As the glorified Man on the Father’s throne He is waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. This does not mean, as so many believe and teach, that the Lord Jesus Christ is waiting till His enemies are gradually overcome, till the church on earth succeeds in converting the whole world. It does not mean that. His enemies will be made His footstool in a far different way. It will be a sudden event. All His enemies will be humbled, all things will be subjected under His feet at the time of His second Coming. As there was an appointed time by the Father for His first Coming, so is there an appointed time for His second Coming, when the power of God and His own power will triumph over all His enemies. As He is in His redemptive work subject to the Father, therefore is He waiting for that hour. Then the Father will bring in the firstbegotten into the world (Heb. i:6) and He will receive the nations for His inheritance (Psalm ii).
He is waiting for this great event. But He is also waiting for His co-heirs, which constitute the church. The church, His body, must be first completed as to numbers before the hour can come in which His enemies are made His footstool.
He is patiently waiting for that moment. John speaks of that when he calls himself “a companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ” (Rev. i:9). Centuries have come and gone since He took that place upon the Father’s throne, unseen by human eyes, and during all this time, while the calling out of the church proceeded, He has waited patiently. Some day His waiting will come to an end. His church will be completed and then He Himself arises from His seat and descends to that place in the air, where He will meet His own, for whom His loving heart yearns so much. What a moment that will be at last! Then His waiting as well as His patience will be ended and He will receive His kingdom and be crowned Lord of lords and King of kings. No longer will He then be unseen, but His Glory will flash out of heaven and He Himself will be manifested in Glory. Then the world can reject Him no longer but must accept His righteous rule in which His redeemed people will share. What child of God does not wish this to be soon, very soon. Oh that we might cry more earnestly, more in the Spirit, yes, incessantly, “Come Lord Jesus.”
But while He waits and the hour has not yet come we must wait as He waits on the throne. To the Thessalonians who had listened to teachers who judaized the blessed hope, fearing they were facing the day of the Lord with its tribulation and wrath, the Apostle wrote: “And the Lord direct your hearts in the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ” (2 Thess. iii:5). But we must not only wait patiently for Him but also wait with Him. He is the rejected One. The world cast Him out. As the rejected One He waits in patience for the hour of His triumph and His Glory. This place of rejection is our greatest privilege to share. And where is He more rejected than in that which calls itself by His Name! To bear His reproach in these closing days of this present age is our blessed opportunity. To suffer with Him, if not for Him, should be that for which our hearts should long, yea, pray. And we will be glad to be rejected with Him, to be nothing at this present time, to have fellowship with His sufferings, if He as the patient waiting Lord is ever before our hearts.
At the close of the one hundred and tenth psalm stands a word, which we should also remember.
“He shall drink of the brook in the way,
Therefore shall He lift up the head.”
It has puzzled many readers what this saying might mean. It speaks to our hearts of His humiliation and exaltation. One thinks at once of the three hundred of Gideon and how they stooped down to drink. The brook is the type of death. He drank of the brook in the way. His way was from Glory to Glory, and between were His sufferings. And, therefore, He shall lift up the head. Wherefore, God has highly exalted Him. May we all, dear readers, follow in His path and suffer with Him; ere long in His triumph and glory we shall triumph and glory.
“And if children then heirs; heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ; if so be we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. viii:17-18).