Matt O'Reilly, PhD

I want to point readers to a new episode of the So What? Podcast. This one is on the all-important doctrine of Christ’s ascension, which is overlooked or muted among many. The ascension of Jesus matters not least because it is the basis for his ongoing intercession and the expression of his cosmic rule. Even more, and to the surprise of many, the ascension has a lot to say about what it means to be a human being. Think about it: there is right now in heaven a human body, and

“Moreover, our salvation depends on his (Christ’s) continuing union with us. If the Son of God came to us where we are, but then left us, if he went away and did not take us with him, we would still be lost…For any view of the ascension as Jesus slipping off his humanity is a sentence of condemnation. We cannot be united to him in the Holy Spirit if he is no longer flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. If the one who sits at the right hand of God is not still fully human a

“Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death in place of all and offered it to the Father. This he did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, when He had fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had