Verse 50
And he led them out until they were over against Bethany: and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass while he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven.
THE ASCENSION
The above verses relate the ascension of Christ into heaven, an event which was ten days before the first Pentecost after the resurrection, and thus some forty days after the events related in the first part of this chapter.
The indication in Acts 1:9-12 is that the ascension occurred on Mount Olivet; but it is wrong to make a contradiction out of the fact that "they were over against Bethany," as here. This does not at all say that he ascended "from" Bethany, but from a point (on the Mount of Olives) which was over against Bethany, that village being located, of course, on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. The "two locations" are one. Besides that, the words "and was carried up into heaven" may have the same meaning as the passage in Acts 1:9, that is, that Jesus was taken up beyond their vision. Dummelow pointed out that "It is just possible that Luke 24:51 does not describe the ascension."[20]
Cranfield observed that:
Human eyes were not permitted to see the event of the resurrection itself ... The angels as the constant witnesses of God's action saw it ... By their testimony the resurrection was made known to men.[21]
In Acts 1:9f, a cloud obscured the actual "going up" of Jesus; and, as the holy angels announced the ascension in connection with that disappearance, their word identifies that event as the ascension; and, if we identify this occasion with that, as being one and the same, which is the view most reasonable to this writer, then it may be assumed that the sacred author in this passage merely left off mentioning the cloud. "Carried up into heaven" would then be understood as an event certified by angelic testimony but not actually witnessed by men.
[20] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit.
[21] C. E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel according to St. Mark (Cambridge: University Press, 1966), p. 465.
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