How and when will Christ return?
When Jesus ascended to the Father, “he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9). The passive voice of the first verb (“he was lifted up”) describes divine action: it was God who took Jesus back into heaven, to sit at his right hand (2:33). The cloud is not the “vehicle” that transported Jesus into heaven because God’s dwelling place is not “up there.” The cloud signals to the apostles that Jesus has just left them permanently—not as he left them during the last forty days, only to appear again for further instruction and fellowship. The reference to the cloud, which was real enough, provides a clear demarcation between earth and heaven. It emphasizes that Jesus is in heaven, the place where God dwells, sovereign and independent of the control of human beings.1 Jesus’ departure for heaven must not be misunderstood in terms of Jesus now being absent from earth. Luke’s narrative in the book of Acts demonstrates that the heavenly Jesus Christ ...