Acts 1:9-11
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
Verse 9 Luke also described this event in his Gospel (Luke 24:50-53). Jesus had showed his disciples that he was alive, over a period of 40 days. The cloud contained God’s glory. The last time when the disciples saw Jesus on earth, God’s glory surrounded him.
Verse 10 They were ‘staring up at the sky’. Some students say that Jesus did not actually rise up to heaven. But Luke uses words like ‘watched’, ‘see’, ‘staring’, ‘look’ and ‘seen’. With their own eyes, the disciples saw everything that happened!
The ‘two men in white clothes’ were angels with a message. Two men also appeared in front of the women in Luke 24:4. These men in Acts were like them. Luke wants us to consider them as witnesses. There had to be two witnesses that saw an event. (Two was the minimum number.) Only then, people would believe that the event had happened (Deuteronomy 19:15).
Verse 11 Jesus went from the earth in power. And he went with glory. He will return to the earth in power. And he will return with glory. Nobody knows when that will be. Until then, the Holy Spirit is here. The Holy Spirit lives in people believe in Jesus and they trust in him. Our Lord is alive and he is in heaven. We can talk to him. We can do this by means of the Holy Spirit.
Stop and think about the impact of these 3 verses. Jesus had died for our sins and come back for 40 days. Now He has returned to heaven, but that is not the end, he is coming back. Praise God! Jesus is Coming Back!