He Sitteth at the Right Hand of God

His Energy

Tue Right Hand is the symbol of the putting forth of Power. The Psalms abound with such words as these:

Thy vight hand, O Lord, ts glorious in power;

Thy vight hand, O Lord, has dashed in pieces the enemy.

The right hand of the Lord is exalted:

The vight hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.

This is only a figure of speech. God is not to be localised at any one spot in His boundless universe. He is everywhere, and He is equally everywhere. Every part of the wide creation is equally His throne, and equally the place of His right hand. This is the inner secret on which Faith builds her reckonings.

Wherever there is the putting forth of Divine energy, you have the operation of the right hand of the Most High. When a sparrow falls to the ground in the forest depths, it is there. When a little child is suddenly withdrawn from peril, it is there. When a faithless disciple is about to sink into the depths of the lake, it is there to

catch and uphold him. If we take the wings 129 of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall His hand lead us, and His right hand shall hold us. He caused His glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, dividing the water before them, to make Himself a glorious name. Whenever the Prophets and Seers of the Hebrew Commonwealth came across an urgent need for the Divine Interference they did not hesitate to bid the Almighty pluck his right hand from His bosom in order to deliver and avenge. ‘‘ Awake, awake, oh arm of the Lordy:

We are therefore quite prepared for the announcement of the Evangelist, that when our Lord had finished His instructions to His disciples, he was received up and continued to co-operate and work with them, as they went everywhere preaching His word. So deeply inwrought into their consciousness was this conception, that when the Apostles had returned to their own company from the remonstrances and threatenings of their foes, they asked the Lord to stretch forth His hand and do wonders and signs in the sight of the people.

There are two significant expressions in the Book of the Acts. It begins something in this strain: “In my former treatise, the third Gospel,

I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught as a beginning.” Notice the careful wording which the beloved physician adopts. He does not admit that the death of our Lord put an end to His mighty deeds, but that when the Heavens received Him out of their sight, He was only just beginning to make His mighty power known, He sits at the right hand of God, ever going forth in its company to do great things for His people.

We are told also in Acts ii. 47, that “the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved.” Notice it is said that the Lord did this great and blessed thing. Not only does He do - according to His will, in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, but when a dying but penitent malefactor is lifted from a scaffold to the Paradise of God, whenever the tears of broken hearts have to be wiped away, whenever the lips of the Messenger have to be touched with a live coal from off the altar, whenever a brand has to be plucked from the burning, whenever a Saul has to be arrested on his murderous path in answer to the prayers of an Ananias, there the right hand of God is going forth in its might or soft gentleness, and Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, All in all, in its operations.

Sometimes we are told that He worked by His servants, and sometimes with (Acts xv. 4 and 12). The first preposition suggests instrumentality, the second co-operation. But each confirms the thought that Jesus zs the right hand of the Most High. He is the energy of God, whether in Creation, Providence, the Evolutions of human history, or Redemption.

Let us not think of ourselves, then, as standing alone, like Athanasius against the whole world. If we are only doing His will in His way, we may reckon on Him with absolute certitude. Never before the time, and never behind, He will come riding upon a cherub, and flying on the wings of the wind.