1.

THE ASCENSION AND THE SESSION.

Two steps brought the risen Lord to the full glory of His life with God. He was received up into heaven, and there He sat down at the right hand of God.

The two great creeds of the Western Church confess the Ascension and Session in almost identical words: He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of [God] the Father [Almighty].' 2 Their witness goes further back than the existing forms, for the Apostles' Creed rests on the Roman baptismal creed of the second century, and the 'Nicene,' i.e. the Constantinopolitan, Creed reflects the early creed of the Church of Jerusalem.

Belief

in the Ascension and Session was universal in the early Church, both in East and West. 'The Church,' writes Irenaeus, though scattered through

1 Mc.' xvi. 19.

2'Ascendit ad caelos, sedit ad dexteram dei patris omnipotentis.' ̓Ανελθόντα εἰς τοὺς οὐρανούς, καὶ καθεζόμενον ἐκ δεξιῶν τοῦ πατρός.

out the whole world to the ends of the earth, has received from the Apostles and their disciples her faith... in One Christ Jesus... and His assumption in the flesh into the heavens.' 1 'The rule of faith,' says Tertullian,2 teaches us to believe that... Jesus Christ... was carried up into heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father.' Sometimes the Ascension only is mentioned, sometimes the Session; but either suggests the other, and the great majority of ancient creed-forms expressly acknowledge both.

3

The same belief meets us when we go back to the writings of the Apostolic age. The Synoptic Gospels indeed, if we except the appendix to S. Mark, are nearly silent on the subject, probably because, as Dr. Hort pointed out, 'the Ascension did not lie within the proper scope of the Gospels... its true place was at the head of the Acts of the Apostles, as the preparation for the Day of Pentecost, and thus the beginning of the history of the Church.' There, accordingly, we find a full account of the event; the writer of Acts, whose 'former treatise' had recorded the acts and teaching of the Lord until the day in which he was received up (aveλýupon), relates how after a last instruction to the Eleven, 1 τὴν ἔνσαρκον ἀνάληψιν.

2 De praescr. 13: 'In caelos ereptum sedisse ad dexteram patris.' 3 Lc. xxiv. 51, if we accept the Westcott-Hort theory of Western non-interpolations,' has only diéσтη åπ' avтŵv (Notes on Select Readings, P. 73).

Ye

as they were looking he was taken up (enρŮN), and a cloud received him out of their sight. beheld him going (πopevóμevov) into heaven, is the interpretation put upon His ascent by a vision of angels which presently appeared.1 Under the teaching of the Spirit the event assumed a further significance. Jesus had been by the right hand of God exalted; the Psalm had been fulfilled which said, Sit thou on my right hand. The heavens must receive Him until the times of restoration of all things. In the heavens, accordingly, Stephen saw Him standing on the right hand of God; out of heaven the light of the persecuted Lord fell on the persecutor Saul.3 The Epistles assume the Ascension as they assume the Resurrection; facts so familiar to the new Churches are not often expressly rehearsed in the brief letters which deal with the many pressing problems of the first age. dence that the Ascension overlooked by any of the great writers of the second half of the New Testament. Jesus Christ, S. Peter writes, is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven.* It is Christ Jesus, says S. Paul, that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead; who is at the right hand of God. God raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right

1 Acts i. 2, 9, II.

Yet there is ample evi

and Session were not

"Acts vii. 55 f., ix. 3, xxii. 6, xxvi. 12.

hand in the heavenlies (èv Tois èπovpavíos).

He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens. God highly exalted him. He was received up in glory. The Epistle to the Hebrews, which is occupied with the heavenly life of the Lord, rests on the historical fact of the Ascension, which it enunciates many times.2 The life and work of the Ascended Christ are its chief themes. He is a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. We have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. He entered in once for all into the holy place... into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us. He sat down on the right hand of God. The Johannine writings are not less explicit. Though the fourth Gospel does not embrace the Ascension, it presupposes the fact again and again: What if ye should behold the Son of Man ascending where he was before? I go unto him that sent me; I go to the Father and ye behold me no more. I am no more in the world... I come to thee. I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God. The first Epistle echoes these sayings of the Gospel when it says that we have an Advocate with the Father (pòs TÒν Taтéρα); and

3

1 Rom. viii. 34; Eph. i. 20, iv. 10; Phil. ii. 9; 1 Tim. iii. 6.

2 Heb. iv. 14, viii. 1, ix. 12, 24, x. 12, xii. 2.

3 Jo. vi. 62, xvi. 5, 10, xvii. 1I, XX. 17.

41 Jo. ii. I.