JESUS ENTHRONED
Andrew Martin
1 Peter 3: 22
Hebrews 1: 13; 2: 8 (from “But now”), 9 (to “honour”); 5: 5, 6
Psalms 68: 18
We started this morning with the words as to our Lord Jesus:
Jesus, our Lord, on the throne of the Father
Thou’rt crowned;
Thou once on Calvary suff’redst,
of man the disowned;
(Hymn 311).
The Lord Jesus, we know, was rejected here, but He has been crowned above. What took place when the Lord Jesus went up into heaven? What happened? If you read the Acts of the Apostles you will find that Jesus went up into heaven, and then we do not hear any more about heaven for another ten days. We might even look at the Acts of the Apostles and wonder what was happening there. We are not told there of anything happening. But great things took place in heaven, great things when Jesus went up.
The apostle Peter speaks of one thing. The Lord Jesus went up into heaven, having come out of death. Admittedly there was an interval of forty days when He appeared here, but Scripture does not treat time the way we treat time. The gospel of Luke’s account of the resurrection and ascension would almost read as though He came out of death, appeared to His own and went straight up into heaven, chapter 24. Time for God is not a limiting thing. What was immediately before the Lord as He came out of death was that He should go up into heaven. That is a wonderful thing. He had just been cast out of this scene. Publicly those cries had been heard - “Away with this man” (Luke 23 18); “When will he die” (Ps 41: 5); and then that terrible scene at Golgotha when One who was none other than the Son of God was made an object of the sport of man, and the most callous sport of man at that - to mock a Man who was dying. You think of the awfulness of man’s heart. That is what they did, they mocked Him, and they ridiculed Him. You think of all that the Lord Jesus suffered there. Not only did He suffer in His body, there is not only the wrath He suffered from God, that exceeds all sufferings; but there was also the suffering in His spirit. What it meant to Him to suffer on that cross we will never know. They hung Him there upon that cross and they said, “If thou art Son of God, descend from the cross”, Matt 27: 40. They heaped “reproaches on him” (v 44), upon the One who had done no sin, “who knew not sin” (2 Cor 5: 21), the One in whom perfect goodness had been expressed.
They said, “He trusted upon God; let him save him now if he will have him”, Matt 27: 43. You think of that: would God have such a One? The final humiliation of all is in that terrible cry, at the end of three hours of darkness, He acknowledged publicly that God had forsaken Him, v 46. What that must have meant to Him to hear those insults and those terrible expressions of man, and then to acknowledge that in fact God had forsaken Him. Why had God forsaken Him? Not for anything in Himself. He uttered that terrible cry, “why hast thou forsaken me?”. I know the answer to that: do you know the answer to that, my friend? Does every one of us here know the answer to that cry? Why did God forsake Him? It was because of you and me. If God had not forsaken Him then, if He had not suffered under the hand of God and borne God’s terrible wrath against sin and sins, I would have had to bear it in the light of my own sins. When I think of my sins, sins that no one else in this room knows, I could never think of bearing God’s judgment against my sins. He took the whole question of sin upon Himself and He bore the wrath of God against sin, and He bore the sins of everyone who puts their faith and trust in Him.
How can we get away from the cross? I came here to speak about the Lord Jesus in glory, but how can we get away from the cross? It is the fulcrum on which the whole universe pivots. Eternity hangs upon the cross of Jesus, and your future and mine depends upon where we stand in relation to the cross of Jesus. How do you stand in relation to Him who offered Himself, as the great Sin-bearer, to God? The Lord Jesus suffered there. He died, He shed His precious blood; each a great milestone in the work of redemption that was carried out. He was buried, put out of sight: man in flesh and blood conditions put out of the sight of God; the end of man in the flesh. He answered to God’s word to Noah. God had said, “The end of all flesh is come before me” (Gen 6: 13); that is the death and burial of Jesus. If such a One as He was put out of sight in burial, what does it mean for you and me? It means the end of all of us in flesh and blood conditions; not one of us could please God according to our own abilities. It is not within the power of any one of us. It is only by faith, “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Heb 11: 6), that is God. Who do you have your faith in? It must be in a risen Man, One who is no longer in death, but risen; the Father could not allow Him to remain in death. He came in all His glory, the Father came in glory, and raised Him from among the dead. Men did not see it, no. How was the glory there if men did not see it? Everything that God is was involved, every aspect by which we can know God was involved, in the resurrection of Jesus. It must be so; His love was involved. It was a matter of righteousness that Jesus should be raised. It was a matter of holiness that His Holy One should not be left; “neither wilt thou allow thy Holy One to see corruption”, Ps 16: 10. Every feature, every attribute of God was involved that Jesus should be raised.
The glory of God the Father was there and He was raised; it was a question of His power too. The apostle Paul speaks in Ephesians of “the surpassing greatness of his power”, chap 1: 19. The surpassing greatness of His power has been exercised once in the raising of Jesus from among the dead. The power of God is towards us now. The greatest expression of it was in the raising of the Lord Jesus from the dead. The power of death has been broken. Men can overcome all sorts of powers, they do what they can to delay the power of death, but they can never break it. It has its claim upon us and it will come to each of us if the Lord leaves us here. There is nothing you can do to stop it. Nothing any man can do. Mr C A Coates wrote a tract called ‘The Preacher of the Old School’, vol 21 (A Sure Foundation) p12. It is a wonderful tract. He builds up a picture of a preacher that comes into every circumstance. He comes uninvited, comes into every circle of man, rich or poor, high or low. He comes in. The preacher of the old school is death and there is nothing man can do to stop it. The Lord Jesus has been there; death for the believer is not a fearsome thing: it is not a thing to be feared. It is an entrance into what is extremely blessed, the greatest blessings that can be open to man. It is an entrance into what is eternal, into the very presence of the Lord Jesus. He has been into death; He has come out of it, the power of it broken. The resurrection of Jesus is the evidence that the power of death has been broken. The power of death was actually broken when the Lord Jesus went into death. Death could not stand before Him. When any one of us goes into death it is because death has a claim upon us because we are sinners. Death has a claim; it is a governmental consequence of the fact that we are sinners. Death has passed upon every one of us, but it did not pass upon Him. No! It had no claim upon Him. He went into death. In a sense the Lord Jesus went into death as an invader, to claim the territory that Satan held. Satan held the fear of death over men, and the Lord Jesus invaded His territory. He went into death itself and by doing so He broke the power of death. He used Satan’s own weapon to annul him. When David met Goliath, he slang the stone; then he drew the giant’s own sword. David did not have a sword. He drew Goliath’s own sword and cut off his head and killed him completely, 1 Sam 17. The Lord Jesus has overcome the one who had the might of death by using the very weapon that he exercised against men. What a One! How great He is to be able to do that!
As having come out of death, He is now ascended on high. Peter says He is “at the right hand of God, gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being subjected to him”. Death has been overcome by Him. How right it is that every power is subjected to Him. He has gone on high as the Conqueror. He is the One who is there as the great Victor. He has now gone into heaven itself. No earthly place is sufficient for Him. The earth is still in the hands of the wicked one: “the whole world lies in the wicked one” (1 John 5: 19); you get the evidence of it all the time. If you just glance at newspaper headlines; you say, ‘I do not want to read that, it is evil; I am not reading that’: “the whole word lies in the wicked one”. There is no place here for the Lord Jesus. He has a place in glory; yes, a place that has been reserved for Him, a place that no one else could fill. Think of the Father as receiving the Lord Jesus in glory. We are not told too much about it. One soul had an impression of the Lord Jesus going up into heaven -
Received in glory bright up there,
The Father’s greetings, honours rare,
Are heaped upon His Son’s blest brow;
He is the mighty Victor now.
Hymn 350
What does the Father say? “Sit at my right hand, until I put thine enemies as footstool of thy feet”, Ps 110: 1. You think of that invitation; it had never been issued to any one before. No one else was worthy of it. Who could fill that place? In Chronicles, at the end of the history of David, Solomon sits on the throne with David his father; they share the throne. Solomon did not have his own throne at that time; it comes later. At that time, he sat on the throne with David his father. The Lord Jesus is sitting on the Father’s throne: why is that? Has He not a throne of His own? Yes, and He will soon take that throne and the whole universe will see it when He comes out in kingly glory. What a day that will be; but at the moment He is sitting on the Father’s throne. Why should He be sitting on the Father’s throne? The Father always conveys to us God known in grace. The Lord Jesus is sitting on the Father’s throne because this is the day of grace; a day when God is favourable to us. God is favourable to men because He is setting forth and presenting One who shares His throne with Him; One who has overcome every hostile power. He Himself says that to the overcomer of Laodicea: “He that overcomes, to him will I give to sit with me in my throne” (Rev 3: 21) - that is in a coming day - “as I also have overcome, and have sat down with my Father in his throne”. God is there with the One who has overcome every power that was opposed to God, and the Father says, now, “Sit at my right hand”. The work has been done: sit; “Sit at my right hand”. In natural things, you sit down when you have finished your work. All the work has been done. He is sitting down at the Father’s right hand, “angels and authorities and powers being subjected to him”. Angels, authorities and powers, heavenly beings - and in fact all powers - have been subjected to the Lord Jesus. You might ask, ‘How can that be? You just told me that “the whole world lies in the wicked one”; how can all powers be subjected to Him?’ They are only allowed to go so far. God works things out even through the wickedness of man and they are only allowed to go so far. In the book of Job you find even Satan was used to bring about God’s end. Men are allowed to go so far. It is all under the hands of the One who is now established on high at the right hand of God.
What a place He has! It is the One who God is presenting as a Saviour. We read in Hebrews that He did not say to any of the angels, “Sit at my right hand”. The Hebrew believers were Israelites; they were Jewish; they were familiar with the ministry of angels. That was the way God communicated with His people in the Old Testament. Angels were sent with messages. If we take people like Samson’s parents (Judg 13), and others, Gideon (Judg 6), and even Lot (Gen 19), angels were sent to communicate with them. People were afraid of these beings and well they might be too. They were powerful beings. You think of the angels going down to Sodom; they literally dragged Lot out of the place, and then God destroyed it. You think of a later event in Hezekiah’s day: “it came to pass that night, that an angel of Jehovah went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty five thousand” (2 Kings 19: 35); well might people be afraid of angels. When Jesus was raised from the tomb, there was a guard there at the tomb. They were no ordinary soldiers; they were the guards; they knew how to look after things. “Behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending out of heaven, came and rolled away the stone”, Matt 28: 2. He did not say anything to them, he just “rolled away the stone and sat upon it”, and “the guards trembled and became as dead men”. Possibly nothing had frightened them before, but when they saw that angel they “became as dead men”. Think how great an angel is. Could one of those beings fill that place at God’s right hand, could an angel? “As to which of the angels said he ever, Sit at my right hand”. It was unthinkable; that place could only be filled by One blessed Man, our Lord Jesus Christ. There He is now at the right hand of God; He fills that place.
What is He doing there? Psalm 68 says, “Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts in Man”. Could that really refer to the Lord Jesus on high - receiving gifts? Yes it does. You think of the Lord Jesus on high, a glorious Man, and He received gifts. That is something the Father did. He installed Him on high; He gave Him a place at His right hand; He has made principalities and authorities subject to Him and He has given Him gifts; given gifts to His own Son in glory at His own right hand. Why has the Father given the Lord Jesus gifts? Surely One so great as that; why would He be given gifts? He has been given gifts in order that He should dispense them as Man; a wonderful thing to think of that. This passage is quoted in Ephesians; He “has given gifts to men”, 4: 8.
The Lord Jesus received gifts. What were the gifts? We already know there was one gift that Peter speaks about in Acts, “Having therefore been exalted by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit”, chap 2: 33. What a great gift that was: He “received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this”. The Holy Spirit had come. The Lord Jesus speaks in John about the Holy Spirit as the One whom “I will send”, chap 16: 7. What a wonderful transaction that was. In a sense it is beyond us to take in, that He should receive “of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit”, and then He should pour it out upon faithful believers here who are waiting upon Him. Beloved, think of that taking place; the Lord Jesus asked the Father for that. He asked the Father; that was one of the things He did when He went on high. He promised He would do it: “I will beg the Father, and He will give you another Comforter”, John 14: 16. The Father has done that; He has given Him gifts. So the Lord Jesus received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit and then He poured it out. You see divine Persons working together here. If you read chapters 14-16 in John’s gospel you find that the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father, He is sent by the Lord Jesus Himself and He comes Himself from with the Father. Divine Persons always work together and it is all in view of the blessing of man and for the glory of God. That is primarily what is in view; glory for God and the blessing of man. It is all centred in a Man who is now at the right hand of God having “received gifts in Man”. God loves to bestow things: He loves to give gifts.
What other gifts do you have? Do you have the gift of faith? It is something that God gives. Faith was seen so perfectly in the Lord Jesus here as Man on earth and it is given to us in order that we should be in the light of One who is now in the glory, One who is now at the right hand of God. How wonderful the gift of faith is. Paul speaks in Ephesians about the gifts that have been given to the assembly, chap 4: 7, 8. That is in view of the good spiritual health of those who form the assembly. Every need is met; all supplied from a blessed Man now at the right hand of God, One who has taken up the question of all that stood in the way and has resolved it all for God’s satisfaction and is now dispensing the answer to every need, “even for the rebellious”; “thou hast received gifts in Man, and even for the rebellious”. You say God is not going to give gifts to the rebellious. I can tell you one thing; I would not be here today if God withheld gifts from the rebellious. Every one of us must take that place. If we exercise our own will it means we have turned away from God. To exercise our own will is an act of rebellion against God.
God has given gifts; He gives repentance. The Lord Jesus never needed repentance. That is one thing that God gives. He is showing His goodness to us when we repent. When we are rebellious, we can repent. It is the only way into blessing, “repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ”, Acts 20: 21. We get nothing without repentance. We get nothing without faith. These are the great keys to divine blessings, “even for the rebellious, for the dwelling there of Jah Elohim”, the dwelling of God. Can you have part in the dwelling of God? Yes; indeed that is by the Holy Spirit being here; He has made His abode in us, in those who know their sins are forgiven, who love the Lord Jesus and seek to obey Him. Obey God and ask the Father for the gift of the Holy Spirit. He will give His Holy Spirit. What a thing that is to receive the Holy Spirit. If I could give you my spirit it would mean you would think the way I think, and my way of doing things would be your way, my interests would be your interests. In a word you would participate in my life if I could give you my spirit. God has given us His Spirit. The wonder of that! It is consequent upon the Lord Jesus being on high. It is one of the things that took place. The Lord Jesus went on high; the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out. It could not be done before that because “the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified”, John 7: 39. After He was glorified the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out. The Lord Jesus is still there in glory. We are here; we have to go through this scene. We have to learn how to get through; we know that our sins are forgiven, we know we have the gift of the Holy Spirit and that all resources are in the hands of that blessed One, all powers have been subjected to Him in glory.
Still we find it a struggle. Satan is so devious that sometimes you begin to think which way should I go, which way should I look? When I was a boy there was a church nearby, and they had what was called a wayside pulpit, an advertisement outside. I remember on one occasion there was a big sign which said ‘if the outlook is dark try the up-look’. When things are confusing, and confusion is one of Satan’s greatest weapons today, try the up-look. Look up: there is a Man above. He sees through the circumstances, He is our High Priest, He is not unable to sympathise, He knows, He will afford guidance and be with us in our weakness. He was made a High Priest; Christ has not glorified Himself to be made a priest, God made Him a Priest. God says, ‘I have my High Priest, One that I have made High Priest’. He is High Priest above; He could not be a High Priest down here. The Lord was not of the priestly family down here, but on high He is a Priest according to another order; He sees us in our infirmities, in our weakness. He sees us in all the things that afflict us in our time here. The Holy Spirit would constantly direct our hearts to Christ because He is the One who intercedes for us. He speaks to God about us; He speaks to the Father about us. Think of the conversations going on in heaven. Is it not humbling to think that such a One as the Lord Jesus is speaking to the Father about you? That is what He does. He is a Priest there, on high interceding with the Father in order that there may be something from your heart and from mine which is pleasing to the Father. “Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedec”; that means that He is a Priest greater even than a priest who might function only according to our needs. This is a Priest who functions in order that there should be something for God; the Lord Jesus as on high, securing an answer for God. He is securing it from souls like you and me.
May He get a greater answer. For His Name’s sake.
Sunbury
15th April 2018