the eternal life. Similarly with our view of the Redeemer’s ministry of service, his tenure of priestiy, royal office. We are too prone to regard his life as closing with the conclusion of our Gospel narratives. We follow him in thought until the cloud, descending upon Olivet, receives him out of our sight, and then we say, “It is all over! His course is run, his work is finished!” But it is not so. The very contrary of this is the case. That Christ’s ascension draws a sharp line of demar- cation, is true; but the ane side is finite, the other is infinite. We can comprehend MARK—IS 2a
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the one; the other baffles all our powers of penetration. The steps of Jesus througa this earthly pilgrimage are steps which we can trace; but we lose sight of them, and faith alone can follow, when he ascends on high. This, however, is certain to us, that, with the ascension of Jesus, the second, the more spiritual, the more beneficent, the more enduring stage of this Divine ministry, commenced. He did much in his humiliation; he is doing more in his glory. He came to found a kingdom ; he went to administer it; and he must reign until his foes become his — footstool. Contemplate the Son of man as he is here represented, no longer wearing the disguise of feebleness and submitting to the insults and the hatred of the wicked. His days of toil, of hunger, and of weariness, his nights of exposure and of mental conflict, are over. No more is he to endure the misrepresentations of the hypocritical and the malicious; no more to baffle the insidious snares of the crafty and the unscrupulous; no more to be patient under the cold mockery of the unspiritual and ungrateful. His deeds of mercy shall never again be attributed to the powers of evil; never again shall those he fain would benefit seek to cast him headlong from the precipice; nor shall he sigh because of the hardness of heart and insen- sibility of his foes. It is well that he has gone through it all; that he has been despised and rejected of men, that he has been overwhelmed with the baptism of suffering, that he has drunk to the dregs earth’s bitter cup of woe. All this is well. But it is better that it is past and over; that he takes with him into the unseen state the memory of his humiliation, his obedience, his death; that he enters upon his purchased possession; that he sees “of the travail of his soul, and is satisfied ;” that he is “ received up into heaven, and sits down on the right hand of God.” What are we to understand when told that Christ “sat down” in heaven, and by the Father’s side? The evangelist speaks here in such a way as to convey to us important religious truth. Christ’s earthly ministry had been one of unrest and homelessness; from the commencement of his public labours until those labours ended on the cross, few had been the intervals of repose. With the Ascension began the period of rest. The seat upon the throne is becoming to royalty: the monarch sits whilst the courtiers, guards, and attendants stand. So the expression implies the kingly dignity of Immanuel. He has exchanged the crown of thorns for the diadem of empire. ‘“ On his head are many crowns.” Further, a judge sits upon the judgment-seat, whilst the criminal stands at his bar. Jesus not long before had stood, as the vilest culprit might have done, before the malignant Caiaphas, before the vacillating, unrighteous Pilate. Now, no longer the accused, he is the just, majestic, and almighty Judge, ordained by God to be the Judge of quick and dead. How bold and plain, although metaphorical, is Mark’s language here! “The Lord Jesus sat down at the right hand of God.” ‘The right hand of God” is one of those expressions, so frequent in Scripture, which are used, in condescension to our infirmities, to convey to us, in a striking and effective manner, truth otherwise not easily communicated. A courtier, when at the right hand of his sovereign, is near him, is readily addressed ; is in a position either to give information or to receive instructions ; can easily obtain a signature, or an authority or warrant under the sign-manual; is in a position to introduce to the king any appli- cant or petitioner; in brief, occupies a post of privilege, trust, influence, honour, and authority. And when our Saviour is pictured as at the right hand of God, we are to understand that he is the Mediator, through whom the Divine power and guidance, favour and blessing, are bestowed upon those in whom he has shown himself interested by undergoing on their behalf the labours and the sacrifices of the earthly humiliation. No wonder, then, that the position occupied by Christians is described in language ao rich, full, and inspiriting—that all things are declared to be theirs, for they are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
Il. Tue AsckNsION WAS THE PREPARATION FOB A NEW AND SPIRITUAL ECONOMY. The bodily absence of the Redeemer was the condition of a new dispensation of spiritual power and of world-wide extent. Hitherto the evangelizing journeys of the twelve had been restricted in scope and local in range; they had gone only to the lost sheep of the house of Isracl, and they had directed attention to the speedy approach of the kingdom. But the aim of Jesus was one of universal benevolence; other sheep, not of the Israelitish fold, were to be brought in; he was to draw all men unto himself. This was to be done by spiritual agencies, which were dependent upon the
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