R. C. Sproul: The Most Important Session of All

God said to David’s Lord, “Sit at My right hand till I make Your enemies Your footstool” (Mark 12:36). When we study the biblical narratives of the life and work of Jesus, as well as the apostolic commentaries on those narratives, we discover moments of supreme importance in terms of redemptive history. These include His birth, His death on the cross, His resurrection, the Day of Pentecost, and His return. However, there is an element in the work of Christ that we almost completely overlook. It is the session of Jesus.

Churches that use the Presbyterian form of church government are led by elders, who collectively constitute what is called the session. The body of elders is known as the session because when they meet to deliberate, to establish policy, and to give supervision to the spiritual lives of the church members under their care, they sit down and discuss these things. Likewise, when we say that Congress is in session, we mean that our representatives are assembled and in their seats, ready to transact the business of the United States. The word session is appropriate to describe these situations because it is derived from the Latin sessio, which simply means “the act of sitting.”

The most important session of all is the session of Jesus Christ in heaven. When Yahweh said to David’s Lord, “Sit at My right hand,” He was saying, “Be seated in the highest place of authority in the universe.” Psalm 110 is a prophetic psalm, and David was saying by the Holy Spirit that when the Messiah had finished His labor in this world, He would be exalted to heaven and enthroned at the right hand of God. We declare that these things took place when we recite the Apostles’ Creed, which affirms that Jesus “ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God.” This was the early church’s confession of belief in the importance of the session of Christ. Keep reading