The Right Hand of Power

"So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God." -Mark 16:19 [KJV]

The right hand of God means the right hand of power, of dominion, of authority, and of acceptance. When our blessed Lord went back to the courts of bliss, and the gates of heaven lifted up their heads, and the everlasting doors were lifted up, and the King of glory went in, He sat down at once at the right hand of the Majesty on high. But what did this place of preeminence imply? It certified to principalities and powers, and the whole bright and glorious throng of angelic hosts, that God had accepted His work and given Him for His reward that exalted place of power, of honour, and of dignity. 

For remember this, that our gracious Lord went up to heaven and sat down at the right hand of God in His human nature. He did not go up to heaven as He came down from heaven only as the Son of God. He went up to heaven as the Son of man as well as the Son of God. He went up to heaven in a human nature united to the divine, and therefore entered the courts of bliss as the God-man, Immanuel, God with us.

It is a point of great importance, and to be ever borne in mind by every spiritual worshipper, and by every true believer in the Son of God, that our blessed Lord sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high in the same human body which He wore upon earth—glorified indeed beyond all thought or utterance, but the same pure, spotless, holy, and immortal humanity which He assumed in the womb of the Virgin, and which He offered as a sacrifice upon the cross. 

To this point the apostle would specially direct our thoughts, and bring it before us as the object and food of our faith (see Romans 8:34). And what an object of faith it is, for, as viewing Jesus at the right hand of God, we see there a Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; we see an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; we see a brother, a friend, a husband enthroned in glory, there ever living, ever reigning, ever ruling, until God shall have put all enemies under His feet.

 

-preacher J.C. Philpot (1802-1869 A.D.)

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