The Ultimate Authority

After Jesus Christ endured the gruesome death on the cross and was resurrected, he returned to His disciples and made an important statement.  We find this declaration in Matthew 28:18.

“And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” 

Jesus was proclaiming His absolute deity.  Christ was a Glorified, he was the fullness of the Godhead manifest bodily.  (Colossians 2:9) The almighty God in flesh, glorified and completely manifest unto men.  Completely man yet completely God.  Jesus was declaring to His disciples prior to His ascension into heaven that there was no authority greater than His.

And after the ascension, years later this truth again surfaces.  Jesus’s followers begin to suffer persecution. Many are publicly executed. Stephen is a Godly, and anointed man of God, who is found preaching the Gospel with great boldness.  And for His boldness the Jewish leaders stir up a crowd of zealots to stone him. As they prepare to hurl rocks at his head, he looks up into the sky and sees Jesus standing on the “right hand of God”.

Acts 7:54 When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with [their] teeth. 55 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, 56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.

At first glance this doesn’t make much sense. If Jesus is God then how can he be standing on his own right hand?  To understand this terminology, we have to look at its use throughout the Old Testament. Frequently this is referring to the hand of power.  It is not a literal description but a word picture of a biblical era concept that we in the western world are not generally familiar with.  The words right hand here are translated from DEXIOUS which means in Greek “a place of honor or authority”. In Stevens’s vision, Jesus was standing in total authority as God Incarnate.

Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

It is for this reason that the name of Jesus is our ultimate authority!

DJM