BOOK 8. THE ASCENSION.
CHAPTER 1.
8.1.4. Of God's Right Hand, and of Christ's Session there.
Of God's Right Hand, and of Christ's Session there.
For the session of Christ at God's right hand, which is a consequent following after his ascension into heaven, I shall examine. 1. What is God's right hand? 2. What it is to sit there? And then in following sections: 8.1.5. According to what nature doth Christ sit there? and in 8.1.6. Why is it that he sits at the right hand of God his Father in glory?
1. What is this right hand of God? I answer;
(a). Negatively. It is not any corporal right hand of God; if we speak properly, God hath neither right hand, nor left hand; for God is not a body, but a Spirit, or a spiritual substance.
(b). Positively, the right hand of God, is the majesty, dignity, dominion, power, and glory of God. "The right hand of the Lord is exalted, the right hand of the Lord doth valiantly," Psal. cxviii. 15. "Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power, thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy," Exod. xv. 6. "Thou hast a mighty arm, strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand," Psal. Ixxxix. 13. "Mine hand hath laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens," Isa. xlviii. 13. I know some of our divines make this right hand of God something inferior to God's own power, but others speak of it as every way equal, and I know no absurdity to follow on it.
2. What it is to sit at the right hand of God? I answer, it is not any corporal session at God's right hand, as some picture him with a crown of gold on his head, sitting on a throne, as if he had no other gesture in heaven but sitting still; which Stephen contradicts, saying, "I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God," Acts vii. 56. The word sitting or standing, are both metaphorical, and borrowed from the custom of kings, who place those they honour, and to whom they commit the power of government at their right hand; more particularly, this sitting at God's right hand implies two things: (a). His glorious exaltation. (b). The actual administration of his kingdom.
(a). Christ is exalted, "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow," Phil, ii 9. This session is the supreme dignity and glory given by the Father unto Christ after this ascension; this session is the peerless exaltation of the Mediator in his kingdom of glory. But how was Christ exalted? I answer;
(i). In regard of his divine nature, not really, or in itself. Impossible it was, that the divine nature should receive any intrinsical improvement, or glory, because all fulness of glory, essentially belonged unto it: but declaratorily, or by way of manifestation; so it was that his divinity, during the time of his humiliation, lay hidden and over-shadowed, as the light of a candle is hidden in a dark and close lantern; but now in his session that divinity in glory which he had always with his Father, was showed forth and declared, "He was declared to be the Son of God with power," Rom. i. 4. both at his resurrection and at his session.
(ii). In regard of his human nature; and yet that must be understood soberly, for I cannot think that Christ's human nature was at all exalted in regard of the grace of personal union, or in regard of the habitual perfections of his human soul, because he possessed all these from the beginning: but in regard of those interceptions of the beams of the Godhead, and divine glory: and in respect of the restraints of that sense and sweetness, and feeling operations of the beatifical vision during his humiliation; in these respects Christ was exalted in his human nature, and had all the glory from the Deity communicated to it, which possibly in any way it was capable of. There was a time, when the office which Christ undertook for us made him a man of sorrow, but when he had finished that dispensation, then he was filled with unmatchable glory, which before his session be enjoyed not; there was a time when the natural consequence and flowings ol Christ's glory from that personal union was stayed and hindered, by special dispensation, for the working of our salvation; but when that miraculous stay was once removed, and the work of our redemption fully finished, then he was exalted beyond the capacity or comprehension of all the angels of heaven: "To which of the angels said he at any time, sit at my right hand?" Heb. i. 13. in this respect it is said, that God highly exalted him; exalted he was in his resurrection, ascension, but never so high as at his session; in his resurrection he was exalted with Jonah from the lower parts to the upper parts of the earth; in his ascension he was exalted with Elijah above the clouds, above the stars, above the heavens; but in his session he is exalted to the highest place in heaven, even to the right hand of God, "far above all heavens, that he might fill all things," Eph. iv. 10.
(b). Christ reigns, or actually administers his glorious kingdom, and this is the principal part of Christ's sitting at God's right hand. So the psalmist, "The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool: the Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion; rule thou in the midst of thy enemies," Psal. cx. 1, 2. The apostle is yet more large, "God set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all," Eph. i. 20, 21, 22, 23. Some describe this session at God's right hand to be all one with his reigning in equal power and glory with the Father, but the Son hath always so reigned, and the Holy Ghost hath always so reigned, who yet is not said in scripture to sit at the right hand of the Father; I believe therefore, there is something in this session or reign of Christ, which doth difference it from that reigning power and glory of the Father, and of the Son as only God, and of the Holy Ghost; and if we would know what this is, I would call it an actual administration of his kingdom, or an immediate executing of his power and glory over every creature as Mediator. There is a natural, and a dispensatory kingdom of Jesus Christ; for the first, the Father reigns immediately by the Son, but by the Holy Ghost the Father doth not reign immediately, but through the Son; the same order is to be kept in their power, which is in the persons; the Father reigns not by himself, but of himself; because he is of none; the Son reigneth by himself, not of himself, because he is begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost reigneth not by himself, but from the Father and the Son, from whom he doth proceed. And as in the natural, so in the dispensatory kingdom, the Father reigns immediately by the Son as Mediator; and hence it is that the Son, as Mediator, is only said to sit at God's right hand, because the right of actual administration, or immediate execution of the sovereign power is appropriate and peculiar to the Son, as Mediator betwixt God and man, and this made Christ to say, "The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment unto the Son," John v. 22. as Mediator. You may object, Christ was a Mediator immediately after his incarnation, but he did not actually administer his kingdom then. I answer, it is true, Christ for a time did by a voluntary dispensation empty himself, and laid aside the right of actual administration of his kingdom; but immediately after his ascension, the Father by voluntary dispensation resigned it to the Son again, "Come now, saith the Father, and take thou power over every creature, till the time that all things shall be subdued under thee." This right the one relinquished in the time of that humiliation of himself; and this right the other conferred at the time of the exaltation of his Son.