The four Leiden professors return once more, offering a summary of the Bible’s teaching on Christ’s heavenly session, an expansion of some points, and corrections to misunderstandings still with us today.
‘The right hand of God’ cannot be taken in its literal sense, because God is Spirit.
A Royal Metaphor
21. The final step of Christ’s exaltation is his sitting down at God’s right hand, and we shall deal with it in what follows.
22. On this point ‘the right hand of God’ cannot be taken in its literal sense, because God is Spirit and so he lacks flesh and bones; rather, it is taken metaphorically, to stand for that highest step of glorification to which the Father raised Christ up after his passion and ascension into heaven.
23. Moreover, this metaphor is derived from the practice of kings and rulers whose custom it is, when they take their seat upon the throne … to give a place at their right hand to people on whom they bestow the highest honour (next to their own), or whom they make partakers of their kingly rule. And so when king Solomon sat down on his throne he placed his mother at his right hand (1 Kgs 2:19). Similarly, in Psa 45:10 the queen is placed at the right hand of her king. In this way also the mother of the sons of Zebedee in Matt 20:21 desired of Christ that in his Kingdom the one might sit at his right hand and the other at his left.
That last example is telling. The mother of James and John understood exactly what she was asking for — and so did everyone listening. The right hand was a recognised position in any royal court.
Which Kingdom Is Meant?
24. And so this sitting down of Christ at the right hand of his Father does not strictly mean that glory and natural Kingdom which the Son of God shares with the Father from eternity, for if that were the case then also the holy Spirit should have his seat at the right hand of God. But it means the economic and voluntary Kingdom in which Christ was established as the God-and-man and our Mediator, for the gathering and defence of the church. Therefore, the apostle Paul asserts that ‘the Father has put all things under his feet, except him who has made all things subject to him’ (1 Cor 15:27).
Follow the argument in paragraph 24, because it’s neat. If ‘sitting at the right hand’ referred to the Son’s eternal divine glory, the Spirit would need a seat there too. He doesn’t. Therefore something else is meant — the mediatorialkingdom, established for gathering and defending the church.
What the Session Contains
25. And so the sitting down by Christ at the Father’s right hand encompasses these two things: first, that glory and supreme honour whereby he has received the name that surpasses every name, and whereby he was raised up far above the angels and all other creatures and became their heir and head (Eph 1:20-22; Phil 2:9-11; Heb 2:7-8).
26. This glory of Christ as Head is not merely in name only, but it is also accompanied by power and rule over all creatures. With this, as the King and Ruler over all things, he effectively gathers the church out of the world by his Word and Spirit, and by his power he keeps it safe and guards it against the world and against Satan, and he does so until he will triumph completely over all his enemies.
27. In addition to the places cited above this actual power and rule is demonstrated by a comparison of Psa 110:1 and 1 Cor 15:25. For the words … ‘Sit at my right hand until I shall make your enemies a footstool for your feet,’ are given by the apostle this as an equivalent substitute: ‘For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.’ Therefore, also Matt 26:64 and Mark 14:62 call it ‘the right hand of God’s power’ and Matt 28:28, ‘all power in heaven and on earth.’
Two things, then: glory and power. Not an honorary title but an operative rule.
In Which Nature Did He Sit?
28. At this point, the question arises: in which nature did Christ, strictly speaking, sit down at the right hand of God? And the correct answer is: in both natures. … [H]is Divine nature received no new gifts here, other than a renewed use and manifestation of the glory and power which he had from eternity, as Christ himself asks in John 17:5: ‘Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.’ Yet it was his human nature that received both from the Father, the glory and the power (as can be gleaned from Matt 28, Phil 2, Heb 2).
Did He Earn It?
29. The question also arises, whether it was strictly speaking through his passion and death that Christ merited this glory for his human nature. … [W]e are of the opinion that the opposite point of view, which is shared by many Reformed writers, rests upon arguments that are stronger. The chief one of these is that his glory was owed to Christ by the right of his hypostatic union,1‘Hypostatic’ means ‘person’; ‘hypostatic union’ means that in the person of Jesus Christ are united both his divine and human natures. He is in his one, single person fully God and fully man. and as the Son’s rightful inheritance (Psa 2:7; Heb 1:2). And so, by the consensus of all theologians, that hypostatic union does not follow upon any merit — which is why the apostle Paul also uses the word ‘to bestow a gift’ in this context (Phil 2:9).
Note the courtesy of that paragraph. We really do not wish to enter into a dispute with those who make this claim.Then the reasons, then the conclusion. A model of how to disagree.
The Ubiquity Error
30. But as to the fact that some of the Ubiquitarians2Ubiquity: Jesus Christ being everywhere, omnipresent. maintain that by this sitting down at God’s right hand Christ’s body became present in all places in heaven and on earth, besides the fact that it fundamentally overturns other Ubiquitarians who derive this imaginary omnipresence from the hypostatic union, they are in disagreement with various obvious places in Holy Scripture, as these mention only one return of Christ into this world, i.e., when he will appear in glory at the end of the age.
That final point is decisive and simple. Scripture speaks of one return. If Christ’s body were everywhere already, that promise would mean nothing.