Tag Archives: representative

Alistair Begg  – God’s Right Hand

Alistair Begg

…Who is at the right hand of God.

Romans 8:34

He who was once despised and rejected by men now occupies the honorable position of a beloved and honored Son. The right hand of God is the place of majesty and favor. Our Lord Jesus is His people’s representative. When He died for them, they had rest; when He rose again for them, they had liberty; when He sat down at His Father’s right hand, they had favor and honor and dignity. The raising and elevation of Christ is the elevation, the acceptance, and the glorifying of all His people, for He is their head and representative. This sitting at the right hand of God, then, is to be viewed as the reception of the Representative and therefore the acceptance of our souls.

Believer, this is why you are free from condemnation. “Who is he that condemneth?” [KJV]. Who will condemn those men who are in Jesus at the right hand of God?

The right hand is the place of power. Christ at the right hand of God has all the power in heaven and on earth. Who will fight against the people who have such power vested in their Captain? My soul, what can destroy you if Omnipotence is your helper? If the protection of the Almighty covers you, what sword can harm you?

Be sure of this: If Jesus is your all-prevailing King and has trampled your enemies beneath His feet, if sin, death, and hell are all defeated by Him, and you are represented in Him, there exists no possibility of your being destroyed.

Jesu’s tremendous name

Puts all our foes to flight:

Jesus, the meek, the angry Lamb,

A Lion is in fight.

By all hell’s host withstood;

We all hell’s host o’erthrow;

And conquering them, through Jesus’ blood

We still to conquer go.

Devotional material is taken from “Morning and Evening,” written by C.H. Spurgeon, revised and updated by Alistair Begg. Copyright © 2003, Good News Publishers and used by Truth For Life with written permission.

The family reading plan for  April 21, 2014  Ecclesiastes 8 | 2 Timothy 4

Alistair Begg – The Sponsor and Substitute

Alistair Begg

The last Adam.

1 Corinthians 15:45

Jesus is the representative head of His people. In Adam every heir of flesh and blood has a personal interest, because he is the covenant head and representative of the race when considered under the law of works; so under the law of grace, every redeemed soul is one with the Lord from heaven, since He is the Second Adam, the Sponsor and Substitute of the elect in the new covenant of love.

The apostle Paul declares that Levi was in the loins of Abraham when Melchizedek met him: It is a certain truth that the believer was in the loins of Jesus Christ, the Mediator, when in eternity the covenant settlements of grace were decreed, ratified, and made sure forever.

Whatever Christ has done, He has accomplished for the whole body of His Church. We were crucified in Him and buried with Him (read Col. 2:10-13), and to make it still more wonderful, we are risen with Him and even ascended with Him to the seats on high (Eph. 2:6). It is in this way that the Church has fulfilled the law and is “blessed in the Beloved.”1

She is regarded with satisfaction by the just Jehovah, for He views her in Jesus, and does not look upon her as separate from her covenant head. As the Anointed Redeemer of Israel, Christ Jesus has nothing distinct from His Church, but all that He has He holds for her. Adam’s righteousness was ours so long as he maintained it, and his sin was ours the moment that he committed it; and in the same way, all that the Second Adam is or does is ours as well as His because He is our representative.

Here is the foundation of the covenant of grace. This gracious system of representation and substitution, which moved Justin Martyr to cry out, “O blessed change, O sweet permutation!” is the very groundwork of the Gospel of our salvation and is to be received with strong faith and rapturous joy.

1 Ephesians 1:6