Acts 1:9-11 and the Hyper-Preterism Debate by Keith A. Mathison

1. They saw Jesus ascend a certain distance and then disappear from their sight
when he reached the cloud — ascension to a cloud.
2. They saw the cloud appear to actively lift Jesus upward a certain distance before
he disappeared from their sight — ascension in or with a cloud.
3. They saw Jesus suddenly vanish into a cloud while he was standing before them
without any visible upward motion of either Jesus or the cloud.
Answer 1 would be the implication of the connective use of kai. The explicative use of
kai could imply either answer 2 or answer 3. The only way to determine which answer is
the most likely meaning intended by Luke is to examine the context.
The least likely answer to our question is number 3, namely that Luke intended to
say that Jesus simply vanished while standing in front of the apostles. There are a
number of reasons for this conclusion. In the first place, Luke has spoken previously of
Jesus vanishing, and he used entirely different language to describe what happened.
After speaking to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, Luke tells us that Jesus
“vanished from their sight” (Luke 24:31). The specific words he uses to describe this are:
kaiV aujtoV" a[fanto" ejgevneto ajp= aujtw'n (kai autos aphantos egeneto ap autōn). The
words aphantos egeneto can be literally translated “became invisible” or simply
“vanished.” If Luke’s intent in Acts 1:9 were to describe a situation in which Jesus
simply vanished, we are forced to ask why he did not use the language he used elsewhere
to describe such an occurrence. In the second place, the immediate context itself forces
us to reject the idea that Jesus simply vanished while standing before the apostles. Both
Acts 1:10 and 1:11 describe the apostles looking intently into the sky. 82 If Jesus simply
vanished and there was nothing that they witnessed moving upward, then there is no
reason whatsoever for them to be described as gazing intently into the sky. In order for
verses 10 and 11 to make any sense at all, the apostles had to have seen Jesus, or the
cloud, or both Jesus and the cloud moving upward some distance.
If option 3 is ruled out, the only exegetically possible answers are 1 and 2. The
strongest contextual evidence for answer 1 is the fact that verse 11 clearly states that the
apostles saw Jesus going. If answer 2 requires us to say that Jesus himself was not visible
82 I will explain below the reasons for understanding the primary meaning of eis ton ouranon to be “into the
sky.”
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