And set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality.
The Christian’s exaltation
1. The same power which raised Christ, raises us.
2. God leaves His dearest children to the depth of misery before He sends relief.
(1) This He does to glorify His power, which does not so brightly appear until things are desperate.
(2) That we may learn the better to put our trust in Him when reduced to extremities.
(3) That He may the more endear His benefits to us, He lets us struggle on long without them.
3. God always sends salvation to His people in due time. There is a double salvation.
(1) Staving off evil, so that it cannot come near us or touch us.
(2) Keeping us, so that it shall not hold us, much less prevail over us.
4. Glory correspondent to humiliation. (Paul Bayne.)
The throne resumed
I. The throne of essential and eternal majesty, which from everlasting belonged to Christ. Sovereign of all worlds, ruling in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, swaying the sceptre as a right of His own self-existence, which the Father owned, and which the Holy Ghost taught the apostle to call “the sceptre of Christ.” Well, then, we are forbidden to find any fault with the manner in which he sways that sceptre. It is a right sceptre. If He sways it to bring a scourge on the land, it is right; if He sways it to bring affliction on any of His people, it is right. If He sways His sceptre to thwart our carnal desires and imaginations, it is right. Now this sceptre of righteousness, this righteous sceptre, which Jesus sways from His high throne eternal in the heavens, set up from everlasting or ever the earth was made, demands righteousness in all the creature performs; and while He bestows and communicates it to all the election of grace, it is so far a sceptre of righteousness that He will execute righteous judgment upon all who live and die haters of His gospel and His truth, and He will extend from the top of His sceptre, as Ahasuerus did to Esther, life, and privilege, and promise, “Whatsoever ye ask shall be done.”
II. Look now at the humiliation to which Christ stooped from His eternal, essential throne. “Though He was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” yet He “took not on Him the nature of angels,” much as He loved them, and much as He employed them, but He “took upon Him the seed of Abraham,” and “humbled Himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.” Then observe, this stoop of humiliation was for the purpose of establishing His mediatorial kingdom on earth.
III. The enthronization resumed. The Father has raised Him up, having suffered the penalty, paid all, done all, conquered all, rescued all the election of grace from the ruin of the Fall. The Father hath raised Him up--not to go through another scene of poverty, persecution, despising, and ridicule, but set Him at His own right hand, as the emblem of power, and that, too, in heavenly places. Then I view my glorious Christ ascended up to where He was before, and exalted up far above all heavens to fill all things, that from His high throne He may manage still all the affairs of His Church, invested with official authority, insisting on the progress and prosperity of His Church, imparting all supplies of grace, even grace for grace, and having engaged, under solemn responsibility, to bring all His redeemed and regenerated family to sit with Him upon His throne. But there are more heavenly places than one. It is given in my text in the plural. I grant the first meaning to be, on the throne of glory in the invisible world, in common with the Father and the Holy Ghost, having all power given to Him in heaven and in earth, that He may give eternal life to as many as the Father hath given Him, viewing Him there enthroned, and never more to quit the throne. Then observe, He is seated at the Father’s right hand, as well as all these heavenly places, to give of His fulness for the reception of His Church; and therefore the apostle said, “Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” Glory to His name, that we have liberty to come as often as we feel our grace vessel empty, and have it replenished, crying unto Him, “More grace, Lord; more grace, Lord!”(J. Irons.)
The exaltation of Christ
1. Our Saviour Christ, as man, is taken to have prerogative before every other creature.
(1) This being so, what reverence ought we to show Him in all our services about Him whose excellence is so high above every creature.
(2) Having one so eminent for our Saviour and Mediator, let us cleave contented to Him, caring to know nothing but Him, accounting all dross that we may be found in Christ.
2. Christ not only as God, but as man also, has power over every creature.
(1) What reason have we, then, to subject ourselves to Him.
(2) Let this strengthen our confidence that He will subdue for us all our enemies.
3. Christ is crowned with glory at God’s right hand before and above all things.
(1) This should draw up our hearts to heaven, where He now sits in majesty. Should we have some friends highly advanced, though in parts very remote from us, we would long to see them and make a journey to them.
(2) This assures us that all we who are Christ’s shall in due time be brought to heaven where He is. The Head and members must be united (Joh_17:24).
4. There is a world to come, in which those who are Christ’s shall reign with Him forever.
(1) This should afford comfort to us in the trials and sorrows of this present life. (Paul Bayne.)
The triumph and glory of heaven
Heaven is a place of complete victory and glorious triumph. This is the battlefield; there is the triumphal procession. This is the land of the sword and the spear; that is the land of the laurel wreath and jewelled crown. This is the land of the garment rolled in blood, and of the dust of the fight; that is the land of the trumpet’s joyful sound; that is the place of the white robe, and of the shout of conquest. Oh, what a thrill of joy shall shoot through the hearts of all the blessed when their conquests shall be complete in heaven; when death itself, the last of man’s foes, shall be slain; when Satan shall be dragged captive at the chariot wheels of Christ; when He shall have overthrown sin, and trampled corruption as the mire in the streets; when the great shout of universal victory shall rise from the hearts of all the redeemed. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ now in heaven
Suppose a king’s son should get out of a besieged prison and leave his wife and children behind, whom he loves as his own soul; would the prince, when arrived at his father’s palace, please and delight himself with the splendour of the Court, and forget his family in distress. No; but having their cries and groans always in his ears, he should come to his father, and entreat him, as ever he loved him, that he would send all the forces of his kingdom and raise the siege, and save his dear family from perishing. Nor will Christ, though gone up from the world and ascended into glory, forget for a moment His children that are left behind Him militant here on earth. (W. Gurnall.)
