עָלָה
'alah'
"to go up" or "to ascend" or "to climb"
The word “alah” is used almost 900 times throughout the Hebrew Bible, giving us a wide range of uses. It is translated "ascend," "go up," "went up," etc. Abraham “went up from Egypt.” Kings and generals “go up” to battle. Prophets and priests "go up" to the temple. Moses “goes up” mount Sinai. Yahweh’s enemies “go up” against him in battle, but they often end up “going up” in smoke (not the sort of "going up" they had in mind...).
Generally, “alah” refers to going up to accomplish some great feat.
The Bible describes two types of people: people who trust in God who has ascended in victory and people who try to ascend for themselves.
As Jars of Clay says in their song “worlds apart,” the battle is between grace and pride.
Sinful man makes the battle about will-power verses sin. But in fact, this sort of mindset IS sin. We can’t do it. We must trust in a God who has already “ascended” in victory.
The original sin, in Genesis 3, is believing that we could be like God.
Genesis 11 shows mankind gathering together in all their selfish ambition to build a tower to heaven.
In 2 Kings 19, this is Yahweh’s message against Sennacherib, king of Assyria.
22 Who is it you have ridiculed and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes in pride?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
23 By your messengers
you have ridiculed the Lord.
And you have said,
“With my many chariots
I have ascended the heights of the mountains,
the utmost heights of Lebanon.
I have cut down its tallest cedars,
the choicest of its junipers.
I have reached its remotest parts,
the finest of its forests.
24 I have dug wells in foreign lands
and drunk the water there.
With the soles of my feet
I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”
In Isaiah, the king of Babylon is rebuked for a similar blasphemy.
Isaiah 14:
13 You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.
14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”
15 But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,
to the depths of the pit.
The OT shows us the heart of man’s blasphemy; it is us trying to “ascend” to God in our own strength with our “many chariots” and our "towers of babel." It is us putting our confidence in our jobs, families, talents, finances, friends, and telling God that we don’t need him, that we don’t depend on him.
George Eldon Ladd, in his book "the Gospel of the Kingdom," says this:
“The primary manifestation of satanic influence and of the evil of This Age is religious; it is blindness with reference to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. How often we fail to understand satanic devices! A man may be a cultured, ethical and even religious person and yet be in demonic darkness. Satan's basic desire is to keep men from Christ. His primary concern is not to corrupt morals nor to make atheists nor to produce enemies of religion. Indeed religion which rests upon the assumption of human adequacy and sufficiency is an enemy of the light. This is the character of the Age of this world: darkness.”
In contrast to man trying to climb his way to heaven (i.e. trying to “ascend” to heaven), we see in Genesis 28 a ladder with angels ascending and descending, a ladder from heaven to Earth. Instead of man going up to heaven, we have heaven coming down to Earth. The LORD, Yahweh, stands above the ladder and reaffirms his promise to Jacob. Jacob declares that “Yahweh is in this place.” God has made a way to restore his relationship and presence with man; heaven has come to Earth.
Deuteronomy is a capstone to the Pentateuch. It is a summary of the law and Israel's history. This is Moses’ sermon to Israel before he dies and they enter the land.
In chapter 30, after Moses summarizes much of the laws that Israel is to follow, he says that God will circumcise their hearts so that they will obey him. In other words, God is gracious to Israel by bringing them up out of Egypt and giving them the law, but he is even more gracious as he is the one who does the heart-work that allows them to complete this law.
So Moses says in verse 11,
11"For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' 13Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' 14But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.
They were not to “ascend” to heaven to bring the law down, but rather trust in the work of God’s circumcision of their heart.
But we find that Israel continues to live in self-righteousness before God throughout much of their history.
Psalm 47 says that Yahweh has “gone up,” or “ascended” in victory and defeated the enemies of his people.
There is an abundance of imagery in the Old Testament that shows how God is the one who has ascended. Now, without committing the hermeneutical sin of unwarranted allegory, how do we know that this imagery is pointing towards Christ? In other words, what right do we have to take these stories and see them as fulfilled in Christ's ascension? How do we know the authors intended to point us to Christ?
Here is a helpful clue...
Our Old Testament is ordered according to the Greek order of the Bible. A few hundred years after Christ, we rearranged the order of the OT books according to genre rather than sequence of story and development of theme. But the Hebrew Bible, the Tanak, is arranged in an intentional order that develops the themes of the OT and points them forward to the Messiah - to Christ.
Tanak ends with the book of Chronicles, which works as a capstone to the Old Testament.
Ezra-Nehemiah precedes Chronicles in Tanak order.
Ezra-Nehemiah is the story of Israel coming out of exile back into the land.
Ezra begins with Cyrus’ decree in chapter one verse two,
“The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up [or ascend] to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel— he is the God who is in Jerusalem.”
And then the story continues and Israel returns from exile. But we find that things are not right. Things are not restored. The presence of Yahweh does not return to the temple. And Malachi, the prophet during this time, shows us that the people of Israel are still acting in abundant wickedness.
Chronicles (in 2 Chronicles 36) ends by quoting King Cyrus’s decree from the start of Ezra word for word.
23"Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, 'The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the LORD his God be with him. Let him go up....”
and the author cuts the quote off in mid-sentence, ending the Hebrew Bible saying, “someone needs to come rebuild God's house, let him GO UP... let him 'ascend.'"
Noting the author's intentionality in this stark mid-sentence break in the citing of the beginning of Ezra, we can see that his point is that Ezra-Nehemiah is not necessarily a fulfillment of Cyrus' decree. Rather, the Chronicler takes up the literary motif of "going up" and points us forward...
...forward to Christ!
Matthew begins with a genealogy of Jesus - a genealogy of Christ, Messiah.
Ephesians is about the Gospel of Jesus who is building his church - building his house. WE are God’s temple.
For Paul, this is where all the OT imagery of ascending is pointing. Christ, in his righteousness, death, burial, resurrection, and finally his ascension, is saving his church - building God’s kingdom, building his temple.
In summary, it is JESUS who has ascended. He has conquered sin and death. He has lived a righteous life that we could not.
The distinction between typology and allegory is that the OT authors intend to point us ahead to Messiah with this literary imagery.
The importance of Tanak order is that it emphasizes this intentionality. Each section (Torah, Nebiim, Kethubim) ends pointing ahead to a future fulfillment. The NT authors without missing a beat show us that Jesus is the Messiah who fulfills all of this.
Christ is the one who has ascended to build his church...
7But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8Therefore it says,
"When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men."
9( In saying, "He ascended," what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Ephesians 4
