Ascension

In his remarkable book, Ascension and Ecclesia , Douglas Farrow points to the common modern conflation of resurrection with ascension, and points to some of the theological consequences of this conflation: “First of all, it puts in jeopardy the continuity between our present world and the higher places of the new order established by God in Christ. For in that conflation the ascension, insofar as it can still be distinguished from the resurrection, is regarded as an event with no HISTORICAL component, separating it from Old Testament expectations. This eventually rebounds on the doctrine of the resurrection itself ?Eif indeed it is not already the sign of a docetic version of that doctrine ?Eand binds it closely to an other-worldly eschatology that has little in common with that of scripture. Resurrection comes to mean ‘going to heaven,’ which in some theologies makes it rather hard to distinguish from dying! The doctrine of the parousia either falls away or signifies simply the end of the world. Thus the very point that the angels of Acts 1 were concerned to safeguard, the return of ‘this same Jesus,’ is overlooked and the verdict which Daniel heard in his dream is set aside. That in turn puts in jeopardy the proper DIScontinuity between Jesus-history and common history, leading to the substitution of our own story (the story of man’s self-exaltation) as the real kernel of salvation history in the present age.”