Acts 1:11 - Exposition

Looking for gazing up, A.V.; this for this same, A.V.; was received for is taken, A.V.; beheld him going for have seen him go, A.V. In like manner ; i.e. in a cloud. The description of our Lord's second advent constantly makes mention of clouds. "Behold, he cometh with clouds" ( Revelation 1:7 ). "One like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven" ( Daniel 7:13 ; and so Matthew 26:64 ; Luke 21:27 , etc.). We are reminded of the grand imagery of Psalms 104:3 , "Who maketh the clouds his chariot, who walketh upon the wings of the wind." It may be remarked that the above is by far the fullest account we have of the ascension of our Lord. St. Luke appears to have learnt some further particulars concerning it in the interval between writing his Gospel ( Luke 24:50-52 ) and writing the Acts. But allusions to the Ascension are frequent ( Mark 16:19 ; John 6:62 ; John 20:17 ; Romans 8:34 ; Ephesians 4:8 , Ephesians 4:9 ; Philippians 2:9 ; Colossians 3:1 ; 1 Timothy 3:16 ; 1 Peter 3:22 , etc.). With reference to Zeller's assertion, that in St. Luke's Gospel the Ascension is represented as taking place on the day of the Resurrection, it may freely be admitted that the narrative in the Gospel does not mark distinctly the interval of time between the different appearances and discourses of our Lord from the day of the Resurrection to that of the Ascension. It seems to group them according to their logical connection rather than according to their chronological sequence, and to be a general account of what Jesus said between the Resurrection and the Ascension. But there is nothing whatever in the text of St. Luke to indicate that what is related in the section Luke 24:44-49 took place at the same time as the things related in the preceding verses. And when we compare with that section what is contained in Acts 1:4 , Acts 1:5 , it becomes clear that it did not. Because the words "assembling together with them," in Acts 1:4 , clearly indicate a different occasion from the apparitions on the day of the Resurrection; and as the words in Luke 24:44-49 correspond with those in Acts 1:4 , Acts 1:5 , it must have been also on a different occasion that they were spoken. Again, the narrative of St. John, both in the twentieth and the twenty-first chapters, as well as that of Matthew 28:10 , Matthew 28:16 ; Mark 16:7 , precludes the possibility of the Ascension having taken place, or having been thought to have taken place, on the day of the Resurrection, or for many days after, so that to force a meaning upon the last chapter of St. Luke's Gospel which it does not necessarily bear, and which places it at variance with St. Luke's own account in the Acts (i. 3; Acts 13:31 ), and with the Church traditions as preserved by St. Matthew, St. Mark and St. John, is a violent and willful transaction.