His body was uplifted till it disappeared, and while they continued to gaze up they saw two men who assured them that He would come back exactly as He had gone up. There had been conversation between Him and His disciples, and in the course of it He was taken up and a cloud received Him out of their sight ( Acts 1:9). its true place was at the head of the Ac of the Apostles" (quoted Swete, The Ascended Christ, 2). Hort has pointed out, "The Ascension did not lie within the proper scope of the Gospels. No difficulty need be felt at the omission of the Fourth Gospel to refer to the fact of the Ascension, though it was universally accepted at the time the apostle wrote ( John 20:17). The close of the Third Gospel includes an evident reference to the fact of the Ascension ( Luke 24:28-53), even if the last six words of Luke 24:51, "and was carried up into heaven" are not authentic. If with most modern scholars we regard Mark's Gospel as ending with 16:8, it will be seen to stop short at the resurrection, though the present ending speaks of Christ being received up into heaven, of His sitting at the right hand of God, and of His working with the disciples as they went preaching the word ( Mark 16:19,20). The Ascension is also clearly implied in the allusions to His coming to earth on clouds of heaven ( Matthew 24:30 26:64). These passages show that the event was constantly in view, and anticipated by our Lord. The Ascension is alluded to in several passages in the Gospels in the course of our Lord's earthly ministry ( Luke 9:31,51 John 6:62 7:33 12:32 14:12,28 16:5,10,17,28 20:17). The New Testament passages referring to the Ascension need close study and their teaching careful observation. The Christ of the Gospels is the Christ of history, the Christ of the past, but the full New Testament picture of Christ is that of a living Christ, the Christ of heaven, the Christ of experience, the Christ of the present and the future. It is the consummation of His redemptive work. The Ascension is not only a great fact of the New Testament, but a great factor in the life of Christ and Christians, and no complete view of Jesus Christ is possible unless the Ascension its consequences are included. Most modern Lives of Christ commence at Bethlehem and end with the Ascension, but Christ's life began earlier and continued later.
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