John Maile, “The Ascension in Luke-Acts”

John F. Maile, “The Ascension in Luke-Acts” in Tyndale Bulletin 37 (1986): 29-59.

In his Tyndale New Testament Lecture (1985) John Maile presents some helpful perspectives. He begins with the important observation that the ascension of Christ is presented by Luke as the culmination and climax to his Gospel and also as the most striking element in the introduction to his second volume, the Book of Acts. Further, Luke’s accounts of the ascension are quite unique within the NT. The post-Calvary experience of Jesus involves four inseparable events, all accentuating his glorification: his resurrection, exaltation, ascension and session at God’s right hand. In Luke as elsewhere in the NT to think of the Risen Christ is to see hims as the exalted and ascended Lord at the Father’s right hand. 

In both Luke 24 and Acts 1 Maile identifies the following commonalities:

1. Reference to the Eleven.
2. World mission is presented as the necessary prerequisite to the coming of the Kingdom.
3. The necessity of staying in Jerusalem and awaiting the coming of the Spirit.
4. The role of the disciples as witnesses.
5. The presentation of Jesus being received up into heaven.
6. The same geographical location: Bethany/Mount of Olives.
7. Reference to the return to Jerusalem.
8. Reference to attendance at the temple and prayer.

Maile distinguishes between two forms of ascension story in Greco-Roman antiquity:

1. The so-called journey of the soul to heaven.
2. The “rapture” story.

In the Old Testament and Judaism there are four types of story:

1. A journey to heaven to receive revelation and a subsequent return to earth.
2. The taking up of the soul after death.
3. The rapture of a living person, who is taken up to heaven never to return (e.g. Enoch, Elijah, Esdras and Baruch).
4. The ascension at the end of an appearance.

Lohfink classifies the ascension accounts of Luke 24 and Acts 1 as belonging to the “rapture” form. He does this because he finds numerous rapture motifs in these narratives: the mountain, final conversation with the disciples, the cloud, worship offered by the disciples, heavenly angelic confirmation, the worship of God. Further the most important Old Testament word for a rapture is used by Luke, namely analambonomai. In addition most early church writers conceived of the ascension in terms of a rapture. Decisive for Lohfink is the fact that Luke relates the ascension from the standpoint of the observers, with such an earthly perspective belonging to the fundamental scheme of a rapture. However, Lohfink was prepared to accept that Luke’s presentation in Luke 24 and Acts 1 is also influenced by another form, namely, the ascension at the end of an appearance. However, is in unwise to press Luke 24 and Acts 1 too tightly into any particular pre-moulded form. Firstly, Lohfink’s rapture form does not do justice to the way in which Luke places considerable emphasis on the preparation of the disciples for the future, a major theme in Luke’s Gospel. Secondly, Lohfink’s conclusion is artificial since four of the six features of the form identified by Lohfink belong to Acts 1 and two to Luke 24. Consequently, neither account, when looked at separately, confirms neatly to a rapture form.

Luke 24 recalls many of the parting scenes depicted in the OT. Munck identifies their main features as:

1. A farewell speech prior to exaltation or death.
2. A warning as to the consequences of obeying or disobeying the teaching.
3. Less often, an account of a life, drawing out its lessons.
4. Prophecy regarding the future.
5. A meal sometimes preceding the final discourse

All of these considerations make it clear that Luke draws on numerous sources and, therefore, it is reductionist to tie his ascension accounts to any particular form. After all, Luke is presentinig a unique occurrence.

There is a difference between the way Luke presents Jesus in his pre-resurrection and post-resurrection states. As Moule observes, while Luke makes extensive use of the word kurios, its use prior to the resurrection on the lips of men is, with rare exceptions, confined to those occasions when Luke as the narrator is referring to Jesus. The absence of this title on the lips of men during the ministry contrasts sharply with the way, in Luke 24:34 and from the beginning of Acts onwards, the disciples freely apply this title to Jesus. Maile also finds Luke differentiating between the assessment made by people during Jesus’ ministry that he was one of the prophets, and the claim of the post-resurrection church that Jesus was the Prophet like Moses. Also Acts 7:56 has Jesus as the Son of Man in glory in contrast to all Gospel references to Jesus as Son of Man which are future in nature. All of this reflects the consciousness that the resurrection marks the decisive vindication of Jesus, making the resurrection the Christological watershed of Luke-Acts.

The reference to forty days in Acts 1:3 is one of the most striking features of Luke’s ascension account, indicating the duration of the resurrection appearances. While it is possible to regard this as merely indicating an exact chronology, or representing a round number, it seems likely that Luke intends it to have theological significance. Maile, following Dornsieff and Manek, ties this to incidents in the life of Moses. However, he points out that while Moses was on the mountain to receive the Law from God and then return to his people, Jesus, by contrast, is present with his people to give them instructions before he parts from them. He also rejects any parallel with the forty years of wilderness wanderings. Appealing, but not supported by the continuing context, is the view of Menoud that Luke has in mind the practice of Rabbis to repeat their teaching to their disciples forty times so that it should be learned by heart; that Luke’s Jesus ensures his disciples are adequately equipped to be his witnesses. Lohfink’s suggestion may also carry weight, that forty, as a sacred number and round figure, constitutes the in-between marker prior to the fiftieth day, that is, Pentecost.
 

Luke uses “forty days” on only one other occasion, to refer to the period of temptation in the wilderness (Luke 4:2). One of the striking features of the way Luke’s Gospel ends is with its reference to how the disciples “stayed continually at the temple, praising God” (24:53). As Maile points out, this recalls one of the key ways in which the Gospel began, with a focus on the incomplete service rendered by Zechariah. Notably, Acts 1 also makes much of John the Baptist’s ministry. 

In Acts 1:9 the reference to Jesus being hid from the sight of the disciples by the cloud recalls the Transfiguration (Luke 9:34-35) and both references concern the exaltated status of Jesus and accentuate that he is to be intimately associated with the presence of God, with emphasis on this on what is said by both the voice from the cloud in Luke 9 and the angelic declaration of Acts 1.

Maile points out that the the ascension accounts do not merely mark and ending and a beginning: “It might be more accurate to say that they present the point of transition at which the story which has begun in the earthly ministry of Jesus in one mode becomes the same story continuing in a different mode. It is this note of continuity which is central. The ascension must be understood in the light of the implication contained in Acts 1:1, that as the Gospel recounted what Jesus began to do and to teach, so Acts will recount what he continues to do and to teach.77 In this context it is also important to observe that for Luke this ‘going away’ of Jesus at the ascension does not lead to an absentee Christ, as is frequently asserted; rather, and this helps to explain the joy of the  disciples in Luke 24, as H. Schlier puts it so well, Luke ‘vain show that the parting is more than a farewell, indeed basically not a farewell at all, but the withdrawal to a greater nearness.’”

The presentation of the Ascension as the culmination of the resurrection appearances also serves to teach that the reality of the visible presence of Christ is not necessary for faith. In both Luke 24 and Acts 1 the Ascension is the prelude to the sending of the Spirit (note especially Acts 2:33). It is also the foundation of Christian mission. As Maile expresses it: “The Spirit is promised as the power far mission by the Lord whose exaltation is the very foundation and raison d’etre of mission.” Further, the Ascension is the pledge of the return of Christ (Acts 1:11).

Posted January 16, 2010

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