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Communion Message: Jesus Sat Down at the Right Hand of the Majesty on High

(Hebrews 1:1-3)

August 2018

Dr. Mary Craig

In communion we remember the Lord’s death until He comes. What happened as a result?

In the series “The Just Shall Live by Faith” we recently looked at Hebrews chapter one, and today I want to focus our attention again to Hebrews 1:1-3.

Before the Incarnation, the coming of Christ into human history, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, God spoke unto the fathers by the prophets. With the coming of Jesus, God spoke in His Son. Human history either explains or applies the meaning of Jesus Christ, the Word of God.

Jesus made known the Father who sent Him into the world on a mission with a message. The Father reveals the Son; the Son reveals the Father. Jesus manifested the nature of the Father, who gave Jesus all things. We are to know that all things the Father has given to Jesus is of the Father. Jesus gives the Word of the Father. The desire of Jesus’ heart is that those given to Him by the Father would be kept and would have His joy fulfilled in themselves. Jesus wants oneness. There is oneness among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus wants that oneness to be experienced by those given to Him by the Father. These will be kept; none shall be lost.

God appointed Jesus to be heir of all things. By Jesus, God made the worlds. We can know that Christ will keep His promises. This is His faith, and His prayer, and so the promises are “Yes” and “Amen.” Jesus is the heir because He made all things. All things were created by Him and through Him.

Jesus is the brightness, or radiance, or outshining of God’s glory and the express image of God’s Person. He upholds all things by the Word of His power. When He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

The wrath of God against all that is contrary to His nature and ways made purification from sins necessary in order to restore fellowship with the Father. All of salvation is about getting back to the Father. Sin breaks that fellowship that God desires. Jesus did all that was necessary and sufficient to enable forgiveness of sins, to enable sin to be removed, to enable purification. Jesus died to pay the penalty our sin deserves, He rose from the dead on the third day, and He ascended into heaven. He sat down at the right hand of the Father to rule until all His enemies are put under His feet.

The Son of God sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. What makes it fitting for Christ to sit down at the right hand of the Majesty on High.

He is the radiance of God’s glory.

He is the exact representation, the express image of God’s nature, of His person.

He upholds all things by the Word of His power.

He made purification of sins. (Hebrews 10:12-14)

Christ was seated at the right hand of God. God glorified Him. God honored Him. Jesus sits in this place of glory, honor, power, and authority because His offering up of Himself accomplished what God the Father intended. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. He sent Jesus on a mission with a message. Jesus did the work the Father gave Him to do. He accomplished the task. He finished. It is a completed work.

Believers are sanctified in preparation for glory. They are set apart, separated from sin and the world in order to be separated unto God. They are sanctified by the Word which is Truth and by the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Truth. As we know the Truth and acknowledge it, we turn around from our own way and by grace and with the working of the Holy Spirit within us, we change. As we discover Living Hope, as we place our trust, our confidence, our faith, our hearty reliance on Jesus Christ alone, on who He is and what He has done in our behalf, we find that by the Holy Spirit we are engaged in the process of being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Let’s remember this today: Christ covered our sins so completely that He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14) As Jesus made purification of our sins, His blood purged our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:12-14)

Jesus obtained eternal redemption for every true believer. Every true believer has judicial acquittal and is reckoned as righteous, in right standing, before a holy God, the God Jesus addresses as Holy Father.

Thus Jesus was exalted to God’s right hand. The death of Jesus Christ, who lived also the life of perfect, personal, perpetual obedience, was necessary and sufficient to cover, to cleanse, to remove all sin and everything that stands in the way, everything that separates those for whom He died, from fellowship with the Father. Christ reigns today in heaven and on earth because of the sufficiency of His work, a work given to Him by the Father, a work He finished perfectly.

Remember today another thing, also in Hebrews 1:3. Everything in existence in creation is upheld by the word of Christ’s power. We depend on Christ for our very existence. This is dunamis, ability, miracle-working power, abundance of power. Christ preserves our existence and the existence of all things. (John 1:4; Colossians 1:17; Rev. 4:11)

Let’s get real. Let’s discover the reality. We think what we see around us and we ourselves are the foundational reality in the universe. It is what we see, what we explore and examine and search out for new discoveries. But the reality is this: Jesus Christ upholds all things by the Word of His power. By Him all things consist; they hold together. The reality of Jesus Christ and His Word. One Word and it’s poof to existence. The reality is a spiritual reality. The Word is spirit and life. The Word of God carries power within it. It is living and active. The Word is Truth. The Word is what’s real. That Word is to be indwelling us. We are to put Truth in the inward parts. I am, I exist, because Christ caused my existence. I continue to exist because of Jesus Christ. Christ preserves our souls and bodies and spirits; we’re trusting that every moment from birth to re-birth to the love of God drawing us to Himself when we physically die.

Jesus’ Blood, what He did, would not have the worth or value it has if it were just anybody. Who Jesus is makes what He did worthy of our trust, our worship, our obedience, our honor, our desire to glorify Him.

To see Christ is to see God. If we see Christ, we have seen the Father. (John 14:9; Colossians 1:15) We’re not talking about a painting of a person, that kind of representation. We’re talking about radiance, like the way rays of sunlight relate to the sun. It’s not a perfect analogy, of course. Christ being the radiance of God’s glory has to do with Christ being co-eternal with God the Father. Christ is not essentially different from the Father. The rays of the sun are extensions of the sun. So Christ is eternally begotten of the Father, but not made. The sun streams forth in radiance. We see the sun by seeing the rays of the sun. Christ is the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person. The rays of the sun reveal the sun to us. Christ reveals the Father to us.

© 2018 Mary Craig Ministries, Inc. All rights reserved.

Psalm 110:1 ESV A Psalm of David. The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”

Matthew 22:44 ESV “‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’?

Matthew 26:64 ESV Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Mark 14:62 ESV And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

Mark 16:19 ESV So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.

Luke 22:69 ESV But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.”

Acts 2:33 ESV Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

Acts 2:36 ESV Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Acts 5:31 ESV God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

Acts 7:55-56 ESV But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

Romans 1:20 ESV For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Romans 8:34 ESV Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

1 Corinthians 15:25 ESV For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

Ephesians 1:20 ESV That he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,

Colossians 1:16 ESV For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Colossians 3:1 ESV If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Hebrews 1:3 ESV He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Hebrews 1:13 ESV 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”?

Hebrews 8:1 ESV Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,

Hebrews 10:12-13, ESV Hebrews 10:19-22

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

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Hebrews 12:2 Looking to Jesus, the author/origin and finisher/perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

1 Peter 3:22 ESV Who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Revelation 3:21 ESV The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.