Is Luke’s description of our Lord’s ascension a myth?

This text is from an article written by David Gooding sometime during 1987–1990.

No, this claim is not true; but the people who say that it must be myth generally argue somewhat as follows.

First, they claim that the apostles and Luke lived in a pre-scientific age when people did not know that the earth was round. They believed in a kind of 'three-decker' universe with heaven the top deck, earth in the middle, and hell, the third deck, underneath the earth.

Then they assert that the apostles and Luke held this view of the universe; and that, when they wanted to talk to us about the Lord's incarnation, death, burial, resurrection, ascension and second coming, they described these events in terms of the physical universe as they imagined it to be. So they pictured Christ as a heavenly prince who came down from heaven to earth, then died and went underneath the earth, and then rose again and ascended to the top deck, heaven, once more.

Next, they argue that science has made it impossible for us to believe in a three-decker universe. We now know that it is impossible to reach heaven by simply rising up physically from the earth and travelling a long way through space. Therefore, when Luke says that the apostles saw Jesus go into heaven by rising up from earth and ascending through space, they say Luke's record cannot be regarded as being historical and factual. Jesus could not have entered heaven that way. The apostles therefore cannot have seen him entering heaven that way. Luke's description, they conclude, therefore must be a myth; that is, it is not a historical account of something that actually happened, which the apostles actually saw happening. It is a story that the early Christians fabricated to express their faith that Jesus somehow—nobody can quite say how and in what sense—overcame death and all his other enemies.

It is, in passing, to be noticed that if you asked one of the proponents of this theory, 'Do you believe in our Lord's ascension?', they will probably answer 'Yes'. If, however, you press them further and ask, 'Do you believe in our Lord's ascension as a historical event, which was witnessed by the apostles?', they will say 'No'. They believe in the ascension as a myth, not as a historical event.

Now, this theory is not only wrong, but it is very seriously wrong. Let us list some reasons.

Reason 1

It flatly contradicts what the apostle Peter says, and what Luke says. Luke tells us that angels told the apostles who witnessed our Lord's ascension that the second coming will take place in the same manner as the ascension (Acts 1:11). The ascension was physically visible by people on earth; so will the second coming be: 'He shall so come in like manner as you beheld him going into heaven.'

Then Peter in his Second Epistle describes what happened on the Mount of Transfiguration, as a God-given guarantee that the second coming will take place (Acts 1:16–18). He introduces his description as follows: 'We did not follow cleverly fabricated stories [the Greek word is mythois—myths] when we told you about the coming and power of our Lord Jesus, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty'. In other words, Peter is assuring us that the transfiguration story is not a myth: it is a record of a historical event which Peter and the other apostles saw and heard happening in front of them with their own very literal eyes and ears.

And so, of course, the second coming will likewise be a literal, visible, historical event (see Revelation 1:7; Luke 21:27). According to Luke the ascension was an equally literal, visible and historical event. Knowing well what myths are, Peter explicitly asserts that he was not writing myths but history. If liberal thinkers cannot believe his story, let them say so; but it is useless their trying to excuse their unbelief by claiming that Peter was after all writing a myth, and that they believe the message he intended to convey by the myth.

Reason 2

It is a gratuitous assumption that the early Christians believed in a 'three-decker' universe. Over two centuries before the apostles wrote, scholars in Alexandria had shown that the earth was round. Now the great learned Christian orator, Apollos, came from Alexandria. We do not know what he believed about the shape of the universe; but we have no right to assume that he believed it consisted of three decks.

The ancient Stoics believed that the earth rested in the centre of space; and some of the men Paul addressed at Athens were Stoics (see Acts 17:18). Paul would have known what they believed. We do not know exactly what Paul himself believed about the shape of the universe; but we have no right to assume or assert that he believed in a 'three-decker' universe. Nor Luke either.

Reason 3

Whatever Luke and the apostles believed about the physical shape of the universe, it makes no difference to the credibility of Luke's claim that the apostles saw our Lord physically ascend into the air from the Mount of Olives.

We know, of course, that you cannot reach heaven by simply rising from earth and travelling a long way through space. A rocket that keeps on travelling outwards instead of returning to earth will not end up in heaven one day! Heaven doubtless belongs to a higher dimension than our four-dimensional universe of length, breadth, depth and time. But it is important to notice that Luke does not say that the apostles saw Christ actually enter heaven. He says that they saw him rise up into the sky so far, and then a cloud took him from their sight. What happened after that, or by what process he entered the presence of God, they did not see; and Luke does not pretend to tell us.

A Question Arises

If in order to enter heaven itself, our Lord had to do something more than simply ascend into the air, why did he trouble to ascend into the air at all? Why did he not simply vanish instantaneously as he did on earlier occasions?

Two reasons suggest themselves. The first is the one given by the angels: our Lord's invisible entry into heaven, however that happened, was preceded by his literal, visible ascent into the sky because in reverse that is the way his second coming will be staged. People on earth will literally see him descending.

Secondly, the first visible stage of his ascent may well have been intended as a symbolic expression of his ascension in the higher (and to us invisible) sense of his enthronement at the right hand of God.

If we speak of Her Majesty the Queen 'ascending the throne', we are normally using the phrase in its metaphorical sense of her becoming queen, sovereign over all in the land. But this metaphorical sense of 'ascending the throne' does not exclude the fact that, at her coronation, there was a very literal throne on which she very literally and visibly sat. This literal 'ascent' to the literal throne was a symbolic expression of her ascent to sovereign political power.

So it was with our Lord. His literal ascent into the sky was a symbolic expression of his ascension to the highest pinnacle of power at the right hand of God. Neither aspect of the ascension was mythical; both were literal and historical; but the first was visible. And in that sense, we sing with J. H. Gurney, 'Yet we believe that mortal eyes beheld that journey to the skies'.