And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, (22) Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; (23) and their enemies beheld them.
(22) They were called by God into heaven, and taken out of this wicked world, into the heavenly Church, which also lies hidden here in the earth, to exercise their calling secretly: of whom this wretched world was unworthy; (Hebrews 11:38). For the church of the wicked is by comparison called the earth, or the world: and the Church of the godly, heaven. As it was in ancient times among the godly Israelites: so among the Jews in the days of Manasseh and other kings, when the earth refused the heirs of heaven, we read that they lay hidden as heaven in the earth.
(23) Yet they could not hinder the secret ones of the Lord (as the Psalmist called them) (Psalms 83:3) but they prospered in his work.