Ascension Day seems to be the Cinderella of the church calendar. Christmas grabs our attention since it celebrates the incarnation of God’s Son, bringing joy to the world. On Good Friday, we recall our Savior’s sacrifice in sober gratitude. Easter stirs us to exult in his triumph over death. Pentecost, though lacking the high visibility of those three, at least falls on a Sunday and memorializes the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to empower all God’s people for service. Big events, deserving repeated remembrance!

But do we even notice Ascension Day, which annually tiptoes by on a Thursday (May 29 in 2025, in case you wondered)? Do we pause to marvel at the message of Jesus’s ascent in a cloud to God’s right hand in heaven, the event that forms the indispensable bridge between Easter and Pentecost?

We’ll grasp how momentous the ascension’s message is when we reflect on the Old Testament’s influence in Luke’s account in Acts 1–2. Three ancient scriptures cast their light on Jesus’s climactic bodily departure from earth: Elijah’s ascent to heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2), Daniel’s vision of “one like a son of man” approaching the Ancient of Days on heaven’s clouds (Dan. 7), and the enthronement of David’s Lord at God’s right hand (Ps. 110).

Elijah Ascends and Elisha Receives the Spirit (2 Kings 2)

Throughout his Gospel, Luke traced the divinely designed relationship of parallel and pattern (typology) between the prophets Elijah and Elisha, on the one hand, and Jesus as God’s climactic prophet, on the other.

For example, as those prophets brought God’s saving grace to a bereaved Phoenician widow and to a Syrian commander (Luke 4:24–29; 1 Kings 17:8–16; 2 Kings 5:1–14; see 2 Kings 4:18–37), so Jesus extended life-giving grace to a Roman centurion and to a bereaved widow when he raised her son from death and “gave him to his mother” (Luke 7:1–16). As Elisha fed 100 with 20 loaves, so Jesus fed more than 5,000 with 5—with leftovers on both occasions (2 Kings 4:42–44; Luke 9:10–17).

Jesus’s ascension continues the link between those prophetic “shadows” and their eschatological fulfillment in Christ. Just as Elijah “was taken up in a whirlwind into heaven” (2 Kings 2:11, author’s translation), so also Jesus “was taken up” (Acts 1:2)—as angels told the apostles, he was “taken up from [them] into heaven” (v. 11). The stunningly visible vindication of Elijah, in full view of his awestruck disciple and successor, was a preview of the greater glorification of Jesus, God’s last and best Word (Heb. 1:1–2; John 1:1, 14).

But there’s more: As Elisha took up his mentor’s mantle and ministry, he immediately received the Spirit who had empowered Elijah (2 Kings 2:9–10, 15). Likewise, Jesus would soon pour out the Holy Spirit on his apostles, empowering them as his witnesses (Acts 1:4–5, 8; 2:33). The passing of the prophetic baton and Spirit-anointing from Elijah to Elisha hinted that, centuries later, Jesus’s ascension would lead to Pentecost, when God’s Spirit, the Father’s promised gift, would descend on his expectant witnesses.

Son of Man on the Clouds of Heaven (Dan. 7)

The “cloud” that hid Jesus from the apostles’ sight as he ascended into “heaven” (Acts 1:9–11) alludes to Daniel’s vision of “one like a son of man” coming “with the clouds of heaven” to the Ancient of Days in his heavenly courtroom, to receive an indestructible kingdom (Dan. 7:13–14). Standing before the Jewish Sanhedrin, Jesus linked Daniel 7 with the heavenly enthronement of the king-priest announced in Psalm 110: “You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62, author’s translation).

Jesus’s ascension continues the link between the prophetic ‘shadows’ and their eschatological fulfillment in Christ.

Consistent with Daniel’s vision, Jesus was announcing to Israel’s leaders that he, the Son of Man, would come with clouds into heaven, to receive supreme authority and assume his eternal throne. Even his persecutors would witness evidence of his enthronement. In other words, the cloud that received Jesus as he left earth was the cloud in which (as Daniel saw) he entered heaven to be enthroned as Lord at God’s right hand (see Acts 2:33–35). The ascension cloud visibly announces that the Son of Man now wields everlasting dominion over an indestructible kingdom. His imminent outpouring of the Spirit, with signs both seen and heard, would give evidence of the Son of Man’s heavenly coronation.

Seated at God’s Right Hand (Ps. 110)

Psalm 110:1 was much on Jesus’s mind as his cross and resurrection drew near. In the days before his trial, he quoted this verse to show that the Messiah would be not merely David’s son but also David’s Lord (Luke 20:41–44). Then, before the Sanhedrin, in Luke’s counterpart to Mark 14:62 (above), Jesus emphasized the imminent fulfillment of the Son of Man’s heavenly enthronement: “From now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of God’s power” (Luke 22:69, author’s translation).

So on the day of Pentecost, Peter quoted Psalm 110:1 and announced that the signs of the Spirit’s outpouring, which everyone could see and hear, were God-given evidence of Jesus’s ascent to heaven, to take his seat at God’s right hand:

Therefore, at God’s right hand having been lifted up high, and having received the promised Holy Spirit from the Father, [Christ] has poured out this which you both see and hear. For David didn’t go up into the heavens, but he himself says, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I place your enemies a footstool for your feet.’” (Acts 2:33–35, author’s translation, emphasis added)

Peter first alluded to Psalm 110:1 (God’s “right hand”), and then he quoted it. He connected both the allusion and the quotation to Christ’s ascension with the verbs “lift up high” and “go up”: Jesus was “lifted up high” to God’s right hand; whereas David didn’t “go up” into the heavens but spoke of his Lord who did.

Peter’s use of Psalm 110 to interpret Jesus’s ascension made clear that Christ’s royal enthronement at God’s right hand was the indispensable prerequisite to his bestowing the Holy Spirit on his people, as the Father promised in the Old Testament and in the words of John the Baptist and of Jesus himself.

No ascension, no Pentecost. No Pentecost, no distribution of the Spirit’s gifts to all Jesus’s people. No distribution of the Spirit’s gifts, no worldwide gospel witness and no building up of Christ’s body through the diverse ministries of all its members. Everything depends on the ascended, reigning Christ Jesus.

Everything depends on the ascended, reigning Christ Jesus.

Old Testament quotations and allusions in the account of Jesus’s ascension and in Peter’s apostolic commentary on it (Acts 1–2) illuminate the ascension’s marvelous message: Jesus has marched into heaven in glorious vindication as the Revealer of the Father; the Son of Man who reigns supremely, now and forever; and the Spirit-bestowing Messiah who is David’s Lord—and ours. The living, ascended, reigning Christ is active today in your life and in his church through his living Word (the Bible) and his ever-present, all-powerful Spirit.