“The Lord said to my Lord sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool” (Psalm 110:1).
After the Lord Jesus completed his perfect work of salvation He ascended into heaven, and on clouds of glory He approached the Ancient of Days. The Lord Christ, the Great High Priest, presented His perfect sacrifice to God the Father. It was received with great rejoicing, and the Son of God was granted His inheritance of universal and complete dominion over all the sons of men. Scripture presents this truth us in the image of Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father. Every tribe, every nation, every people must now submit to Him. Every knee must bend before Him, and every tongue must confess that He alone is worthy of our worship and service.
In the wisdom of God it was ordained that this dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ would not be manifested instantaneously. But rather as yeast works through loaf of bread, the kingdom of God will slowly permeate all the nations of men. As the rock cut without hands grows and becomes a mountain that fills the entire earth, so the kingdom of God will grow and subdue everything before it. As the water flows out from under the threshold of the temple, getting deeper and deeper as it goes, so the living water of the gospel of Christ flows from the New Temple until it fills the earth as the waters cover the sea, and all will know the Lord.
The Lord Christ took his seat at the right hand of the Father two millennia ago. He is seated there now, and Scripture tells us that he will remain there until all his enemies are beneath his feet. He is King of kings and Lord of lords; as temporal kings and lords progressively acknowledge this truth, His enemies collapse before him.
But how will they come to acknowledge such a thing? Will it be through political action or social involvement? No, the scepter in the hand of the Lord is the gospel of Christ in the mouths of his preachers. As they declare in faith who the Lord is and what he has done, the Lord sovereignly and majestically and efficaciously works in the hearts of unconverted men, and they are changed by his grace.
We have this confidence because our Lord and Savior did not come into the world to condemn the world. Nor did He come into the world to try to avoid condemning the world if He could. No, He came to our rebellious world to save it. And His finished work on the cross will not be seen to have accomplished its principal purpose until the world is saved. This is a promise of Scripture that our anemic modern church has long forgotten. We have abandoned the Great Commission through redefinition; this is one of our most grievous sins against the Lord. As His people, we of all people should know and acknowledge that Christ is Lord of all. Was it not promised to Abraham that all nations would be blessed through him? We do not believe that this means all the nations of men will be thrown into hell for rejecting Him—it means that His conquering cross, HIs efficacious redemption, will overcome their hatred of His holiness and their rejection of His kingdom. What! Do you somehow think that He, rejected by men, went back into the heavens to sulk about it? Do we think that rebellious mankind has frustrated His declared intention and purpose? The Scriptures tell us nothing of this kind of defeatist dreaming.
He went away, but He has not left us here alone and powerless. He has sent His Spirit to enable us to do what He commands from His throne. And what has He commanded? Did He want us to evangelize a few Pakistanis? A handful of Chinese? A tiny number of Russians? Though we might like to think in such limited terms, His command was for us to disciple the nations. He has commanded the church, in His name and on His authority, to conquer the world through the fearless proclamation of the New Covenant that He has established with His people through His blood.
As we look at the world around us, it is easy to lose heart. But this does not excuse us, for it is our principal sin—we look at the world to determine what is possible instead of looking and faith to the risen Christ, seated with the Father. When the ten spies came back from spying out the land, they were not praised for their faintheartedness. Why should we expect praise for the same kind of faintheartedness?
Where did we get our common notion that Christ came into the world to give saving the world the old college try? Christ came into the world to drive the prince of this world out. He came and suffered in order to draw all men to Himself. Again, He came into the world, not to condemn the world, but to save it. We, with more exegetical nerve than responsibility, have turned this into the wistful dream of a forlorn Christ, rather than what the Bible declares it to be—the finished work of the conquering Christ. The Christ of modern evangelicalism is sitting at the right hand of the Father all right, but he is on the edge of His seat, wringing his hands over the world’s unwillingness to be saved by Him. Of course the world is unwilling! That is why He died—to overcome and conquer and subdue and destroy that unwillingness. Has he done it? The Bible says that he has. We like to think he has not, and our repentance is long overdue.
The day is coming, and now it is, when God will make His people willing on the day of His power. Preachers of the gospel of Christ will declare, in power and faith, the message of grace to every nation, in every tongue. Do we have the eyes to see this? It depends entirely on where and how we look—and that depends upon the graciousness of the Father to us.
This is a truth which can be seen only by faith, and this faith comes from hearing the Word of God. It does not come from pouring over newspapers for signs of the end, and not from gazing at the sky, feverishly trying to calculate the time of the end. Nor will it come from panicked reaction to the lies and stories of the most current false prophets and teachers.
This is a faith that comes from God; it can be seen only as God the Holy Spirit illuminates the teaching of Scripture. But once God has given us eyes to see this wonderful truth, it can be seen from any vantage point. This is because Christ has been lifted and exalted above every name and he is therefore visible throughout the world—the world that will be saved. We know that this will happen because in the efficacious cross of Christ, the world has already been saved.
Credenda Archives
Vol. 5/Num. 1