Christ has not abandoned this world, even though he has ascended and is no longer visibly present. He still operates through Christians and the church although his personal center is in heaven. Because he has been working in his church, I am writing these words and you are reading them. Yet I believe that there is very much more to Christ than I am now able to know of him by his presence here in this world. He holds the highest possible position at the master control center of the universe. That’s what I mean when I say: He sitteth on the right hand of God.
Most men do their work with their right hand. Someone who is capable of sharing my work, who has put himself at my disposal and is willing to carry out my wishes, is my “right-hand man.” The right hand is the place of power, the place of honor, the station of faithful friends and trusted counselors. Now I don’t imagine that God has sides with arms and hands, but I know that his “throne” is the hub of all power in heaven and on earth. I believe that the one nearest to this center of things is Jesus Christ. I-le is God’s right-hand man. Christ is in on all the secret counsels of God. God’s program and Christ’s continuing activity fit together perfectly. One of our human race is in such intimate communion with the Father, so at one with the Almighty, that he in effect presides over the outcome of future history. Whatever men may think that God is like, Christians know that God’s world is not merely a mindless machine run by a pitiless impersonal power. The world is in the hands of the most wonderful person I could ever imagine, one who possesses at least the highest human qualities that men have ever known. That person is Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of all.
Christ sits to serve our best interests and those of God. He sits like a judge or a parliament, like a consultant or an advocate. He has the power to handle things nicely and calmly from where he is. The Christ who once died for us still lives for us and is performing a heavenly ministry on our behalf. As long as Jesus is right there at the center of things, we know that God is sticking by his dream for mankind. Beholding Jesus, he still has hope for the rest of us. God has not given up the human race. He maintains his patience and withholds his hand, waiting for us to respond properly to the word and Spirit of Christ. Our poor, mistaken, sin-ridden, faltering prayers come to the Almighty filtered “through Jesus Christ, our Lord.” Jesus makes the most of what is worthwhile in them, and wisely screens out the rest. Something of his own Spirit gets into our prayers as he prays them for us. We certainly have a friend to speak for us at the court of heaven. If he were not there in glory upholding our cause, our days of grace would long since have run out, and history would have come to an earlier end in the last judgment.
Books by Dr. John A. Ross
