Luke gives us a simple description of the moment Jesus left this earth…

And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight.

Acts 1:9

But questions persist: For example, Luke does not say what exactly happened to Jesus’ physical body. We read here that the Lord ascended up and a cloud “received Him” (whatever that means), but the fact is, Jesus had a physical body that ascended into the sky and then–now–He has a life in Heaven with God (where there is no need for physical–earthly–bodies).

Common sense tells us that He was transformed (perhaps in a manner similar to what happened at the Mt. of Transfiguration–Matthew 17), but the particulars and details are simply not provided. John does offer a word of anticipation in his first epistle, saying that when Jesus returns we will “be like Him” (1 John 3:2). He will return and we will rise to meet Him in the air (1 Thessalonians 4), and presumably be changed like He is.

But there’s an even more interesting thought than the particulars of His physical body…

Have you ever considered the fact that, before Jesus came to this world in the first place (being born of Mary) He was purely and totally God (John 1). But after He was born, He became something else: He became the God|Man. He was 100% God, as well as 100% Man, in a way that can not be fully explained or understood.

You might think that, when He returned to the Father after His ascension, that He went back to being purely and totally God, but that’s not what Paul says…

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

1 Timothy 2:5

Paul says that for us today, we have a mediator between us and God and it is the “Man” Christ Jesus. Now Jesus is still God, certainly, but He did not lose His humanity when He left the earth. He remains 100% Man so that He can mediate between us and the Father.

That means, when God came to earth, 2000 years ago, in the form of Jesus, He did so knowing that He would forever be changing His very nature. He came, knowing He would eternally exist–not just as God, but as the God|Man.

He did that for you.