Jesus Ascended and Sits at the right hand of the Father Almighty

David Helton

Deep Creek Baptist Church

We Believe: The Apostles Creed • Sermon • Submitted 4 months ago • Presented 4 months ago

Hebrews 1–6

Jesus Ascends into Heaven

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Hebrews 1 Page 1187

Hebrews 10 Page 1193

HOW MANY OF YOU HERE ARE LEFT HANDED:

Life can be tough for left-handed folks! Weirdly, there is a long history of anti-left-hand bias in much of the world stretching way back into antiquity. Consider these examples from a fascinating post entitled “History of Handedness—Ancient History.”

“There is some evidence that all of the early great civilizations of the world—from the ancient Mesopotamians to the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans—have been strongly biased towards the right hand.

The right hand of the gods was considered to be healing and beneficent,

while their left hand was used for curses or inflicting injury.

Ancient Egyptians often depicted their enemies as left-handed

while they were pictured as right handed.

Plato…went so far as to blame left-handedness on inept mothers and nurses

who failed to adequately school their children in the correct way of doing things.”“

Alexander the Great…claimed to have conquered a country of left-handed people, although the claim is unsubstantiated.”

“According to some, wearing a wedding ring on the third finger of the left hand

originated with the Romans,

the idea being to fend off evil associated with the left-hand…”[1]

https://www.rightleftrightwrong.com/history_ancient.html

This phenomenon is reflected also in scripture.

In Matthew 6:3, Jesus says, “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Notice it is the right hand that is giving to the needy and the left hand is being told to mind its own business!

Consider too, in Matthew 25, where we will be next week where the sheep (the saved) and the goats (the lost) are situated.

Matthew 25:31–33“31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.”

Again, life can be tough for the left-handed!

But in all seriousness,

the right hand as an ancient symbol of power and authority is important for us to grasp when it comes to our understanding of what used to be

called “the session” of Christ. Kevin J. Vanhoozer writes of “the session”:

The early church rightly understood that the drama of Christ includes his ascension, entry into heaven, and heavenly session (Lat. sessio = sitting down) at the right hand of the Father.

Jesus’ session was an important part of apostolic teaching,

figuring prominently in both the Apostles’ Creed and the earlier Roman Creed: sedet ad dexteram patris.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J. Faith Speaking Understanding. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), p.212..

The ascension tells us that……

Jesus rules as the Son of God and the Son of David.

Hebrews 1:8–13 “8 But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. 9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” 10 And, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; 11 they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, 12 like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end.” 13 And to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?”

What is the Old Testament passage that is most quoted or echoed in the New Testament?

That’s a tricky one, isn’t it! In my experience most students tend to think the

Psalm 23 or Isaiah 53.

Sadly, Psalm 23 is never once quoted in the New Testament,

and while Isaiah 53 is a good guess, it is not the correct answer.

The answer is in fact Psalm 110, especially the first four verses:

Psalm 110:1–4 “1 The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” 2 The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! 3 Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power, in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. 4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.””

It is quoted or alluded some 22 times through out the NT Over 15 times thought the NT

Jesus is exalted to God’s right hand and is invested with divine authority.

Jesus had been formally exalted, that is, installed as God the Father’s vice-regent

and the one in whom and through whom divine sovereignty is expressed.

When the New Testament authors cited Psalm 110 in relation to Jesus’s exaltation,

they were saying that Jesus had been taken into heaven

in order to take control of the affairs of the universe.

Jesus rules with complete authority dominion

10 And, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; 11 they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, 12 like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end.” 13 And to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?”

Metzger, God’s right hand “is metaphorical language for the divine omnipotence.”

Hebrews is about showing Hos Jesus is Better. Better than the sacrifices, better High Priest and a Better King than David.

The song “Jesus the True and Better”, that is the the theme of Hebrews. he is better, more Supreme, and the ultimate ruler of God’s creation.

God never said

Sitting at the right hand of the Lord means the exaltation of the one seated above all enemies and the conferring of the scepter of rule and authority!

When Jesus took His place at the right hand of the Father,

it was not in exhaustion,

it was in triumph.

His sitting does not mean, “I am tired.”

It means, “I have all authority and power!”

It is the action of a King!

The language is in no way ambiguous:

Jesus is seated “far above” all other powers and all other names now and forevermore!

Everything has been put under the feet of Jesus!

His power is unmatched!

Behold, the King!

Ephesians 1:20–23 “20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

As to why, consider the words of the great textual critic Bruce Metzger:

Jesus’ Ascension

that there is no sphere, however secular, in which Christ has no rights—

and no sphere in which his followers are absolved from obedience to him.

Instead of it being a fairy tale from the pre-space age,

Christ’s ascension is the guarantee that he has triumphed over the principalities and powers,

so that at his name “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10–11).

The person whom Christians worship and bear witness to is the one whom the God of Israel has marked out as the Lord of the universe;

he is thus the key agent in its redemption and renewal.

But we have already seen that Jesus not only created the world along with His father, so what is different now. He was already over Hs creation.

What Changed?

The ascension demonstrates

that God has placed a human being at the helm of the universe.

Jesus now rules as a human being.

It is vital that we remember that when Jesus ascended into heaven,

he did not cease to be human

and morph into some disembodied state like a humanoid ghost.

Jesus ascended as a human being

and remains in this glorified human state for the rest of eternity.

This is precisely what God had intended all along. T

he commission given to Adam in Genesis 1:28 shows that it was humanity’s first-order task to rule over creation on behalf of God.

Genesis 1:28 “28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””

The true meaning of the “image of God” is to exercise a royal prerogative as God’s representative on the earth.

Psalm 8 picks up this theme when it says about human beings,

Psalm 8:5–6 “5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,”

In fact, for the author of Hebrews, Psalm 8 shows

that Jesus is the one whom God crowned with glory and honor

because he qualified himself for exaltation by his salvific death for others (Heb 2:5–11).

The enthronement of Jesus then constitutes the restoration of the task that God had always intended for humanity:

to reign over a created world on behalf of God.

He is the promised son of David and will rule forever.

He ascended, and he sits at the right hand of God ruling over the world on the throne of David

As for what Jesus’s exaltation means for discipleship,

Walk in the reign of Christ

hear the words of the martyr Polycarp in his letter to the Philippians: “Therefore, prepare for action and serve God in fear and truth, leaving behind the empty and meaningless talk and the error for the crowd, and believing in the one who raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead and gave him glory and a throne at his right hand. To him all things in heaven and on earth were subjected, whom every breathing creature serves, who is coming as judge of the living and the dead.”5

To use a meteorological pun, to be a follower of Jesus means to walk in the “reign” of Jesus.

It entails that believers order their lives, finances, relationships, ambitions, and hopes around the most important confession of the faith:

Jesus is Lord.

And we should live like it.

Live with out fear

Live with Confidence.

Live knowing that there is nothing that happens to you that is out of His control or view.

Not only is Jesus our Better King, He is our better High Priest..

Jesus has completed our redemption.

Hebrews 10:1 “1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.”

Past sacrifices were ineffective and incomplete

it was only a shadow of the good things to come—verse 1.

It wasn’t the reality.

It exposed the problem—sin separates us from God.

It also pointed to the solution—we need a bloody substitute.

But never did it bring the substitute we really needed.

The “good things to come”

are things like real forgiveness;

open, unhindered fellowship with God;

new hearts that love God and gladly obey his word.

That’s what the shadows pointed to.

But they could never make them happen.

They could only anticipate.

Hebrews 10:2 “2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?”

they had to be repeated.

They were “continually offered every year,” it says.

The fact that they had to be repeated proved they weren’t effective.

Effective in what?

Effective in making us perfect, so we can draw near to God.

Don’t think perfect in the sense that you’ve never done anything wrong;

think in terms of everything necessary to make you whole before God’s presence.

That perfecting work has to occur before anyone can draw near to God.

If those old sacrifices actually worked,

then they wouldn’t have had to continue.

But they did continue; so it’s clear they didn’t work.

The worshipers weren’t cleansed inwardly.

The guilt remained.

He’s simply saying that from the beginning they were only provisional.

They pointed beyond themselves to another.

Hebrews 10:3 “3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.”

They only reminded the people of their sins.

Every year, you watch the high priest make the sacrifice.

You watch him enter the tent,

and then the most holy place with the blood.

But never does that sacrifice take away your sins.

It only reminds you of them.

They didn’t remove sins. They reminded of sins.

It reminds you of what you need to get rid of them,

but it never actually gets rid of them.

They function more like a bunch of IOUs.

It delays the payment,

but they just keep stacking up.

Every year, you become more keenly aware of how much you owe, but they never actually make the payment.

Every year you’re reminded that your sins keep you from entering God’s presence.

The old covenant sacrifices were ineffective.

Christ sacrifice is effective and complete

Nevertheless, there was in them a shadow of the good things to come. The true form of these realities came in Jesus Christ. That’s where he goes next: Christ’s sacrifice is effective and final. He develops this from two Old Testament psalms. Christ comes to fulfill what these psalms anticipated.

Psalm 110 It too anticipated a better king in David’s line,

but this king would also be a priest.

So it becomes a very fitting psalm for Hebrews as it shows how Jesus’ priesthood is so much greater than the old priesthood.

Here’s the specific point he draws out, though: Jesus sat down at God’s right hand.

Listen to the way he develops it.

Hebrews 10:11–18 “11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. 15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” 17 then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” 18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”

The old priests had to stand daily.

Again and again they had to slit the animal’s throat and sprinkle the blood and offer the sacrifice.

Same thing next day—always standing.

Why’d they keep standing?

Their work was never finished

By contrast, Jesus sat down after making his sacrifice.

Why? Because another sacrifice isn’t needed.

His death was sufficient, complete.

Nothing more needs to be added.

All our sins are taken away.

So he sits.

It’s finished. It’s final. That’s Jesus’ mic-drop moment, isn’t it?

Hebrews 10:12–13 “12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.”

The Son didn’t stay dead.

God raised him up.

Even more, he seated him at the place of highest honor.

And what that means is this:

“he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

Nothing more needs to be done for God’s people

to enter God’s presence. J

Jesus opened the way for us. He enables us to draw near.

God remembers our sins no more

Do you know what else makes it way better? Jesus’ sacrifice means that God remembers our sins no more.

Remember how this began in verse 3?

Hebrews 10:3 “3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.”

Now look at this in verse 15,

Hebrews 10:15–18 “15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” 17 then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” 18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”

It’s one thing for you to remember your sins.

It’s another thing when God remembers them.

In the Old Testament, there’s a lot of things you want God to remember.

You want God to remember his promises.

You want God to remember mercy.

You want God to remember you in the face of suffering.

But you didn’t want God to remember your sins.

It’s not that he forgot in the sense that it slipped his mind.

He’s omniscient.

It’s covenant language.

For him to remember was for him to act according to his covenant; and his law-covenant demands punishment for covenant breakers.

For God to remember your sins was for him to call them to mind for judgment.

But this is what the cross of Jesus Christ means:

God will no longer call your sins to mind for judgment.

He already called them to mind, and punished them all in Christ.

There’s no reason to call them to mind anymore.

They’ve all been dealt with in Christ.

There’s no longer any offering for sin; Jesus’ was sufficient.

That record of debt you owed—God erases every trace of it.

Your offenses, your guilt—it’s all cleared from your record; and in its place is the righteousness of Christ.

Let’s worship The God who sits upon His throne as King and as our High Priest.