Chapter 38 — Jesus Takes His Seat
The Incarnate Christ and His Critics (Komoszewski & Bowman, 2024)
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In the ancient world, the act of sitting on a throne wasn't incidental. It meant something. A king who took his seat on the throne was doing more than resting. He was exercising sovereign rule. He was in the position of authority. He was reigning.
When the New Testament says that the risen Jesus "sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Heb. 1:3), it's making one of the boldest claims in all of Scripture: that a human being, the same Jesus who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, now occupies a position of shared sovereignty at the center of the universe.
Chapter 38, the final chapter on Jesus' divine seat, draws together the threads of the preceding chapters and shows what the whole New Testament teaches about the significance of this exaltation.
Avoiding Two Misunderstandings
Before exploring what the divine seat means, the authors identify two ways to get it wrong.
The first is the LDS (Mormon) misunderstanding: treating "God's right hand" as a literal, physical location where two separately embodied divine beings sit in adjacent chairs. The LDS Church does teach that God the Father has a physical body, and that Stephen's vision in Acts 7:55-56 shows two separate beings sitting beside each other. But this reading requires importing foreign assumptions into the text. Jewish imagery about "God's right hand" was positional and relational, not a literal description of physical furniture.
The second misunderstanding runs the other way: treating "Jesus at God's right hand" as a mere metaphor with no substantive content, a poetic way of saying Jesus is honored. But the New Testament is far too consistent and detailed about this for it to be dismissed as a figure of speech. The throne imagery in Revelation, the high priestly imagery in Hebrews, and the cosmic lordship language in Philippians and Colossians all root in the same conviction: Jesus genuinely rules.
What Hebrews Says
The letter to the Hebrews is the New Testament's most sustained meditation on what it means for Jesus to be exalted to God's right hand. It draws on two Old Testament texts: Psalm 110:1 ("Sit at my right hand") and Psalm 110:4 ("You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek").
Jesus is both king and priest, an extraordinary combination no ordinary human could hold. As the eternal high priest after the order of Melchizedek, he doesn't offer repeated sacrifices the way the Levitical priests did. He offered one sacrifice, himself, once for all, and then took his seat (Heb. 10:11-14). The priests in the Jerusalem temple never sat down; their work was never done. Jesus sat down because his work of atonement was complete.
"When this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool" (Heb. 10:12-13).
The Cosmic Scope in Revelation
Revelation gives us the fullest picture of Jesus on the throne. In Revelation 4-5, John has a vision of the heavenly throne room. God sits on the throne, surrounded by living creatures and elders giving him glory. Then a scroll appears, sealed with seven seals, and the question is asked: who is worthy to open it?
No one in heaven or on earth is found worthy. John weeps. Then he hears: "Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll." John looks, and he sees a Lamb that looked as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne (Rev. 5:5-6).
This is one of the most theologically dense moments in the New Testament. The Lamb is at the center of the throne, not off to the side, not below it, but at the center. The Lamb shares the throne with God. And when the elders and living creatures worship the Lamb, they sing: "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" (Rev. 5:12). Then: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" (Rev. 5:13).
The Lamb shares the throne. The Lamb receives the identical worship as the one who sits on the throne. In Jewish monotheism, you don't share God's throne or receive God's worship unless you are God.
What the Exaltation Means for Us
First Corinthians 15 gives us Paul's vision of where history is heading. Christ is reigning now, putting all enemies under his feet, until the last enemy, death, is destroyed. Then he'll hand the kingdom to the Father, "that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28).
The exaltation of Christ isn't a quiet theological fact with no practical implications. It means history has a ruler. The chaos and suffering of this world isn't happening outside the knowledge and authority of a reigning King. He sees it. He governs it. He will complete it.
It means we have an intercessor. The one at God's right hand is praying for us right now (Heb. 7:25; Rom. 8:34). The intercession of the exalted Christ isn't passive or distant. It's the ongoing, powerful advocacy of one who loves us and has the ear of the Father.
And it means our suffering is temporary. The one who suffered before being seated is our pattern and our guarantee. What happened to him will happen to us: "If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his" (Rom. 6:5).
He took his seat. The work of redemption is finished. And the one who sits at God's right hand holds you in his hands.