Near the end of our last podcast episode, we briefly looked at the last two verses in Mark’s longer conclusion, and saw tucked within it, a reference to where Jesus would go in Heaven after His ascension. However, since the conclusion of Mark’s gospel has some controversy surrounding it, I thought it would make sense to focus one episode on the specific idea of Jesus being seated at God’s right hand, since this idea has both a connection point in the Old Testament, and it is referenced numerous times in the New Testament.
To remind us of the passage we concluded our last episode with, instead of starting with the Old Testament passage like we have typically done so far this year, let’s instead start briefly in Jesus’ ministry before looking back on the passage that serves as the foundation for this idea.
In our last episode, the last passage we looked at was in Mark, chapter 16, and we read it from the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 19, the author of this conclusion wrote:
19 So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. 20 And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them, and confirmed the word by the signs that followed.
In this conclusion, when Jesus is received into heaven, He takes the favored position of being at God’s right hand. While some people might understand why this would be, other people, including many religious leaders living in the first century, could not comprehend this thought.
However, we are in luck because during Jesus’ ministry, He has an opportunity to draw this topic into the open, and He does so in a way that silences the religious leaders’ vocal opposition.
Part way through the week leading up to the cross, several groups of religious leaders approach Jesus with challenges for Him to solve. The first group to bring a challenge to Jesus were some Pharisees who had temporarily allied with a group known as the Herodians and they came to Jesus with a seemingly unsolvable dilemma related to paying taxes.
Next, a group of Sadducees came to Jesus with a logical and very difficult challenge focused on the validity of the resurrection framed within a dilemma focused on marriage and remarriage.
After Jesus had answered the Sadducees, a religious expert appears to throw Jesus an easy question about what the greatest commandment was, but before this full challenge had finished, it appeared as though Jesus derailed His challengers with a question of His own.
In Jesus’ question to all the religious leaders present, He quotes from the following psalm. Reading from Psalm, number 110, starting in verse 1, we discover that:
1 The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at My right hand
Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”
2 The Lord will stretch forth Your strong scepter from Zion, saying,
“Rule in the midst of Your enemies.”
3 Your people will volunteer freely in the day of Your power;
In holy array, from the womb of the dawn,
Your youth are to You as the dew.
4 The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind,
“You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.”
5 The Lord is at Your right hand;
He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath.
6 He will judge among the nations,
He will fill them with corpses,
He will shatter the chief men over a broad country.
7 He will drink from the brook by the wayside;
Therefore He will lift up His head.
Here at the beginning of this psalm, David writes about the Messiah being seated at the right hand of God. Three of the four gospels include Jesus’ challenge to the religious leaders and the quotation He uses to stump them. Let’s read Matthew’s version of this event.
In Matthew, chapter 22, starting in verse 41, we read:
41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question: 42 “What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?” They said to Him, “The son of David.” 43 He said to them, “Then how does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying,
44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Until I put Your enemies beneath Your feet”’?
45 If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his son?” 46 No one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question.
In this event, Jesus sets up a seemingly impossible-to-reconcile situation where David is shown that one of his descendants had existed before Him. While someone who believes in reincarnation would not see this idea as being strange in any way, nothing in the gospels, or even in the Bible, points to this as a logical probability. While some verses have been pulled out of context to make the Bible appear to support this idea, as well as a lot of other fringe ideas, the fact that these religious leaders are stumped by this dilemma is evidence that reincarnation was not something they gave any weight to.
However, in a strange twist, the idea of Jesus being seated at God’s right hand, as this quotation from the Old Testament suggests, ends up being used as one major foundation for condemning Jesus, after Jesus has been betrayed, arrested, and condemned by the religious leaders. In a fascinating way, Jesus’ impossible to reconcile framing of this psalm with the other prophecies about Jesus being David’s descendant becomes the foundation for putting Jesus to death. While the religious leaders could not do anything publicly to answer Jesus’ challenge, they saved their hostility towards this challenge and frame until they clearly had the upper hand.
But these religious leaders could only reject this Old Testament psalm, and by rejecting Jesus, they not only discount David’s prophetic insight into the Godhead, they also subtly reject the other big prophetic idea present in this psalm, specifically that the Messiah would be a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. While there are no shortage of ideas for what this means, I suspect that David wants to draw attention to God having priests and people worshiping Him in a world prior to the Jews being freed from Egypt, and that being a priest of God is something that is not necessarily part of one’s genealogy.
If we stop to think about this idea for a moment, we will realize that this is a great thing. God is more than able and willing to welcome people into His family who might not have any shared genetic or ancestral connection to God’s chosen people. Jesus being a priest in the order of Melchizedek, who lived hundreds of years before Moses and Aaron, and who was someone who had no recorded beginning or end draws our attention to Jesus being someone who can bring us into a future that may have a beginning, but one that clearly has no end. Jesus, our Priest, has done everything for us to prepare the way for our salvation, and His sacrifice on our behalf opens the way for God to forgive our sins while remaining just.
God promised to elevate the Messiah’s role to be at His right hand, and the Messiah, Jesus, the Son of God, was granted this status when He ascended to Heaven. While there is plenty to debate about in Mark’s conclusion that we don’t have time to cover, don’t for a moment question where Jesus ended up when He entered heaven, because that truth is amazingly clear.
However, following Jesus’ return to Heaven and Him being seated at God’s right hand, Jesus had promised the disciples He would do something for them, and this promise will be our focus for our next episode.
As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:
As I always open by challenging you in one way or another, intentionally seek God first in your life. Choose to accept Jesus as your High Priest and as your Redeemer, and let His sacrifice for you be everything you need to be saved for eternity.
Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow personally closer to Jesus each and every day. Choose to let Jesus lead and guide your life, mind, and heart, and intentionally step forward each and every day with Jesus as you move together towards eternity.
And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!