What Happened When Jesus Ascended?

There are certain parts of the biblical story that Christians affirm quite firmly without necessarily spending much time thinking about them. The Ascension tends to fall into that category. Jesus rose from the dead, appeared to his disciples, ascended into heaven, and then sent the Spirit at Pentecost. But sometimes that part of the story doesn’t get a whole lot of screen time in our Bible study.

Jesus does not simply return to heaven. He is seated at the right hand of God in power, his enemies are placed beneath his feet, and he rules over powers and authorities. At the same time, the gospel begins moving outward to the nations, a combination that becomes particularly interesting when read alongside Psalm 82.

Dr. Joel Muddamalle will be joining us at the 2026 Divine Council Worldview Conference to present “The Ascension as the Fulfillment of Psalm 82.” His presentation gives us an opportunity to think about a part of Psalm 82 that can sometimes receive considerably less attention than its famous opening scene—and, in the process, to think more carefully about what the Ascension actually means within the Bible’s larger cosmic story.

Those who have spent much time with Dr. Michael Heiser’s work are probably quite familiar with the opening of Psalm 82:

“God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.”

A great deal of discussion quite understandably centers on the identity of those elohim. Heiser spent years showing why the language of the psalm should not be flattened into human judges or rulers, and why the divine council scene belongs naturally within the supernatural worldview of the Hebrew Bible. But let’s look at where the psalm ends:

“Arise, O God, judge the earth;
for you shall inherit all the nations!”

Psalm 82 is not simply anticipating the removal of corrupt spiritual rulers; it looks toward God’s claim upon the nations themselves.

Read against the wider framework that Heiser helped many of us recover from passages such as Deuteronomy 32, this creates a fairly obvious question. If the nations were allotted among the sons of God, and Psalm 82 ends by anticipating the day when God will inherit the nations, where in the biblical story should we look for the fulfillment of that expectation?

That is the question Joel Muddamalle will take up in his DCWC paper, “The Ascension as the Fulfillment of Psalm 82.”

For those who may not be familiar with Joel’s work, his connection to Mike Heiser began in part through questions about Psalm 82. When he first encountered Heiser’s interpretation while the two were working at Logos Bible Software, his reaction was not exactly enthusiastic. As Joel recalls it, “I was pretty upset, honestly, like pretty frustrated,” and he went to Mike convinced that what he was reading might even be heresy.

What happened when Joel walked into Mike’s office became the beginning of a much longer relationship. Mike eventually served as a reader and advisor for Joel’s doctoral work, and Joel has continued to develop many of these biblical-theological questions in his own research and writing.

You can hear him tell that story himself in his conversation with Preston Sprinkle:

There is something particularly fitting, then, about Joel coming to the Divine Council Worldview Conference to return to Psalm 82—this time to ask where the story goes from there.

Our theme for this year’s conference is Kingdom Living in Light of the Bible’s Cosmic Vision, and that means we are intentionally interested in more than identifying supernatural beings or tracing cosmic geography on an old map. Those things matter because they help us understand the biblical story. But ultimately we are led to ask what kind of world Scripture says we presently inhabit, what Christ has accomplished within it, and what that means for the people who belong to his kingdom.

One of the themes Joel has emphasized when talking about spiritual conflict is the need for what he calls “humble confidence.” A biblical theology of spiritual warfare should not leave Christians only fascinated with rebellious powers or merely impressed by the amount of supernatural information they have accumulated. But neither should it leave us fearful of those powers.

The center of the Christian proclamation is that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead and is presently enthroned at the right hand of the Father.

If the Ascension belongs to the fulfillment of Psalm 82, then that has implications not only for how we understand the unseen realm, but also for how we understand the mission of the church in a world where Christ has already been exalted over every power and authority. What does it mean to live and carry out the mission of the church in light of that reality?

At the DCW Conference, Joel Muddamalle is going to help us think about what happens when we follow that expectation forward to the enthroned Christ.

Dr. Joel Muddamalle will present “The Ascension as the Fulfillment of Psalm 82” at the 2026 Divine Council Worldview Conference, October 10 in Golden, Colorado.

Joel serves as Director of Theology and Research at Proverbs 31 Ministries and holds a PhD in theology. His research has included sustained work in Ephesians, Old Testament backgrounds, spiritual powers, and the supernatural worldview of Scripture. He also writes with his team at Stranger Theology, where those same kinds of questions are explored for a wider audience, and is the author of The Hidden Peace and The Unseen Battle (affiliate links).

This year’s conference, Kingdom Living in Light of the Bible’s Cosmic Vision, is intended to push the Divine Council conversation beyond simply recognizing the supernatural worldview of Scripture and toward asking what that worldview contributes to our understanding of Christ, his kingdom, the church, and faithful Christian life.

Joel’s presentation takes us to a particularly important place: with the King who has been raised from the dead, exalted above every power, and given all authority in heaven and on earth.