Week 49 Question:

Where is Christ now?

Week 49 Answer:

Christ rose bodily from the grave on the third day after his death and is seated at the right hand of the Father, ruling his kingdom and interceding for us, until he returns to judge and renew the whole world.

Week 49 Verse:

Ephesians 1:19-21

Commentary

God, he is, 'I am that I am,'…and Christ he is 'yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, and the same for ever'.… A man cannot say of any creature in the world, that it was yesterday, and shall be to-morrow and for ever. We may say it of Christ, 'he is Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, he was, and is, and is to come,' and, therefore, those that are founded upon him, that have their happiness in him, they are firm as he is firm; and those that build upon any other thing, they vanish as the thing vanisheth. There is nothing in the world hath such a being, but it is subject in time not to be. It is only a Christian that is in Christ, who is as firm as Christ is; and Christ can never be but that which he is; for of necessity God must be always like himself. He is Jehovah, 'I am, I am' at all times; and Christ he is Jehovah. A Christian therefore, and none but a Christian, hath a firm establishing in Christ. Without this establishing in Christ, what are we? what are wicked men? Chaff, that the wind blows away! They are grass, &c., things of nothing, carried away with every blast. But a Christian is a stone, a rock, built upon Christ Jesus.

Richard Sibbes (1577–1635). An English Puritan theologian, Sibbes was known in London in the early 17th century as "the Heavenly Doctor Sibbes." Preacher at Gray's Inn, London and Master of Catherine Hall, Cambridge, his most famous work is The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax.

From “Commentary on 2 Corinthians Chapter 1” in The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, Volume 3 (Edinburgh, James Nichol, 1862), 426.

Video Commentary

NCC Q49: Where is Christ now? from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

 

Prayer

0 God, stamp eternity on my eyeballs!

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758). A colonial American preacher, theologian, and philosopher, Edwards became pastor of his church in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1726. He is widely known for his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" as well as his many books including The End For Which God Created the World and A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections. Edwards died from a smallpox inoculation shortly after beginning the presidency at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University).

From Edwards’ prayer quoted in Holman Old Testament Commentary: Psalms 76–150, by Steven Lawson (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 81.