The comparison is drawn from kings who have assessors at their side to whom they delegate the tasks of ruling and governing. So it was said that Christ, in whom the Father wills to be exalted and through whose hand he wills to reign, was received at God's right hand. This is as if it were said that Christ was invested with lordship over heaven and earth, and solemnly entered into possession of the government committed to him--and that he not only entered into possession once for all, but continues in it, until he shall come down on Judgment Day. . . . You see the purpose of that "sitting": that both heavenly and earthly creatures may look with admiration upon his majesty, be ruled by his hand, obey his nod, and submit to his power. Here is what the apostles meant to teach when they often recalled it; all things were entrusted to his decision. Therefore, they are wrong who think that it designates simply his blessedness. It makes no difference that in the book of The Acts, Stephen declares that he saw him standing. For here it is a question, not of the disposition of his body, but of the majesty of his authority. Thus "to sit" means nothing else than to preside at the heavenly judgment seat.

John Calvin, Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. from the 1559 Latin ed. by Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols., in Library of Christian Classics, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), Book II, chapter 16, section 15 (volume 1, pp. 523-524).