Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of Jesus as carrying on the great work of mans salvation from first to last / by Isaac Ambrose ...

SECT. IV. Of God's right hand, and of Christ's Session there.

2. FOr the Session of Christ at God's right hand, which is a consequent following af∣ter his ascension into Heaven, I shall examine. 1. What is God's right hand? 2. What is it to sit there? 3. According to what nature doth Christ sit there? 4. Why is it that he sits at the right hand of God his Father in Glory?

1. What is this right hand of God? I answer, 1. Negatively, it is not any Cor∣poral right hand of God; if we speak properly, God hath neither right hand, nor left hand; for God is not a body, but a spirit or spiritual substance. 2. Positively, the right hand of God is the Majesty, Dignity, Dominion, Power, and ••l••••y of God. The right hand of the Lord is exalted, the right hand of the Lord doth valianity.— Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in Power; thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. Thou hast a mighty arm, Strong is thy hand and high i•• thy right hand. —Mine hand hath laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the Heavens. I know some of our Divines make this right hand of God some∣thing inferior to God's own power, but others speak of it as every way equal, and I know no absurdity to follow on it.

2. What is it to sit at the right hand of God? I answer, it is not any corporal Sessi∣on at Gods right hand, as some picture him with a crown of gold on his head sitting on a Throne, as if he had no other gesture in Heaven but sitting still; which Stephen con∣tradicts, saying, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on th•• right hand of God. The words sitting or standing are both metaphorical, and borrowed from the custome of Kings, who place those they honour, an•• to whom they commit the Pow∣er of government, at their right hand; more particularly, this sitting at Gods right hand implies two things. 1. his glorious exaltation. 2. The actual administration of his Kingdom.

1. Christ is exalted, Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow; this Session is the su∣preme dignity and glory given by the Father unto Christ after his Ascension; this Ses∣sion is the peerless exaltation of the Mediator in his Kingdom of glory. But how was Christ exalted? I answer, 1. In regard of his divine nature; not really, or in it self. Impossible it was that the divine nature should receive any intrinsecal improve∣ment, or glory, because all fulness of glory essentially belonged unto it; but decla∣ratory, or by way of manifestation; so it was that his D••vinity, during the time of his humiliation, lay hidden and overshadowed, as the light of a candle is hidden in a dark and close lanthorn; but now in his Session that Divinity and Glory which he had alwayes with his Father was shewed forth and declared, He was declared to be the Son of God with Power, both at his resurrection and at his Session. 2 I•• regard of his humane nature; and ye•• that must be understood soberly, for I cannot think that Christs humane nature was at all exalted in regard of the grace of Pers••nal union, or in regard of the habitual perfections of his humane soul, because he possessed all these from the beginning; but in regard of those interceptions of the beams of the

Godhead, and Divine glory; and in respect of the restraints of that sense and sweet∣ness, and feeling opperations of the beatifical Vision, during his humiliation; in these respects Christ was exalted in his humane nature, and had all the glory from the Diety communicated to it which possibly in any way it was capable of. There was a time, when the Office which Christ undertook for us made him a man of sorrows, but when he had finished that dispensation, then he was filled with unmatchable glory which be∣fore his Session he enjoyed not; there was a time when the natural consequence and flowings of Christ's glory from that personal union was stayed and hindred, by special dispensation, for the working of our salvation; but when that miraculous stay was once removed, and the work of our redemption fully finished, then he was exalted be∣yond the capacity, or comprehension of all the Angels of heaven, To which of the An∣gels said he at any time, sit at my right hand? in this respect it is said that God highly ex∣alted him; exalted he was in his Resurrection, Ascension, but never so high as at his Session; in his Resurrection he was exalted with Jonah from the lower parts to the up∣per parts of the earth; in his Ascension he was exalted with Elijah above the Clouds, above the Stars, above the Heavens; but in his Session he was exalted to the highest place in Heaven, even to the right hand of God, Far above all Heavens, that he might fill all things.

2. Christ reigns, or actually administers his glorious Kingdom; and this is the prin∣cipal part of Christ's sitting at God's right hand. So the Psalmist, The Lord said un∣to my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, untill I make thine enemies thy foot-stool; the Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion, rule thou in the midst of thy enemies. The Apostle is yet more large, God set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principallity, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. Some describe this Session at Gods right hand to be all one with his reigning in equal power and glory with the Father, but the Son hath alwayes so reigned, and the holy Ghost hath alwayes so reigned, who yet is not said in Scripture to sit at the right hand of the Father, I believe therefore there is some∣thing in this Session or Reign of Christ which doth difference it from that reigning Power and Glory of the Father, and of the Son as only God, and of the holy Ghost; and if we would know what that is; I would call it an actual administration of his Kingdom, or an immediate executing of his Power and Glory over every creature as Mediator. There is a natural, and a dispensatory Kingdom of Jesus Christ; for the first, the Father reigns immediatly by the Son, but by the holy Ghost the Father doth not reign immediatly, but through the Son; the same order is to be kept in their power, which is in the Persons; the Father reigns not by himself, but of himself, be∣cause he is of none; the Son reigneth by himself, not of himself, because he is begot∣ten of the Father; the holy Ghost reigneth by himself, but from the Father and the Son, from whom he doth proceed. And as in the natural, so in the dispensatory Kingdom, the Father reigns immediatly by the Son as Mediator; and hence it is that the Son as Mediator is only said to sit at Gods right hand, because the right of actual administration, or immediate execution of the Sovereign power is appropriate and peculiar to the Son, as Mediator betwixt God and man. And this made Christ to say, The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, as Mediator. You may object, Christ was Mediator immediately after his incarnati∣on, but he did not actually administer his Kingdom then. I Answer, it is true; Christ for a time did by a voluntary dispensation empty himself, and laid aside the right of actual administration of his Kingdom; but immediatly after his Ascension, the Fa∣ther by voluntary dispensation resigned it to the Son again; Come now, saith the Father, and take thou power over every creature, till the time that all things shall be subdued under thee. This right the one relinquished in the time of that humiliation of himself, and this right the other conferred at the time of the exaltation of his Son.

Notes

• Psal. 118.15. Exod. 15.6. Psal. 89.13. Isa. 48.13.
• Acts 7.56.
• Phil. 2.9.
• Rom. 1.4.
• Heb. 1.13.
• Eph. 4.10.
• Psal. 110.1, 2.
• Eph. 1.20, 21, 22, 23.
• John. 5.22.