What is justification?

Justification is an act of God’s free grace unto sinners,[1] in which he pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in his sight;[2] not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them,[3] but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them,[4] and received by faith alone.[5]

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Seven Statements about the Son: Seated at God's Right Hand

 
Hebrews 1:2b-3 gives us seven statements about Christ, the Son of God. This post winds up a series of posts on these statements by looking at the last statement: Christ sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. As I did with a couple of the other posts, I’ll start at the end phrase in this statement and work my way forward.

• The Majesty On High
  The Majesty isn’t a common way to refer to God. It’s used again in Hebrews 8:1, and that ‘s pretty much it. It refers in both places to God the Father, and emphasises the greatness of God. Christ is at the right hand of God the Father in all his greatness.


• At the Right Hand
  
  The term right hand of God is figurative language. We can’t take it (as some people have this week in a certain thread on the Baptist Board) to mean that God has a body. God and heaven are beyond our abilities to describe exactly, and the writers of scripture often use word pictures to convey important truths about them to us.
  
   
  In this case, the image of Christ  at God’s right hand is meant to tell us something about the relationship Christ has to God—and all of creation, too—after he completed purification for sin. The right hand of God is a place of honor—the highest possible place—right next to God. Christ humbled himself to make purification for sins, and after that he returned to his place of glory and dignity and authority.  1 Peter 3:22 tells us that Christ
  

  has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

  That Christ is seated at the right hand of God assures us that he is not just another created being, but one to whom all creatures are subject. And if all creatures, even creatures with special authority, are subject to him, then he is not a creature at all, but rather in the class of one and only Creator.
  
   
  And yet, that Christ is at the right hand of the Majesty on high also suggests that he is distinct from the Father. He is with the Father, but he is not the Father. His placement also indicates a degree of subordination to the Father.  The one “at the right hand” is the one who carries out the will of the one he sits beside. We know from some of the other statements in these verses that Christ is equal to the Father. We have already, for instance, been told that Christ is God’s exact imprint. So this subordination must be a voluntary subordination, and not subordination that comes because Christ is somehow less in value or worth or importance than the Father.


• Sat Down
  And Christ is sitting.  In Hebrews 10, we learn a little more about the significance of this sitting position.

  And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God … . For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. (Hebrews 10:11-14)

  It is because Christ’s work of atonement is finished that he is no longer can take a seat. I wrote a post on this once called Christ Who Sits, and maybe I’ll just quote from that. I’m allowed to do that, right?

  An old covenant priest stood daily in his priestly work. He was always in a standing position in God’s presence because his ministry was never done. Over and over again, every day, he offered the same sacrifices—sacrifices that that had to be repeated because they were ineffectual, for they didn’t actually take away sins… . The old covenant priest’s sacrifices never cleansed completely, and the outward cleansing they provided was only temporary… . Day in and day out they had to do exactly the same work, and that it was necessary for them to keep repeating only served as a reminder of how unsatisfactory the work they did really was.
  
  The text gives us a very different picture of Christ’s work as Priest, however. Christ offered one sacrifice of himself, and then he sat down on the right hand of God. His work was over because his work was effectual… . It “perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” Never again does his work have to be repeated, for this Priest did a complete job: his work cleanses completely and cleanses forever. It is finished.

So what does it mean for us that Christ sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high?

• It means that we are subject to his authority.
• It means that he deserves our worship.
• It means that we can rest—we don’t have to work for our salvation—because he is resting, having completed all the work required for it.
• That Christ is equal to the Father and yet at his right hand gives us a model for the rightful existence of ordered authority among people who are  equal in value or worth.
  

In the last post, I mentioned that I thought this statement and the one before are really two halves of one statement, so that this section isn’t really seven statements about the Son, but six, with the last one being, “After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high… .” For one thing, taking it that way makes it parallel with the statement in chapter 10 that I quoted above, which says that “when Christ had offered for all time a sacrifice for sin he sat down at the right hand of God.” 

But there’s another reason why I think the two statements (and perhaps verse 4) might go together. I noticed something while composing these posts. Some of the statements seemed to parallel others, and I think those parallels might show something of chiastic structure, but I don’t know enough about it to be a good judge of it. So let me show you, and you draw your own conclusion. I’ve used the letters a, b, and c to show the parallels in the statements: 

• a. whom he appointed the heir of all things,
• b. through whom also he created the world.
• c. He is the radiance of the glory of God
• c. and the exact imprint of his nature,
• b. and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
• a. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, [and I’d probably add verse 4 as well] having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

There you go. You tell me: Do you think there is chiastic structure there or  not?

And while we’re at it, can you think of other things to add to the list of what this statement means for us? Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?

A Few Things Mowed Over

Yesterday I mowed the back yard. It took me a couple of hours, and my back yard isn’t that big. The yard first needed to be mowed about 2 weeks ago, but since then the weather has only cooperated long enough for me to get the front yard cut. In much of the back yard, the grass was 8 inches or longer, and thick, thick, thick. Mowing it was quite the slog.

I like mowing. My sister and I mowed the big church yard of the church my dad pastored when I was in junior high and high school, and I learned then that mowing is great for thinking.  Maybe too great for thinking. My sister loves to tell the story (or is it stories?) of me absentmindedly mowing over the hose and destroying it. I don’t remember much about it, but of course, she remembers it perfectly. Sisters are like that.

That sort of thing might run in the family, by the way. One of my children—I won’t say exactly which one—tried to mow over a six by six by four inch clump of aluminum. Of course, in that case, it wasn’t the clump of aluminum that was destroyed. 

I also received an email yesterday from a regular reader who lives in New York.  She is here in Whitehorse so her husband can take part in the Yukon River Quest. We may get together for coffee if we can work it out, and if we do, it will be the first time I’ve met someone in real life that I first met through blogging.