“But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made his footstool.”
(Heb 10:12-13, NKJV)
In Ps 110:1 an incredibly important statement is made for the first time in the Bible, a statement which is repeated no less than seven times. The seventh time is in the quotation above. (It also appears in Matt 22:44, Mark 12:36, Luke 20:34; Acts 2:35 and Heb 1:13.)
In most translations the first part of Ps 110 has a strange ring to it – “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool’”. The fact that the different names of Yahweh and Yahshua are often not accordingly translated is the cause for this confusion. Roughly translated, it would read something like, “Jehovah says to his Master/Adonai … (Remember that Adonia merely means Master, and is thus a title and not a name.) In John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible he says the following about the identity of the two figures found in Ps 110:1 – “These are the words of Jehovah the Father to his Son the Messiah.” Sela.
To the Son the mandate is given that He 1) needs to sit at his right-hand, the place of authority; and 2) that He, the Father, will place his enemies under His (Yahshua’s) feet. Please note – it is thus not Yahshua who deals with the enemy and places them under his feet. Yahweh makes this happen – through those who have received the authority in Him to implement the victory which had taken place at the cross! Through our actions we enforce the victory of Jesus on the cross. In Col 1: 24 (AMPL) Paul writes this strange passage – “[Even] now I rejoice in the midst of my sufferings on your behalf. And in my own person I am making up whatever is still lacking and remains to be completed [on our part] of Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of His body, which is the church.” Although Jesus’ crucifixion was a completed action, God ordained it in such a way that we, the Bride of his Son, would complete it in practice. The WE-translation aptly states, “And now, even though I suffer for you, I am happy. There are still some things for Christ to suffer in his body, which is the church. So I am glad to take my share of his suffering in my body.”
Obviously the “carrying” of these loads and wounds are not merely an identification with it, but we literally carry it away! As part of the mandate of Luke 1:17 we need to become an equipped people to be able to implement in the world the most powerful weapon which arose through Jesus’ crucifixion, and thus again reconcile all things in the world to Christ (Acts 3:21). He made the New Covenant possible; we are the dispensers thereof; He “qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant” (2 Cor 3:6, ISV). And what do we administer? As priests (Rev 5:10; 1:5; 1 Pet 2:9) of a new priesthood (Heb 6:20), we minister with all the amazing advantages which the new covenant offers to a broken, lost humanity; also to creation. Jesus functions as the balm of Gilead (Jer 8:22), but with the anointing which we have received from Him, we break every yoke (Isa 10:27). Jesus is the living water, the fountain of life (Jer 2:13; 17:13), but we are the cup (John 4:11; Isa 12:3) with which God hands out the water. The fullness of the love of God the Father (please note – the totality of He who in Himself IS love) has already been poured out into our hearts, states Rom 5:5. It is there to flood the earth. But you and I can only do this as “sons of the right hand”!
- Sela: Are you a “son of the right hand”?
- Read: 1 Kings 13-15
- Examine how this has been fulfilled: 1 Kings 15:10 & 13 (through the meaning of the names).
