#STRask - Where Did Jesus Go When He “Ascended into Heaven”?

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Questions about where Jesus went when he “ascended into Heaven” in Acts 1, the idea that Jesus has already returned, whether we’ll see or hear from Jesus after we die, and whether Jesus would have ceased to exist at the cross if annihilation is the punishment required for our sins.   Where did Jesus go when he “ascended into Heaven” in Acts 1? What do you think about the idea that Jesus has already returned? If I won’t see or hear from Jesus while I’m alive, is it going to be like that after I die too? If annihilationism is true, then wouldn’t Jesus have ceased to exist at the cross since he was receiving God’s judgment for us?

This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel on hashtag STR Ask, and we have some questions for you to listen to today and also some responses. So we're going to start with one from Patrick, a question, not a response. A question. Where did Jesus go when he ascended, quote, into heaven in Acts 1? Now that we know more about the nature of the cosmos, it seems unlikely that Jesus was going to an actual physical place apart from Earth. So why did he ascend at all? Why did he make it look as if he was going into outer space? That's a really good question, and all I have is a speculation about it.

The heavens were generally considered like the abode of God, and that's why even when Jesus prayed, he looked up in his earthly life. He prayed, and he looked up, I think, in John 17, in his prayer there, I just noticed Alistair Begg was doing a treatment of that, and he made that observation. Oh, well, that's because of the, and we look up, too, and there are oftentimes. And also when Stephen was being murdered, martyred, he looked up to heaven and saw a vision of Jesus at the right hand standing. And now, I think that was a first-person private vision. I don't think everybody could see it, and I don't think that God is sitting on a throne, and Jesus has a chair next to him. This is language that fits, an analogical language, I think, that fits their understanding of authority and sovereignty and, you know, kingship

and all of those things. And so there's a sense in which there's a truth being communicated, but it's not meant to be taken literally. And I think the observation that Jesus is a physical, well, the God man, his humanity is physical. Now, where is that? And I don't think it's, you're not going to look around in space somewhere and find him on a planet somewhere. It's, it's, in a certain sense, even after the resurrection,

you know, he would show up, he would kind of, for lack of a better word, materialized. I don't even know if that's the right word for it. But it was very clear that the physical body Jesus had, though it had dimensionality, at least during certain appearances. And Jesus even invited Thomas, you know, put your, as Thomas had said, he wanted, you know, put your fingers here, et cetera. And look at, I'm eating. This is not a ghost. He was physical. He was resurrected physically from the grave. And it was his, body. That's why that grave was empty. His body came up. His body is resuscitated and transformed at the same time into something unique. Now, that unique thing is weird by our characterization. If you read in

1st Corinthians 15, Paul talks a lot about that, and I have a hard time even following Paul, because he's like trying to make sense out of it. It's sewn an earthly body. It's raised a spiritual body, and the seed goes into the ground and dies, and then this other thing comes up and okay, whatever you say, Paul, I don't know what you're talking about. And I think he was offering this kind of mystical or not, that's not the right word, this, this language that is somewhat imprecise because it's hard to capture exactly the nature of the physical resurrected body. The mortal puts on the immortal, okay, so it's an immortal body. The perishable puts on the imperishable, so we know some things about it, but trying to figure out where is that body,

right? Well, it's not in a physical space, but it is a physical body. How does that work? I don't know. I don't know. So it's a unique circumstance. It's the first fruits. We will be resurrected in like fashion or in like substance, but it's still, there's a lot of mystery there. I don't know if you could do better than I did on that one, but. Well, I have a couple thoughts about why did he, quote, ascend at all? And it has to do with the way God communicates things. A lot of times he does visually. So the idea of creating the temple, for example, it was a visual representation of what would come with Christ. It was a way of illustrating that. He's done other things. For example, the marriage between a man and the woman is supposed to kind of illustrate Jesus. So in different ways, he, it's kind of like a painter who paints things, who paints ideas by using concrete things. So he communicates something bigger by painting something concrete. So in this case, think about what he's communicating by

ascending. And you pointed out, you know, we look up to the heavens all the time. Well, the Bible says the heavens declare the glory of God. And I think what that means is when we're looking up at the vast space of heaven, we're getting an idea of the beauty and the glory and the power and the majesty of God. The gravity of him. Like you, if you go out at night and you go someplace where you see the stars where you can't see them maybe in your city, you go to the desert around here. Yeah, you go out to Joshua Tree or something. And it's amazing. Yes. So you, look at those stars, you get a sense of reverence and awe and gravity and beauty and majesty, all these things from the heavens. And I think this is why people associate that with God,

even though he's not in a place in heaven or above us. It's that that is the place of glory that's reflecting God back to us. So we associate that with him. And I think that's probably what was going on here, why Jesus is ascending. because there are all sorts, and there are all sorts of place in the Old Testament, too, where it talks about angels in descending and ascending. Descending and ascending. The son of man coming on the clouds. That's in Daniel.

God is associated with that because I think it's communicating those ideas. Well, Jesus talked about something about who is it that ascends, except for he that descended. And, again, it's kind of an unusual way to put it, but he's made. making that kind of spatial reference there, too. So we see clearly, I think that would communicate to them, I'm going to be with the father. I mean, ultimately, that's the thing. Because the heavens are associated with the father, ascending is communicating that I'm going to the father. If he just disappeared or he just walked away into the mist, you're not getting that message communicated.

Like he's gone. Yeah, yeah. Which is what he said in the upper room of discourse in Gospel of John. Chapter 14, 15, 16, right in there, you know, he's going away, but I'll go to prepare a place for you. In the meantime, I will send another comfort of the Holy Spirit. But he's not just going somewhere. He's going to the Father, and that's what ascending is communicating. Right.

Yeah, that's good. Okay. The next question comes from Consuela. Do you think God has returned or he will return? My Bible study group happens to think he has already returned. How do you feel about that? When you say God, I presume she means Jesus. Yeah, I would assume, yeah.

Well, that's a theological position that has to do with eschatology of the final things, and it's called Preterist View, P-R-E-T-E-R-I-S-T. And that view holds that the events that many of us anticipate in the future have actually happened already in the past, ergo the word preterist. So I have a very simple refutation. I do think that there may be things that Jesus predicted would take place, and some of them did take place in an historical setting in the past. The destruction of Jerusalem, in 70 AD, there's a lot of details that Jesus talks about in the Olivet discourse, which is Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13. Those are the parallel passages that seem to have taken place already. But these are like oftentimes as the case with prophecy, there's a kind of a short-term partial fulfillment and anticipating a larger fulfillment sometime in the future. And so I think there is some merit to that view regarding that discourse and those passages of the synoptic gospels.

But as to the entire thing, Jesus has returned. The simple response to that is, really? This is it? The Blessed Hope is now behind us? All of that wonderful stuff that we were expecting would be the case when Jesus returns and the powers with great glory characterized there in Matthew 24 famously. And that's already over with. This is it for the last, come on.

You know, that's a huge letdown. That's a huge disappointment that we're living in the time of the second coming of Christ. This is nothing like what anybody expected to be the case. And I understand the Jews didn't get it right. They expected something different first round. But what they expected first round wasn't inaccurate in terms of the expectation. It was inaccurate in terms of the timing. Something else had to happen, the Lamb of God.

But there was going to be a line in the tribal. of Judah and all kinds of things spoken of in the Old Testament and in the New Testament would finally come to place, take place. And I'm supposed to believe that that's already happened? What is this now? Are we in the kingdom? This is like the wonderful life? Please.

Yeah, it's just, it's so, to me, obviously false that I don't, that that's the best refutation I can offer. of the total of the total preterist view. I have a couple verses here. One of them just occurred to me that I didn't think of before, but one of them is that when Jesus comes, we'll meet him in the air. So we will, that's when the resurrection happens of the dead when he comes, and that clearly has not happened yet.

But this isn't new, even as far back as 2 Timothy, there were people saying, this is what Paul says in 2 Timothy 2.18. where he warns against, quote, men who have gone astray from the truth saying that the resurrection has already taken place and they upset the faith of some. So this isn't a new thing, but Paul was speaking against it then.

Now maybe you'll say, well, but it's happened since then. Since then, yeah. But here are a couple verses. One from Matthew and one from Luke, and they're the parallel verses, but I'm going to read both of them. The first one's Matthew 24, 26, and 27. So if they say to you,

behold, he's in the wilderness, do not go out, or behold, he's in the inner rooms, do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. We're all going to know. This isn't going to be a secret. Visibly, powerfully, and conclusively of the words that I have used in the past to describe what Jesus describes there in Matthew 24. And here's the Luke 17 version. They will say to you, look there, look here, do not go away and do not run after them.

For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the son of man be in his day. So that is what the second coming will be like. We're not going to miss it. Yeah. So I think that people in your Bible study group, if you've understood them correctly, are mistaken in this. Well, Praterists claim that there was an event, a dramatic, visible event that people saw at some time in the past. and if you go to the right sources, you'll see a record of it. But whether or not that happened, even if it did, it did not have the consequence that these passages and subsequent passages seem to indicate, you know, be caught up with the Lord in the air, you know, First Thessalonians four, the dead in Christ will rise first, and then we who remain will be caught up with the Lord in the air.

That's where people get the word rapture from the Latin translation of that particular passage. But in any event, you identified it correctly. That's the resurrection. And Paul in 1st Corinthians 15 makes a similar kind of point. It happens at the Second Coming, and we are all raised. The mortal put on immortality, the perishable put on imperishable. So that's the dead, the perishable. And the mortal are those people who get resurrected not having died because they're alive when Jesus

returns, so they are transformed, the mortal puts on immortality. All right, let's go to a question from Eileen. If I will not see or hear from Jesus while I'm alive, is it going to be like that after I die, too? I'm a little mystified by that. If I am not going to see or hear Jesus before I die, now maybe that's a reference to my own concern about hearing the voice of God idea. But of course, I've never made that claim. Paul saw Jesus multiple times.

One, of course, when he appeared there, the road to Damascus and talked with Jesus. I actually know if Jesus was visibly present, but he certainly was when Paul was in Corinth. And Jesus appears in a vision to Paul at his bed in the middle of the night, and he says, Do not be afraid any longer because I have many people in this city. And so there you have a vision of seeing Jesus and hearing from him by the Apostle Paul. Now, I think that's rare, but it certainly clearly is possible.

I just don't think it's to be expected by us, and almost very few people ever have anything like that. So I don't think people should expect to see or hear Jesus. Then I don't know why a person would say, if you can't see, you're here, Jesus, if this is not what God has in mind for us in this stage of our existence, that it will never happen in the next stage. It makes no sense to me why one would say that. Clearly, when we see him, we will be like him, you know, because we'll see him as he is. Now we see it a glass darkly, then we will see face to face. That's first, first, is 13, at least the second reference.

Anyway, I just so odd to me. Why would anybody wonder whether we're going to see Jesus when there are so many testifications from the text that that will be the case? To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Right. Now, I have thought about this in this sense. Obviously, okay, Jesus,

still will have a physical body, right? He has a resurrected body. He still has a human nature. So he will be in his human nature limited and spatial, right? So that means we can't all be talking to him at once in that sense. I mean, would you agree with that? Yeah, that seemed to make sense to me. Which is not to worry because you might be in line for a while, but you got a lot of time.

I don't like to think about that, but there has to be a sense in which we are communing with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not necessarily face-to-face all the time, since he's limited. I mean, I don't see how else that could work, but there must be a sense in which we are communing with them because he still has a divine nature also. So however, how it's going to look, I'm not sure, but we will definitely be with the Lord because that's, That's the whole point. You know, Jesus prepared a place and you will be with me. That was his whole promise. That's what they were looking for.

They weren't just looking for a happy time. They wanted to be with Jesus. And that's the hope that he gave them. So that's the hope that we should have, too. Okay, Greg, here's a question from Brent. As I was listening to this episode, I had a thought that if annihilation, I don't know what episode is listening to, so sorry about that, Brent. I had a thought that if annihilationism is true, then wouldn't Jesus,

Jesus ceased to exist at the cross since he was receiving hell slash God's judgment for the elect. Yeah, I think the mistake here is thinking that what will happen to people apart from Christ had to happen in like fashion to Jesus in order for him to satisfy the Father propitiation. And that's the whole point of the cross, satisfying the father's anger and wrath towards sin. Well, for example, for any individual to pay for their own crimes that will take forever. But Jesus wasn't on the cross forever. So there's a lack of parallel right there. I don't think, Jesus, I heard recently in an event, somebody said, well, Jesus went to hell literally. He actually literally went to hell.

I don't have any reason to believe that was the case. That's a misunderstanding of the Apostles' Creed. There's a thing that was added like three centuries later, and it's also a misunderstanding of what Peter is talking about, I think. But in any event, what Jesus did is in a finite amount of time, he received the wrath of God to an adequate degree that it would cover, justly cover the punishment for all those who put their trust in him. It was fully adequate to satisfy justice. It didn't have to be like a one-for-one kind of, well, annihilation of was true, and then people get annihilated, so Jesus must have been annihilated. No, I just think it's a mistaken way of thinking of it. So I would have answered the way you did until recently, and I'll tell you why now I'm wondering if this is, if Brent actually has a point here.

Because to me, I think it might depend on if the annihilation is the punishment in itself or if it's the conclusion of the punishment. Right. And up until now, I thought that... Might you clarify that particular point? So is it the case that the punishment due for our sins is annihilation? That is the punish. That's the nature of the punishment. You're guilty, you're gone kind of thing.

Or is it the case that there's a limited amount of punishment that you receive, and then at the end of that, you're annihilated. It's conscious torment, but it's not eternal. So in that case, if it were the case that the punishment just kind of... concluded, I mean, the annihilation concluded the punishment, then I would say that would work with what you said, because then it's the wrath of God that they're enduring and Jesus can pay for the wrath of God. But if it is the punishment itself that is due is annihilation, then I think that's a problem. Now, until recently, I didn't— There would be a problem for the annihilationist because Jesus didn't get annihilated. So recently there was, it was months ago now, but there was a panel discussion that Kurt Cameron had on his show. And a few of our friends were on there that we like and care about. And we just disagree with some of them.

But Chris Date was saying that if I understood him correctly. Chris Date the Annihilationist. He's an annihilationist. And he said that he made the point that if somebody receives the punishment of capital punishment here, and they went through the whole thing, and then they came back to life, like they were resuscitated spontaneously, nobody says, well, now that he's already served his punishment because he died and he's come back so we can't kill him again. He says, no, the punishment is the death. Therefore, you have to put him to death in order for the punishment to be accomplished. Right, right. And that's when I said, now you have a problem.

Now you have a problem because now you're saying that the final annihilation is the punishment. And I don't see how Jesus can do that. Even in his own example here, Jesus was resurrected. Therefore, he did not pay that punishment if indeed that. That is the punishment, the annihilation. And I think that is a real problem, and something I'll have to look into and see how they would respond to. Well, Chris State is also a physicalist. So when one dies, that one disappears because all they are are their body.

And then what God has to do is recreate, whatever that means, recreate you again, if you're in that circumstance. And this is what JP Moreland has made the point of many times. What sense is there that if someone is annihilated, that the next one that is brought up is the same one? If it's just physical, then all you do is make, what, a clone, a carbon copy, but it's not the same one. It's just a copy of the one, which would have to be the same with Jesus if he got annihilated and then what? Now he's gone. And what? Then you recreate, I don't know.

It's so problematic. Well, so I recommend, I recommend if you're interested in this topic, go watch that panel discussion. And Paul Copeland was kind of for the ECT side, eternal. Right, right? Yes. And there was someone else, and I can't think of who it was on his side. But I'm just, I'm blanking on who the other person was. But anyway, you can get an idea of what the arguments are, and you can hear them out.

But this did strike me as a problem as I was watching that panel discussion. Also, there's a piece that Tim Barnett, Mr. B, and I did together actually a series. There were three of them. And the title is Hell Interrupted, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and that's on our website, Hell Interrupted. And we try to cover all the bases. And I just read that recently because Kirk gave me a call to be part of that panel. And I decided to turn him down just because I didn't drill deep enough in the issue. And Paul's much better at Paul Copeland capable of that.

But I did reread our article. And I thought, I think this covers the basis really adequately. And I did send that to Kirk. So anyway, anybody has access to that case at STR.org. Yeah. And I think Paul Copan and Chris Date, I think it's Chris Date. Have they have a book coming out about the different views? There's different people, I think, contributing to that.

So that would be another resource on this topic. So I don't think that if somebody's an annihilation is that they're not saved or anything like that. Like I said, these are our friends. A lot of people got bugged at Kirk for the – and they – I think they did not do him a good service. But I think it's heterodox. In other words, it's not orthodox. It's not accurate. but of course those who on the other side would say my view is heterodox.

It's not accurate, but we're both still on the reservation, as it were. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much, Patrick and Consuelan and Eileen and Brent. We got through four questions today. This might be a record for us. All right. Thank you so much for sending us your questions.

And please, if you have one, send it on X with the hashtag STR Ask or on our website at STR.org. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kogel for Stand to Reason. I don't know.