Lange Commentary - Luke 24:49 - 24:53

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Lange Commentary - Luke 24:49 - 24:53


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THIRD SECTION

THE GLEAMING CROWN

Luk_24:49-53

The Prophetic Promise; the Priestly Benediction; the Kingly Glory

(Parallel with Mar_16:19; Act_1:3-9)

49And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem [om., of Jerusalem], until ye be endued with power from on high. 50And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.51And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried upinto heaven. 52And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:53And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Luk_24:49. I send the promise of My Father.—Here the Lord speaks of the Holy Ghost, comp. Act_1:4-8, whom He had often before His death repeatedly promised, and He calls Him an ἐðáããåëßá ðáôñüò , not quia sibi promissum (Grotius), nor merely inasmuch as God has promised the bestowment of the gifts of the Spirit by prophetic oracles (Meyer), but with retrospective reference to utterances like Joh_14:16, et alibi, and to the symbolical act, Joh_20:22. That this first actual, but yet preliminary and prophetical, communication of the Spirit did not, therefore, exclude a later but abundant communication on the day of Pentecost lies in the nature of the case. The meaning of our Lord is given more fully by Luke when he, Act_1:4, makes Him speak of the promise of the Father, ç ̊ í ἠêïýóáôÝ ìïõ .

Êáèßóáôå .—The command which Luke gives to remain in the Capital is in conflict with Matthew (De Wette) only if we consider the silence of the former respecting the Galilean appearance as a denial, and forget that this last command was only given after this and immediately before the Ascension of the Lord. The remaining at Jerusalem was to be not only a ìÝíåéí , but a retired, although temporary and not long continued êáèßæåéí , because they must there wait till the promise of the Spirit was fulfilled, and they were not to wait in vain, but to be clothed with äýíáìéò ἐî ὕøïõò , in consequence of the fulfilment of the promise of the Father. It is noticeable how Luke, at the end, as also at the beginning of his gospel, Luk_1:35, unites most intimately the conceptions of Spirit and power, without, however, entirely identifying them. As to the rest, we must compare Acts 1 with this whole concluding address and with the account of the Ascension, and in the treatment of this first chapter of Acts there will be occasion to discuss both more at length.

Luk_24:50. He led them out.—Out of Jerusalem, where He was, together with His disciples, on the fortieth, as well as on the first day.—As far as Bethany ( ἕùò åἰò , as far as to the neighborhood of Bethany. The reading of Lachmann, who has ðñüò B., does not appear to us worthy of acceptance.) The statement of the Acts that the disciples returned from the Mount of Olives is only apparently in conflict with this, if we consider that it was over this mountain that the way to the beloved Bethany passed, which lay on its eastern declivity; then the proceeding to this mountain, from whose summit our Lord appears to have ascended, may be called a leading out to the neighborhood of Bethany, although our Lord no longer entered into the last-named place. Perhaps, also, the name Bethany was given, not only to the particular village, but also to the whole region round about, to which also the Mount of Olives belongs. Thus, also, is the tradition justified which designates as the actual place of the Ascension, not the plain, but the middle of the three summits of the Mount of Olives, while, according to it, the angelic appearance shortly after the Ascension took place upon the highest summit. See Schubert, l. c. ii. p. 519.

He lifted up His hands.—Comp. Lev_9:22. After the prophetical promise, there follows the high-priestly benediction, as it were from the threshold of the heavenly sanctuary into which He is about to enter. “Jam non imposuit manus.” The Epistle to the Hebrews, with its Pauline coloring contains the more particular elaboration of this beautiful image, in which the nature and destiny of the whole earthly and heavenly life of the Lord are, as it were, completely symbolized. In the midst of ( ἐí ), not after ( ìåôÜ ), thus blessing is He parted from them. ÄéÝóôç ἀð ̓ áὐôῶí , He goes back a few steps from them, and immediately after that He is taken up. The passive ἀíåöÝñ . does not require us to understand angels or other means by which He was lifted up from the earth, but it leaves room, at all events, for the cloud of which Luke, in His more particular account, Act_1:9, speaks.

Luk_24:52. With great joy.—Even in such little additions the fresh Pauline character of Luke does not belie itself. That they could now rejoice, in spite of the separation, nay, even over the departure of the Lord, because He was thereby exalted unto glory, and they should now soon receive the promise of the Father, is a speaking proof of the great progress which they in this forty days had made in this school of the best of Masters.

Luk_24:53. In the temple.—More particularly defined “in the upper chamber,” which probably belonged to the buildings of the temple, Act_1:12; Act_2:1. In the Doxological conclusion of his gospel also, Luke shows himself a genuine Paulinist, comp. Rom_11:36

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Although the account of the Ascension at the end of the Gospel of Luke, considered entirely by itself, and from a strictly historical point of view, does not perfectly satisfy us, yet the course of his representation offers us an advantage not to be rejected, that we from it learn so much the better to understand the near connection of the Resurrection and the Ascension. Over against the historical arbitrariness which almost identifies the Resurrection and the Ascension, as though the forty days had produced no essential alteration in the condition of our Lord, stands the shallow external interpretation, as though He after His Resurrection had continued to live yet forty days on earth in a wider or nearer circle, indeed, in separation from other men, and now, on the fortieth, is to be supposed to have exchanged converse with men for the society of angels. The one opinion, as little as the other, does full justice to the miracle of the Ascension. Without doubt, it must be apprehended as a special, and that as the last, stage in the history of the earthly manifestation of our Lord, but, at the same time, as a necessary consequence and as the most excellent crown of His Resurrection. “The Ascension of the Lord was the completion of the Resurrection and the perfect expression of the exaltation.” Martensen. Or to use Tholuck’s language (Stund. Christl. Andacht, p. 524): “His Resurrection is a Glorification, yet not a full Glorification.” From this position it causes comparatively little difficulty that Luke does not so sharply distinguish the appearance at the end of which the Ascension took place, from the other. Had the last appearance of our Lord not ended with the Ascension, then we should have had decidedly to assume that the one before the last had ended with such a miracle, whether with a visible or invisible one. “The opponents of the history of the Resurrection could, therefore, not have got the least advantage, even if they had succeeded in setting aside the actual history of the Ascension. The whole history of the Resurrection has an Ascensional character; the whole history of the Resurrection is to be regarded as a giant tree of His Ascension in the wider sense, as the crown of which the actual Ascension stands forth. Our opponents, therefore, with the setting aside of it, would only have cracked the summit of the tree, or rather, only have broken off a branch of the same. For the apostles, the Ascension was self-evidently understood from the Resurrection.” Lange, L. J., ii. p. 1766.

2. By this, however, it is by no means meant that the actual fact of a bodily visible Ascension of our Lord on the fortieth day is doubtful, or of subordinate importance. It has been asserted, among others, by Meyer, that quite early a twofold tradition grew up in this respect. According to the former, our Lord ascended to heaven on the very evening of the Resurrection (Mark, Gospel of Luke), according to the other, not till the fortieth day (Acts). But the indefinite statement in Mark, Luk_16:19 : ìåôὰ ôὸ ëáëῆóáé áὐôïῖò , surely does not constrain us to assume that our Lord, according to this gospel, ascended immediately after the preceding utterances; just as well might it be deduced from Luk_24:20 that the disciples, on the very same night or the following morning, had begun to preach and to do miracles. And, as it respects Luke, is it conceivable that he in his gospel should represent our Lord as leaving the earth in the night-time, when He had already at evening revealed Himself at Emmaus, and had appeared at least three hours after to the Eleven? In truth, unless we will invent absurdities for the Evangelist, it seems that we are constrained to assume that he, by the statement of a more exact chronology in the Acts, has not contradicted his gospel, but decidedly complemented it; how, moreover, assuming that his earlier account contained an actual incorrectness, could he have omitted to recall this, at least, with a brief word? Were his more detailed narrative to be put to the account of a later more or less mythical tradition, the pious invention would certainly not have contented itself with a final act of our Lord’s life so little pompous and brilliant, and if Luke, at the conclusion of his first work, had already the design of writing afterwards the history of the apostles also, he might, even in the interest of his historical pragmatism, consider it as desirable to touch here on our Lord’s Ascension only with a brief mention, and at the beginning of the history of the kingdom of God to come back more particularly to it. In no case can the course of the event itself offer convincing ground for doubt and contradiction. It may be called laughable, when some, in reference to the body of our Lord in the beginning of its glorified condition, will be talking about the laws of gravitation and the force of attraction. Heaven, it is true, is everywhere where God reveals His glory, but nothing hinders us, on the position of the Scripture, from supposing a locality of the creation where God permits His glory to be seen more immediately than anywhere else, and to conceive our Lord as repairing directly thither. Though it has been said a thousand times and repeated that we are not to understand heaven as a place, but as a condition, and must not here speak of a ðïῦ , but only of a ðῶò , yet we confess that we can only conceive the enjoyment of this condition as experienced in a locality where one is separated from this visible world. An exaggerated spiritualism might here easily mislead to Acosmism and Pantheism. And finally, as respects the often advanced objection, derived from the partial silence of the sacred authors, this silence appears to us neither so general nor so inexplicable as has been already countless times asserted. Respecting that of Matthew, see Lange on Matthew, p. 561. John evidently knows a visible Ascension, Joh_3:13; Joh_6:62; Joh_20:17, and must have assumed it, unless we are to suppose that he doubted of the fulfilment of such words uttered by his Master Himself. With Peter it is, 1Pe_3:22, also distinguished as a separate statement from His Resurrection, even as the descent into hell. Even so with Paul, Eph_1:19-20; Eph_2:5-6; Eph_4:8-10; Rom_8:34; Col_3:1, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews there is even almost more weight laid upon the Ascension of our Lord than upon His Resurrection. In short, in reference to most of the epistles we must agree with the opinion: “Even though the outward fact is not here found, yet so much the more is the dogmatically important consequence of the thus effected exaltation, the sitting at the right hand of God, found throughout the whole New Testament, and that in expressions which also indicate the event itself” (Schmidt, Bibl. Theol. d. N. S. i. p. 189). And as respects the gospels, all of them have set forth the Risen One in His glory, although two of them are silent as to the moment in which He has ascended this highest degree. Nay, this Ascension itself, the final goal of the earthly manifestation of the Lord, what is it itself in its turn but a transition to a new, but by no means to a last, period of His miraculous history? Here, according to our opinion, lies the deepest ground of the seemingly enigmatical phenomenon, that the miracle on the Mount of Olives is not placed more strongly in the foreground. No final point, but a point of rest, is it. The Lord is indeed gone away, but in order to return again, and the whole heavenly life into which the Ascension introduced Him is only a great interval, comprehending centuries, between His first and His second appearance. The angels themselves declare it: the history of the Lord in relation to the earth is with the Ascension not accomplished, but is only momentarily interrupted, in order afterwards to be continued. If a John and a Matthew in this hope saw the Lord ascend, why should they then feel themselves peremptorily obliged to fix the last moment of their being with Him with such diplomatic conscientiousness, as though thereby between the Master and the earth all connection were now and forever done away?

3. Respecting the idea of the Ascension in connection with the corporeality of our Lord, and respecting the distinction of the Lutheran and the Reformed conception, Dogmatics and the History of Doctrines must speak. “Oh, that we might yet learn to stop at the right place!” R. Stier.

4. Our Lord’s bodily and visible Ascension is the worthy crown of the history of His earthly life. Many a word that He uttered is thereby most strikingly confirmed (Joh_6:62; Joh_20:17; Mat_28:18, et alibi), and the harmony of the events of His life becomes only through this miracle perfected. A second death, even had it been ever so soft, would have taken away the whole significance of His Resurrection, and the poetical expression (Hase): “Even as Moses’ grave, so was His never seen,” can only elicit an exclamation of astonishment and displeasure. “He a grave, He, who swallowed up death eternally!” (Olshausen). Whoever contents himself with saying that He went to the Father, although one does not know how, where, or when, such a one lets his history end with an unsatisfactory note of interrogation, and unthankfully repels the satisfactory solution which His first witnesses have given. Now, His manifestation displays itself to our eye as a ring whose ending is lost again in its beginning, while both Bethlehem and the Mount of Olives bear the stamp of a still and hidden, but even thereby heavenly greatness. And as the Ascension of the Lord thus first diffuses over His person a perfectly Satisfying light (Joh_6:62; Joh_16:28), so does this event stand as well with the incipient perfection as with the happy continuation of His work in direct connection. Never would the apostles without this miracle have been freed from the last remains of their earthly-minded expectations; now did they, on the other hand, become by this very means capable of receiving the Spirit of truth, of love, and of power. Never, so long as the visible presence of the Lord on a spot of earth had remained, could a kingdom have been founded that embraced all nations, and as little would, in this case, the Church have been able to maintain herself without an incessant intervention of continually increasing miracles. Now, raised above all finite limits, the Lord reigns everywhere where His word is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, and, far from bringing any harm, it is His departure which for His people has become a source of incalculable gain (Joh_16:7). This whole event reveals the full glory of the kingdom of God, is surety for the highest blessing of the kingdom of God (Luk_24:49), and prophesies the final perfection of the kingdom of God. No wonder that the Ascension also has been painted and sung by the Christian art of all ages. We have only to mention the names in the first sphere, of Raphael, Peter Perugino, Titian, Paul Veronese, Ricci, Raphael Mengs, and others, and in the other the venerable Bede, Tersteegen, Lavater, Knapp, Luis de Leon, not to mention many Others.

5. Superficially considered, the homage which the apostles bring to the glorified Saviour appears to be more or less on a level with the reverence which often was rendered to the kings of the Orient, especially to the King of kings, the Messiah. See Mat_2:2; Mat_20:20. But if we consider that this homage was now offered by the disciples of the Lord at the moment when they see Him crowned with superhuman glory, and honor in Him more than ever the bearer of the Divine nature and majesty, then we shall hardly be content with the assertion that our Lord was here worshipped in His Messianic dignity, but must, on the contrary, acknowledge that He here, not only on account of His kingly rank, but also and above all, for His Divine nature, deserves the honor of adoration. Thus do we find in Luk_24:52 an intimation how the command, Joh_5:23, must be understood and followed.

6. The command of our Lord, before His departure, that His disciples should remain at Jerusalem, testifies as well to His wisdom as the final promise of the Holy Spirit gives witness of His love and might. But, at the same time, there lies in the manner in which His first friends fulfilled this command (Act_1:12-14), an apologetic element that must not be overlooked. With one accord do the disciples remain together; this is the first blessing of the exaltation of our Lord; now that their visible centre is wanting, the young church feels the necessity of an inward union more intimate than ever. Undisturbed and publicly are they ten days continually together; a proof that they had not stolen the corpse, and that the Jewish council itself does not believe its own charge. Composed and quietly do they wait; this is what no excited enthusiasts do. Praying do they expect the fulfilment of the promise of the Lord; the miracle of Pentecost was thereby a direct hearing of prayer, of whose inestimable blessing the consideration of the history of the apostles will now give further testimony.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The friends of the Lord are brought unto the school of waiting; therewith is their inner training perfected; so then; so previously (Jacob, Moses, David, &c.); so even yet.—“I will send upon you the promise of My Father.” Thus can only the Son of the Father, none of the servants, speak; how altogether differently Elijah, 2Ki_2:10.—The Benediction of the departing Lord: 1. The crown of His earthly manifestation; 2. the symbol of His heavenly life; 3. the prophecy of His coming in glory.—The Lord departs in order to remain.—The exalted King of the kingdom of God, the worthy object of the most reverential homage.—How can the disciples return with great joy to Jerusalem? 1. Faith sees in this farewell the highest glorifying of Jesus; 2. Love thinks of His gain, not of its own loss; 3. Hope waits unshaken for the fulfilment of all His promises.—Jerusalem the grave of the Old, the cradle of the New, Covenant—The inward connection of the young Church with the old Israelitish temple.—God’s glory the last word of our narrative, at the same time the concluding word of our whole gospel, and the final accord of the whole history of the world.

The Ascension of our Lord in its high significance: 1. For Himself, a. the confirmation of His words, b. the clearing up of the events of His life, c. the beginning of His most powerful and blessed activity; 2. for His apostles, a. the perfection of their training, b. the energy of their labor, c. the prophecy of their future; 3. for His people all, a. the Ascension the honor of mankind (Heb_2:5-9), b. the way of the renewal of the sinner (the Holy Spirit), c. the source of the joy, rest, and hope of Christians.—The Ascension a hearing of the Lord’s own prayer, Joh_17:5.—The feast of the Ascension the feast of the coronation of the Lord. This coronation: 1. The end of the Saviour’s strife; 2. the beginning of the highest honor; 3. the source of the richest blessing; 4. the pledge of the most blessed hope.—What sees the Christian when He on the Ascension morn directs his look believingly towards heaven? (comp. Act_7:56): 1. A glorified Son of Man; 2. an Almighty King; 3. an ever near Friend; 4. an open place of refuge; 5. an approaching triumph. But to see all this, we must (24:55), even as the first Christian martyr, be: a. a disciple of the Lord, b. filled with the Holy Spirit, and c. have our eyes directed towards heaven.—Heaven and earth considered in the light of the Ascension morn.—The Ascension the last palpable revelation of our Lord on earth: 1. His majesty; 2. His wisdom, a. time, b. place, c. witnesses, d. circumstances, e. consequences, of the Ascension; 3. His beneficent faithfulness to His own, comp. Mat_28:20.

Starke:—Osiander:—Whom God sends into the holy ministry, them does He also equip with the necessary gifts.—To the receiving of the Holy Spirit there belongs a patient waiting in prayer and consideration of the word.—Whom Jesus blesses, he is and remains blessed.—Beautiful and edifying is it when parents depart from the world, for they even thus bless their children.—Brentius:—Christ has at His Ascension bequeathed us the blessing, why do we longer fear the curse?—Bibl. Wirt.:—Jesus departed to prepare the place.—Hedinger:—Thus have we then a sure and open entrance to the sanctuary that is within the heavens, Heb_10:19-20.—J. Hall:—Rejoice, oh thou holy soul, for thy last conflict also shall be crowned with triumph.—The fellowship of the Spirit makes a fellowship in the worship of God.—Servants of God labor, pray, suffer, and praise God in fellowship.—Osiander:—Jesus is ours also, with all His treasures, therefore let us praise and glorify Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Heubner:—The place of the Passion of Christ also the place of His glorification.—With blessing did He come, with blessing did He part.—How different this blessed parting from that on the cross !—The apostles showed after the Resurrection far more reverence for Jesus; they had a sense of His Godhead, therefore we read here for the first time: they worshipped Him.—Worship befits Christ, else would He not have received it.—The disciples return back, in prayer unseparated from Christ, no longer alone.—Arndt:—The Ascension of Christ the perfection: 1. Of His prophetical; 2. of His high-priestly; 3. of His kingly, office.—Schleiermacher:—The promises of the departing Redeemer.—Palmer:—The lovely position in which the departing Redeemer hath left us behind in this world: a. above our heads we have an opened heaven, b. above our eyes a blessed home, and c. under our feet the way which the feet of the Lord have smoothed and hallowed.—Ruperti:—Why do we stand after the Saviour has ascended and look towards heaven?—Schmid:—What the earth is to them who look after the Risen Saviour towards heaven.—Why does the Saviour point us at His Ascension to the Holy Spirit?—Ahlfeld:—The last will of our Lord Jesus Christ.—Steinmeyer:—The separation through the Ascension is the source of true union.—Souchon:—The comfort which the Ascension of Jesus Christ assures to us.—Tholuck:—The refreshing thoughts to which the history of the Ascension leads us: 1. The place of His suffering the place of His parting; 2. veiled is His beginning, veiled is His exit; 3. the conclusion of His ways is blessing for His people; 4. He has departed from us and yet has remained to us; 5. He remains veiled from His people till He shall appear in brightness.—W. Hofacker:—The significance of the Ascension-day: 1. As a day of the richest and most glorious blessing; 2. as a day of the grandest homage; 3. as a day of the most joyful encouragement.—Harless:—The way to the blessed understanding of the Ascension of Christ.—Von Kapff:—The Ascension of Christ as: 1. The glorification of Jesus; 2. of our human nature; 3. of our whole earth.—Schuur:—Heart and soul towards heaven! 1. Here is darkness, there is light; 2. here is strangeness, there is home; 3. here is combat, there is victorious palm; 4. here is sorrow, there is bliss.—Florey:—The Ascension of our Lord the crown of His glory.

Compare further on this whole section the well-digested essay of Dr. H. G. Hasse: Das Leben des verklärten Erlösers im Himmel, nach den eigenen Aussprüchen des Herrn, ein Beitrag zur Bibl. Theol. Leipsic, 1854, and Die Christl. Glaubenslehre, herausgegeben von dem Calwer Verein, 2 Theil, 2 Abthlg. pp. 266–286, Stuttgart, 1857.

Footnotes:

Luk_24:49.—The ̔ ÉåñïõóáëÞì of the Recepta is decidedly spurious. [Omitted by B., C.1, D., Cod. Sin., L., Itala, Vulgate, &c.—C. S.]

Luk_24:51-52.—The words: ἀíåöÝñÝôï åἰò ôὸí ïὐñáíüí and ðñïóêõíÞóáíôåò áὐøüí are, remarkably enough, omitted by the same authorities—D., several copies of the Itala, &c, see Tischendorf. Apparently the eye of the copyist slipped from êáé á ( íåöåñåôï ) to êáé á ( õôïé ), and he overlooked ðñïóêõíçóáíôåò , while he confounded áõôïé with áõôïí . We thus comprehend better (against De Wette), how this was omitted, than how it should have been interpolated if not original. [Cod. Sin. omits the words; a much more important fact than their omission in D.—C. C. S.]

Luk_24:51-52.—The words: ἀíåöÝñÝôï åἰò ôὸí ïὐñáíüí and ðñïóêõíÞóáíôåò áὐøüí are, remarkably enough, omitted by the same authorities—D., several copies of the Itala, &c, see Tischendorf. Apparently the eye of the copyist slipped from êáé á ( íåöåñåôï ) to êáé á ( õôïé ), and he overlooked ðñïóêõíçóáíôåò , while he confounded áõôïé with áõôïí . We thus comprehend better (against De Wette), how this was omitted, than how it should have been interpolated if not original. [Cod. Sin. omits the words; a much more important fact than their omission in D.—C. C. S.]

Luk_24:53.—In some MSS. áéíïõíôåò êáé , in others êáé åõëïãïõôåò are wanting. Perhaps errors of a wearied hand at the end of tho Gospel. At all events, the number and the weight of the authorities, [B., C.1, Cod. Sin., L. omit á . ê ., D. omits ê . å .,] is not so great as to make it needful with Griesbach to suspect the former or with Tischendorf to omit the latter.