^ Above the " Yea rather " there is an " Even," and such an " even " ! It is omitted in the Eevised Version ; but there is good manuscript authority for its retention, and it deserves to be retained. " Who is even at the right hand of God." " Even " ! Put the emphasis on " even." Once He was low indeed. Once He was in the grave. Now He is high indeed. Now He is on the throne even, " even at the right hand of God." ^
11 Sometimes we say. Can there be a stronger argument for non-condemnation than that which is taken from the death of Christ ? And we are ready to conclude that there is not, and that there cannot be. But here we see that there is a stronger "Yea rather." And sometimes we say. But can there be a stronger argument for non-condemnation than that which is taken from the resurrection of Christ ? And again we are ready to conclude that there is not, and that there cannot be. But here again we see that there is yet a stronger. " The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son " ; " For unto which of the angels said he at any time. Thou art my Son ? " To which of them does He say, " Sit thou at my right hand " ? And what then ? If Christ is thus at the right hand of God, in the very highest post of honour and of dignity in the heaven of heavens, for the purpose of righteous judgment, of universal judgment, shall He condemn those for whom He died ?
■[j The profession of faith in Christ, as sitting on the right hand of God, is necessary : First, to mind us of our duty, which must needs consist in subjection and obedience. The majesty of
1 E. A Thomson.
ROMANS VIII. 33, 34 133
a king claimeth the loyalty of a subject ; and if we acknowledge his authority we must submit unto his power. Nor can there be a greater incitation to obedience than the consideration of the nature of His government. Subject we must be, whether we will or no; but if willingly, then is our service perfect freedom; if unwillingly, then is our averseness everlasting misery. Enemies we all have been, under His feet we shall be, either adopted or subdued. A double kingdom there is of Christ : one of power, in which all are under Him ; another of propriety, in those which belong unto Him : none of us can be excepted from the first ; and happy are we if by our obedience we show ourselves to have an interest in the second, for then that kingdom is not only Christ's but ours. Secondly, it is necessary to believe in Christ sitting on the right hand of God, that we might be assured of an auspicious protection under His gracious dominion. For God by His exalta- tion hath given our Saviour " to be head over all things to the church " ; and therefore from Him we may expect direction and preservation. There can be no illegality where Christ is the lawgiver ; there can be no danger from hostility where the Son of God is the defender. The very name of "head" hath the signification not only of dominion but of union; and therefore while we look upon Him at the right hand of God, we see ourselves in heaven. This is the special promise which He hath made us since He sat down there: "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." How should we rejoice, yea rather how should we fear and tremble, at so great an honour ! ^
4. Christ Jesus intercedes for us. — This completes the argu- ment. It crowns the climax. It is at the very top of the ladder.
^ " Yea," " Eather," " Even," " Also." Put the emphasis upon Also, as after all as last of all. Are you not faithless, but believing ? Then, if condemned at all, you must be condemned by Christ who is even at the right hand of God. God has there vested in Him as Lord and King the prerogative of judgment, and therefore of condemnation. Will He, your Advocate and Intercessor within the veil, condemn His own clients, for whom He died, and rose again, and ascended even to the right hand of God ? Will He ignore, annul. His righteous advocacy. His meritorious intercession, by an adverse judgment, an unrighteous judgment ? To do so would issue in the degradation of His office,
* Easpoiition of the Creed, 537.
134 NO CASE
the prostitution of His trust, the annihilation of His honour, the extinction of Himself.^
^ As men have made the Death of Christ a sacrifice to the Divine wrath; the substitution of an innocent Victim for the guilty, as though God must have blood, and cared not whose — when they ought to have remembered how Scripture always tells of the love of God in giving, in not sparing, His own Son, but freely surrendering Him for us all — even so they have made the Intercession of Christ a perpetual coming between the Destroyer and His condemned, a constant pleading of that blood which alone appeased the anger, a daily and hourly standing between the Hand that would smite and the souls crouching beneath it. O terrible perversion of tlie sweet and blessed reality ! " I and my Father are one " is as true of the Intercessor as it was true of the Sacrifice. Christ the Intercessor bears upon His heart in heaven all the sufferings and all the sins of mankind, not that He may restrain God from punishing, but that He may evermore apply to them that Divine love which first sent and gave Him. That is the Intercession. It is the bearing upon the soul of the Redeemer in His glory every distress and every peril and every temptation and every sin which may interfere with the realization of His salvation in even the humblest and most lost creature for whom He shed His precious blood. It is not the violent extorting for them from an unwilling God of an exemption from wrath ; it is the representation of them, in their woes and weaknesses, before Him whose love for them is as strong and as prompt and as self-sacrificing as His own.^