ABSTRACT
Robert Jenson is renowned as a writer of trinitarian theology and ecclesiology. Due to Jenson's complex analysis, it is remarkably difficult to treat any one theological theme in isolation from his compendious reworking of theology as a whole, and in particular from his doctrine of the Trinity. Jenson's treatment of ascension and ecclesiology is so shaped around his trinitarian thought with little reference to ascension or church. It is difficult to think of Jesus' as ascended person when He is embodied in various objects, in what a harsh reading might describe as an ad hoc fashion. If Jesus' human body is unimportant in the resurrection and the ascension, then what is important is His spirit. An outcome of all this is that for Jenson the gospel is focused on the church and sacraments, as the objectivity of God. Karl Barth's reformation conception of the church as creatura verbi enables a much more mission oriented ecclesiology.
