Several times, the Word tells us that Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Hebrews 1:3 is a good illustration:
Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Again, in Hebrews 8:1–2:
Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.
There is another expression connected with His heavenly ministry that we ought to notice—this clause: “He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12).
It was a “once and for all” ministry.
Hebrews 7:27 gives us the same thought: “For this he did once, when he offered up himself.”
These two expressions are connected with His heavenly ministry.
You remember there are two phases of Christ’s ministry.
One is His substitutionary work from the cross until He arose from the dead.
In those three days and three nights, He settled the sin problem, conquered the adversary, made the new birth a possibility, and made righteousness available to every person who receives eternal life.
His work at the right hand of the Father is what we might call a manifold work.
We must learn to appreciate the value of His ministry now at the right hand of the Father on our behalf.
He unveiled it to me very clearly, that had Jesus stopped His work after He had done this great substitutionary ministry from the cross to His resurrection, had it ended there, no one could ever have been saved.
The next step in the drama had to be the carrying of His blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies and making the eternal redemption for us.
You remember in John 20:17, when Mary saw Him, she fell down at His feet and tried to grasp them. Jesus said to her, tenderly, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father.”
What did He mean? He arose as the Lord High Priest.
You remember in Matthew 28:5–6, the angel said to the women who came to the sepulcher, “Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”
He died a Lamb, but He arose as the Lord. Lordship means absolute mastery and dominion.
Jesus died in weakness; He arose with all the authority and power and majesty of deity.
He had conquered the dark forces of Satan.
He had dealt with the sin problem and redeemed humanity.
He made eternal life a possibility and sonship a glory.
Now He says to Mary, “Touch me not.”
Why? He had not carried His blood into heaven yet and sealed the document of our redemption. The claims of justice had not been met.
JESUS, OUR HIGH PRIEST
Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:17)
The claims of justice had to be met first.
God had to be vindicated before the supreme court of the universe.
He had given His Son to redeem the human race.
That Son had died as a substitute.
He had risen as the Lord High Priest of a new covenant.
You understand, He had fulfilled the old covenant and there had been the annulling of the priesthood and the law of the sacrifices with the old covenant.
Now a new covenant has come into being and there must be a new priesthood.
There must be a new law.
The old priesthood was to deal with servants.
The new priesthood is to deal with sons.
The old priesthood had the Ten Commandments called “the law of death.”
The new covenant has but one commandment, “the law of life.”
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. (John 13:34)
JESUS, OUR MEDIATOR
The first ministry that Jesus took after He had carried His blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies, was that of a mediator.
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. (Hebrews 9:12)
He went in with His own blood and that blood is the seal upon the document of our redemption.
Hebrews 9:24 says that Christ entered “into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.”
His high priestly ministry is over, as far as our redemption is concerned. His work is finished. He said, “It is finished” on the cross, but that didn’t have reference to His substitutionary work. That had reference to His finishing His work of fulfilling the first covenant and everything that pertained to it.
The priesthood, the sacrifices, the atonement, and the law—all that was finished.
They no longer were operative.
Now the temple can be destroyed: the priesthood can cease to function, because their covenant on which everything was founded has been fulfilled and set aside.
JESUS, OUR SAVIOR
The next office that Jesus fills is that of a Savior.
Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. (Titus 2:10–11)
Jesus is God’s Savior.
For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)
No man can save himself.
No man can make himself righteous or give to himself eternal life. There is but one Savior—the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for us all.
He might be a Savior; He might be God’s own Savior, but His work of salvation would be limited and of no real value unless there was a mediator between God and man.
How often we hear in evangelistic meetings, an invitation to come to Jesus and get sins pardoned. If the one who invites the unsaved understood the glad tidings, he would never speak like that. It is not coming to Jesus but it is going to God through Jesus.
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all. (1 Timothy 2:5–6)
Until we recognize the mediatorial ministry of Jesus, our ministry will be cramped.
No man can reach the Father but through Him.
I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)
Jesus there is magnifying His position as Mediator.
What the sinner needs is eternal life and remission of his trespasses. He must be made a new creation, but he cannot approach God. He has no standing with God.
When Adam sinned in the garden, he forfeited his legal right of approach to God.
Jesus, by His great substitutionary work, purchased the right to be the Mediator between the unapproachable God and the sin-ruled sinner.
When the unsaved man makes his approach today, he wants to reach God.
He wants eternal life.
He wants the wiping out of all his old sins.
Jesus sits there as the Mediator between God and man.
He can be touched with the feeling of the infirmities of that lost world for which He died.
JESUS, OUR INTERCESSOR
He is not only the Mediator between God and man, but the moment that the unsaved man accepts Him as his Savior, He also becomes his Intercessor.
How happy my heart was when I first knew this.
I had someone to pray for me that I knew the Father would hear.
I remember what Jesus said as He stood before the tomb of Lazarus:
And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always. (John 11:41–42)
I have someone now to vouch for me, someone who never forgets me.
Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)
Here is a precious fact: the Greek word that is used as save here is sozo, which can be translated as “heal,” and it is rightly used because sin is sickness.
Disease is sickness, and Jesus came to sozo us out of the hand of the enemy.
Isn’t it wonderful that He ever lives to make intercession for us; to heal us of physical and spiritual diseases; to restore our broken spirits; and to hold us in the hour of temptation and trial?
Not only is Jesus our great Intercessor, I love to think of Him as a high priestly Intercessor. But He is more than that.
JESUS, OUR ADVOCATE
First John 2:1 says, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
That is a remarkable expression and it is a wonderful ministry.
There He sits at the right hand of the Father, as the sinner’s Savior, as the believer’s Mediator, but now the believer is out of fellowship.
The adversary has gained dominion over him. He is under condemnation.
It seems as though his heart would break, and then he remembers in the midst of his sorrow and grief that Jesus is his Advocate, his lawyer, who ever lives, not only to make intercession for him, but He is there to appear before the Father on his behalf.
So the believer lifts up his voice and cries, “Father, in Jesus’s name, forgive me,” and his great Advocate whispers, “Father, lay that to My charge.”
So everything is wiped out and once more he can stand before the Father without condemnation.
You see, He is called the righteous Advocate, because the believer that has sinned has lost the sense of righteousness and his righteousness is of no avail to him as long as his heart is under condemnation.
Then he needs his righteous Advocate, who can go into the Father’s presence and make an appeal for him and restore that lost joy and the sense of righteousness again.
You see, the present ministry of Jesus is of infinite value to the believer.
JESUS, OUR LORD
Not only is He Savior, Intercessor, and Advocate, but He also is our Lord and Head.
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. (Colossians 2:6–7)
I read that over and over many times.
That Scripture was like a storehouse filled with priceless treasure, but I couldn’t seem to get a key to it.
Then I saw what it meant.
He wanted me to be rooted and established in the reality of the lordship of Jesus over me.
When I first began to study about His lordship, I was afraid of Him. I had a feeling that it meant slavery to me, but it didn’t.
It meant just what the Psalm 23:1 says: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
Why? He has me lie down in green pastures where food is abundant, where water is near me, where I am fully protected from the elements and from my enemies. (See verses 2–3.)
He is my present Shepherd-Lord.
The word “LORD” means “bread provider, shield, and protector.”
He is all that a husband can mean to his wife.
He is all that a lover can mean to his beloved.
The Father wants me to be rooted and grounded and built up in this blessed truth.
He wants my faith to rest upon absolute certainty of the lordship of Jesus over me.
Then my heart will be full of abounding joy and thanksgiving.
You see, until we know about the Lordship of Jesus at the right hand of the Father, there will never be that quiet restfulness in our spirit.
You can find that practically all the believers who are living beneath their privileges, are having a hard time in their spiritual life.
They have never been instructed in the ministry of Jesus at the right hand of the Father.
Years ago, I held a blessed campaign in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. Months afterward, I returned for another campaign, and I asked the congregation, “What truth helped you the most?”
Many voices answered back, “Your teaching about Jesus’s ministry at the right hand of the Father.”
JESUS, OUR SURETY OF THE NEW COVENANT
He is not only our High Priest, Savior, Intercessor, Advocate, and Lord, but there is another priceless ministry of my seated Lord. He is the “Surety of the New Covenant.”
For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof. For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God. (Hebrews 7:18–19)
By a single stroke, He has cleared up the issue of that first covenant and the law.
Because of their weakness, they could not make men righteous; they could not make men holy; they could not give eternal life.
Hebrews 10:1–4 will throw much light on this:
For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
But there has come a new covenant, and on the basis of that new covenant, we may be born again, born of heaven, born of God. We receive the nature and life of the Father God.
We may become the very righteousness of God in Him.
Can anyone overestimate the value of such a covenant?
This is a covenant of love, a covenant of life, a covenant of the new creation.
And inasmuch as not without an oath he was made priest: (For those priests were made without an oath; but this with an oath by him that said unto him, The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever…). (Hebrews 7:20–21)
You see, Jesus was outside of the priestly family.
They became priests by being born into the priesthood naturally. The oldest son was always the high priest.
But Jesus was a Priest by an oath of Jehovah: “The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever.”
Now notice this great sentence:
By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death: but this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. (Hebrews 7:22–24)
There is a priest who abideth forever as the surety of this new covenant.
Back of this new covenant then, what we call the New Testament, we have Jesus as its surety.
From Matthew 1 to Revelation 22, Jesus and His throne are back of every word.
Now you can quote Jeremiah 1:12: “I will hasten my word to perform it.” Jesus can say, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35).
That is the Word of the new covenant.
His blood is the red seal upon the document of this covenant. On the ground of the integrity of that indissoluble covenant, you and I can build a faith that cannot be shaken.
“HE…SAT DOWN”
Now you can understand what this beautiful expression means that is used in Hebrews—“He…sat down.”
We go back to Hebrews 1:3 and feast our spirits upon it: “Who being the brightness of his glory [the very outshining of His glory], and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power.”
The word translated “power” means “ability.” All the ability of deity is back of that covenant.
Now, notice carefully: “…when he had by himself purged [or substituted for] our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
He is in the highest seat in the universe and holds the highest office in the universe, and He is my Lord.
He is the Head of the body, and “of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16).
How rich we are. We can never again talk of our lack of our weakness, of our unworthiness, because that great substitutionary sacrifice that He wrought for us has guaranteed to us eternal life, and a standing with the Father, victory over our enemies, peace that passeth all understanding, joy beyond words.
All are ours because of what He is for us now at the right hand of the Majesty on high.