Mark 16:19

The Ascension

19. So then after the Lord Some MSS. here insert the word Jesus. Combined with Lord, it would be a term of reverence.

spoken unto them This does not mean immediately after our Lord had uttered the last words, but after He had on different occasions during the "Great Forty Days" spoken unto them of "the things pertaining to the kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3). The original word here rendered "had spoken unto them"has a much wider signification. It signifies to teach, to instruct by preaching and other oral communication. Compare its use in Mark 13:11; John 9:29, "We know that God spake untoMoses," i. e. held communicationswith Moses; John 15:22, "If I had not come," says our Lord, "and spoken untothem," i. e. preachedto them. So that here it denotes after our Lord had during the forty days fully instructed His Apostles by His oral teaching in all things appertaining to His kingdom and the planting of His Church.

he was received The original word only occurs here in the Gospels. It is applied three times in the Acts (Mark 1:2; Mark 1:11; Mark 1:22) to the Ascension, and is so applied by St Paul, 1 Timothy 3:16, "received upinto glory."

into heaven What St Mark records thus concisely in his short practical Gospel for the busy, active, Christians of Rome, St Luke has related at much greater length. From him we learn how one day the Lord bade His Apostles accompany Him along the road from Jerusalem towards Bethany and the Mount of Olives; how, full of hopes of a temporal kingdom, they questioned Him as to the time of its establishment; how their inquiries were solemnly silenced (Acts 1:7); and how then after He had bestowed upon them His last abiding blessing, while His Hands were yet uplifted in benediction (Luke 24:50-51), "He began to be parted from them, and a cloud received Him out of their sight."

and sat on the right hand of God The Session at the right Hand of God, recorded only by St Mark, forms a striking and appropriate conclusion to his Gospel, and "conveys to the mind a comprehensive idea of Christ's Majesty and Rule." Our Lord was "taken up," and bore our redeemed humanity into the very presence of God, into "the place of all places in the universe of things, in situation most eminent, in quality most holy, in dignity most excellent, in glory most illustrious, the inmost sanctuary of God's temple above" (Barrow's Sermon on the Ascension). There, having led "captivity captive, and received gifts for men" (Psalms 68:18; Ephesians 4:8), He sat down on the right Hand of God, by which expression we are to understand that in the heaven of heavens He now occupies the place of greatest honour, of most exalted majesty, and of most perfect bliss, and that God hath conferred upon Him all preeminence of dignity, power, favour, and felicity. See Pearson on the Creed, Art vi.