Last Thursday is called [in our liturgy] the Ascension Day, and that is from the Biblical statement in Luke that Christ, after resurrection, blessed his disciples, then “he parted from them and was carried up into heaven”. While in the book of Acts and its author is again Luke, we read, “he was lifted up”. This took place forty days after resurrection, as it appears in the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles.
What does it mean that he “was carried up into heaven”? What is heaven? Heaven is not a place. We have seen in the Lord’s appearances, narrated in the Gospels, that after resurrection Jesus was not bound to a place, rather he was entering the place or he was seen in a place. In the course of narrating the ascension, it is said, “a cloud took him out of their sight.” The ‘cloud’ must be taken metaphorically. In the Old Testament, the cloud accompanies the divine presence and reveals it. The idea is then that the body of Christ was carried up to the Father or it was seated on the Father’s throne. (Acts 2: 30) The meaning is of course that the seated one is Jesus, the one resurrected from the dead by his body. This is what the Confession of faith in the fourth century affirmed, he “is seated at the right hand of the Father”.
When the head of a folk seats you on his right hand it indicates that he admits to you the same dignity he has, and if he seats you somewhere else, that does not say anything about your dignity or your being equal to him. The whole New Testament speaks about the equality of the Son with the Father and that the Son did not leave the bosom of his Father when he descended to this earth.
Ascension is meaningless if we consider that Christ’s divinity is equal to the Father’s because of their being identical. Rather, there is some other aspect in Christ’s divinity, and that is his humanity, which was fulfilled through his sufferings and was declared one with the divinity of the Father. Christ is not less than the Father. In the First Ecumenical Council (325), Arius was declared a heretic, since he claimed Christ to be less than his Father and a created being. The claim about Christ being created invalidates the whole mystery of salvation and abolishes the efficacy of the cross. Without the divinity of the Master the whole redemption turns to be a literal thing, void of meaning.
Christianity, as belief, is about the only Son of God, who shares in the eternity of God, who incarnated yet remained God throughout his life on earth. His divinity accompanied him on the cross, though death did not befall on it, and also in the grave and after it, in the sense that the flesh did not limit his divinity. At the Son’s incarnation, his body did not confine his divinity. Divinity has continued to fill the heavens and the earth. Similarly, at his burial it has continued to fill the heavens and the earth.
Whenever Christ enters a human entity, through eating the precious flesh and drinking the blood of Christ, the human being does not confine Christ, rather Christ continues to fill the heaven and the earth. Similarly, the heaven does not confine Christ, since it is not a space.
The heavens are known by Him, and not the other way around. Whenever we say that the saints are in heaven, we do not suggest that they are in a place; rather they are with God or in God. Their ‘being-with’, that is their being united with God, is itself their heaven which is a term denoting their joining the Lord or their entry into the Lord. This is the meaning of the statement “in Christ”, which Paul repeats several times.
God, as God is in Godself, does neither ascend nor descend, rather the human being ascends to God through grace and departs God by sin. Thus, ascension is one’s heaven and the descent is one’s hell, unless one’s Lord saves him/[her] through compassion. There is neither above nor below, since God is in you and you are in God. This is a long topic. You might not truly be unless you are in God, after you were behind God. In any case you remain in your createdness, but it can be luminous or darkened. If your soul is darkened, then as if it is nothing. In its essence, as your soul is created, it exists and it remains beloved whether in luminosity or darkness, until darkness is dispelled through repentance. Then, the Holy Spirit dwells in your soul as light and it would be as if it is created from the beginning of Genesis, in accordance to the Word of God, “’Let there be light’; and there was light”.
Here I must refer to the Qur’an, without being exhaustive. After saying: “they did not kill him for certain; rather Allah raised him unto Him.” (Sūrat al-Nisā’ [Women]: 158) After this directly he speaks of his death and that was confirmed in Sūrat Mariam: “Peace be upon me the day I was born, the day I die and the day I rise from the dead.” (Sūrat Mariam [Mary]: 33) Did God raise Christ before his death, as it is implied in Sūrat al-Nisā’? In this case, why had he to die, since God has confirmed his death? There is no possibility in this limited space to expose the different interpretations of his death. Mainly, I wanted to reveal that the Qur’an refers to God raising Christ to Godself.
Divinity and humanity are consorted [are one] in the Savior without division, without separation and without confusion, since whenever divinity has descended upon Mary it has put up humanity. This is not a ‘becoming’, since divinity does not become. It is an indwelling. This does not assume the charge of pantheism, as one of my great friends wanted to accuse me. I told him that divinity does become human. Rather it accompanies humanity, it intervenes in it and unites itself with it, yet the two natures remain without any of them losing its characteristics, even when they meet with the other’s characteristics. Christ is in the cosmos and out of it, in the space where he was and beyond it where he came to be through his ascension. He is a humanized God in a divinized embodiment.
All this is reflected in us according to what our humanity is capable of. This is why the great St. Athanasius said: “He assumed humanity that we might become God.” There is much explanation about this in Orthodox Theology, since what is meant by it is not that you gain the essence of God, the Creator, rather the meaning is that you participate in divine eternal powers, as we claim the eternity of grace.
Thus, you might have (within you) some non-created-thing; otherwise, you would not be able to ascend. No highness is achievable for you by your human self; rather highness is possible to you from a divinity indwelt in you in an unknown manner.
Any claim other than this means that there is no adherence between you and God and that God has not bridged the chasm between heaven and earth. Any other claim would mean that God is above and you are below and that God rules over you by the Word, that which cannot enter you without it becoming love [for you]. The Word would not become love simply because God has uttered it. The Word was in the beginning and had to descend to our flesh and bones.
The ascension of the Lord Jesus to the heavens is the reason of our transformation into Him. He “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body”. (Philippians 3: 21) Since through his raising he made us resurrectionists, we can yearn for the glory where we shall indwell at the Last Day.
Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi
Original Text: “البشرية والألوهية معًا” –An Nahar- 26-05-2012
