Graduation and promotion

The LORD says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet."

The LORD will extend Your mighty scepter from Zion; You will rule in the midst of your enemies. Your troops will be willing on Your day of battle. Arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn You will receive the dew of Your youth.

The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek."

The Lord is at Your right hand; He will crush kings on the day of His wrath. He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. He will drink from a brook beside the way; therefore He will lift up his head (Psalm 110).

When you read this Psalm, you probably wondered what it meant. In order to understand this Psalm, we will need to take a look at two verses in particular. The first is The LORD says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." The second is The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek." Both of these sentences speak specifically about Jesus.

King David wrote this Psalm by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. When David writes The LORD says to my Lord, he mentions two Lords, both of whom are greater than himself, even though he is the king of the Israelites. Because of the way this verse has been translated into English, what was clear in the original Hebrew sounds confusing to us. The first "LORD" is actually Yahweh, the personal name of God, which in literal English translates as I AM. But in the centuries after King David wrote this Psalm, the Jews became reluctant to speak God’s personal name out loud. They took God very seriously when He commanded, You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God (Exodus 20:7). So the Jews made a change to their Old Testaments; whenever God’s name Yahweh appeared, in the margin they spelled His name in a different way—they mixed together the consonants of Yahweh with the vowels of the word Lord. When they would read the Scriptures out loud during worship, instead of saying the holy name of God, they spoke a word made up of both Yahweh and Lord—which in English sounds like Jehovah. Most English translations of the Bible have honored this ancient tradition, either translating Yahweh as LORD or as Jehovah, but almost never as I AM.

David’s sentence sounds a bit less confusing when we read the words as he wrote them: Yahweh says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." The first LORD refers to the great I AM. But who is the second Lord? For the answer, we must look to Jesus’ words in the New Testament. In Matthew chapter 22, Jesus explains the meaning of this verse: While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" "The son of David," they replied. He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him `Lord'? For he says, `The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet." Jesus makes it clear that He is the Lord that David was speaking about in Psalm 110. Knowing this, we could rephrase King David’s sentence this way: The God named Yahweh says to my Lord Jesus Christ: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet."

Spoken this way, it becomes clear that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, David was allowed to hear God the Father issue an invitation to His Son Jesus Christ. But when would this invitation be fulfilled? When would the Son come and sit at the Father’s right hand? It happened when Jesus ascended back into heaven, 40 days after He rose from the dead on Easter. Mark 16:19 tells us, After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and He sat at the right hand of God.

We know that in the Bible, to be at someone’s right side is to be in the ultimate place of honor, respect, and trust. That God the Father invited His Son to sit at His right hand shows how greatly our God esteems Jesus for who He is and for what He has done to save us from our sins. Jesus is the Son of God, the royal heir of the kingdom of heaven! Yet this prince, the Prince of Peace, lowered Himself to the place of a servant. Jesus came into our world dressed in the rags of humanity. He left the riches of heaven for a life on the road where a thief held the money purse. He left the honors of heaven to be ridiculed and spat upon. He left the comforts of heaven for the brutality of whipping and crucifixion. He left the fellowship He had with His Father so that He could be rejected by God for our sins. He did this because He loved us and wanted to free us from sin. He did this because He trusted in His heavenly Father, trusted Him that through this terrible sacrifice we could be redeemed from sin and death. And because Jesus had such love for us, because He had such complete trust in His Father’s love, Yahweh the great I AM raised His Son from the dead and invited Him to sit as His own right hand forever.

But is Jesus’ work done? Is He eternally at rest at the right hand of God? The answer can be found as we consider our second sentence from the Psalm: The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek." Jesus is a priest forever—but Melchizedek was a very special kind of priest, and so is our Lord.

Melchizedek only appears briefly in Genesis. His name means "king of righteousness". In chapter 14 we are told of how four cities launched a raid against their neighbors, and how Abram’s nephew Lot was taken as one of the captives. Abram, who was by now wealthy and powerful, mounted a rescue operation and freed his nephew. When he returned victorious, we read the following words: Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying, "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand." Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

That is all that Genesis has to say about Melchizedek. But consider what we are told. First of all, Melchizedek was the king of Salem. Salem means "peace"; by being the king of Salem, Melchizedek was rightly called the "king of peace." Salem was the city that king David would one day conquer and turn into his capital Jerusalem. David’s son Solomon would build God’s great Temple in Jerusalem. And our Lord Jesus, the Prince of Peace, would die as the final sacrifice for all human sin on Jerusalem’s hill.

Furthermore, Melchizedek had a unique job description. He was both king of Salem and priest of God Most High. This was very unusual; ordinarily, kings were not allowed to perform the duties of priests, and priests did not rule as kings. Moses led the Israelites as God’s representative, but his brother Aaron served in the office of High Priest. King Solomon built the great Temple, but Zadok was the priest who offered sacrifices to God for the peoples’ sins upon its altar. When Jerusalem was rebuilt after the Babylonian Captivity, Nehemiah served as governor while Ezra had the responsibilities of the priesthood.

Through almost all of the Bible, kings and priests had different areas of responsibility. Kings protected the people physically; they enforced the laws and led the army to defend the nation. They shed blood to keep the peace and protect the people. But because the king was responsible for spilling human blood, he was not fit to stand before God’s altar as high priest. The job of the priest was to protect the people spiritually; he announced God’s Law and offered the blood of sacrifices upon the altar to gain forgiveness for the people for breaking those laws. The priests shed blood to keep the peace between man and God, and protect the people from the punishment of God.

Listen to what Hebrews chapter five has to say about Jesus and Melchizedek. During the days of Jesus' life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once everything was brought to perfect completion, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him, and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

Like Melchizedek, Jesus has two job descriptions. As He sits at His Father’s right hand, Jesus is active as both priest and king. As high priest, Jesus offered the best blood of all—His own holy blood—on the altar of the cross. By shedding that blood for us, Jesus has secured the Father’s pardon for when we break His commandments. And as we anger God with our sins each day, Jesus continues to speak to His Father on our behalf; John tells us we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:1-2).

And our Lord also reigns as king. Through His divine power, He keeps our sin-infested world from crumbling into dust; Paul says in Colossians 1:17 that in Him all things hold together. Jesus exerts His rule through the appointing of earthly authorities who are assigned to protect people on His behalf; in Revelation chapter one, John says Jesus Christ…is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Jesus also governs the activities of His Church; Paul goes on to say and He is the head of the body, the church. Of course, the people put in positions of leadership by Christ are themselves all flawed by sin, so we do not experience the blessing of perfect protection through perfect rulers; but the day is coming when Jesus promises to return and put all evil to an end personally, once and for all.

So in answer to the question "what does Jesus do at the right hand of God", the answer is this—like Melchizedek, our Lord works continually to protect us from evil, and to make sure that when we ask Him for mercy, our sins are all forgiven. He offers us bread and wine, like Melchizedek offered bread and wine to Abram—but Jesus’ bread and wine are so much more, because they bring us His own body and blood, sacrificed on the altar of the cross to bring us closer to God. As a priest in the order of Melchizedek, Jesus cares for both our bodies and our souls.

We are in the season of high school graduations. Many youth look upon this time as the point where they can finally do whatever they want, the point where they have ascended into adulthood. But I suggest that we all look to the ascended Christ as an example of how to live as adults. Jesus finished the great work given to Him by His Father of dying for our sins and rising to end death’s hold over us. But He has not stopped working for His Father or for us. Every day, Jesus works to protect us from the attacks of evil that seek to hurt us. Every day, Jesus makes forgiveness and our unity with the Father His first priority. I urge everyone who is graduating or has graduated to make this the focus of your adulthood as well—to devote all your efforts to serving the needs of others by caring for the needs of their bodies and caring for the needs of their souls. Forgive. Protect. Tell people about your Lord. Make Jesus your reason for everything that you say and do as you live your life.