Sermon
The Exaltation of Christ and the Subjugation of His Enemies
Charles B. W. Gordon preaches Psalm 110:1 on Christ's exaltation, his victory over sin and Satan, and the Father's subjugation of Christ's enemies.
Attribution
The following sermon is by Rev. Charles B. W. Gordon, pastor of First Baptist Church, Harrison Street, Petersburg, Virginia. It appears as “Sermon III” in Select Sermons, Volume I, third edition, published by C. B. W. Gordon and Company in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1895. The text below has been transcribed from supplied page images and formatted for readability.
The Exaltation of Christ and the Subjugation of His Enemies
“The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool.” - Psalm 110:1.
It was customary among the nations of antiquity, when victories had been achieved in war, for the victors to place their feet upon the necks of their victims.
Joshua took five kings from the cave of Makkedah, and calling all the men of Israel, commanded them to put their feet upon their necks,1 which was a sign of the subjugation of the Amorites, and decided victory over them, in that their enemies were made a footstool.
David uses the words of the text, in describing the Messiah’s victorious triumph over sin and Satan. The text is suggestive of great conflict, but no greater than was found to throng the pathway of our Lord, while he contended with life’s trials.
It also implies unison between God the Father and the Son.
“Sit thou at my right hand.” One of the most perplexing questions to-day, over which human intellect has pondered for centuries, is “How can God be in harmony with the provision for man’s redemption, when man had fallen from his favor by voluntary transgression?” The question is not one of perplexity when rightly considered.
If God were like selfish man, unwilling ofttimes to do right on terms of justice, it would be a little hard for us to account for his union with his son, in seeking man’s restoration; but when we conceive of him as being not only just, but the embodiment of justice, the whole matter is made plain. God’s purpose is to guard his majesty in seeing that the righteousness of his law is vindicated. Adam’s fall made humanity wretched, but when the Son of God agreed to suffer even unto death, it was placed in renewed circumstances.
Man has no communication with the Father save through the Son, who, by reason of mediatorial undertaking, is made “head over all things to the church,” even to the judgmentship of the world.2
Adam’s excommunication from Eden was not a cancellation of God’s love for humanity; hence he stood ready and willing to restore him, provided the law could be fulfilled. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”3 So he stood with the Son in combatting against the prince of darkness. Therefore says he to him:
“Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool.”
The work of redemption was indeed a severe contest. Civil war is quite a severe contest, but spiritual is more so. In times of civil war men esteem not their own life as being dear, the whole country is turned upside down; even women and children are fearfully distressed, running to and fro in great alarm, no rest to be had day or night; the whole nation is rocked in the cradle of fear.
On the battle-field soldiers, like madmen, are lifting the hearts of their fellow-men on the end of their swords, while the fires are flashing, and the cannon balls, like the muttering thunders, are heard passing and repassing, before whose awful power men as victims fall in their own blood for their country’s honor. All around are seen the bodies of the dead, and heard the groans of the wounded and dying; the very air is made to tune with the screams of mothers weeping for their sons, and wives groaning for their husbands; which calamities are followed by desolations and famines, that throw the whole country in despair and want, from which it does not recover for years.
It will be many years yet before this country will have fully recovered the damages of the last war. But all wars bring to the country some great good.
The nations’ evil is the cause of their sufferings, the result of which is generally a consciousness of their mistakes. However severe the contest of civil war may be, it cannot approximate the struggle of spiritual war. No victory equals that over sin and death. No general, however skilled in war, however successful in battle, has ever won a praise equal to that merited by the Son of God. He is unlike man, in that he gained his victory in death, while man loses in death.
His victory is more great, because he won it in Satan’s kingdom. History credits General Grant’s success in the great civil conflict strictly to his great skill in war, for everything was against him. His men fought in a strange climate, hundreds of his soldiers died from disease, because they were Northern men, and could not acclimate themselves to the South; for which Lincoln saw it necessary to emancipate the Negroes, to make them soldiers in defense of the North. Christ fought in a strange climate, so to speak, yet he was acquainted with man, by reason of creation. Satan had surveyed and mastered the entire field of humanity. He was properly called the Prince of this world; and the only way by which he was to be subdued, was by Christ revolutionizing humanity, and introducing the new birth.
Therefore said He to Nicodemus, “Ye must be born again.” Our Lord declared this to be true when he said: “How can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man?” That is what he rightly did to Satan; he entered his dwelling-place by becoming incarnate, in coming under the law, and bound him and cast him out and took his seat on the holy hill of Zion, and is now a living King forever, to whom every knee must bow, and whose sway every tongue must confess.
Christ and the Father are one, and those that war against the Son fight against God, and he will make them his footstool.
The Jews and many others admit the being of God, but reject the divinity of Jesus Christ, which makes their guilt equal with those who deny God’s existence. While they are the same in essence, they are distinct in office. Christ’s work, properly speaking, was reconciling God and man; his victory consists in that he robbed death of its sting, and restored man to God’s favor. He tasted death for all men, in that he gave his life a ransom for many. He paid a debt for man that he could not pay for himself, in that he satisfied the claims of the law; and Justice was satisfied and met Mercy in friendship, and told him to sit at his right hand, until he made his enemies his footstool.
Satan did not die when Jesus died; he only received an immortal wound, by reason of death having lost its sting. “The law gives sin its damning power,” but Christ by his death took away the effects of law and substituted grace; by this Satan can no longer hold man by reason of force, but can only claim him when he fails to accept Christ as the living Saviour.
Christ, in paying the debt that man owed Justice, won the favor of God, and gained the enmity of Satan. Now all that is asked at the hands of mankind is an acceptance of Christ as the promised Saviour on his part, and the enemies of the soul will be overcome. He sits at the right hand of the Father pleading man’s pardon, while the Father gives merit and justice to his plea.
Satan in combat with Christ comes in contact with God. Grant conquered the armies of the South, while it was in President Lincoln’s power to say how low they should be placed, and how much they should suffer.
God is the executive officer of the universe, and when he lifts his eyes in vengeance upon the enemies of Christ, he places them so low that they are made the footstool of a conquering Saviour. Mark the words: “I will make them thy footstool.” It is God’s to punish, while it is Christ’s to overcome.
His subjugation. - Jeff Davis and all the South were conquered when Lee handed Grant his sword, but when Grant died Jeff Davis and the South revived. On the 9th inst. Ross subdued Walsh in a sword conflict, but on the 15th the action was repeated, Walsh was the victor. But we find none such in the spiritual world.
The revolution effected in the victory of Jesus Christ over sin, death, hell and the grave can never be restored.
His enemies are made his footstool, never to be exalted again.
He met his disciples in Galilee after his resurrection, declaring that all power was his; and Jesus met John on the island Patmos, and affirmed his assertion, by saying he liveth forever.