WWUTT 2533 Jesus Departs from His Disciples (Luke 24:50-53)

Jesus is lifted up from the eyes of the disciples and taken to heaven to be with his father, but he's coming back again one day to judge the living and the dead. All who believe in him will be saved when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Find all our videos online at www .wutt .com, as well as links to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

The End of Luke and the Shape of the Gospel

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel of Luke, we have come to the end. This is the final portion of chapter 24, verses 50 to 53, where Jesus departs from his disciples and ascends back to his father.

To keep things in context, let me begin reading in verse 44, and I'll read to the end of the chapter. Hear the word of the Lord. Then Jesus said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. And he led them out as far as Bethany and lifting up his hands, he blessed them.

While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple, blessing God. And thus we come to the finish of the gospel of Luke and we end the way that we began.

Of course, at the very start of Luke, we have that introduction to Theophilus. It's called a dedication. As Luke is dedicating this letter to the man that he is writing to, telling him of an orderly account of all these things that have transpired concerning the Christ.

Essentially, he's writing to him the gospel, a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, Luke says. And this is a two-part letter, the first part being the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then the second part being the acts of the apostles, what the apostles then went out and preached as Jesus had commissioned them to do.

And that's what we're gonna start on next week when we get to the book of Acts. But then right after that introduction, what do we have? Luke begins his narrative in the temple with a man named Zechariah, a priest who is burning incense at the hour of prayer, or the hour of incense is what it's called, but it's a time of prayer.

And he's burning incense there as was his duty as a priest. And then what happens? An angel appears to him and says his wife, though she was old in age and the way of women was no longer with her, she was going to be with child.

That would be Zechariah and Elizabeth's first child in their old age. And he would be John the Baptist, the forerunner to the Christ. So we have an announcement from an angel at the beginning of the gospel.

What did we have at the end in chapter 24? We had another announcement from an angel. This was the angels appearing to the women at the tomb and saying, he is not here for he is risen. We also have prayer happening in the temple in chapter one.

And how do we conclude here in verses 50 to 53? With the disciples going to the temple and lifting up prayer, and we're continually there blessing God. So just as we saw that in chapter one, so we see it in chapter 24.

So you see some parallels there. In fact, there have been some scholars that have demonstrated an outline of the gospel of Luke as following a chiasm. If you're familiar with outlining, a chiasm would be like A, B, C, B, A, where you have similar points at the beginning and the end, and then like the corresponding points descend in order when you get to kind of the main point.

And anyway, that's one way that the gospel of Luke gets outlined. I've even seen one argument for a chiasm going from Luke chapter one all the way to the end of Acts. So the main event that Luke and Acts focus upon is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection.

And so everything in Luke is ascending to that. And then in Acts is kind of paralleling what we saw in Luke, but then with the apostles going out and sharing the gospel, that's another way that the two books could be outlined.

But it's unquestionable that we have these themes at the very beginning and at the very end. An announcement from an angel, being in the temple, praying, and we finish the gospel of Luke with the same thing.

An announcement from the angels and the disciples going to the temple. Now, we don't see a setting in the temple. They're not there a lot, at least according to Luke's gospel. There's not a huge narrative of what they're doing there in the temple.

But when we get to Acts, we certainly see that for quite a while. For several chapters, the first church there in Jerusalem is being held in the temple. And it's thousands of people. So the first church there in Jerusalem was a megachurch.

They're not all bad. There can be good, solid megachurches. But here at the end, Jesus ascends from his disciples. Let me come back to this now in these four verses, 50 to 53. Jesus leads them out as far as Bethany.

The Ascension from Bethany and the Mount of Olives

Now, it is traditionally understood that Jesus was on the Mount of Olives when he ascended from their site. So Jesus, with the disciples there on the Mount of Olives, he ascends, he parts from them, and was carried up into heaven.

But here it's saying that they went to Bethany. Well, they're both true because one side of the Mount of Olives is thought of as Jerusalem. The other side of the Mount of Olives is thought of as being Bethany.

So they would have been on the Bethany side of the Mount of Olives when Jesus ascended from their site. It wasn't like he was up on the mountain and then everybody who was down in Jerusalem looking up at the mountain could have seen Jesus and his disciples up there, and then suddenly Jesus parted from them.

It was likely that somebody from a distance could have looked over and seen Jesus rising up from them, but this is generally understood as Jesus being on the Bethany side of the Mount of Olives. That's where he was with his disciples when he left them.

So that'll be talked about in Acts. When we get to Acts, there'll be a little bit more detail about their final conversation before Jesus' departure. And it says in Acts 1 .12, after Jesus ascends to heaven, they, the disciples, return to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.

So it would have been that on the other side of the mountain they had come over the Mount of Olives back into Jerusalem, and that's where they remained. You have the upper room conversation that happens with 120 disciples.

They're in Acts 1. That included Jesus' mother and his half-brothers that were born to Mary and Joseph. We'll get to that as we get to Acts 1. But that number there is significant, that there was 120 that were gathered in the upper room, and that was the first church.

So it's likely that there were 120 people on the Mount of Olives when Jesus ascended, or at least somewhere close to that number. Often we think of just the 11 disciples being there. There was one movie that I saw that depicted this, and it was the 11 disciples plus Mary Magdalene.

She had to be counted as one of the disciples. But we typically just think of 11 guys were there and saw Jesus ascend into heaven, especially because the angels addressed them exactly in Acts 1. The angels appeared to them and say, men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking up into heaven?

This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come the same way as you saw him go into heaven. And we have in the Old Testament, it being talked about how the Messiah returns and descends upon the Mount of Olives.

So that's another reason why people traditionally think of the Mount of Olives as being the place where Jesus ascended from his disciples. But anyway, since the angel addresses them as men of Galilee, why do you stand there looking into heaven?

That's one of the reasons why we think there was only 11 guys up there, but it was possible. There is a possibility it could have been dozens more, could have been as many as 100 that were up there with Jesus when he blessed them and then departed from them.

So verse 50, again, back in Luke 24, he led them out as far as Bethany and lifting up his hands, he blessed them. And while he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. Now, as is going to be said in Acts 1, Jesus was with them for 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension into heaven.

So when he was with them for 40 days, did he sleep like in the same room that they slept in? Did he dine with them? What was Jesus doing during that entire period of time? Well, he would not have been sleeping in the same quarters where they would have slept.

Maybe if they were sleeping outside or something like that, maybe he still would have been there. He wouldn't have necessarily dined with them continuously, although we know that he did eat with them on some occasions so that they would see that he was not a ghost, that he actually had a physical body that was even consuming food.

So he had been with them in very intimate ways, but it just wasn't the same as it was before. So how was he with them then during that time? Or where was he going during that time if he wasn't staying there and sleeping among them and all this stuff?

Well, he would have been ascending back to his father. He would have been going back to his father. Ascending probably wouldn't be the right word. Remember that he just appeared to his disciples there in whatever room that they were in.

He disappeared from their sight when he was with the men at Emmaus. So Jesus is appearing and disappearing. Where is he going when he's doing that? Is he just teleporting from place to place? Well, he's in heaven and then would come back to visit with his disciples and then go back to heaven again.

But ascending to heaven, this is him ascending to sit down at the right hand of the father. That's what they essentially see when he lifts up from their sight. He's taken up into a cloud, it says in Acts 1, and vanishes from their sight.

That cloud was likely a cloud of glory, not like a condensation cloud that's up there in the air holding water droplets. He disappears into a cloud of glory. So as to sit down at the right hand of the father, where he remains even now, advocating for us as said in 1 John 2, and he will come again.

And we will see him clothed with power from on high, and the entire world will see him. And those who have lived in wickedness will wail at the sight of him. So those things that the disciples saw as he departed from them, remember the angels say to them, the same way you have seen him go is the way that you will see him return again.

So the ascension into heaven is different than his appearing and reappearing during that period of 40 days. Ascending into heaven, they know they're not going to see him face to face again until that day that they enter into the father's kingdom with him.

So while he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. That surely would have been an incredible sight. You can't blame the disciples for standing around there gawking, because it just would have been an incredible thing to see.

He's blessing them, he's talking, they're probably hugging, weeping, knowing that he's about to go from them and that's it. And yet, as he's laying hands on them, as he's even giving a benediction to them or some kind of doxology, he suddenly is just lifted from them and carried up into heaven.

When Elijah was carried up into heaven, and this has a lot of parallels to that. When Elijah was carried away, who was with him when Elijah was taken up in a whirlwind? In second Kings, what was it, chapter one or chapter two?

I think it is chapter two. I know it's the end of chapter two where you have the two she bears, that mall 42 boys. So try to think of where that is in relation to that story. I'm fairly certain without looking it up, Elijah is taken up from Elisha in second Kings two, but there are other disciples that are along with them.

Remember that Elijah and Elisha are walking along and there are 50 prophets behind them. Elijah and Elisha cross the Jordan to the other side and it's there on the other side that Elijah is taken away from them.

When Elisha comes back across the Jordan, carrying the robe of Elijah, the prophets are asking, where did he go? And they're going to go on a search for him. But Elisha is telling them, you're not going to find him.

So this was not just some teleportation. He wasn't just lifted from their site and moved to another place. He was truly gone. He was taken up into heaven. And so the prophets, they go about looking for him and they're unable to find him.

But there were more witnesses to Elijah's being taken up into heaven than just Elisha. There were those 50 prophets and though they were off at a distance, they still would have seen Elijah and Elisha together.

And so likewise with this particular scenario, Jesus is with maybe more than just the 11, but dozens of other disciples that are with him there. Perhaps that same crowd that becomes that first church in the upper room, the 120 that Luke talks about in Acts chapter one.

So many witnesses to his departure, there were over 500 brothers who saw him alive between his resurrection and his ascension into heaven. Paul talks about that in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, but how about the actual ascension itself?

Probably about a hundred people. And just as Elijah was taken up in a heaven into a whirlwind and departed from Elisha, from his site, so was the case with Jesus ascending into heaven and departing from the site of his disciples.

Elisha called out to Elijah as he was being carried away. So we don't get anything like that from the disciples. It doesn't say that they called out, but surely their staring up in wonder was a similar reaction to what Elisha had, seeing Elijah being carried away.

And they worshiped him, it says in verse 52, they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. By the way, that's another testament to them believing that he is God, because it says in Luke 24, 52, that the apostles worshiped him.

You've probably heard from many skeptics before making the claim that Jesus never called himself God and the disciples themselves never called him God. That is something that we actually embellish upon the text.

We've added that, but it does not come from the narrative that we read in the New Testament at all, or especially in the gospels. Jesus never calls himself God. Well, if the disciples are the ones who create this idea with like a growing myth, so he was an amazing teacher, did some incredible things.

He was martyred because he upset Rome. And then the disciples over the decades, they try to hype up Jesus as this great religious figure. So they come up with this idea, and it's part of the growing mythology of Jesus, that he's God.

So they just come up with this. They come up with the idea that he is God. Well, if this was really a fabrication by the disciples, then you would think they would have changed the dialogue in the gospels to have Jesus say directly, I am God, worship me.

Like that would be somewhere in Matthew, Mark and Luke and John, because who wrote the four gospels? Disciples did. Jesus didn't. He never sat down with pen and paper and wrote those things down that we have in the gospels.

It was written by the disciples who testified to who Jesus was and what he did. So if they really wanted to get people to believe that he was God, though he never claimed to be, then why would they not just write in there that he said that he's God?

Now, of course, Jesus did. I'm not making the argument that he didn't say that.

He did.

And John is very clearly saying at the beginning of his gospel that Jesus is God. That's in John 1, 1. But this right here in Luke 24, 52 is a testament to Christ's divinity that the disciples worshiped him, and they returned to Jerusalem, continuing to worship him in the temple.

They knew he is God. Jesus is God. As the son of God, that doesn't mean that he is someone lesser than God. It actually is a statement of him being God. Remember, Jesus affirmed that he is the son of God, and the Pharisees accused him of blasphemy, tore their garments, and wanted to put him to death.

So they knew that statement of him being the son of God was to make himself equal with God, to be a statement of equality with God. Clearly, the disciples knew this of Jesus. They worshiped him. And returning to Jerusalem with great joy, verse 53, and were continually in the temple blessing God and continuing to worship Jesus.

So the scriptures testify to the father is God, the son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Never is the son called the father, never is the father called the son, never is the Holy Spirit called either one of them.

These are the three persons of the Godhead, father, son, and Holy Spirit, co-equal and co-eternal, one God, three persons. That's what we have in the trinity of God, and the disciples know that they have just spent the last three plus years with the son of God, and will then go and share the message, the good news of the gospel with many others.

But for now, they are going to remain in Jerusalem, as said in verse 49, stay in the city, Jesus told them, until you are clothed with power from on high. And that is kind of a teaser, it's a foreshadowing into what we're going to have at the beginning of the book of Acts, the Acts of the Apostles, as it is fully known as, the full name of the book of Acts.

And we're going to do our introduction to the book of Acts on Monday. But what a great thing for us to remember, that Jesus did do all these things, he accomplished this for us, his death on the cross, resurrection from the grave, ascension into heaven, the promise that he is coming back again to judge the living and the dead, to take us unto himself.

We have these promises for us in scripture, so that whoever believes in him, our sins are forgiven, and we have that promise of eternal life. So let it be upon us as well to worship Christ the Lord, and to be continually in the temple, blessing God.

We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, his spirit dwelling within us. And so let us lift up his praises day by day, and live in obedience and in honor to him. Heavenly father, we thank you for this, however many months long journey we've been on, reading through the longest book of the New Testament, and that being the gospel of Luke.

Continue to work these things out in our hearts, that we may grow in our understanding, that we may grow in our affections for God, that we may mature as Christians, and be conformed to the image of Christ.

May we look forward every day, to being with God forever in glory. We set our eyes on the kingdom, knowing that all the things that we need here in this world, you will take care of us and provide for us, as we have those needs.

You are our father in heaven who loves us, loves us enough to send his son to die for us, and rise again from the dead, so that through the son, Lord, we have become citizens of your kingdom, we have been made children of God.

Bless us heavenly father, in the name of Jesus, amen.

This has been, When We Understand the Text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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