned coincidence with Luk. 24:41-43); and that He upbraided them (Mar. 16:14). The apostolic commission in Mar. 16:15-16, though resembling that in Mat. 28:19 in the two points universal mission and the injunction of baptism, is evidently independent. The promise of signs to follow believers as such is a new one. (cp. Mat. 10:8). And the majestic closing verses (19 and 20) stand alone in the Gospels in their assertion of the Lords sitting at the right hand of God and His continued working with the apostles.
[13] Expositor, September 1894, p. 228.
Concluding summary.After this review of the evidence, external and internal, it may be said by way of summary, that if these verses be from St. Marks pen and formed part of his Gospel from the first, it seems very difficult to account for the multiplication of copies without these verses in widely separate lands, for the obstinate doubts which clung to them (which Eusebius states and Jerome repeats), for the existence of an alternative ending, and lastly for the tradition which ascribes the twelve verses to the presbyter Ariston. To account for all that by an imagined accident which may have torn away from some MS. its last leaf, on which just these twelve verses were written, and so gave rise to a mutilated family of MSS., is to assign a very inadequate cause. But on the assumption, to which so much of the evidence points, that these verses are an appendage by another though still authoritative hand, in the earliest times, all the phenomena may be explained. St. Mark for some reason left his Gospel unfinished.[14] It may have been, as Godet thinks,[15] the breaking out of persecution and the death of St. Peter which caused the interruption. It was no wonder then that some early disciple should, it may be by request, complete the unfinished narrative with an account of the Ascension; so that this Gospel, as it began from the baptism of John, should extend to the day that He was taken up, and thus correspond to the requirement of the chief of the apostles (Act. 1:22).
[14] might very well be the end of a sentence or paragraph. Cp. Plato Protagoras, p. 328, D, where a chapter ends with But Plato did not end a Dialogue with a particle, nor would St. Mark end his Gospel with one. The reference to Plato is due to Prof. Marcus Dods in Expository Times, March 1894.
[15] Studies on N.T., p. 38.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 16
Mar. 16:19.It was an ancient myth that the Milky Way was the bright track made by the flashing wheels of the car of Phaethon, driving through the skies; but the Man of Calvary, ascending from the Mount of Olives to His celestial throne, has left across the heavens a brighter and more glorious pathway than the pale light of far-off stars. He has brought life and immortality to light, and millions who believe in His name have in all ages seen and rejoiced in His light, and by it been guided to the realm of everlasting day.
Mar. 16:20. The Lord working with them.That is a sweet legend hanging about an old church in England, and it tells the great truth well,how centuries ago, when the monks were rearing it, a new temple for the worship of their God, there came among the workers a strange monk, unasked, who always took on himself the heaviest tasks; and how at last, when a particularly gigantic beam was needed for a position as important as that of the keystone of an arch, and when, with sweating strain and united effort, it was lifted to its place, it was strangely found to be some feet too short. No device of the builders could remedy it; they had tried their best with it, they had used the most careful measurement they knew, but how sadly they had failed! There it was, too short, and their utmost skill could not find remedy. The night closed in upon the tired workers, and they went to their rest with sore hearts, leaving only this unknown monk, who would go working on. But when the morning came, and the workers came forth again, they saw the sunlight falling on the beam exactly in its place, lengthened to the precise dimensions needed, and resting accurately on its supports. But the unknown monk had disappeared. Yet the workers knew Him now, and were certain they could carry the temple onward to its topmost turret. For He who had been working with them and supplying their lack of perfect work, they came now to know, was none other than the Lord Himself. They were not unhelped toilers. Nor are we.
God working with man.When Robert Morrison went out to China, he stopped for a little while in New York, and one of the American millionaires turned to him, and in a supercilious way said, Mr. Morrison, do you expect to make any impression on China? Robert Morrison, in the kingliness of a consecrated manhood, replied, I do not, but I do expect that the Lord Almighty will.
Power of the Word.Csar Malan found himself on the diligence at Angoulme in the company of a sprightly young gentleman from Paris. He proved to be a materialist, who, when his companion drew out the New Testament, treated it as a book of fables, good enough for children. Though tempted to expose to him by argument the folly of infidelity, M. Malan thought it better to let the Word of God, as he said, speak for itself. So he read several passages. The young man shewed vexation, and his fellow-traveller, judging by this that his conscience was troubled, read still more. The infidel became very angry, then biting his lips he took refuge in silence. After travelling in this way for about half an hour, he suddenly exclaimed: I should like to have a book like that, for I begin to believe that what it contains is true, and that I have been deceiving myself. M. Malan gave the young man his Testament; and meeting him afterwards at Bordeaux, he found that he was attentively studying it, and that in every way he shewed it had made a profound impression upon him. When I saw this fruit of the Word of God, said M. Malan, I rejoiced that I had not spoken of myself and of my own reasons.
Divine energy of Christianity.Voltaire well said to Lady Chesterfield that the English Parliament patronised Christianity because no better system of religion had yet been found. Read the chronicles of Buddhism, Brahminism, Parseeism, and other heathen philosophies. Their logical work has been to quench the happiness of their devotees. Hours might be spent in portraying the transfigurations wrought by Christianity. She has recently lighted her vestal fires in Australia, Madagascar, and Liberia, and to-day each is a pharos of civilisation, shedding its radiance far out on the surges of domestic, civil, and moral gloom. Few benedictions of civilisation can be named that she has not pioneered. Over no acre has she waved her wand where the wilderness has not blossomed as the rose. Prejudiced sceptics speak of modern nations as being little improved over classic Greece and Rome. Look back to that period when the law of might was the law of right, when childhood and womanhood were in degradation, and when iron-hearted cruelty was enthroned in the metropolis of paganism. Read of the extensive butcheries of men in the sports of the Colosseum under numerous imperial monsters. Read of the successive massacres of the early Christians, from the coronation of Nero to the death of Diocletian, whose slaughter of Gods saints was so general that on his commemorative medal was impressed, The Christian religion is destroyed. Even such infidel essayists as Bolingbroke and Gibbon are pre-eminently brilliant in their eulogies of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Rousseau and Bonaparte penned as eloquent tributes to the achievements of Christianity as did De Tocqueville, Pascal, or Bacon. Macaulay describes a gorgeous window made from rejected fragments of glass. So Christianity has taken depraved communities and converted them into moral populations. It is because Divine energy is essential to the mental, social, and spiritual uplifting of all lands, because at their gates Jesus knocks to-day more earnestly than Henry IV. knocked at the gates of Hildebrand, and because history attests the regenerative influence of Christianity, that the ascending Redeemer commissioned His disciples to see to it that His kingdom shall finally achieve universal ascendency.
Progress of Christianity.Arnobius, a heathen philosopher, who became a Christian, speaking of the power which the Christian faith bad over the minds of men, says: Who would not believe it, when he sees in how short a time it has conquered so great knowledge? Orators, grammarians, rhetoricians, lawyers, physicians, and philosophers have thrown up those opinions which but a little before they held, and have embraced the doctrines of the gospel! Though but of yesterday, said Tertullian, yet have we filled your cities, islands, castles, corporations, councils, your armies themselves, your tribes, companies, the palace, the senate, and courts of justice; only your temples have we left you free.
Final triumph of Christianity.Travellers tell us that in Arctic regions, when the six months of night are ending, and the long day of sunshine is about to begin, the inhabitants ascend the peaks and await the magnificent sunrise. When his ball of light has chased from the ice-fields the shadows, and he rests like a globe of flame on the rim of earth, ere he begins to climb the rounds of a ladder of glory more luminous than Jacob saw at Bethel, the people shed tears of joy, and, embracing each other, they cry, The sun has come to us, and the long night is over. So in fancy I see standing on the crests of all lands of heathenism the benighted races, looking for the appearance of the Sun of Righteousness to banish their long night of barbarism, idolatry, and cruelty, and usher in the unending day of Christs universal reign. I seem to stand to-day in this vast and solemn presence. In vision I see the countless millions, Caucasians, Mongolians, Africans, Malays, and Indians. They crowd the summits of all the mountains of pagan provinces in fearful vastness of multitude. From the standpoint of this commission, and with the telescope of this farewell pledge of the Ascended Redeemer, we can even now by faith see that splendid period in history when, from the tall tops of all mission provinces, the grand concerted acclaim shall ascend, The Sun has come to us. and the long night is over.S. V. Leach, D.D.
Amen. My heart wishes it to be exactly so, is the Chinese rendering of Amen. The value of this definition is that it is not a mere lip repetition of this blessed old Hebrew word, but a whole-souled, whole-hearted desire for the triumph of that which is good. Is there not danger that our Amens may become a mere head and lip endorsement of the truth, while the heart is not in it? Let us be sure that in everything excellent that is presented to us we can say of a verity, Amen, my heart wishes it to be exactly so.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(19-20) So then after the Lord had spoken.See Note on Luk. 24:53. St. Matthew, it will be remembered, gives no account of the Ascension. (See Note on Mat. 28:20.) St. Mark and St. Luke record it briefly. St. John implies it in his report of our Lords words (Joh. 6:62; Joh. 20:17). In Act. 1:3-11 it is narrated with greater fulness.
The form of the last two verses, the use of the Lord instead of Jesus, suggests the thought of their being a later addition to the original records of our Lords life and teaching. (See Note on Luk. 7:13.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
19. He was received up into heaven Of this ascension the fullest account of all the Gospels is given in Luk 24:50-52. And as if the ascension belonged less to the Gospel narrative than to the growth of the kingdom of God after that narrative closes, the fullest picture of all is given in Act 1:2-12.
The scene took place (not in Galilee, but) on the Mount of Olives near the verge of Bethany. Our Saviour led them to that spot, and while conversing with them, he lifted up his hand and blessed them. And as he blessed them he began to ascend. And as he ascended, the cloud gathering beneath his feet at once bore him upward and closed him from their sight.
Whither did the person of Jesus ascend? Into heaven. But where is heaven? We know not its locality in the immensity of the universe. Astronomers indeed tell us that there is a centre of our solar system, and that is the sun. But the sun is a member of a larger system, which has its centre or sun.
And this is member of a still grander system revolving around its centre. At last there is a centre of the whole universe. At that centre resides the great MOVER of the whole. There doubtless is the central residence of GOD. To that centre perhaps Jesus departed. At any rate heaven is away from this earth, and away from this earth is up. Wherever heaven is therefore it is up. The language of Scripture, the language of humanity, the language of our childhood, herein is true, and, strictly in accordance with the highest science.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.’
‘The Lord Jesus.’ A fitting final declaration that Jesus was now ‘the Lord’. He was made both Lord and Messiah (Act 2:36), given the name that is above every name (Php 2:9). It is a fitting end to the Gospel. It was what Mark has been pointing to all the way through. Jesus is now ‘the Lord’.
‘Received up into heaven.’ This would seem to be an indication that Jesus’ final appearance to His disciples had taken place (Luk 24:51; Act 1:9). He Whom earth has rejected and would not receive is welcomed in heaven and given His rightful place.
‘Sat down at the right hand of God.’ Just as He had declared would be the case at His trial (Mar 14:62; Psa 110:1). He receives the Kingship as the Son of Man, and is declared both Lord and Messiah (Act 2:36). All authority had been given to Him in heave and on earth (Mat 28:19).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The ascension of Christ:
v. 19. So, then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.
v. 20. And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the Word with signs following. Amen. At the end of the time which He had set for Himself, forty days after His resurrection, after He had given His disciples all the instructions which they needed for their work, He was taken up into heaven, He ascended into the glory of the heavens, and He sat down at the right hand of God, He now, according to His human nature, as our brother according to the flesh, occupies the place at God’s right hand. He has full dominion over all creatures in heaven and earth and under the earth. With this assurance the disciples went forth. They preached the Gospel everywhere, in all places, throughout the world that was then known. And Christ worked with them; they did not stand alone, but had Him at their side always, in their entire ministry. And wherever a confirmation of the Gospel was necessary in the form of some external sign, such miracle was forthcoming, according to His promise. Christ’s presence is with those that preach the pure Gospel today as surely as it ever was. If our faith but trust in Him, the great Champion of His Church, who works in and with us, and therefore in and with the Gospel, then the great miracles which He has always performed through His Word will be done today as they ever were: Hearts polluted beyond all resemblance to human hearts will be made whiter than snow; souls that were lost and sold into the power of the devil will be redeemed and be given the liberty of the children of God; people whose entire nature is sick with the fearful disease of sin will be made whole and strong to fight the Lord’s battles, all through the power of the Gospel. And the Lord’s hand has not waxed short with reference to other miracles, which are fully obvious to all that have open eyes.
Summary. The resurrection of Jesus is announced to the women by an angel; Christ appears to several persons and finally to the apostles, to whom He gives the great missionary command, assuring them, incidentally, of His cooperation and support in the preaching of the Gospel until the end of time.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Mar 16:19-20 . The Lord Jesus therefore (see the critical remarks). annexes what now emerged as the final result of that last meeting of Jesus with the eleven, and that as well in reference to the Lord (Mar 16:19 ) as in reference also to the disciples (Mar 16:20 ); hence . Accordingly, the transition by means of is not incongruous (Fritzsche), but logically correct. But the expression , as well as , is entirely foreign to Mark, frequently as he had occasion to use both, and therefore is one of the marks of another author.
] cannot be referred without harmonistic violence to anything else than the discourses just uttered , Mar 16:14-18 (Theophylact well says: ), not to the collective discourses of the forty days (Augustine, Euthymius Zigabenus, Maldonatus, Bengel, Kuinoel, Lange, and others); and with this in substance agrees Ebrard, p. 597, who, like Grotius and others, finds in Mar 16:15-18 the account of all that Jesus had said in His several appearances after His resurrection. The forty days are quite irreconcilable with the narrative before us generally, as well as with Luk 24:44 . But. if Jesus, after having discoursed to the disciples , Mar 16:14-18 , was taken up into heaven ( , see Act 10:16 ; Act 1:2 ; Act 11:22 ; 1Ti 3:16 ; Luk 9:51 ), it is not withal to be gathered from this very compendious account, that the writer makes Jesus pass from the room where they were at meat to heaven (Strauss, B. Bauer), any more than from it is to be held that the apostles immediately after the ascension departed into all the world. The representation of Mar 16:19-20 is so evidently limited only to the outlines of the subsequent history, that between the and the there is at least, as may be understood of itself, sufficient space for a going forth of Jesus with the disciples (comp. Luk 24:50 ), even although the forty days do not belong to the evangelical tradition, but first appear in the Acts of the Apostles. How the writer conceived of the ascension, whether as visible or invisible, his words do not show, and it must remain quite a question undetermined.
. ] reported, it is true, not as an object of sense-perception (in opposition to Schulthess), but as a consequence, that had set in , of the ; not, however, to be explained away as a merely symbolical expression (so, for example, Euthymius Zigabenus: , Kuinoel: “cum Deo regnat et summa felicitate perfruitur”), but to be left as a local fact , as actual occupation of a seat on the divine throne (comp. on Mat 6:9 ; see on Eph 1:20 ), from which hereafter He will descend to judgment. Comp. Ch. F. Fritzsche, nova opusc. p. 209 ff.
As to the ascension generally, see on Luk 24:51 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
THIRD SECTION
THE RISEN SAVIOUR IN HIS ASCENSION, AS CONQUEROR WITH THE CHURCH, GIVING POWER TO THE MESSAGE OF SALVATION THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE EARTH
16:19, 20
(Parallels: Luk 24:50-53; Act 1:4-12.)
19So then, after the Lord12 had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. 20And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Comp. the parallels in Luke and Acts; also the comments upon the conclusion of Matthew.Marks account of the ascension possesses a noble simplicity; and so conveys to the mind a comprehensive idea of Christs majesty and rule, which consists most fully with the character of this Gospel. The ascension, described accurately by Luke, is here briefly sketched: the exaltation of Christ in the words, and sat on the right hand of God, implies the supreme rule of Christ, as related by Matthew; while the last verse is analogous to the end of the Gospel by John, and expresses in a word the essence of all contained in the Acts.
Mar 16:19. The Lord Jesus.Term of reverence.After He had spoken.Augustine and the majority of commentators understand this to refer to the forty days; but Meyer will not concede this. According to him, this account and the lapse of forty days are quite irreconcilable. It is only when the Gospels are treated as mere chronicles, in which an exact sequence of all events in time is expected, that it becomes impossible to reconcile them with each other.
He was received up.Taken up. Meyer properly combats the representation given by Strauss and Bauer, that Christ ascended to heaven from the room where they had supped. Yet, if we must not interpret this passage literally regarding the place, Meyer has as little right to insist upon a literal view as to the time. The account of the ascension is in every point to be supplemented by that of Luke, with whom Mark stands in no contradiction.And sat on the right hand of God.An account, resting partly upon the direct vision of the disciples (Act 1:19), partly upon a revelation (Act 1:11), partly upon the words of Christ (Joh 14:3), and upon the lively inference of faith, especially from the events occurring at Pentecost, Act 2:33. The fact is itself, on the one hand, localthat is, the being seated upon that throne of glory where the self-revelations of God take place, and in the midst of that majesty whence the manifestations of His power proceed; and, upon the other hand, is symbolic of Christs royal dominion, Php 2:10.
Mar 16:20. Everywhere.As it is probable the Evangelist wrote in Rome, and had been in Babylon, he knew that the Gospel was extending over the earth.The Lord working with them.See Matthew, close; Eph 1:19.With signs following.The previously-promised powers to work these signs have been conferred; the miracles have appeared in striking forms, and conveying their symbolic import in their more general working. We see here the Gospels absolute power to conquer in the might of the Lord. From this we perceive how close the connection between the closing of this Gospel and its beginning, and its every statement. Each Evangelist concludes in a manner peculiar to himself, but with each the common topic is the glory and the kingly rule of Christ. The view peculiar to Mark is the forthputting of Christs power by His servants on earth, to free the world and remove all demoniacal powers by which the earth was polluted.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. See the conclusion of Matthew and the parallels in Luke.We find the explanation of the circumstance, that Mark has combined the ascension in his Gospel narrative, in the fundamental principle of his Gospel, viz.: Christ, the omnipotent conqueror bursting through all barriers, the Lion in His retreat and advance. On this principle he was led to briefly mention the last withdrawal of Christ, the ascension; but then, only as the basis for the last forthcoming of Christ in His people, in their preaching of the Gospel and their working of signs in all places. Matthew presents Christ as a spiritual, invisible, theocratic King, beneath whose jurisdiction the present and the future worlds both lie, and whose administration over His people is in this present world universal, and of a specially spiritual character. By John, the universality and the present manifestation of Christs glory are still more strongly emphasized. The typal form of this administration of Jesus is to be seen in the activity of a John and a Peter; that is, in contemplation and profound meditation combined with earnest labor and constancy in faith. Respecting Christ Himself, it is only hinted by John that He goes and comes again. According to Mark and Luke, Christ is with equal distinctness characterized as King of both worlds; but He works individually and personally from the other world outwards: and hence both these Evangelists present the ascension as a link, connecting Christs life on earth with His work in and from heaven. In addition to this, however, Mark, like Peter, makes the rule of the exalted Christ in and with His people to prevail, because it is a work of the exalted Jesus which success will certainly crown; while Luke, with Paul, makes this prevalence result from the exalted state of the working Jesus.
2. When we estimate the resurrection properly, and consider that it was not the return of Jesus to His old, His first life, but His exaltation to His second, His new life, we see at once that the ascension must be joined to the resurrection as its necessary consequence. Christs last departure from His disciples must have therefore, in any case, been termed His ascension; nevertheless, it consisted with His glory, that His return home should be an imposing and sublime ascension.
3. The doubts of critical writers as to the history of the ascension rest upon a mistake, often alluded to, regarding the nature of the Gospels, which are held to be memorabilia collected from various sources, instead of being received as individual, graphic life-pictures and views, organic in form, and Christological in character. The doubts of writers upon dogmatics are to be connected with their doubts regarding the resurrection itself, the divine dignity of Christ, the eternal continuance of personality, and the reality of a future state in heaven. In each of these two points the Apostles agree, as witnesses of the ascension, in their testimony with one another.
4. The theologians of the Lutheran school have thrown as much obscurity around the historical ascension, as those of the Reformed school around Christs descent into hell (the Heidelberg Catechism). The Reformed Church has gone too far in its teaching regarding the glorified Christs spiritual, omnipresent working; and the Lutheran, in its views upon the distinct localization and extension of Christ, now exalted. (Luther upon the Supper.) But the descent into hell and ascent to heaven must not be separated; and the localization of the exalted Redeemer in heaven must be held, along with His omnipresent manifestation. That He reveals Himself in one way only in heaven amid the blessed, and that He in some other sense is everywhere present, are not contradictory propositions. Spener, Katechismus-Predigten, 2 Bd. p. 914.
5. When we represent the ascension as the triumph of Christ and His Church, let us not forget the sad, earnest side for the Church in her human weakness. But as death is swallowed up in victory, so human sorrow is swallowed up in divine joy.
6. For the accounts given in Church history, and for the various traditions regarding the apostolic labors in preaching the Gospel, see Langes Apost. Zeitalter, 2 Bd. p. 401.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See Matthew and Luke.Christs exaltation the great turniug-point in His life and work.The exaltation of Christ to heaven, a sign of the completion of His work on earth (After the Lord, etc.).The union of the Father and the Son seen in the ascension: as He had been sent, and yet came freely,as He had finished the work given Him by the Father, and unfolded His own secret life, was given up to the death, and resigned His life,as He was raised from the dead, and rose by His own power,so He is exalted by the Father, and yet ascends by virtue of His own might.The degrees of Christs exaltation shadowed forth in the ascension: 1. It points back to His descent into hell, and His resurrection; 2. it points forward to His being seated upon the throne of glory at the right hand of God.Christs ascension: 1. A return home; 2. an exaltation; 3. a never-ending march of triumph.The import of Christs exaltation for His people. It settles, 1. the ascension of the members in Him, as the Head; 2. the ascension of the members after Him, in the spirit; 3. the final ascension of the members at the coming of the Lord.Christs seat at the right hand of God, the goal of His pilgrimage; or the point of rest between His two great careers: 1. His career through all the misery of the world; 2. His career through all the salvation of the world.Because Christ is the highest above all heavens, He is the nearest to His people in all their depths: In their depth, a. of struggling, b. of suffering, c. of want, d. of death and the grave.The Lords rest causes the activity of Apostles, and of the members of Christs body.From the tranquil, rejoicing, divinely-human heart above, proceeds every pulsation of the new life throughout the entire world.All Christs Apostles are Apostles of His royal authority.The blessed consciousness of Christs glory, the motive power of the Gospel in the hearts of believers.The preaching of Christ is a preaching for all places.Human proclamation of salvation confirmed by the divine manifestations from the Lord.The truth of the faith established by the signs of love.The Lord was one with them in tiepower of the Spirit.The ever-blessing and victorious efficacy of the Gospel, a witness for Christs everlasting administration of blessing and conquest.Christ above all; Christ here, too, in His people.Lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed!Our faith is the victory which overcometh the world.Christs seat, His throne: 1. The unceasing rest and festival in heaven; 2. unceasing work on earth; 3. unceasing rule in both kingdoms.At the right hand of God, working in concert with Him; or, the revelation of the Trinity in Christs exaltation (as at His birth and baptism, in His death and resurrection).Where the exalted Christ appears, there doth heaven appear: 1. Where He is throned, there is heaven; 2. where He works, thither heaven comes (the spiritual, glorified world; the inheritance incorruptible, undefined, that fadeth not away, 1Pe 1:4; 2Pe 1:4; 2Pe 1:11).We are with Christ transferred to the heavenly state.
Starke:Let each see that he hold his confifidential interview with Jesus, ere he leave the earth.God is gone up with a shout, Psa 47:6.The ascension of our Jesus is our after-ascension. Where the Head is, there are the members. Where I am, there shall My servants be, that they may see My glory.The heavens stand open: we are certain of our salvation. Even so come, Lord Jesus!The presence of Christ in the earth has not ceased with His ascension; it is rather established, being combined with His session at the right hand of God.Hedinger:Be faithful and industrious in thy calling; God will add His blessing and success.If believers are not able to see Christ with their eyes, yet they feel His working in their hearts (proof sufficient that He is with and in them).Osiander:Jesus is to the present day with the preachers of the Gospel.When the spiritually blind are enlightened, the spiritually dead quickened, the spiritually deaf and dumb made to hear devoutly and speak piously, the spiritually lame made to be righteously industrious and active, and the spiritually leprous are cleansed from sins, these are greater signs and wonders than physical changes.
Lisco:He wished to depart from them in such a way that they, seeing whither He had gone, could not imagine that they had lost Him: rather should the thought that He lived and was in heaven be ever present to them, that they might testify courageously of Him, and labor for Him, as though they had Him by their side.They should know Christ no more after the flesh (2Co 5:16), but as the exalted Son of God, whose glorious elevation filled them with the most blessed hopes and opened to them the most blessed prospects.Braune:A close of the activity of the visible, personal Redeemer, that corresponds perfectly with the beginning. Not more mysterious than the birth and resurrection of the Saviour is His ascension.Christ, having conquered death, could not die, and so ascended to heaven.Brieger:Psa 68:19; Eph 4:8 : Christ, to manifest His victory over the devil and his angels, returns as a conqueror to heaven, Col 3:1-2; Heb 8:1.We are the subjects of the Heavenly (the second Adam), who is transforming us more and more into His likeness.Bauer:Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.
Footnotes:
[7]Mar 16:14.C., D. add to .
[8]Mar 16:14. , supported by A., C., X., ., 1, 33.
[9]Mar 16:17.The omission of by C., L., . is not decisive against it.
[10]Mar 16:18.Codd. C., L., M.**, X., ., the Coptic, Armenian, and Syriac versions, read before , . But it is probably a mere explanatory addition.
[11][These passages, however, speak only of human creatures.Ed.]
[12]Mar 16:19.After stands in Codd. C., K., L., . Lachmann adopts this reading. (Lange renders literally: The Lord Jesus, after he had spoken thus unto them, was raised, &c.Trs.)
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
(19) So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven; and sat on the right hand of God. (20) And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and con firming the word with signs following. Amen.
Mark sums up the glorious event of CHRIST’s ascension, and the HOLY GHOST’s descension, in a comprehensive manner indeed, in these two verses. But his testimony of those wonderful acts was all that the HOLY GHOST thought proper to make use of by his ministry. The events themselves are more largely followed up in the relation in the Acts of the Apostles, to which, therefore, I refer. For the present, it will be sufficient to observe, that Mark’s testimony is confirmed by the LORD’s testimony, in those gracious signs which followed. And the LORD JESUS’s name, like the sign and seal of a charter, the AMEN, closeth Mark’s Gospel, as the Verily, the faithful witness of Heaven. Rev 3:14 ; Isa 65:16 .
REFLECTIONS.
READER while you and I hasten, with the ardent love of those godly women, to the Sepulchre of JESUS, and hear with the ear of faith, as they heard in sense, the invitation of the Angel; Come see the place where the LORD lay. Oh! for the teaching of GOD the HOLY GHOST, to follow Jesus from the cross to the throne, and behold where the LORD lay from all eternity, in the bosom of the FATHER.
Send down, thou risen and exalted SAVIOR, all those precious gifts thou art returned on purpose to impart! And as in the case of Mary Magdalene, such grace was manifested; so in the instance of all thy redeemed ones, prove, thou dearest LORD, that thou art exalted as a Prince and a SAVIOR, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. Oh! the blessedness of receiving the power of CHRIST’s resurrection, in the heart and conscience, when the LORD works with his holy word, and confirms that word with signs following. May the souls of all the LORD’s redeemed family, thus find the sweet testimonies to the truth of our LORD’s resurrection; when first GOD our FATHER having raised up his SON JESUS, hath sent him to bless us in turning away every one of us from our iniquities.
And now FAREWELL Mark! thou faithful Evangelist; surely thou hast well done the work of one, and made full proof of thy Ministry. For the testimony of thy Gospel is in the hearts of thousands, to the truth as it is in Jesus, through the power of the HOLY GHOST. Precious is the written Word, when confirmed as an engrafted Word, by the SPIRIT’s grace in the heart; and when that Almighty LORD, sets to his seal, in the heart, that GOD is true. All the faithful will thank thee, Mark, for thy labour of love, as they daily read the wonders recorded by thee of JESUS. And all will find cause, who are taught of GOD, to say as Paul did concerning thee, though not called to the service of the sanctuary, as he was; for he is profitable to me in his ministry!
Precious LORD JESUS! while we thank the servant, we bow down with unspeakable thanksgiving to the MASTER! Be thou everlastingly loved, and praised, and adored, in thy Person, Work, Offices, Characters, and Relations. Men shall be blessed in thee, and all nations shall call thee blessed. Praised be the FATHER, SON, and HOLY GHOST, for all Covenant love, in JESUS CHRIST! Amen.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
19 So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.
Ver. 19. He was received up, &c. ] This St Luke more fully sets forth, Luk 24:50-51 Act 1:9 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
19, 20. ] The is not to be taken here as if there were no following: the answers to the as in Luk 3:18-19 and the is the connecting link with what went before.
, , and , are alike foreign to the diction of Mark , in speaking of the Lord: we have in the message (common to all three Gospels) ch. Mar 11:3 but that manifestly is no example.
. can only in fairness mean, ‘ when He had spoken these words .’ All endeavours of the Harmonists to include in them , (Euthym [64] ) will have no weight with an honest reader, who looks to the evident sense of his author alone , and disregards other considerations. That other words were spoken, we know; but that this author intended us to infer that , surely is not deducible from the text, and is too often allowed in such cases to creep fallaciously in as an inference. We never shall read or comment on Scripture with full profit, till all such subterfuges are abandoned, and the gospel evidence treated in the clear light of intelligent and honest faith. We have an example of this last in Theophylact’s exposition, .
[64] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116
. ] I should hardly say that the author of this fragment necessarily implies an ascension from the place where they were then assembled. The whole of these two verses is of a compendious character, and as . . . . must be understood as setting forth a fact not comprehended in the cycle of their observation, but certain in the belief of all Christians, so . may very well speak of the fact as happening, not necessarily then and there, but (see remarks above) after these words were spoken; provided always that these words are recognized as the last in the view and information of our Evangelist. I say this not with any harmonistic view, but because the words themselves seem to require it. (See on the Ascension, notes on Luk 24:51 ff.)
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mar 16:19-20 . The story ends with a brief notice of the ascension of the Lord Jesus on the one hand ( ), and of the apostolic activity of the Eleven on the other ( ). Lk., who means to tell the story of the acts of the Apostles at length, contents himself with reporting that the Eleven returned from Bethany, his scene of parting, to Jerusalem, not with sadness but with joy, there to worship and wait.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Mark
THE ENTHRONED CHRIST
Mar 16:19
How strangely calm and brief is this record of so stupendous an event! Do these sparing and reverent words sound to you like the product of devout imagination, embellishing with legend the facts of history? To me their very restrainedness, calmness, matter-of-factness, if I may so call it, are a strong guarantee that they are the utterance of an eyewitness, who verily saw what he tells so simply. There is something sublime in the contrast between the magnificence and almost inconceivable grandeur of the thing communicated, and the quiet words, so few, so sober, so wanting in all detail, in which it is told.
That stupendous fact of Christ sitting at the right hand of God is the one that should fill the present for us all, even as the Cross should fill the past, and the coming for Judgment should fill the future. So for us the one central thought about the present, in its loftiest relations, should be the throned Christ at God’s right hand. It is to that thought of the session of Jesus by the side of the Majesty of the Heavens that I wish to turn now, to try to bring out the profound teaching that is in it, and the practical lessons which it suggests. I desire to emphasise very briefly four points, and to see, in Christ’s sitting at the right hand, the revelation of these things:-The exalted Man, the resting Saviour, the interceding Priest, and the ever-active Helper.
I. First, then, in that solemn and wondrous fact of Christ’s sitting at the right hand of God, we have the exalted Man.
But whilst this is one side of the profound fact, there is another side. What was new in Christ’s return to His Father’s bosom? This, that He took His Manhood with Him. It was ‘the Everlasting Son of the Father,’ the Eternal Word, which from the beginning ‘was with God and was God,’ that came down from heaven to earth, to declare the Father; but it was the Incarnate Word, the Man Christ Jesus, that went back again. This most blessed and wonderful truth is taught with emphasis in His own words before the Council, ‘Ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power.’ Christ, then, to-day, bears a human body, not, indeed, the ‘body of His humiliation,’ but the body of His glory, which is none the less a true corporeal frame, and necessarily requires a locality. His ascension, whithersoever He may have gone, was the true carrying of a real humanity, complete in all its parts, Body, Soul, and Spirit, up to the very throne of God.
Where that locality is it is bootless to speculate. Scripture says that He ascended up ‘far above all heavens’; or, as the Epistle to the Hebrews has it, in the proper translation, the High Priest ‘is passed through the heavens,’ as if all this visible material creation was rent asunder in order that He might soar yet higher beyond its limits wherein reign mutation and decay. But wheresoever that place may be, there is a place in which now, with a human body as well as a human spirit, Jesus is sitting ‘at the right hand of God.’
Let us thankfully think how, in the profound language of Scripture, ‘the Forerunner is for us entered’; how, in some mysterious manner, of which we can but dimly conceive, that entrance of Jesus in His complete humanity into the highest heavens is the preparation of a place for us. It seems as if, without His presence there, there were no entrance for human nature within that state, and no power in a human foot to tread upon the crystal pavements of the celestial City, but where He is, there the path is permeable, and the place native, to all who love and trust Him.
We may stand, therefore, with these disciples, and looking upwards as the cloud receives Him out of our sight, our faith follows Him, still our Brother, still clothed with humanity, still wearing a bodily frame; and we say, as we lose Him from our vision, ‘What is man’? Capable of being lifted to the most intimate participation in the glories of divinity, and though he be poor and weak and sinful here, yet capable of union and assimilation with the Majesty that is on high. For what Christ’s Body is, the bodies of them that love and serve Him shall surely be, and He, the Forerunner, is entered there for us; that we too, in our turn, may pass into the light, and walk in the full blaze of the divine glory; as of old the children in the furnace were, unconsumed, because companioned by ‘One like unto the Son of Man.’
The exalted Christ, sitting at the right hand of God, is the Pattern of what is possible for humanity, and the prophecy and pledge of what will be actual for all that love Him and bear the image of Him upon earth, that they may be conformed to the image of His glory, and be with Him where He is. What firmness, what reality, what solidity this thought of the exalted bodily Christ gives to the else dim and vague conceptions of a Heaven beyond the stars and beyond our present experience! I believe that no doctrine of a future life has strength and substance enough to survive the agonies of our hearts when we part from our dear ones, the fears of our spirits when we look into the unknown, inane future for ourselves; except only this which says Heaven is Christ and Christ is Heaven, and points to Him and says, ‘Where He is, there and that also shall His servants be.’
II. Now, secondly, look at Christ’s sitting at the right hand of God as presenting to our view the Resting Saviour.
The rest of the Christ after His Cross is parallel with and carries the same meaning as the rest of God after the Creation. Why do we read ‘He rested on the seventh day from all His works’? Did the Creative Arm grow weary? Was there toil for the divine nature in the making of a universe? Doth He not speak and it is done? Is not the calm, effortless forth-putting of His will the cause and the means of Creation? Does any shadow of weariness steal over that life which lives and is not exhausted? Does the bush consume in burning? Surely not. He rested from His works, not because He needed to recuperate strength after action by repose, but because the works were perfect, and in sign and token that His ideal was accomplished, and that no more was needed to be done.
And, in like manner, the Christ rests after His Cross, not because He needed repose even after that terrible effort, or was panting after His race, and so had to sit there to recover, but in token that His work was finished and perfected, that all which He had come to do was done; and in token, likewise, that the Father, too, beheld and accepted the finished work. Therefore, the session of Christ at the right hand of God is the proclamation from Heaven of what He cried with His last dying breath upon the Cross: ‘It is finished!’ It is the declaration that the world has had all done for it that Heaven can do for it. It is the declaration that all which is needed for the regeneration of humanity has been lodged in the very heart of the race, and that henceforward all that is required is the evolving and the development of the consequences of that perfect work which Christ offered upon the Cross. So the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews contrasts the priests who stood ‘daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices’ which ‘can never take away sin,’ with ‘this Man who, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down at the right hand of God’; testifying thereby that His Cross is the complete, sufficient, perpetual atonement and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. So we have to look back to that past as interpreted by this present, to that Cross as commented upon by this Throne, and to see in it the perfect work which any human soul may grasp, and which all human souls need, for their acceptance and forgiveness. The Son of Man set at the right hand of God is Christ’s declaration, ‘I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do,’ and is also God’s declaration, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’
III. Once more, we see here, in this great fact of Christ sitting at the right hand of God, the interceding Priest.
IV. Lastly, this great fact sets before us the ever-active Helper.
Remember, too, that it was once given to a man to look through the opened heavens through which Christ had ‘passed’ and to ‘see the Son of Man standing’-not sitting-’at the right hand of God.’ Why to the dying protomartyr was there granted that vision thus varied? Wherefore was the attitude changed but to express the swiftness, the certainty of His help, and the eager readiness of the Lord, who starts to His feet, as it were, to succour and to sustain His dying servant? And so, dear friends, we may take that great joyful truth that both as receiving ‘gifts for men’ and bestowing gifts upon them, and as working by His providence in the world, and on the wider scale for the well-being of His children and of the Church, the Christ who sits at the right hand of God wields, ever with eager cheerfulness, all the powers of omnipotence for our well-being, if we love and trust Him. We may look quietly upon all perplexities and complications, because the hands that were pierced for us hold the helm and the reins, because the Christ who is our Brother is the King, and sits supreme at the centre of the Universe. Joseph’s brethren, that came up in their hunger and their rags to Egypt, and found their brother next the throne, were startled with a great joy of surprise, and fears were calmed, and confidence sprang in their hearts. Shall not we be restful and confident when our Brother, the Son of Man, sits ruling all things? ‘We see not yet all things put under’ us, ‘but we see Jesus,’ and that is enough.
So the ascended Man, the resting Saviour and His completed work, the interceding Priest, and the ever-active Helper, are all brought before us in this great and blessed thought, ‘Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.’ Therefore, dear friends, set your affection on things above. Our hearts travel where our dear ones are. Oh how strange and sad it is that professing Christians whose lives, if they are Christians at all, have their roots and are hid with Christ in God, should turn so few, so cold thoughts and loves thither! Surely ‘where your treasure is there will your heart be also.’ Surely if Christ is your Treasure you will feel that with Him is home, and that this is a foreign land. ‘Set your affection,’ then, ‘on things above,’ while life lasts, and when it is ebbing away, perhaps to our eyes too Heaven may be opened, and the vision of the Son of Man standing to receive and to welcome us may be granted. And when it has ebbed away, His will be the first voice to welcome us, and He will lift us to share in His glorious rest, according to His own wondrous promise, ‘To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My Throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His Throne.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
the Lord. App-98. C. The contrast is between the Lord of Mar 16:19, and the disciples of Mar 16:20.
heaven = the heaven. Singular. See notes on Mat 6:9, Mat 6:10.
on = at. Greek. ek. App-104.
God. See App-98.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
19, 20.] The is not to be taken here as if there were no following:-the answers to the as in Luk 3:18-19-and the is the connecting link with what went before.
, , and , are alike foreign to the diction of Mark, in speaking of the Lord: we have in the message (common to all three Gospels) ch. Mar 11:3-but that manifestly is no example.
. can only in fairness mean, when He had spoken these words. All endeavours of the Harmonists to include in them , (Euthym[64]) will have no weight with an honest reader, who looks to the evident sense of his author alone, and disregards other considerations. That other words were spoken, we know; but that this author intended us to infer that, surely is not deducible from the text, and is too often allowed in such cases to creep fallaciously in as an inference. We never shall read or comment on Scripture with full profit, till all such subterfuges are abandoned, and the gospel evidence treated in the clear light of intelligent and honest faith. We have an example of this last in Theophylacts exposition, .
[64] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116
.] I should hardly say that the author of this fragment necessarily implies an ascension from the place where they were then assembled. The whole of these two verses is of a compendious character, and as . . . . must be understood as setting forth a fact not comprehended in the cycle of their observation, but certain in the belief of all Christians, so . may very well speak of the fact as happening, not necessarily then and there, but (see remarks above) after these words were spoken; provided always that these words are recognized as the last in the view and information of our Evangelist. I say this not with any harmonistic view, but because the words themselves seem to require it. (See on the Ascension, notes on Luk 24:51 ff.)
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mar 16:19. , the Lord) A magnificent and suitable appellation, Mar 16:20 [ch. Mar 12:36].- , after He had spoken to them) He furnished them with His instructions, not only on the very day of the resurrection, which has been so copiously described by Mark, but even throughout the succeeding days [Comp. note on Mat 23:19-20].
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Mar 16:19
23. THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST
Mar 16:19
19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken unto them, –The Great Commission and the instructions connected therewith.
was received–By the Father and all the heavenly host.
up into heaven,–This must have been a happy meeting since it had been about thirty-three and a half years since Jesus left heaven. He was blessing his disciples when he parted from them. (Luk 24:51.) He was borne up from Mount Olivet and a cloud received him out of sight. (Act 1:9-12.) He also ascended from Bethany. (Luk 24:50-51.) No contradiction here as skeptics claim from the fact that Bethany is situated on the east side of Mount Olivet. He ascended from both Bethany and Mount Olivet. Jesus will return to earth again in like manner as he ascended. (Acts 1 10, 11.) After his resurrection Jesus associated with his disciples on earth forty days. (Act 1:3.)
and sat down at the right hand of God.–It means that Jesus was exalted to honor and power in the heavens. It was esteemed the place of the highest honor to be seated at the right hand of a prince. So, to be seated at the right hand of God means that Jesus is exalted to the highest honor of the universe. (Eph 1:20-23.) The language of the verse establishes a close connection in time between the close of the speech Jesus made and his ascension. The same connection is indicated by Luke both in his gospel and in Acts, where, although he quoted none of the words reported by Mark, he reports a conversation quite similar to it which occurred on the same occasion and was immediately followed by the ascension. (Luk 24:49-51; Act 1:4-9.)
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
CHAPTER 79
So Then
So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.
(Mar 16:19-20)
Every word in these two verses is of immense importance. We ought to read them with great care, praying that God the Holy Spirit will both teach us their meaning and seal them to our hearts.
Marks Conclusion
So then That is a good way to wrap things up. Mark is here drawing his gospel narrative to a close. He is wrapping up his message. He is bringing his story to its conclusion. He is saying to us, This is the conclusion to the story of the earthly life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. What will the conclusion be? How will he finish the story? Read on
So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them Notice how Mark speaks of the Master, the risen Christ. While on the earth, he wore the name of his humiliation, Jesus. But here Mark speaks of him as the Lord. That is more than a title of respect. It is a title of respect, which identifies our Lord Jesus Christ as the Lord, not a Lord, not one Lord among many Lords, but The Lord. Then he proceeds to describe his lordship.
Let us ever speak with reverence when we speak of our God and Savior. To speak his name lightly, or without the intention of bringing honor to him is to take his name in vain. Holy and reverend is his name!
What is Mark referring to when he says, after the Lord had spoken unto them? We know, of course, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the eternal Word in and by whom God reveals himself to men. Without him, apart from him, God cannot be known by man. Mans quest for God, his search after God, is like a blind man groping about in a dark void. No man knows who God is until God is revealed in the Person and work of the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ (Joh 1:1-3; Joh 1:14; Joh 1:16-18; 2Co 4:6; Heb 1:1-3).
Christ is the living Word of whom the written Word speaks. Jesus Christ is God; and he alone is the Revelation of God. God does not speak to men, nor will he be spoken to by men, except through the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, our Mediator.
But John is here talking specifically about that which our Lord had spoken just before his ascension and exaltation. He is talking about the Lords commission to his church to go into all the world and preach the gospel, and the Lords promise to confirm them as his servants and give success to their labors, as well as his own unceasing companionship unto the end of time. He promised us his presence, his protection and his power forever. We do not have to guess about this. The Holy Spirit tells us plainly that this is what he is referring to here (Act 1:2-3).
Christs Ascension
When our great God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, had finished everything he came here to do, he was received up into heaven, and sat down on the right hand of God. How utterly thrilling that is to my soul. He who is my Savior, he who came here to save me, who shed his blood to redeem me, who gave his Spirit to quicken and preserve me, has been received up into heaven! Theres a Man in Glory! What does that mean? That means men are welcome in Glory! If one man entered into the holy place, perhaps another can. If theres a Man in Glory, maybe this man will be found there!
The Lord Jesus was received up into heaven. He was received there as the God-man, our Mediator, as the Lord our Righteousness, as our sin-atoning Sacrifice and Substitute, as our Great High Priest and all-prevailing Advocate and as our Forerunner (Luk 24:51; Act 1:9). When our Lord Jesus Christ was received up into heaven, the angels of God watched him and worshipped him, Satan and the devils were led captive by him, and his Father crowned him.
He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. He sat down because his work was done. He sat down on the right hand of God, the place of supreme dignity and power, because he is the King of Glory (Joh 17:2; Rom 8:31-34; Heb 10:11-14; Psa 24:1-10).
Child of God, here is a blessed cordial for your heart and soul in this world of sorrow and woe. Christ sits upon the throne of grace, the throne of sovereign, universal power and dominion. He who loved us and gave himself for us is the absolute Monarch of the universe.
Living in this evil world, in this world of trouble, care and heartache, we are often cast down. Living in this world of sin and death, we are decaying; our bodies and minds are wearing away, as they must. We have before us the prospect of death and judgment and eternity. Here is our comfort: We lean back upon him who is our Lord and Savior, the King of Glory. We cast ourselves upon him. We fall into his omnipotent arms. We are weak; but he is strong. We grow weary and sleep; but he that keepeth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. We fall; but he never can. We are dying; but he is Life!
J.C. Ryle wrote, Blessed indeed is this thought! Our Savior, though unseen, is a living person. We travel on towards a dwelling where our best Friend is gone to prepare a place for us (Joh 14:2). The Forerunner has entered in and made all things ready
Preached Everywhere
Once the Lord Jesus was received up into heaven, they went forth and preached everywhere. They went because they were sent. How can they preach, except they be sent? They preached. That is the business (the only business) of Gods church, and that is the business (the only business) of Gods servants!
They preached what they knew: The Gospel. They preached Christ. Christ is the Gospel. As Robert Hawker put it, Christ in himself is comprehensive of the whole Gospel. The words preach, preached and preaching are used 37 times in the Book of Acts. Every time, the subject matter preached is Jesus and the Resurrection. Unless Christ is preached, no preaching has been done in the biblical sense of the word.
They preached everywhere. That is the sphere of our labor. To the best of our ability in the generation in which we live it is our responsibility to preach the gospel to all men everywhere.
The Lords Work
The Lord working with them! Imagine that! What a Companion in labor they had! But Christ is more than our co-laborer. We are the tools. He is the Worker. We are just hoes and hoses in his hands, by which he tends his garden. He works with us, using us as he sees fit in his vineyard (Rom 12:3; 1Co 3:5-9).
Would to God we could learn this! It would put an end to all jealousy, envy, strife and division among Gods servants. The work is the Lords. He works with his tools as he sees fit, where he pleases, to accomplish his purpose. And he does it in such a way as to exalt himself and abase man, that no flesh should glory in his presence. Yet, we could not be more highly honored, for we are laborers together with God.
And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Read the Book of Acts, and you will see how this fact is demonstrated time and again. Read the history of Gods church in this world, and you will see this Scripture emblazoned upon the pages of history.
The Word of God is not bound. The Word of truth is not preached in vain. In spite of Satans rage, in spite of persecutions from popes and pagans, politicians and priests, the Word of God has flourished from land to land, from people to people, and from generation to generation. God has caused his little vine, sown in a dry, desert wilderness, to grow into a huge, fruitful tree.
We have seen these words fulfilled for ourselves. Have we not? I ask you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, do you not see the confirmation of Gods power and grace upon us to do the work he has sent us to do? The Word of God by his prophet Isaiah (Isa 2:3) is fulfilled in our midst every day, even as it was in the apostolic era.
I have been preaching the gospel of Christ for over forty years. In all those years, I have never yet knocked at a door he did not open, come to a raging sea he did not divide before me, met an enemy he did not slay, or have a need he did not supply.
These things were written for our learning, for our comfort, for our encouragement. The Word of God is never preached in vain. Our labor spent in the cause of Christ is never labor spent for nothing. We may never see the result of our work for Christ while we live in this world. If we did, our chests would burst with horrible pride. But in that day when God makes all things manifest, we will see that our labor was not in vain. Let us cast our bread upon the waters, and wait. After many days, it shall return (Psa 126:6; Isa 55:11; 1Co 15:58).
There is one more word in Marks gospel that must be understood. Do not overlook it. Amen. That means, So be it, or So it shall be. Here Mark says, Amen, to all that Christ did. I do too. Amen, to all that Christ taught. I do too. Amen, to all that Christ sent us to do. I do too. Amen, to all that Christ promised to do with us. I do too. I say, Amen, to the purpose of God in Christ, the revelation of God in Christ, the Word of God revealing Christ, and the work of God by Christ.
Amen.
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
The Crowned Saviour
So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken unto them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.Mar 16:19.
How strangely calm and brief is this record of so stupendous an event! Do these sparing and reverent words sound like the product of devout imagination, embellishing with legend the facts of history? Their very restrainedness, calmness, matter-of-factness, if we may so call it, is a strong guarantee that they are the utterance of an eye-witness, who verily saw what he tells so simply. There is something sublime in the contrast between the magnificence and almost inconceivable grandeur of the thing communicated, and the quiet words, so few, so sober, so wanting in all detail, in which it is told. That stupendous fact of Christ sitting at the right hand of God is the one which should fill the present for us all. Even as the Cross should fill the past, and the coming for Judgment should fill the future, so for us the one central thought about the present, in its loftiest relations, should be the throned Christ at Gods right hand. It is that thought of the session of Jesus by the side of the Majesty of the Heavens that brings out the profound teaching of the Ascension, and the practical lessons which it suggests.
The story of the Ascension of Jesus is given three times in the New Testament. It is given in the verse of the text (if the last eleven verses formed no part of the original Gospel by St. Mark, they still contain a very early testimony to the current belief of the primitive Church); it is given very briefly in the concluding verses of St. Lukes Gospel; and it is given once again by St. Luke with more circumstantiality and detail in the opening chapter of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. All three accounts are marked by a certain reticence and reverent brevity. The sacred writer is content to mention the event in the simplest language and with a complete absence of detail.
It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that our belief in the Ascension rests upon such a slender foundation as a twofold mention by St. Luke (who was probably not a personal disciple of Christ, and therefore not an eye-witness) and an anonymous paragraph appended to the Gospel of St. Mark. The Ascension of Christ occupies an important place in the apostolic testimony. It is quite true it is not emphasised as is the fact of the Resurrection. But it is presupposed and taken for granted. The Resurrection, as the Apostles thought of it, involved the Ascension. The one, so to speak, was necessitated by the other. Christ to them was not risen simply, but also exalted and glorified.
The Ascension of Jesus occupies much the same place in the apostolic testimony as does the doctrine of the Incarnation. It cannot be said that the doctrine of the Incarnation is anywhere formally stated and logically proved. It is taken for granted. It is the background of all the apostolic thinking. The story of our Lords sinless life, His death and resurrection, seemed to the Apostles to involve the doctrine of the Incarnation, and so it is presupposed, it is treated as an axiom, and the references to it are incidental merely. And it is much the same with the Ascension. It is never formally stated and proved. It is taken for granted. It is regarded as axiomatic. It is a corollary of the Resurrection. Hence the references to it in the Epistles are casual and incidental only.
And yet no one can read the Epistles without seeing that the Ascension coloured all the Apostles thought of Jesus. When they speak of Him, they speak of Him as One who has passed out of the region of the seen and natural into the region of the unseen and the supernatural. They think of Him not as risen simply, but as ascended also. It was from heaven Christ appeared to Paul on the way to Damascus. Paul speaks of Christ as seated on the right hand of God. It is from heaven, according to Paul, that Christ will come to judge the quick and the dead. Peter speaks of Christ as having gone into heaven and being on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to Him. John, when unveiling the splendours of the new Jerusalem, says that in the city, in the midst of it, he saw one like unto the Son of Man whose eyes were as a flame of fire and His voice as the voice of many waters, and His countenance as the sun shining in his strength, and He said, I am the First and the Last and the Living One, and I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades. The picture of Jesus which the Apostles give us is that of One who lived a sinless life, died an atoning death, rose on the third day, and who then ascended far above all the heavens that He might fill all things.
The text falls into three natural divisions:
I.The Parting Words of JesusAfter he had spoken unto them
II.His AscensionHe was received up into heaven
III.His Session in HeavenHe sat down at the right hand of God
I
The Parting Words of Jesus
1. As the fact of Christs resurrection is so important we may expect to find it well established. It is so. He made many appearances. There are at least ten or eleven. There is one noteworthy fact about these manifestations. He appeared only to His friends.
To see Jesus you must be in sympathy with Jesus. The stained-glass window gives no sign of its beauty as you look at it from without. It is from within the building that you are able to enjoy the fulness and richness of the colour. It is not until you enter into the Christian temper that you can receive the Christian revelations. To the unspiritual, manifestations of the Spirit are but foolishness.
2. Now in the appearances of Jesus He spoke to His disciples. After he had spoken unto them He ascended. He might have appeared without speaking. He might have shown them His hands, His feet, His side, and so proved His identity; and He might have done this without uttering a syllable. He spoke to them. What did He say? He knew He was soon to depart unto the Father. If the tongues of dying men enforce attention, we may conclude that the words of the risen Christ must be of paramount importance. Let us listen to the great resurrection words.
(1) Mary!Now when he was risen he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils (Mar 16:9). She had been to the sepulchre and found it empty. She was sorrowfully departing when she met her Lord. Supposing him to be the gardener, she saith unto him, Tell me where thou hast laid him and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary! She saith unto him, Rabboni. The first resurrection word was a personal word; it was a womans name addressed to the woman herself.
What power Christ put into one word! The human voice is wonderfully musical. God has filled creation with music. The birds carol, the brooks murmur, the trees sing in the breeze. The ocean is always in tune. When the storm whips the billow into foam, or when the waves ripple idly on the sand, the voice of the ocean is always full of music. But nothing in creation can really rival the human voice. There are instruments of music which are pleasant to the ear; but for pathos, for power, for compass, for sweetness, the organ of human speech is above all.
(2) All hail!This was the second word of the risen Lord. It was spoken to a company of sorrowing women. They had been to the sepulchre, carrying spices to embalm His body. There they had seen a vision of angels, and had been instructed by one of them to bear the intelligence of Christs resurrection to the disciples. While they were hastening to fulfil this commission, Jesus Himself met them, saying, All hail! Jesus always meets His people in the path of obedience. Now the Greek word for All hail means simply Rejoice. The second great resurrection word is a word of joy.
Rejoice because I live.They thought Him dead. They had no expectation of His resurrection. They came to anoint a dead body and met a living Saviour. The cross had been the grave of their expectations. He whom they expected to reign had died a felons death. But now Jesus meets them. A living Lord bids them rejoicerejoice that He is alive.
He lives, the friend of sinners lives,
What joy this blest assurance gives.
Rejoice because I show you what death is.He was first-born from the dead. He was the first-fruits of the resurrection. His was the first real resurrection. We do not forget those raised by Elijah and Elisha, and the three whom Jesus Himself raised from the dead. But they were not instances of resurrection but of resuscitation. Each of them had to die again. Christ, raised from the dead, dieth no more. He is alive for evermore. By His resurrection he brought life and immortality to light.
Rejoice because I have triumphed.He was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. One work of the devil was death. St. Paul tells us Christ hath abolished death. How did He accomplish this, but by His resurrection from the dead? He was not imprisoned for long. Like a mighty Samson He bore the gates away, and now the gates of death shall not prevail against us.
(3) Peace!This is one of the most prominent of the resurrection words. It was spoken to the disciples in the upper room at Jerusalem. It was the very word they needed, for they were full of distress and fear. The peace He gave was a peace well based. He was Himself not only their source of peace, He was their peace.
Peace is always based on a feeling of safety. The boy who feels safe because he trusts the wisdom of his father, does not grow uneasy though the way be unknown and the night dark. He feels safe with his father and has peace. The old man who rides in his carriage has peace, because he trusts his coachman who has driven him for years. His sense of security gives him peace. The captain has no fear for his vessel though the fog is dense. The pilot who stands on the bridge has brought his boat to port so often that he can trust him and so has peace. It was so with the disciples. The knowledge that they were not alone, that He upon whose guidance they had depended was still with them, and was to be ever with them, this was the ground of their peace.
(4) Go!Go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me. The meeting in Galilee was always thrown into prominence. Galilee is the appointed meeting-place for the great revelation Jesus gave of Himself. What shall the great word be for this occasion? He has spoken a personal word, a word of joy, a word of peace; now He gives the word of command. Go! Then they went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.
A living Christ means a going Church. And so we leave these four great resurrection words. Christ is risen! The risen Christ speaks! He speaks to call us, to cheer us, to comfort us, to command us. After he had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And now from the throne He speaks similar words to us. Let us listen to the living Christ.1 [Note: W. L. Mackenzie.]
3. These treasured words, which may be called the resurrection words, remind us of the great truth which we are taught in this verse,which means so much to us, that Jesus spoke to His disciples, before He left them. And on the day of His Ascension they would remember above all the promise which He gave them before His death: If I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am ye may be also (Joh 14:3).
The world has not seen the last of Jesus Christ. Such an Ascension, after such a life, cannot be the end of Him. As it is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the judgment, so Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear the second time, without sin unto salvation. As inevitably as for sinful human nature follows death, so inevitably for the sinless Man, who is the sacrifice for the worlds sins, will His judicial return follow His atoning work; He will come again, having received the Kingdom, to take account of His servants, and to perfect their possession of the salvation which by His Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, He wrought for the world. Therefore, one sweet face, and one great factthe face of the Christ, the fact of the Crossshould fill the past. One sweet face, one great factthe face of the Christ, the fact of His presence with us all the daysshould fill the present. One regal face, one great hope, should fill the future; the face of the King that sitteth upon the throne, the hope that He will come again, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
The Apostles were bidden by angels to turn their gaze from heaven to earth,and wait. And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Yes, Jesus will come again, there is joy in that thought. He hath passed from us into that invisible world, and left an ever-widening circle on the surface of the deep, which extends ever more and more around where He has passed, till it hath filled all time and space, and hath come even to us, and taken us into its hallowed circumference.1 [Note: Isaac Williams.]
But, Lord, to-morrow,
What of to-morrow, Lord?
Shall there be rest from toil, be truce from sorrow,
Be living green upon the sward,
Now but a barren grave to me,
Be joy for sorrow?
Did I not die for thee?
Do I not live for thee?leave Me to-morrow.2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]
II
His Ascension
1. The Ascension was a natural sequence of the Incarnation and Resurrection.
The Ascension of Jesus of Nazareth was the final crisis in His great work. To omit it would be to omit that which is a necessary link between His resurrection from among the dead and reappearance amid His disciples, and the coming of God, the Holy Spirit, on the Day of Pentecost. It is not easy to follow Him as He passes out of human sight. This difficulty is recognised inferentially in the very brevity of the Gospel narrative. Very little is said, because little can be said which could be understood by those dwelling still within the limitations of the material, and having consciousness of the spiritual world only by faith. Still the positive fact is definitely stated; and, following closely the lines laid down, we may reverently attempt their projection beyond the veil of time and sense. It is almost pathetic that it is necessary to pause one moment to insist upon the actual historic fact of the ascension into the heavenly places of the Man of Nazareth. If the resurrection be denied, then of course there is no room for the ascension. If on the other hand it be established that Jesus of Nazareth did indeed rise from the dead, then it is equally certain that He ascended into heaven. No time need be taken in argument with such as believe in the authenticity of the New Testament story, and with those who question this, argument is useless. That there is an unconscious questioning of the fact of the ascension is evident from the way in which reference is sometimes made to the Lord Jesus. It is by no means uncommon to hear persons speak of what He did or said in the days of His Incarnation. Such a phrase, even when not used with such intention, does infer that the days of His Incarnation are over. This, however, is not so. Jesus, through whom, and through whom alone eventually, men as such will be found in the heavens, ascended in bodily form to those heavens, being Himself as to actual victory First-born from the dead. The stoop of God to human form was not for a period merely. That humiliation was a process in the pathway by which God would lift into eternal union with Himself all such as should be redeemed by the victory won through suffering. For evermore in the Person of the Man of Nazareth God is one with men. At this moment the Man of Nazareth, the Son of God, is at the right hand of the Father. Difficulties arising concerning these clear declarations as to the ascension of the Man of Nazareth must not be allowed to create disbelief in them. Any such process of discrediting what is hard to understand issues finally in the abandonment of the whole Christian position and history.
The Ascension of Christ ensues just as necessarily and naturally as the development of the flower when plant, stalk, leaf, and bud are already in existence. Look at the connection of His whole career, how He was sent down from His Father, in order, as God-man, to fulfil His work of mediation and redemption; how He, obeying, suffering, and dying, really did fulfil it, thus perfectly discharging the commission intrusted to Him; and then judge whether it may not be confidently expected that the holy, righteous Father in heaven would set His seal to the finished work of His only-begotten Son, not only by raising Him again from the dead, but by causing Him also to return in visible triumph to heaven, whence He had descended to us. One step in the life of Jesus demanded and required the next. Without the Ascension His life were a torso, a fragment, an inexplicable enigma. For where could the risen Saviour have remained if He had not returned to His Father? He must necessarily have tarried somewhere on earth in His glorified body; or, what is still more inconceivable and contradictory, have died a second time under circumstances that precluded any eye from witnessing it. But, finally, fix your attention upon that which, as being of paramount importance, imperatively challenges it, the authoritative seal of historical truth which He affixed Himself, in the presence of the whole world, upon the fact of His Ascension, by the outpouring, on the tenth day after His return to heaven, of the promised Holy Ghost. If anything be fitted to remove our last doubt, it is the day of Pentecost.1 [Note: F. W. Krummacher.]
2. The Ascension was expedient for us.
When Christ left the earth He was not bereaving His people. He was depriving them of a lesser good in order to bestow upon them a richer and a nobler. We have that on His own plain and unequivocal assurance. On the night in which He was betrayed, when He was gathered with His disciples in the upper room, and when the shadow of the coming parting lay dark and heavy across His soul and theirs, He sought to cheer His fainting and broken-hearted followers by assuring them that it was for their good that He should leave them. Nevertheless, He said, I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away. Now our Lord spoke many a hard saying during the years of His earthly sojourn, but He spoke none harder to believe than that. Those disciples of His that night absolutely and utterly refused to believe it. Yes, Christ spoke that night to deaf ears and incredulous hearts. If He had said, It is expedient for the angelic host, who had missed the face of their blessed Lord for three and thirty years, they could have understood that. If he had said, It is expedient for the saved and redeemed, whose joy would be increased by their Redeemers presence, they could have understood that. If He had said, It is expedient for Me to go away, to leave the trials and tears and difficulties and struggles and poverty and pain of earth for the blessedness and glory of heaven, they could have understood that. But that it should be expedient for them to be deprived of their Lord, who had been their joy, their strength, their inspiration, their hope; expedient for them to be deprived of His presence, and to be left friendless and alone in the midst of foes, like sheep in the midst of wolvesno, they could not understand that. Their Lords words sounded to them like bitter irony. It was a hard saying, and they could not bear it. And yet we can see to-day, and these very disciples came themselves to see, that when Christ said, It is expedient for you that I go away, He spoke the literal truth. For wherein does that expediency consist? It consists in the universal presence of Christ. Christ went away from His disciples in order thatparadoxical as it may soundHe might come nearer to them. He left them in bodily presence, that spiritually He might be present with them everywhere and at all times.
There are times when we wish we had shared in the experience of the first disciples, and had been privileged to hear our Lords voice and see His face and feel His touch. The sentiment expressed in our childrens hymn is at one time and another the sentiment of all of us
I think, when I read that sweet story of old,
When Jesus was here among men,
How He called little children as lambs to His fold,
I should like to have been with them then.
I wish that His hands had been placed on my head,
That His arms had been thrown around me,
And that I might have seen His kind look when He said,
Let the little ones come unto Me.
And yet, natural though the sentiment of that hymn is, it is false. Why this pensive longing, this wistful regret for the days of Christs earthly sojourn? Is it that Christ is beyond our reach and call and touch to-day? As a matter of fact He has come nearer to us by going away.1 [Note: J. D. Jones.]
Lo, as some bard on isles of the gean,
Lovely and eager when the earth was young,
Burning to hurl his heart into a pan,
Praise of the hero from whose loins he sprung;
He, I suppose, with such a care to carry,
Wandered disconsolate and waited long,
Smiting his breast, wherein the notes would tarry,
Chiding the slumber of the seed of song:
Then in the sudden glory of a minute
Airy and excellent the proem came,
Rending his bosom, for a god was in it,
Waking the seed, for it had burst in flame.
So even I athirst for his inspiring,
I who have talked with him forget again;
Yes, many days with sobs and with desiring
Offer to God a patience and a pain;
Then thro the mid complaint of my confession,
Then thro the pang and passion of my prayer,
Leaps with a start the shock of His possession,
Thrills me and touches, and the Lord is there.1 [Note: F. W. H. Myers, Saint Paul.]
3. What is the practical bearing of the Ascension on our lives?
Our Lords Ascension leads us to think of Him and to follow Him in mind and heart. By His rising from the dead and ascending into heaven He gave us a model to follow no less than by His suffering and death. By His ascension our Lord would show us that although we are in the world we should not be of the world, that our minds and thoughts should be directed heavenward. There lie the vast possibilities, the unthinkable future, for human nature. To him that over cometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. Union and communion with God. This is the beginning, the middle, the end of our religion. For this is the purpose of God for each soul in the day when He creates it.
Let us meditate how Christ has gone before us into the glory of His heavenly Father. Therefore, if we desire to follow Him, we must mark the way which He has shown us, and trodden for three and thirty years, in misery, in poverty, in shame, and in bitterness, even unto death. So likewise, to this day, must we follow in the same path, if we would fain enter with Him into the Kingdom of Heaven. For though all our masters were dead, and all our books burned, yet we should ever find instruction enough in His holy life. For He Himself is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and by no other way can we truly and undeviatingly advance towards the same consummation, than in that which He hath walked while He was yet upon earth. Now, as the loadstone draws the iron after itself, so doth Christ draw all hearts after Himself which have once been touched by Him; and as when the iron is impregnated with the energy of the loadstone that has touched it, it follows the stone uphill although that is contrary to its nature, and cannot rest in its own proper place, but strives to rise above itself on high; so all the souls which have been touched by this loadstone, Christ, can be chained down neither by joy nor by grief, but are ever rising up to God out of themselves. They forget their own nature, and follow after the touch of God, and follow it the more easily and directly, the more noble is their nature than that of other men, and the more they are touched by Gods image.1 [Note: Taulers Life and Sermons, 335.]
Since Eden, it keeps the secret!
Not a flower beside it knows
To distil from the day the fragrance
And beauty that flood the Rose.
Silently speeds the secret
From the loving eye of the sun
To the willing heart of the flower:
The life of the twain is one.
Folded within my being,
A wonder to me is taught,
Too deep for curious seeing
Or fathom of sounding thought,
Of all sweet mysteries holiest!
Faded are rose and sun!
The Highest hides in the lowliest;
My Father and I are one.2 [Note: Charles Gordon Ames.]
III
His Session at Gods Right Hand
1. In that solemn and wondrous fact of Christs sitting at the right hand of God we see the exalted Man. We are taught to believe, according to His own words, that in His ascension Christ was but returning whence He came, and entering into the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. And that impression of a return to His native and proper abode is strongly conveyed to us by the narrative of His ascension. Contrast it, for instance, with the narrative of Elijahs rapture, or with the brief reference to Enochs translation. The one was taken by God up into a region and a state which he had not formerly traversed; the other was borne by a fiery chariot to the heavens; but Christ slowly sailed upwards, as it were, by His own inherent power, returning to His abode, and ascending up where He was before.
But whilst this is one side of the profound fact, there is another side. What was new in Christs return to His Fathers bosom? This, that he took His manhood with Him. It was the Everlasting Son of the Father, the Eternal Word, which from the beginning was with God and was God, that came down from heaven to earth, to declare the Father; but it was the Incarnate Word, the Man Christ Jesus, that went back again. This most blessed and wonderful truth is taught with emphasis in His own words before the Council, Ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power. Christ, then, to-day, bears a human body, not indeed the body of his humiliation, but the body of His glory, which is none the less a true corporeal frame, and necessarily requires a locality. His ascension, whithersoever He may have gone, was the true carrying of a real humanity, complete in all its parts, Body, Soul, and Spirit, up to the very throne of God. Where that locality is it is useless to speculate. St. Paul says that He ascended up far above all heavens; or, as the Epistle to the Hebrews has it, in the proper translation, the High Priest is passed through the heavens, as if all this visible material creation was rent asunder in order that He might soar yet higher beyond its limits wherein reign mutation and decay. But wheresoever that place may be, there is a place in which now, with a human body as well as a human spirit, Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God. In the profound language of Scripture, The Forerunner is for us entered. In some mysterious manner, of which we can but dimly conceive, that entrance of Jesus in His complete humanity into the highest heavens is the preparation of a place for us. It seems as if, without His presence there, there were no entrance for human nature within that state, and no power in a human foot to tread upon the crystal pavements of the Celestial City. But where He is, there the path is permeable, and the place native, to all who love and trust Him.
The exalted Man, sitting at the right hand of God, is the Pattern of what is possible for humanity, and the prophecy and pledge of what will be actual for all that love Him and bear the image of Him upon earth, that they may be conformed to the image of His glory, and be with Him where He is. What firmness, what reality, what solidity this thought of the exalted bodily Christ gives to the else dim and vague conceptions of a Heaven beyond the stars and beyond our present experience! I believe that no doctrine of a future life has strength and substance enough to survive the agonies of our hearts when we part from our dear onesthe fears of our spirits when we look into the unknown inane future for ourselvesexcept only this which says Heaven is Christ and Christ is Heaven, and points to Him and says, Where he is, there also shall his servants be.1 [Note: 1 A. Maclaren.]
We know not when, we know not where,
We know not what that world will be;
But this we knowit will be fair
To see.
With hearts athirst and thirsty face,
We know and know not what shall be:
Christ Jesus bring us of His grace
To see.
Christ Jesus bring us of His grace,
Beyond all prayers our hope can pray,
One day to see Him face to Face,
One day.2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]
2. The Ascension of our blessed Lord involves the glorification of the whole human race. In His Incarnation Christ identified Himself once for all with human-kind. He bound us in a close and vital relationship to Himself. He became bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. He shared our lot and made us partakers of His destiny. The highest interests of humanity became embodied in Him. If the powers of evil could prevail over Him, then they might soon enslave the whole human race. If He should overcome death, and pass through the grave and the gate of death to a joyful resurrection, He would thus open to all mankind the gate of everlasting life. If God should exalt Him with great triumph unto His Kingdom in heaven, He would by that same act exalt all His faithful followers to the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before.
Thou hast raised our human nature
On the clouds to Gods right hand;
There we sit in heavenly places,
There with Thee in glory stand.
Jesus reigns, adored by angels;
Man with God is on the throne;
Mighty Lord, in Thine Ascension
We by faith behold our own.1 [Note: Chr. Wordsworth.]
3. Christs sitting at the right hand of God presents to our view a Saviour at Rest. That session expresses the idea of absolute repose after sore conflict. It is the same thought that is expressed in those solemn Egyptian colossal statues of deified conquerors, elevated to mysterious union with their gods, and yet men still. Sitting before their temples in perfect stillness, with their mighty hands lying quiet on their restful limbs; with calm faces out of which toil and passion and change seem to have melted, they gaze out with open eyes as over a silent, prostrate world. So, with the Cross behind, with all the agony and weariness of the arena, the dust and the blood of the struggle left beneath, Christ sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. He rests after His Cross, not because He needed repose even after that terrible effort, but in token that His work was finished and perfected, that all which He had come to do was done; and in token that the Father, too, beheld and accepted His finished work. Therefore, the session of Christ at the right hand of God is the proclamation from Heaven of what He cried with His last dying breath upon the Cross: It is finished! It is the declaration that the world has had all done for it that Heaven can do for it. It is the declaration that all which is needed for the regeneration of humanity has been lodged in the very heart of the race, and that henceforward all that is required is the evolving and the development of the consequences of that perfect work which Christ offered upon the Cross. So the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews contrasts the priests who stood daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sin, with this Man who, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down at the right hand of God; testifying thereby that His Cross is the complete, sufficient, perpetual atonement and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.
It would seem as though one could hear the antiphonal singing of the heavenly choirs, as this perfect One passes into heaven.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
And be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors:
And the King of glory shall come in,
is the exulting challenge of the angels escorting Him. To this comes back the question, inspired by the passion to hear again the story of the victory,
Who is the King of glory?
And yet gathering new music and new meaning the surging anthem rolls,
Jehovah strong and mighty,
Jehovah mighty in battle
He is the King of glory.
Thus the song is also of One who was mighty in battle. Looking upon Him, the glorified One, and listening to His words, the wonder grows. For in that Form, all filled with exquisite beauty, are yet the signs of suffering and of pain. The marks of wounding are in hands, and feet, and side, and His presence declares in His own words, I am the Living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore.1 [Note: G. Campbell Morgan.]
Chains of my heart, avaunt I say
I will arise, and in the strength of love
Pursue the bright track ere it fade away,
My Saviours pathway to His home above.
Sure, when I reach the point where earth
Melts into nothing from th uncumbered sight,
Heaven will oercome th attraction of my birth,
And I will sink in yonder sea of light:
Till resting by th incarnate Lord,
Once bleeding, now triumphant for my sake,
I mark Him, how by Seraph hosts adored
He to earths lowest cares is still awake.
The sun and every vassal star,
All space, beyond the soar of Angel wings,
Wait on His word; and yet He stays His car
For every sigh a contrite suppliant brings.
He listens to the silent tear
Mid all the anthems of the boundless sky
And shall our dreams of music bar our ear
To His soul-piercing voice for ever nigh?
Nay, gracious Saviour,but as now
Our thoughts have traced Thee to Thy glory-throne,
So help us evermore with Thee to bow
Where human sorrow breathes her lowly moan.1 [Note: J. Keble, The Christian Year, Ascension Day.]
4. The Session involves Intercession.In the Epistle to the Hebrews is constantly reiterated the thought that we have a Priest who has passed into the heavens, there to appear in the presence of God for us. And St. Paul says, It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us (Rom 8:34). There are deep mysteries connected with the thought of the intercession of Christ. It does not mean that the Divine Heart needs to be won to love and pity. It does not mean that in any mere outward and formal fashion Christ pleads with God, and softens and placates the Infinite and Eternal love of the Father in the heavens. It, at least, plainly means this, that He, our Saviour and Sacrifice, is for ever in the presence of God, presenting His own blood as an element in the Divine dealing with us, modifying the incidence of the Divine law, and securing through His own merits and intercession the outflow of blessings upon our heads and hearts. It is not a complete statement of Christs work for us that He died for us; He died that He might have somewhat to offer. He lives that He may be our Advocate as well as our propitiation with the Father. The High Priest once a year passed within the curtain, and there in the solemn silence and solitude of the Holy Place, not without trembling, sprinkled the blood that he bore thither; and but for a moment was he permitted to stay in the awful Presence. So, but in reality and for ever, with the joyful gladness of a Son in His own calm home, His habitation from eternity, Christ abides in the Holy Place; and, at the right hand of the Majesty of the Heavens, lifts up that prayer, so strangely compact of authority and submission: Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am. The Son of Man at the right hand of God is our Intercessor with the Father. Seeing, then, that we have a great High Priest that is passed through the heavens, let us come boldly to the Throne of Grace.
Not as one blind and deaf to our beseeching,
Neither forgetful that we are but dust,
Not as from heavens too high for our upreaching,
Coldly sublime, intolerably just:
Nay but Thou knewest us, Lord Christ Thou knowest,
Well Thou rememberest our feeble frame,
Thou canst conceive our highest and our lowest
Pulses of nobleness and aches of shame.
Therefore have pity!not that we accuse Thee,
Curse Thee and die and charge Thee with our woe:
Not thro Thy fault, O Holy One, we lose Thee,
Nay, but our own,yet hast Thou made us so!
Then tho our foul and limitless transgression
Grows with our growing, with our breath began,
Raise Thou the arms of endless intercession,
Jesus, divinest when Thou most art man!1 [Note: F. W. H. Myers, Saint Paul.]
5. Lastly, the Ascension sets before us the ever-active Helper. The right hand of God is the Omnipotent energy of God; and however certainly the language of Scripture requires for its full interpretation that we should firmly hold that Christs glorified body dwells in a place, we are not to omit the other thought that to sit at the right hand also means to wield the immortal energy of that Divine nature over all the field of the Creation, and in every province of His dominion. So that the ascended Christ is the ubiquitous Christ; and He who is at the right hand of God is wherever the power of God reaches-throughout His whole Universe.
We remember that it was once given to a man to look through the opened heavens (through which Christ had passed) and to see the Son of Man standingnot sittingat the right hand of God. Why to the dying protomartyr was there granted that vision thus varied? Wherefore was the attitude changed but to express the swiftness, the certainty of His help, and the eager readiness of the Lord, who starts to His feet, as it were, to succour and to sustain His dying servant? And so we may take that great joyful truth that, both as receiving gifts for men and bestowing gifts upon them, and as working by His providence in the world, and on the wider scale for the well-being of His children and of the Church, the Christ who sits at the right hand of God wields, ever with eager cheerfulness, all the powers of omnipotence for our well-being, if we love and trust Him.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
And didst Thou love the race that loved not Thee,
And didst Thou take to Heaven a human brow?
Dost plead with mans voice by the marvellous sea?
Art Thou his kinsman now?
O God, O Kinsman, loved, but not enough!
O man, with eyes majestic after death,
Whose feet have toiled along our pathways rough,
Whose lips drawn human breath!
By that one likeness which is ours and Thine,
By that one nature which doth hold us kin,
By that high heaven where sinless Thou dost shine,
To draw us sinners in,
By Thy last silence in the judgment-hall,
By long foreknowledge of the deadly tree,
By darkness, by the wormwood and the gall,
I pray Thee visit me.
Come, lest this heart should, cold and cast away,
Die ere the guest adored she entertain
Lest eyes which never saw Thine earthly day
Should miss Thy heavenly reign.2 [Note: Jean Ingelow.]
The Crowned Saviour
Literature
Aitchison (J.), The Childrens Own, 157.
Arnold (T.), Sermons: Christian Life and Doctrine, 54.
Benson (R. M.), The Final Passover, 616.
Chadwick (G. A.), The Gospel of St. Mark, 442.
Gregory (J. Robinson), Scripture Truths made Simple, 113.
Jones (J. D.), The Gospel of Grace, 134.
Krummacher (F. W.), The Risen Redeemer, 212.
Mackenzie (W. Lomax), Pure Religion, 28.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions of Holy Scripture, St. Mark, ix.xvi., 312.
Morgan (G. Campbell), The Crises of the Christ, 347.
Winkworth (S.), Taulers Life and Sermons, 334.
The Churchmans Pulpit, pt. 17, Ascension Day.
The Church Pulpit Year-Book, 1908, 111.
Five Minute Sermons. Paulist, New Series, i. 264.
Sermons on the Gospels, Advent to Trinity, 259.
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
after: Mat 28:18-20, Luk 24:44-50, Joh 21:15, Joh 21:22, Act 1:2, Act 1:3
he was: Luk 9:51, Luk 24:50, Luk 24:51, Joh 13:1, Joh 16:28, Joh 17:4, Joh 17:5, Joh 17:13, Act 1:10, Act 1:11, Act 2:33, Act 3:21, Eph 1:20-22, Eph 4:8-11, Heb 1:3, Heb 4:14, Heb 6:20, Heb 7:26, Heb 8:1, Heb 9:24, Heb 10:12, Heb 10:13, Heb 10:19-22, Heb 12:2, 1Pe 3:22, Rev 3:21
and sat: Psa 110:1, Act 7:55, Act 7:56, 1Co 15:24, 1Co 15:25, 1Pe 3:22, Rev 3:20
Reciprocal: 2Ki 2:11 – into heaven 2Ki 2:12 – he saw him Psa 16:11 – at thy Psa 24:7 – shall Psa 110:5 – at thy Mat 20:21 – the one Mat 25:33 – his Mar 10:37 – sit Mar 14:62 – the Son Luk 19:12 – a far Luk 22:69 – on Joh 3:13 – even Joh 6:62 – General Joh 7:33 – Yet Joh 12:16 – when Joh 16:16 – because Act 1:9 – when Rom 8:34 – who is even Col 3:1 – where 1Ti 3:16 – received Rev 12:5 – caught
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN
So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven.
Mar 16:19
Why is it that the festival of our Lords Ascension is so little noticed? Is it because of the practical irreligiousness of our day? Or is it that Christians do not realise the priceless blessings brought thereby?
Throughout the New Testament the Ascension was regarded as a fact, without which the Church could not have come into existence.
The Incarnation of our Lord demanded His Ascension.
I. For Himself.This is part of the joy He kept before Him, which enabled Him to endure the Cross and to despise the shame. St. Paul in the passage, Christ emptied Himself, wherefore God hath highly exalted Him, links together as cause and effect the Incarnation and the Ascension.
II. For us.Taking the manhood into God, He came where we were and descended with us into temptation and trial, sorrow, pain, and death; carried our nature into the shadow of death, bore it triumphantly through the grave, rose with it on the third day, ascended with it into heaven, and has made us sit together with Him in the heavenly places.
In our ascended Lord lie the vast possibilities, the unthinkable future for human nature. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne. Union with God. This is the beginning, the middle, the end of our religion.
Bishop A. T. Lloyd.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
REJOICE!
We should rejoice on Ascension Day. Why?
I. We see in the Ascension the glorification of our Master.Now He shows Himself a Kingnot like a king of this world, of limited power, a terror to his subjects, yet only mortal; but One full of power, almighty, overflowing with mercy, eternal.
II. We see in the Ascension the earnest of our glorification (Joh 14:1-4).When an army is besieging a city, if the general mounts the walls the soldiers know that they will follow. If a storm-tossed fleet sees one vessel, the flagship, enter the port, they know that they will enter after it.
III. We rejoice because now our union with Christ can be perfected.(a) The sanctifying Spirit has much to do to prepare us to inherit the Kingdom into which nothing defiled can enter (Joh 16:7-11). (b) Now that Christ has gone up above the white cloud, and entered within the veil, He can be touched sacramentally (Joh 20:17).
IV. We rejoice because we know that our Mediator is interceding for us.
V. We rejoice because henceforth we need not fear death.The Ascension is the consummation of the Resurrection. What though the dark river of death has to be crossed, if He be waiting for us beyond?
Rev. S. Baring-Gould.
(THIRD OUTLINE)
THE PURPOSES OF THE ASCENSION
I. There was the triumph over His enemies and ours.St. Paul describes this in his Epistle to the Colossians (Mar 2:13-15).
II.To distribute gifts to those whom He had redeemed (Psa 68:18).
III. Further, that He might intercede for us (Heb 9:24; Rom 8:34).
IV. To prepare heaven for us (Joh 19:2-3); and while He is preparing heaven for us, He is preparing us for heaven (Col 1:12).
How grand and glorious, then, the Divine purpose! (Eph 1:18-23).
Illustration
We are not to think of the Ascension of Christ as of a change of position, and a going immeasurably far from us. It is rather a change of the mode of existence, a passing to God, of Whom we cannot say that He is there rather than here, of Whom we all can say, God is with me, and if God then Christ, Who has ascended to the right hand of God. When, therefore, we declare our belief in Christs Ascension, we declare that He has entered upon the completeness of spiritual being without lessening in any degree the completeness of His humanity.
(FOURTH OUTLINE)
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ASCENSION
It was a solemn hour when Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives on the day of the Ascension: before Him Jerusalem and the Temple, at His feet Gethsemane and Bethany, beside Him the disciples, above Him heaven and the glory of the Father.
I. For Himself.What was the meaning of Christs ascension as regarded Himself? Here below was less the home of Jesus than it is ours, who are called strangers and pilgrims. If we have here no abiding city, still less had He. His home was most certainly not on earth.
(a) It was for Him, therefore, the return to His Fathers house.
(b) The entrance of a Victor in a woeful fight into the inheritance He has won (Psa 47:6).
(c) The eternal session of Christ as the Head of the Church. Now He rules all nations from His throne; all events of the worlds history are the developments of the Kingdom of God (Php 2:9-11).
II. For His Kingdom.Jesus is not to be separated from His work, the King from His Kingdom. His Ascension is not only, therefore, significant for Himself, but for His Kingdom. It is clear from this ascension that it is no worldly kingdom. Had it been, He must have stayed longer upon the earth, in order to lay its foundations.
III. For us.(a) Without this ascension we should be robbed of the sacraments of grace. They could no longer have any meaning. (b) Because of this ascension our thoughts are continually to aspire heavenwards (Col 3:1; Col 3:3).
(FIFTH OUTLINE)
THE BLESSINGS OF THE ASCENSION
What blessings we are to expect from the ascended Christ may be gathered
I. From His last command.Go ye into all the world. They are blessings for all men. He Who gave the command will give power for its fulfilment.
II. From His last promise.In My name, etc. This is a promise conferring special powers on the Apostles and them that believe.
III. From His eternal session.He is sat on the right hand of God. What for? It is to rule the world and the Church.
Illustration
Between us and His visible presencebetween us and that glorified Redeemer Who now sitteth at the right hand of Godthe cloud still rolls. But the eye of Faith can pierce it; the incense of true prayer can rise above it; through it the dew of blessing can descend. And if He is gone away, yet He has given us in His Holy Spirit a nearer sense of His presence, a closer infolding in the arms of His tenderness, than we could have enjoyed even if we had lived with Him of old.
(SIXTH OUTLINE)
RESULTS OF THE ASCENSION
There are some results which come to us from firmly holding the belief in Christs Ascension.
I. The strengthening and increase of our faith, which is the evidence of things not seen. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. His ascent is the cause and His absence the crown of our faith. Because He ascended we the more believe; and because we believe in Him Who hath ascended, our faith is the more accepted.
II. The strengthening of our hope.We could never expect our dust and ashes should ascend the heavens; but seeing our nature has gone before in Him, we can now hope to follow Him. Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, which entereth into that within the veil, whither the Forerunner is for us entered (Heb 6:19-20).
III. The lifting up of our affections.For where our treasure is, there will our heart be also. Where Christ is ascended up on high, we must follow Him with the wings of our meditations and with the chariots of our affections (2Ki 2:1-2; Col 3:1-3).
IV. From the Ascension of Christ follows the descent of the Holy Spirit, and therefore power in the preaching of the Gospel. If I depart I will send Him unto you.
Pearson (adapted).
Illustration
There are two closely connected ways by which Christ, after His glorification, began a new work for mankind, the one inward, towards God; the other outward, towards the world. The first is the exercise of an immeasurably increased power of intercession. The sacrificial task was at an end when His life was laid down on Calvarywhich answered to the slaughter of the typical victims. The whole point of the sacrifice lies in the presentation of that life, enriched and consecrated to the utmost by having undergone death, and still and for ever living in the inmost presence of God. (See the sprinkling of the blood upon the mercy-seat, Heb 9:12-24.) Christ then has passed within the veil to complete His merciful work for men by pleading for them in the irresistible power which His perfect discharge of His mission has given Him. The second activity of the glorified Christ is a result of the first. He is always engaged in sending the Holy Ghost to us from the Father (Joh 16:7). Before His exaltation Christ had not yet won the gift by His Passion; men were not capable of receiving it, so long as they had Christ with them in the flesh.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Chapter 33.
The Ascension
“So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.”-Mar 16:19.
A New Title.
The Lord Jesus! Here in St Mark is a new appellation for the Master. Its occurrence here does not mean that something had happened which had “ennobled” Christ; but that something had happened which enabled the disciples to see the glory that had been His all along. That something was the Resurrection. That had opened the eyes of the disciples to the real glory of their Master; the empty grave told them Who He really was; and recognition of the Master’s dignity finds expression in the new title. There is a new note of reverence and worship in their reference to Him. He was “Jesus” simply before the Cross; He was “the Lord Jesus” after the empty grave. It was not a human Jesus the early Christians preached to the world, but an exalted Lord. There never would have been a Christian Church if there had been only a human Jesus to talk of. The early disciples went everywhere because they were absolutely sure of this, that the Jesus they had companied with was the exalted Lord. So when people say, Let us get back to the plain, simple, human Jesus of the early days, I say that is not getting back to Him at all, that is getting away from Him. The Jesus of the early days and the first disciples was not a plain, simple, human Jesus, He was “the Lord Jesus.” We are true to the primitive faith, to the belief of the men who saw Christ and companied with Him, only when we acknowledge His unique and solitary majesty.
The Fact of the Ascension.
Now in these concluding verses the writer seems to be rounding off his Gospel; and so, very briefly, the Ascension is recorded. The direct evidence for the event is meagre. It occupies a very small place in the Gospel records. Matthew and John give no distinct report of it; Mark and Luke are the only two who mention it directly; and in this Gospel, as you notice, it is referred to in this brief and simple way. The only circumstantial account we get of the Ascension is in Acts 1. But it is quite natural that we should get the most detailed account in that particular book. As Dr Salmond puts it “the Gospels report the story of our Lord’s ministry on earth. The Book of the Acts reports the story of His ministry in heaven discharged through His Apostles, and it begins appropriately with the Ascension.” But it would be a great mistake to think that our belief in our Lord’s Ascension depends only upon the two-fold mention by Luke, and this brief reference in Mark. No one can read the Epistles without seeing that it occupies quite a prominent place in the Apostles’ testimony. It is not directly proved; it is assumed, presupposed, taken for granted. It is very much with the Ascension as it is with the Incarnation. The great doctrine of the Incarnation is nowhere in the Epistles formally stated and proved. It is taken for granted; it is the background of all the Apostolic thinking. It is much like that with the Ascension. It is axiomatic in the Apostles’ thinking. When they think of the Lord Jesus they think of Him as One Who has passed within the heavens. It was from heaven Christ appeared to Paul on the way to Damascus; it is from heaven, according to the same Apostle, that Christ will come to judge both the quick and dead. Peter speaks of Christ as having gone into heaven and being on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being subject unto Him. John declares that he saw in the midst of the New Jerusalem, One like unto the Son of Man Whose eyes were as a flame of fire and His voice as the sound of many waters, and Who said to him, “I am the first and the last, and the Living One, and I was dead and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” No one can read the New Testament without seeing, then, that the Ascension forms the background of the Apostolic thought. “The conviction of our Lord’s Ascension,” says one writer, “fills the mind of the Apostolic age.”
The Completion of the Resurrection
The Ascension was the natural completion of the Resurrection. People in these days affect to find difficulties in the story on the ground of natural law. They say that a body should ascend is a contravention to the law of gravity. It is just the kind of objection one might expect from a materialistic age. For it leaves out of account the mighty power of God. I will set no limits to that power. Believe in God, and you see no difficulty whatever in believing that He exalted Jesus to His own right hand. Far indeed from seeing difficulty in the Ascension, it appears to me to be pre-eminently natural and fitting. When Jesus rose again from the dead, it was not to resume the old life, it was not to spend a few more years like those He had spent in Galilee and then again fall a victim to death. Death had no more dominion over Him. He had risen into a state over which death had no power. Earth, with mortality as its distinguishing characteristic, was no home for such a Person. He belonged to the spiritual and eternal world, and that He should pass into it is not surprising but supremely natural and fitting and indeed inevitable. The Ascension, I expect, was the completion of the Resurrection. The Lord delayed His departure for forty days in the interests of the disciples. As soon as their training and teaching was completed, He was seen no more on the ways of earth. He resumed His glory. “So then, the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken unto them, was received up into heaven.”
The Benefits of the Ascension to Men.
And the Ascension was more than the return of Christ to His glory: if this Book is to be believed it became a source of blessing to men. “He was received up into heaven.” At first sight that seems to stand for loss; as a matter of fact it stands for gain. That was the first feeling of the disciples when their Lord was parted from them. The world seemed a poor place. They stood gazing up into heaven. All they had treasured and loved seemed to have vanished into the skies.
Not loss but gain.
As a matter of fact, Christ’s departure meant not impoverishment but enrichment. How shall I put it? They gained their Lord by losing Him. They lost Him in visible form, to have Him with them as a Spiritual Presence for ever. “It is expedient for you that I go away,” He had said. It was a hard saying at the time. I can imagine it was a hard saying to them on the day of the Ascension itself. And yet it was abundantly true. It was only by losing their Lord they could hope to keep Him. “Lo, I am with you all the days,” He had said to them. And to be able to fulfil that promise, it was essential He should go away. Christ could only become the universal Christ by becoming the heavenly Christ. Supposing the disciples had been able to do what Mary in her eager but mistaken love sought to do, supposing they had been able to keep Him with them, Jesus would have become a local Presence. He would have been in Judaea, and men would have felt He was nowhere else. And then what Henry Drummond speaks of would actually have taken place, everybody who believed the Gospel would try to get within sight and touch and hearing of Jesus. Supposing He still walked in bodily form in Palestine today, we should all be making pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and so many millions of us would go that not only would the ordinary business of life be dislocated, but years and years might pass, indeed a whole lifetime might be spent without our being able to come near enough to Him to gaze upon His face or hear His voice. But He went away that He might come near to us all. There is no need to journey to Palestine or anywhere else. He is spiritually near to us always and everywhere. In the shop, in the office, in the home, in our pleasures, in our sorrows, in our temptations, the Lord is spiritually near. A localised Christ would have been to multitudes an absent Christ. But the Christ Who has passed within the heavens is by His Spirit present with us always even unto the end of the world.
Christ’s Reign.
“He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.” Now the “right hand of God” is in Scripture a synonym for the omnipotent energy of God. Recall such phrases as these. “The right hand of the Lord is exalted, the right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.” “I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness.” “He will answer Him from heaven with the saving strength of His right hand.” To sit down at the right hand of God means, therefore, to be clothed with all the energy and power of omnipotence. So the Lord Jesus when He left the earth assumed the place of supreme power. He is in the place of absolute power and dominion, “He sat down at the right hand of God.” The Jesus Who died on the Cross is now the Jesus Who reigns. Is there not inspiration and encouragement in that thought? In these days of anxiety and turmoil there is nothing we need more than this, to realise that Jesus is at the right hand of God. That is what we need for our comfort in the midst of the perplexities and harassments of our own time. We see various forces at work in society, forces that menace and threaten our well-being-greed, hate, lust, envy. But the destinies of men are not at the mercy of these things after all. Let us comfort our hearts with this assurance-Jesus has sat down at the right hand of God. And that, too, is what we need for our encouragement in our Christian work.
The Strengthening Vision.
The slow progress of the work has filled the hearts of Christian people with doubt and depression, and the doubt and depression in turn have paralysed our energies. What we want to see is Jesus at the right hand of God. That is a vision that will banish despair. Our Lord has already won His victory and taken His seat on the throne. He only waits now for the fruit of His victory to be gathered. “When He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, He sat down at the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made the footstool of His feet.” No matter how discouraging the work or how slow the progress, we shall be quite sure the Kingdoms of this world are to become the Kingdoms of our God and of His Christ, for already the Lord Jesus has been received up into heaven and has sat down at the right hand of God.
Fuente: The Gospel According to St. Mark: A Devotional Commentary
9
The ascension is reported also in Luk 24:51 and Act 1:9.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
THESE words form the conclusion of Mark’s Gospel. Short as the passage is, it is a singularly suitable conclusion to the history of our Lord Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry. It tells us where our Lord went, when He left this world, and ascended up on high. It tells us what His disciples experienced after their Master left them, and what all true Christians may expect until He appears again.
Let us mark, in these verses, the place to which our Lord went when He had finished His work on earth, and the place where He is at this present time. We are told that “He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.” He returned to that glory which He had with the Father before He came into the world. He received, as our victorious Mediator and Redeemer, the highest position of dignity and power in heaven which our minds can conceive. There He sits, not idle, but carrying on the same blessed work for which He died on the cross. There He lives, ever making intercession for all who come unto God by Him, and so able to save them to the uttermost. (Heb 7:25.)
There is strong consolation here for all true Christians. They live in an evil world. They are often careful and troubled about many things, and are sorely cast down by their own weakness and infirmities.-They live in a dying world. They feel their bodies gradually failing and giving way. They have before them the awful prospect of soon launching forth into a world unknown.-What then shall comfort them? They must lean back on the thought of their Savior in heaven, never slumbering, and never sleeping, and always ready to help. They must remember that though they sleep, Jesus wakes-though they faint, Jesus is never weary-though they are weak, Jesus is Almighty-and though they die, Jesus lives for evermore. Blessed indeed is this thought! Our Savior, though unseen, is an actually living person. We travel on toward a dwelling where our best Friend is gone before, to prepare a place for us. (Joh 14:2.) The Forerunner has entered in and made all things ready. No wonder that Paul exclaims, “Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died; yea, rather that is risen again-who is even at the right hand of God-who also maketh intercession for us.” (Rom 8:34.)
Let us mark, for another thing, in these verses, the blessing which our Lord Jesus Christ bestows on all who work faithfully for Him. We are told that, when the disciples went forth and preached, the Lord “worked with them,” and “confirmed the word with signs following.”
We know well from the Acts of the Apostles, and from the pages of church history, the manner in which these words have been proved true. We know that bonds and afflictions, persecution and opposition, were the first fruits that were reaped by the laborers in Christ’s harvest. But we know also that, in spite of every effort of Satan, the word of truth was not preached in vain. Believers from time to time were gathered out of the world. Churches of saints were founded in city after city, and country after country. The little seed of Christianity grew gradually into a great tree. Christ Himself wrought with His own workmen, and, in spite of every obstacle, His work went on. The good seed was never entirely thrown away. Sooner or later there were “signs following.”
Let us not doubt that these things were written for our encouragement, on whom the latter ends of the world are come. Let us believe that no one shall ever work faithfully for Christ, and find at last that His work has been altogether without profit. Let us labor on patiently, each in our own position. Let us preach, and teach, and speak, and write, and warn, and testify, and rest assured that our labor is not in vain. We may die ourselves, and see no result from our work. But the last day will assuredly prove that the Lord Jesus always works with those who work for Him, and that there were “signs following,” though it was not given to the workmen to see them. Let us then be “steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” We may go on our way heavily, and sow with many tears; but if we sow Christ’s precious seed, we shall “come again with joy and bring our sheaves with us.” (1Co 15:58; Psa 126:6.)
And now let us close the pages of Mark’s Gospel with self-inquiry and self-examination. Let it not content us to have seen with our eyes, and heard with our ears, the things here written for our learning about Jesus Christ. Let us ask ourselves whether we know any thing of Christ “dwelling in our hearts by faith”? Does the Spirit “witness with our spirit” that Christ is ours and we are His? Can we really say that we are “living the life of faith in the Son of God,” and that we have found by experience that Christ is “precious” to our own souls? These are solemn questions. They demand serious consideration. May we never rest till we can give them satisfactory answers! “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” (1Jn 5:12.)
THE END
Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels
Mar 16:19. So thou. This phrase, not found elsewhere in this Gospel, introduces the conclusion.
The Lord. A term of the highest reverence in this case.Jesus is inserted on good authority.
After he had spoken onto them. Both the time and place of the discourse are indefinite, and the fuller account of the Ascension is not contradicted by anything here stated.
Was received up into heaven. See Luk 24:51; Act 1:9. The original suggests also the idea of being taken back again.
And sat down at the right hand of God, in the place of honor and power. The Ascension is the natural completion of the Resurrection. After such a glorious triumph over death and hell, Christ could not die again, but only return to His former glory and take possession of His throne and kingdom, at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. On Christs presence there, see Joh 19:3; Act 2:33; Act 7:56; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Here we have the grand article of our Christian faith asserted, namely, our Saviour’s ascension into heaven, together with his exaltation there, expressed by his sitting at God’s right hand; he ascended now to heaven in his human nature, for in his divine nture he was there already; and it was necessary that he should thus ascend, in order to his own personal exaltation and glorification.
When he was on earth, his humility, patience, and self-denial, were exercised by undergoing God’s wrath, the devil’s rage, and man’s cruelty; now he goes to heaven, that they may be rewarded; he that is a patient sufferer upon earth, shall be a triumphant conqueror in heaven; also with respect to his church on earth, it was necessary that our Lord should ascend up into heaven, namely, to send down the Holy Spirit upon his apostles, which he did at the feast of Penticost. “If I go not away, says Christ, the Comforter will not come; but if I depart, I will send him unto you;” and likewise to be a powerful advocate and intercessor with his Father in heaven; on the behalf of his church and children here upon earth. Christ is entered into heaven itself, there to appear in the presence of God for us Heb 9:24.
Finally, Christ ascended into heaven, to give us an assurance, that in due time we should ascend after him, I go to prepare a place for you Joh 14:2.
Hence, the apostle calls our Saviour, our forerunner Heb 6:20. Now if Christ in his ascension, was a forerunner, then there are some to follow after.
To the same purpose is that expression of the apostle, He hath made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Eph 2:6; that is, we are already sat down in him, and ere long, shall sit down by him as his members. The only way to this, namely, to ascend unto, and sit down with, Christ in heaven, is to live like him, and to live unto him, here on earth: If any man love me, he will follow me, and where I am, there shall also my servant be Joh 12:26.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
CXLIV.
THE ASCENSION.
(Olivet, between Jerusalem and Bethany.)
bMARK XVI. 19, 20; cLUKE XXIV. 50-53; eACTS I. 9-12.
b19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken unto them, e9 And when he had said these things, che led them out until they were over against Bethany: and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. 51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he parted from them [it is significant that our Lord’s gesture, when last seen of men, was one of blessing], and eas they were looking, he was taken {ccarried breceived} cup into heaven. aand a cloud received him out of their sight. band [he] sat down at the right hand of God. c52 And they worshipped him, e10 And while they were looking stedfastly into heaven as he went, behold, two men [angels in human form] stood by them in white apparel; 11 who also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? this Jesus, who was received up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven. [Thus the angels add their testimony to the sureness of our Lord’s promise that he will return.] 12 Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, cwith great joy; 53 and were continually in the temple, blessing God. b20 And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen.
[FFG 766]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
16:19 {4} So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.
(4) Christ, having accomplished his office on earth, ascends into heaven, from where (the doctrine of his apostles being confirmed with signs) he will govern his Church, until the world’s end.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
2. Jesus’ ascension 16:19-20 (cf. Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:9-12)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
This event happened 40 days after the appearances that the writer just recorded (cf. Act 1:3). He narrated the ascension and session of Jesus simply. The title "Lord Jesus" occurs only here and in Luk 24:3 in the Gospels. Jesus of Nazareth became Lord to His disciples, in the sense of sovereign master, following His resurrection. He was that always, but the Resurrection taught the disciples that that is what He was.
Jesus had predicted His ascension in veiled terms (Mar 14:7). The disciples witnessed this. They did not witness His seating in heaven. The Old Testament anticipated Messiah’s seating in heaven before His return to reign (Psa 110:1). The disciples learned that that session would occur between Jesus’ two advents, not before His first advent (cf. Act 2:33-35; Act 7:56). Jesus’ present seated position at the Father’s right hand pictures His finished work on earth for the time being and His authority as the executor of God’s will now. Jesus’ present rule over the church from His Father’s right hand in heaven is not the same as His future rule over the Davidic kingdom from David’s throne on earth. [Note: See Cleon L. Rogers Jr., "The Davidic Covenant in Acts-Revelation," Bibliotheca Sacra 151:601 (January-March 1994):81-82.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER 16:19-20 (Mar 16:19-20)
THE ASCENSION
“So then the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken unto them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen.” Mar 16:19-20 (R.V.)
WE have reached the close of the great Gospel of the energies of Jesus, His toils, His manner, His searching gaze, His noble indignation, His love of children, the consuming zeal by virtue of which He was not more truly the Lamb of God than the Lion of the tribe of Judah. St. Mark has just recorded how He bade His followers carry on His work, defying the serpents of the world, and renewing the plague-stricken race of Adam. In what strength did they fulfill this commission? How did they fare without the Master? And what is St. Mark’s view of the Ascension?
Here, as all through the Gospel, minor points are neglected. Details are only valued when they carry some aid for the special design of the Evangelist, who presses to the core of his subject at once and boldly. As he omitted the bribes with which Satan tempted Jesus, and cared not for the testimony of the Baptist when the voice of God was about to peal from heaven over the Jordan, as on the holy mount he told not the subject of which Moses and Elijah spoke, but how Jesus Himself predicted His death to His disciples, so now he is silent about the mountain slope, the final benediction, the cloud which withdrew Him from their sight and the angels who sent back the dazed apostles to their homes and their duties. It is not caprice nor haste that omits so much interesting information. His mind is fixed on a few central thoughts; what concerns him is to link the mighty story of the life and death of Jesus with these great facts, that He was received up into Heaven, that He there sat down upon the right hand of God, and that His disciples were never forsaken of Him at all, but proved, by the miraculous spread of the early Church, that His power was among them still. St. Mark does not record the promise, but he asserts the fact that Christ was with them all the days. There is indeed a connection between his two closing verses, subtle and hard to render into English, and yet real, which suggests the notion of balance, of relation between the two movements, the ascent of Jesus, and the evangelization of the world, such as exists, for example, between detachments of an army cooperating for a common end, so that our Lord, for His part, ascended, while the disciples, for their part, went forth and found Him with them still.
But the link is plainer which binds the Ascension to His previous story of suffering and conflict. It was “then,” and “after He had spoken unto them,” that “the Lord Jesus was received up.” In truth His ascension was but the carrying forward to completion of His resurrection, which was not a return to the poor conditions of our mortal life, but an entrance into glory, only arrested in its progress until He should have quite convinced His followers that “it is I indeed,” and made them understand that “thus it is written that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day,” and filled them with holy shame for their unbelief, and with courage for their future course, so strange, so weary, so sublime.
There is something remarkable in the words, “He was received up into heaven.” We habitually speak of Him as ascending, but Scripture more frequently declares that He was the subject of the action of another, and was taken up. St. Luke tells us that, “while they worshipped, He was carried up into heaven,” and again “He was received up . . . He was taken up” (Luk 24:51; Act 1:2; Act 1:9). Physical interference is not implied: no angels bore Him aloft; and the narratives make it clear that His glorious Body, obedient to its new mysterious nature, arose unaided. But the decision to depart, and the choice of a time, came not from Him: He did not go, but was taken. Never hitherto had He glorified Himself. He had taught His disciples to be contented in the lowest room until the Master of the house should bid them come up higher. And so, when His own supreme victory is won, and heaven held its breath expectant and astonished, the conquering Lord was content to walk with peasants by the Lake of Galilee and on the slopes of Olivet until the appointed time. What a rebuke to us who chafe and fret if the recognition of our petty merits be postponed.
“He was received up into heaven!” What sublime mysteries are covered by that simple phrase. It was He who taught us to make, even of the mammon of unrighteousness, friends who shall welcome us, when mammon fails and all things mortal have deserted us, into everlasting habitations. With what different greetings, then, do men enter the City of God. Some converts of the death bed perhaps there are, who scarcely make their way to heaven, alone, unhailed by one whom they saved or comforted, and like a vessel which struggles into port, with rent cordage and tattered sails, only not a wreck. Others, who aided some few, sparing a little of their means and energies, are greeted and blessed by a scanty group. But even our chieftains and leaders, the martyrs, sages and philanthropists whose names brighten the annals of the Church, what is their influence, and how few have they reached, compared with that great multitude whom none can number, or all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, who cry with a loud voice, Salvation unto our God who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. Through Him it pleased the Father to reconcile all things unto Himself, through Him, whether things upon the earth or things in the heavens. And surely the supreme hour in the history of the universe was when, in flesh, the sore stricken but now the all-conquering Christ re-entered His native heaven.
And He “sat down at the right hand of God.” The expression is, beyond all controversy, borrowed from that great Psalm which begins by saying, “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at My right hand,” and which presently makes the announcement never revealed until then, “Thou art a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Psa 110:1; Psa 110:4). It is there for an anticipation of the argument for the royal Priesthood of Jesus which is developed in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Now priesthood is a human function: every high priest is chosen from among men. And the Ascension proclaims to us, not the Divinity of the Eternal Word but the glorification of “the Lord Jesus;” not the omnipotence of God the Son, but that all power is committed unto Him Who is not ashamed to call us brethren, that His human hands wield the scepter as once they held the reed, and the brows then insulted and torn with thorns are now crowned with many crowns. In the overthrow of Satan He won all, and infinitely more than all, of that vast bribe which Satan once offered for His homage, and the angels forever worship Him who would not for a moment bend His knee to evil.
Now since He conquered not for Himself but as Captain of our Salvation, the Ascension also proclaims the issue of all the holy suffering, all the baffled efforts, all the cross-bearing of all who follow Christ.
His High Priesthood is with authority. “Every high priest standeth,” but He has forever sat down on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a Priest sitting upon His throne (Heb 8:1; Zec 6:13). And therefore it is His office, Who pleads for us and represents us, Himself to govern our destinies. No wonder that His early followers, with minds which He had opened to understand the Scriptures, were mighty to cast down strongholds. Against tribulation and anguish and persecution and famine and nakedness and peril and sword they were more than conquerors through Him. For He worked with them and confirmed His word with signs. And we have seen that He works with His people still, and still confirms His gospel, only withdrawing signs of one order as those of another kind are multiplied. Wherever they wage a faithful battle, He gives them victory. Whenever they cry to Him in anguish, the form of the Son of God is with them in the furnace, and the smell of fire does not pass upon them. Where they come, the desert blossoms as a rose; and where they are received, the serpents of life no longer sting, its fevers grow cool, and the demons which rend it are cast out.