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Apostles Creed 17: The Holy Catholic Church

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction

So as we approach the 500th anniversary of the commencement of the Protestant Reformation, it is fitting that we have now come to this phrase in the Creed — why do we, stout Protestants that we are, confess that we believe in the holy Catholic Church. Maybe in addition to being stout Protestants, we are also confused Protestants?

The Text

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord.  He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.  He descended into Hades. On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.  I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen

Summary of the Text

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25–27).

Husbands are told to love their wives in the way that Christ loves His wife. He loved His Church, and a result of that love was that He gave Himself for her. Giving-love is not a special sort of love; giving love is love. Not only did He give Himself, He gave Himself with a particular end in view. He had the future glory of His bride in mind, loving her with the full intention that the end of the process would be altogether lovely. That ragamuffin street girl would marry the Prince of Heaven.

Now the basic truth in all this is not complicated. The Lord Jesus is a monogamist. He has one bride, and He is going to love her throughout all the course of human history, and will love her efficaciously such that every spot, wrinkle, and blemish is removed. That one bride is the holy catholic church. If you want to know where this catholic church is located, simply look for the Spirit of Christ. As Cyprian once put it, where the Spirit is, there is the church.

A Few Comments About Terms

The word catholic simply means universal. In fact some of you may have been in churches that, when they said the Creed, footnoted this word to make sure you knew that. “Yes, we are a catholic church, but not catholic catholic.”

Our modern use of Protestant and Catholic is somewhat misleading. When the controversy that resulted in the Reformation began, there were two parties to the conflict. There was the papal party and there was the reforming party, both functioning within the Church. Without injustice, we may think of the terms this way. There was the Roman Catholic faction and there was the Protesting Catholic faction. Both claimed to be representing the one, true, catholic and apostolic faith. Both still claim that. But think for a moment. Roman Catholic is oxymoronic—Rome is a city in Italy and catholic means universal.

But Are Protestants Negative?

It would be easy to think that Protestants are defined by what they are against. We hear the word protest in Protestant, loud and clear. But it would be better to link it to another way of breaking the word down—think of pro-testimony. This is a confession of what we believe—and to the extent we are against something, it is merely that we are against the renewal of lunatic persecutions on the basis of faith. This was the origin of the term Protestant (at the second Diet of Speyer). They weren’t picketing; they were testifying.

The Church through History

But what would you say if an intelligent Roman Catholic asked you this (quite reasonable) question? “Where was your church before the Reformation?” There are two faithful Protestant ways to answer this question, and both have a great deal of merit. The baptistic answer points to what is called the “trail of blood.” “Where were we before the Reformation? Hiding from you guys, mostly. In mountainous valleys, caves, and deep forests.” The other answer comes from what are called the magisterial Protestants, and it runs like this: “Well, where was your face before you washed it?”

What we do not want to do is pretend that our church came into existence in 1517 in Germany, or in 1799 on the Kentucky frontier. We are not restorationists. If your church cannot be traced back to the faith and martyrdom of Abel, then it is far too young. For those who want to argue on the basis of antiquity alone, they need to remember that Cain was older.

But in the meantime, we should not feel ashamed to own, as our brothers in Christ, men like Boniface, Chrysostom, Augustine, or Anselm. The entire history of redemption belongs to us, and this includes the declensions as well as the reformations and revivals.

Defined by Word and Sacrament

We believe that the gospel is prior to the church, and is the foundation for it. We believe that the gospel is prior to apostles, bishops, pastors, evangelists, not to mention mountebanks and frauds. “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8). The Church is the plant that grows from the seed, and the seed is the gospel. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Pet. 1:23). Wherever the gospel comes, life follows after it. And when life follows, and you have two or three born again by the Spirit of God, there you have the church. If you had five infidels washed up on a desert island, and a Bible with them, could they repent and start worshiping God? Absolutely.

The Boundaries of True Faith

John Calvin taught that when you want to recognize someone, you look at their face. You don’t try to define where a man “leaves off” by trying to calculate the precise end of his tie, or the tips of his shoelaces.

You can say confidently that all of Nebraska is in the United States. And you shouldn’t be worried about which atoms of ocean water are in our territorial waters and which ones are outside. That’s not how you tell where the United States might be.

Taking it a step further, when you want to find the true church, look for Jesus. Where is He honored and worshiped? Where is He proclaimed? Where is His bread broken, and His wine poured? Look for Jesus and you will find His bride. That is because He never leaves her side.

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Apostles Creed 16: I Believe in the Holy Ghost

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction

The fact that the Holy Spirit is mentioned by name late in the Creed does not make Him an afterthought. He is not present here as a postscript. When we begin the Creed with the words I believe, this is only possible because the Holy Spirit has been at work. He is the one who quickens us into new life, and who is therefore the one who consequently enables us to believe any aspect of the gospel.

The Text

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hades. On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Summary of the Text

“In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” (Eph. 1:13). We see here in our text that the Spirit and the Word accompany one another. The word of truth, the gospel, the message of salvation, is the thing anointed, and the Spirit is the one who anoints it with Himself. He anoints the message by anointing the believing ears that hear the message. This is how we are sealed. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of promise. He is the one who was promised through the prophets, and the one who fulfills the promise, as well as the present comforter who renews the promise.

Not A Blind Force

Because the work of the Spirit is to testify to Jesus (Rev. 19:10), and the work of Jesus is to bring us to the Father (John 14:6), it is sometimes easy for us to start taking the Spirit’s “behind the scenes” identity for granted. But we must understand Him, and this begins with understanding that He is a Him. He is not an impersonal force, like electricity or something.

Throughout the New Testament, we consistently find the Holy Spirit referred to by the masculine personal pronoun, despite the fact that the word spirit is grammatically neuter. As a Person, the Holy Spirit can be grieved (Eph. 4:30). It is possible to lie to Him, as Ananias and Sapphira did (Acts 5:3).

The Holy Spirit speaks commands and can be obeyed (Acts 10:19-21). The presence of the Spirit is a comforting presence (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit has a will (1 Cor. 12:11). There are many other such passages. Included in the Trinity, the Spirit is not an impersonal addition to the other two persons.

In God to God

Remember that there is only one God, and this God exists in three eternal persons. These persons are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We need to consider this triune God in two different ways. Note that we are considering Him in two ways; we are not considering two Gods. Theologians distinguish God as He is within Himself (the ontological Trinity) and God as He works in our midst (the economic Trinity). The following illustration is an illustration of His economic working.

“For through him [Christ] we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” (Eph. 2:18). The Father is the city we are driving to, the Son is the road we travel, and the Holy Spirit is the car. The Father is the harbor we are sailing toward, the Son is the ocean, and the Holy Spirit is the wind behind us in our sails. The triune God brings us to Himself along Himself by Himself.

The Earnest of Our Inheritance

Our text says that we were sealed by the Holy Spirit. This is said a number of times. “Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Cor. 1:22). The word for earnest is arrabon, meaning down payment or earnest money. It means pledge, deposit, or guarantee. God gives us Himself as an earnest payment on our final inheritance, our final salvation. Someone might say that this does not prevent someone so sealed from going to Hell. Well, all right, but that means that if a sealed believer goes to Hell, the Spirit goes there with Him.

What good is a guarantee that guarantees nothing? God is not like a dishonest merchant who gives out lifetime guarantees, where the guarantee is only for the lifetime of the product. “It is guaranteed to work until it doesn’t.” “Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 5:5). The verse after our text says the same thing. “Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:14).

The Spirit Glorifies Christ

We believe in the Holy Spirit, and He is the one who enables us to believe everything that we should, in gladness rejoicing.

“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 5:18–20).

What produces the same effect in the parallel book of Colossians? “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col. 3:16). Put these two passages together. The Spirit is not the “fluid” that fills us. Rather, He is the agent who fills us with something else, the word of Christ. “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly by means of the Holy Spirit . . .” We believe in the Holy Spirit, most certainly, but we believe from within Him.

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Kingdom Building: The Big Picture – Douglas Wilson (Post-College Life 2017)

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Introduction:

In the parable of the mustard seed, the Lord Jesus teaches us not to despise the day of small beginnings (Zech. 4:10). We see a disproportionate result from the tiniest of garden seeds—an herbal plant that can grow to twice a man’s height. When this happens, it is not an instance of things going terribly wrong—the seed is the kingdom. The Text:“Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof” (Matt. 13:31-32).Background:Jesus put forward this third parable in this series of seven, and this parable and the following one about the leaven are found in between the telling of the wheat and darnel and the interpretation of it. Jesus says here that the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed (v. 31). A man (unidentified) takes the seed and plants it in his field (v. 31). Mark’s version of this parable says that the seed was sown “in the earth” (Mark 4:30-32), and Luke’s version says that the man sowed the seed in “his garden” (Luke 13:18-19). The Lord says that the seed is the smallest of the seeds and yet results in a plant that is the greatest of all the herbs—treelike. The result of this phenomenal growth is that the birds of the air come and take up residence in the branches (v. 32).

Remember that Jesus gave us an answer key with the parable of the sower so that we would know how to handle all of them. But what use is an answer key if you don’t use it? The sower is clearly Jesus. And since the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, it is clear that the mustard plant is that same kingdom grown to a remarkable size, especially considering its insignificant beginning. The previous parable was meant to teach us not to be thrown by the presence of evil in the kingdom, and we see the same thing here. The birds of the air represented the devil in the first parable, and there is no reason to change anything here. The kingdom grows to a size that allows for evil to take up residence. But just as darnel is not wheat, so also birds are not mustard branches.

Reformations Come From Dead Reformers:

Jesus teaches us here that in His kingdom the effects are disproportionate to the causes. The cause is a small seed, and the result is a large plant. Don’t think with simplistic carnal categories. The Lord Jesus elsewhere adds another detail, which is that seeds are not just small in comparison to the plant, they are also dead (John 12:24). There is a sharp contrast with regard to size, and also a sharp contrast with regard to death and resurrection.

Jesus set the pattern in the way He established the kingdom in His death and resurrection. He is the seed . . . and He is the resurrection and the life. He died, and the whole world is quickened as a result. But He did not just die—He also died and rose to set the pace for all who would come after Him. This is how it is done. Take up your cross daily, and come follow Him.

Are you small seed? How about your efforts and plans?

This is why the Reformation was the glorious event that it was. It was this because at the time it was nothing of the kind. Think of it this way—as someone once said, every society lionizes its dead troublemakers and its living conformists. Which prophets have memorials built in their honor? Why, the dead ones! At the time of the Reformation, the Reformers did not walk to their churches, or their meetings, or their homes, past great big statues of themselves. They were not there yet. At the time, they were being hunted. Prices were on their heads. Luther describes the Christian as a solitary bird, sitting on the rooftop and warbling his little song. As one tech executive once said, nothing great was ever accomplished by a reasonable man. Part of this unreasonableness is that he expects greatness to arise out of insignificance. “How do you know you will conquer the world? How will you manage to fill Jerusalem with your doctrine?” “That is easy—I know we can do it because we are nobody.” Faith is what overcomes the world, and faith can fit in a mustard seed.

Walking It Back:

The number of commentators who do not want Jesus to have told this parable (and the next one, about the leaven) is quite striking. We are like the handlers of a political candidate who uttered some gaffe in front of the microphones, and our job is to go into the spin room in order to “fix it.” This parable of small beginnings and enormous results sounds a little bit too much like Constantine did a good thing. And we then set up shop to argue that Constantine did a terrible thing, and our argument in favor of this idea is that birds came and nested in the branches of the mustard plant. But . . . isn’t that what Jesus said would happen? How is this an argument for not planting the mustard seed in the first place?

When Things Go Wrong:

In the world the Lord is talking about, when things go wrong, that means we are right on schedule. Someone has once wisely observed that the kingdom of God proceeds from triumph to triumph, with all of them cleverly disguised as disasters. Begin with the greatest of them—the crucifixion. Chesterton once put it this way: “Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a god who knew the way out of the grave.”

Thinking Like Seed:

Jesus is the Lord of history, and we are not. What is the job of the seed? It is to go in the ground and die, expecting great things to result from it. But if we are too busy to do that, if we are re-explaining the parables, or keeping children away from Jesus because He is a busy man, or otherwise making ourselves useful, we are being too busy to think like seed.

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Apostles Creed 15: From Thence He Will Come to Judge the Living and the Dead

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction

We believe that there was a time when the world was not. God spoke, and all of it came into being out of nothing. We believe that there will be a time when the world (as it is now) will cease to be. That will come about in the same way—God will say the word, and it will be done. But it will not go back to nothing. There will be a transformation, a glorification, a completion. And those who are in Christ will dwell with Him forever.

The Text

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord.  He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.  He descended into Hades. On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.  I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Summary of the Text

“Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).

Not only is it appointed to each man once to die (Heb. 9:27), a final day, a last day, is also similarly appointed for the entire world. The world will have a death bed. The world will end on that fixed day, and God the Father Almighty knows when that day will be. Not only will the world end, but just as it is with individual men (“and after this the judgment”), so also it will be with the planet. Jesus will judge the world in righteousness. The world is appointed to end, and Jesus is ordained to judge it.

If any are disposed to challenge this, God has given assurance to all men that this will in fact happen. This assurance (the word in our text is pistis, commonly rendered as faith) was given through the vehicle of Christ’s resurrection. Modern apologetics too often spends its energy trying to prove the resurrection. In Scripture, the resurrection was not the datum to be proved, it was rather the proof of something else. That something else is this phrase in the Creed. Jesus will come again, from the right hand of the Almighty, and He will do so in order to judge the living and the dead.

Partial and Full Preterism

One quick point before turning to the main theme. You have been taught that many passages traditionally thought to be about the end of the world were actually prophecies about the end of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. What you have been taught about this is called partial preterism. Some of the prophecies in the New Testament were fulfilled in the first century (e.g. Matt. 24:29). But there is another school of thought which holds that all of the New Testament prophecies were about the end of Jerusalem, and that we have no prophecies about the end of the world. This view is called full preterism, and because it denies the Second Coming of Christ, it is heretical.

There are many doctrinal views and variations concerning the Second Coming (as I am sure you know), and the Christian church universal has made only one statement in all her history about eschatology. That solitary statement, made here in the Creed, is that full preterism is wrong.

The Fault Line

The Bible teaches that there are two humanities, two races, two ways of being human. One exists in Adam, Adam as he fell into sin. The other is a reestablished humanity, a renewed humanity, created in Christ Jesus, the last Adam. The first humanity was corrupted and turned aside from the way. God could have written the whole thing off as a loss, but in His good pleasure He determined to re-create a new and glorified humanity out of the raw material provided to Him by us—raw material that was hopelessly diseased. Christ was born into this old race (without sin), and lived a perfect and sinless life. He was executed by our rebel leaders in such a way as to pay the debt for our sins, and He was resurrected into new life in such a way as to enable us to participate in Him—to join with Him in that life by faith. If we look away from Adam, and look to the new Adam in faith, we are translated from one race to the other.

Now Scripture speaks of these two ways of being human under many different figures. Here are just a few of them. They are wheat and tares (Matt. 13:30). They are sheep and goats (Matt. 25:33). They are sons of the devil and sons of God (John 8:44; 1:12-13). They are fruitful branches and fruitless branches (John 15:1-2). They are land that bears a harvest and land that grows thistles (Heb. 6:7-8). They are maidens with oil and maidens without (Matt. 25:1-13). They are guests in wedding clothes and guests in sweat pants (Matt. 22:11-14). This basic division is not the same thing as the division between the visible church and the world.

The One Thing Needful

There is another division among men that is irrelevant. Jesus will come to judge the living and the dead both. That is not the fundamental division. Whether you are alive the moment He returns or have been dead for a thousand years will not matter in the slightest. Nor will your position in Christ or out of Christ affect whether your body will be raised. There is a resurrection of both the just and the unjust. Every last man, woman, and child will stand before God in the body.

“And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust” (Acts 24:15).

“Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:28–29).

The Bema Seat

We will all appear before the throne of Christ. This judgment seat (bema) means that our lives will be evaluated, whether we are justified or not.

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences” (2 Cor. 5:10–11; cf. Rom. 14:10-12).

The Criterion of Ultimate Judgment 

It is singular, criterion, not plural. How you will fare in the judgment is not based on criteria. How will we fare? What work must we do to prepare ourselves for that day? There is one work, and only one work that will suffice, and it is to look upon the one who actually did the work.

“Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:29).

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Apostles Creed 14: And Sits at the Right Hand of God the Father Almighty

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction
In the creation of Adam as pictured on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, God the Father has a right hand. But the God of the Bible is Spirit, and has no right hand—for He has no body at all. At the same time, with few exceptions (e.g. Acts 7:55), the Scriptures repeatedly tell us that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God. What does this image mean? What are we being instructed to believe?

The Text
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hades. On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Summary of the Text
“The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, Until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (Psalm 110:1).

At the culmination of the Ascension, Jesus came before the Ancient of Days in the throne room of God (Dan. 7:13-14). Upon that entry, He was given an absolute and universal dominion over all things. This is where God invited Him to sit at His right hand until the end of human history. This enthronement of Christ is indicative of His faithful completion of all that the Father had given Him to do. The last day of resurrection excepted, the remainder of the great work of redemption was to be done by a Spirit-empowered Church.

“Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him” (1 Cor. 15:24–27).

This session of Christ, His seating at the right Hand of the Father, is a doctrine repeated over and over in the New Testament, and it is the basis for all our labors. The fact that Christ is seated is an indication of His completed work. As our prophet, priest, and king, He has accomplished the work the Father assigned to Him.

Prophet
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life: In thy presence is fulness of joy; At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11).

Seated as He is by the Father, Jesus teaches and instructs us through His Holy Spirit. We know that this psalm speaks of Christ because the previous verse (v. 10) is quoted in Acts and applied to Jesus (Acts 13:35). Jesus taught His disciples that His Spirit would come to instruct them, and that instruction is part of the prophetic office (John 14:26; Matt. 10:19-20; 1 John 2:27).

“Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear” (Acts 2:33).

Now using the language of the psalm, Jesus is the one who shows us the path of life. He teaches us. He is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). For those who believe in Him, out of their bellies living water would flow (John 7:38-39), referring to the Spirit. The Way is established because the one who lived it perfectly, and who also taught it perfectly, has now been seated at God’s right hand.

Priest
“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” (Heb. 8:1). “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God” (Heb. 10:12).

Here we are taught that Jesus completed His priestly work. He died on the cross, once for all, and after He ascended into Heaven, at some point He applied the blood of His sacrifice to the heavenly altar (Heb. 1:3; 9:12), also once for all. And then—because our salvation is complete—He sat down. From that position, as a seated priest, He continues to pray for us. “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us” (Rom. 8:34).

Notice the gospel logic here. Christ died, rose, and was seated at God’s right hand. He prays for us there. So who is he that condemns?

King
“Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him” (1 Pet. 3:22).

We saw earlier that the appearance of Christ before the Ancient of Days resulted in Him being given universal dominion. This position is one of authority and power.

“Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Matt. 26:64; cf. Mk 14 62).

The Great Commission instructs us to bring the nations to obedience. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is the King—the King of kings. We must do as He says.

Prophet, Priest, King
It is hard to cover all the references to this doctrine in just one sermon. There are a number of other passages we don’t have time to address (Mk. 16:19; Acts 2:34; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3; 1:13; 12:2). There are many aspects to this, and a multitude of possible applications. But at the end of the day, the charge is this. We are not up and doing because it is all up to us. We stand because Christ is seated.

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