Article 6. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty:
as previously stated when Jesus went to the Father he neither desended nor descended – though it appeared to them that he did, and the angels (men) comforted them for their bewilderment.
Furthermore, God, being incorporate, a spirit has no right hand by which to sit, yet if it were not for the anthropomorphisms it would be nigh impossible to give us the sense of it all.
The Ascension
Berean Study Bible Acts 1:11
…10They were looking intently 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.
Here there is a differentiation between Ouranos as sky and Ouranos as heaven, see strongs below: We all know the images, right from our childhood of the billowing clouds with Jesus levitating through them. The operable words are ‘he’ and ‘ascended’. Extraordinary actions from one who is now extraordinary.
The men knew where Jesus was going and didn’t mention ascending but ‘taken from you into heaven’ Was Jesus assumpted or ascending – from the word Assumption meaning something accepted without proof. It has always been accepted by the Church that Jesus went to heaven under his own steam – (yet perhaps not) -because Jesus and the Father were Part and the same, no longer son of God, but God the Son. Thankfully this line of inquiry is not explored in this particular Creed.
Jesus’ own take was Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
…16Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). 17“Do not cling to Me, Jesus said, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go and tell My brothers, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God
Jesus went to our Father and to his Father and to our God and his God. And this Father is almighty. We have an almighty Father, wherever, who has all power to assist us – and his son Yeshuah ben Elyon.
Heaven Ouranos
Usage: heaven, (a) the visible heavens: the atmosphere, the sky, the starry heavens, (b) the spiritual heavens.
3772 ouranós – heaven (singular), and nearly as often used in the plural (“heavens“). “The singular and plural have distinct overtones and therefore should be distinguished in translation (though unfortunately they rarely are)” (G. Archer).
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Sorry I have only just seen this. Yes there are two seats as though there are two persons. It is very tempting to settle for two individual persons in heaven, the Creed was put together according to the Theological understanding of the times when anthropomorphism was the norm since it’s very difficult to imagine a spiritual entity doing any of the things Jesus did – if he is one and the same substance and essence of the Father, begotten before time, and all the rest of the nicene creed.
As I once said – Mary had an eternal pregnancy and is still pregnant now since God the Son is still eternally begotten.
I don;t know whether I favour Arius, that Jesus became God’s son only at birth, before the son the father was not. There was a time when the son was not. Or do I find it easier to understand three individuals, more like Platonic thought with two demiurges and an unknowable God on high. A chain of creation or eminations to make God visible and his message known by one like ourselves and a spirit which has been with us at least since creation.
I wonder if the Spirit has a chair or does she hover.
With all due respect to the Deity/ies.
God is mystery and the fewer questions we pose the happier though more ignorant we are,
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