Christ Reigns Now: The Present Kingship of Christ in Progressive Dispensationalism

Is Christ's session at the right hand of God a mere honor — a seat of rest, a place to wait? The question stands at the heart of Progressive Dispensationalism's inaugurated eschatology, and the answer shapes everything: the nature of the present age, the authority behind the Great Commission, and the meaning of Christ's present lordship over the church.

Psalm 110 and the Language of Enthronement

Psalm 110 does not picture passive honor. It pictures enthronement. The Messiah sits at Yahweh's right hand while his enemies are being made his footstool — and "footstool" is the language of kings and conquerors: enemies defeated, dominion established, authority exercised. And mark the timing, for the timing is everything: in the text, the subduing of his enemies takes place while he is seated on the heavenly throne — not afterward.

So what is he doing while every enemy is being placed beneath his feet?

"He Must Reign": Paul's Answer in 1 Corinthians 15

Here Paul takes up the very words of the psalm and answers without hesitation: "For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet" (1 Corinthians 15:25).

Set the two side by side, and see how they rhyme:

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Psalm 110:1 — "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool."

1 Corinthians 15:25 — "He must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet."

The span is the same — until. The triumph is the same — the enemies beneath his feet. Only the verb has changed: where the psalm writes sit, Paul writes reign. And there lies the whole argument. Paul is not naming a second activity alongside the sitting; he is telling us what the sitting is. In the language of heaven, to sit at the right hand is to reign.

The Reign That Began at the Empty Tomb

The setting of 1 Corinthians 15 is resurrection: Christ raised as the firstfruits (vv. 20, 23), and that rising is itself the opening blow against death, the last enemy to be destroyed (v. 26). The reign Paul describes does not begin in some far-off age; it begins at the empty tomb. Its until therefore spans the whole interval — from the resurrection that inaugurates it, through the present session at the Father's right hand, and on into the millennial kingdom in which his reign is made visible — until at the last death itself is abolished.

So when Paul writes that "he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet," he speaks neither of the present session alone nor of the millennium alone, but of the one unbroken reign that opens with Christ's rising and closes with death undone. And this is the very reason the present session cannot be stripped of rule: the reign that will be consummated in the age to come has already begun in the One who is risen and seated. He does not sit at the right hand waiting to reign; he reigns there because the reign has already begun — the conquest of his last enemy, death, already inaugurated in his own resurrection.

This, then, is no idle waiting; it is active governing. The verb the Spirit assigns to Jesus in this interval is not wait, not rest, but reign. Nor is it an accident of vocabulary, for in Scripture a throne is never mere furniture — it is the symbol of dominion, authority, royalty itself. To sit upon that throne, in this context, is to wield a king's power.

The Right Hand as the Seat of Authority

Read Ephesians 1:20–22, and his authority-in-exercise becomes unmistakable: raised, seated at God's right hand, set far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, with all things placed beneath his feet.

And Peter leaves no room for a merely honorary session: Christ "has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him" (1 Peter 3:22). What kind of throne is this, if not a throne of rule? What kind of right hand is this, if not the place of dominion? The heavenly powers are not waiting to discover whether he will reign; they are already subject to him.

Already Crowned, Not Yet Fully Manifest

Hebrews gives us the same tension without weakening the present reign: "At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him… crowned with glory and honor" (Hebrews 2:8–9). We do not yet see the full and final manifestation of every enemy under his feet, but we do see the King already crowned on a throne. The incompleteness of the visible conquest does not mean the absence of the reign; it means the reign is presently advancing toward its appointed consummation.

This already-and-not-yet structure is not foreign to the dispensational tradition — it is, in fact, central to what Progressive Dispensationalism affirms about the present age.

All Authority Already Given: The Great Commission

Nor did the risen Christ speak as one awaiting future authority. He declared, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" (Matthew 28:18). And because that authority has already been given, he immediately issues the royal command: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19). The Great Commission is not the suggestion of a waiting Messiah. The nations are to be discipled because the King already possesses authority over heaven and earth, and through the gospel he spreads his kingdom and brings forth sons of the kingdom.

The Ruler of Kings on Earth

John says the same in the opening of Revelation. Jesus Christ is "the ruler of kings on earth" (Revelation 1:5), and this ruling King has "made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father" (Revelation 1:6). He is not merely promised a kingdom; he makes a kingdom. He is not merely destined to rule kings; he is already named the ruler of the kings of the earth. His reign is not suspended until the end. It is the very reality by which his people are gathered, constituted, and commissioned.

Consider, too, the promise he made to his disciples. It was no offer of an honorary seat, nor an invitation to sit down and rest, but a royal pledge of participation in his authority: "The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne" (Revelation 3:21). Christ was not promising his people a chair of repose, but a share in his reign; not a place to cease from action, but a place from which to exercise authority in the kingdom. For a throne shared is a reign shared.

And if he does not govern, then why — now, at this very hour — are angels, authorities, and powers already subject to him (1 Peter 3:22)?

Could there be an act more royal, more sovereign, than this: that, having been exalted, he poured out the promised Spirit upon his people (Acts 2:33–36), and rescued the lost from the dominion of darkness, transferring them into his own kingdom (Colossians 1:13)?

In his exaltation he was "made both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36). And "Christ" is no narrow title; among its meanings stands King — the Anointed One who rules.

A Cumulative Testimony

Thus the testimony is cumulative: Paul says he must reign; Peter says the powers are subject to him; Hebrews says he is already crowned; Matthew says all authority has been given to him; John says he is the ruler of the kings of the earth. The right hand of God, then, cannot be reduced to a place of passive honor. It is the throne of the reigning Christ.

So what, then, do we have in the scene Peter sets before us — Christ's exaltation in heaven? A scene of exaltation without a King? An enthronement without authority? A coronation that crowns no one? Are we to believe the Father raised him to the highest place in the universe only that he might do nothing there?

Shall we say he was seated to wait? That every knee bows to a Lord who does not rule? That the powers are made subject to a Sovereign who does not exercise authority? Did the Father place all things under his feet so that he might stand still above them?

Head of the Church: A Governmental Title

As I have shown in my book, the title "Head of the Church" is not ceremonial but governmental. In Ephesians it stands shoulder to shoulder with "head over all things," and the sense is one and the same: rule. To be the head is to govern the body (Ephesians 1:20–23):

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"20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all."

When reading this text, it becomes clear that Christ as the head of the church is the Christ who reigns over the church, just as he already reigns over all things, since God has placed all things under his feet.

The Already and Not Yet: Waiting and Reigning Together

Yet Hebrews does not permit us to escape the tension. The Spirit chooses a striking word for what Christ does at the Father's right hand: he sits, waiting until his enemies are made his footstool (Hebrews 10:12–13). Here is the "already and not yet" at its sharpest. Paul says he reigns until his enemies are beneath his feet; Hebrews says he waits until the same end is accomplished — and both are quoting the same psalm, describing the same interval, pointing to the same final victory. The two verbs, then, do not contradict each other; they describe two aspects of the one reality.

He waits in the sense that the consummation has not yet come — the last enemy, death itself, has not yet been destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). But his waiting is not idleness; it is the patient, sovereign waiting of a King who already holds all authority and is actively advancing his kingdom toward its appointed end. A general who has already won the decisive battle may await the formal surrender — but no one calls him powerless in the meantime.

This tension — the present reality of the reign alongside the incompleteness of its visible manifestation — is precisely what Progressive Dispensationalism sees as the hallmark of the present dispensation. The present age is not a parenthesis in which the kingdom waits to begin, but a stage in which the kingdom has already been inaugurated and is actively advancing toward its glorious consummation.

Conclusion: Not Waiting, But Reigning

The right hand of God, then, is no place of repose. It is the seat of royal authority. He has already been exalted. He has already sat down on the throne. He has already received all authority in heaven and on earth. He has already been crowned with glory and honor. His enemies are already being subdued beneath his feet. He has already poured out the Spirit and is saving his people. He is not waiting to become King; he is ruling now as the risen and ascended Lord.

His session is not inactivity, but enthronement; not absence, but sovereign rule; not delay, but the present exercise of his kingdom. Therefore, Christ does not merely sit there — he reigns there.