King: Then, Now and Always
John 18:33 – 37
By looking at the past, present and future events, we see how Jesus is the right and righteous King of his people. We begin our journey with the scripture in Daniel as we see how Jesus is foretold to the ancient Jews in Daniel’s vision.
King in the Past
Daniel, as you probably remember, was a taken captive along with hundreds of thousands other Jews when Judah is invaded by the Assyrians because of their disobedience to God. He and others were taken from Judah to Babylon. Along with his three friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (you remember them all being saved by God from the fiery furnace with Daniel) were taken to Babylon where they were forced to work in the government under the powerful King Nebuchadnezzar.
About ten years after Daniel is conscripted into the Babylonian government, he becomes a prophet to the other exiles from Judah and for forty years he sees and tells the Jews of dramatic apocalyptic visions that that foretell of the governments and leaders in the region and about God’s plan for the leadership of the world including a direct prediction of the Messiah.
It is here that we see in our OT lesson today how Daniel sees the King that will come to the Jews. Daniel tells the exiled Jews that God will come to bring the power hungry and unbelieving kings to justice.
Daniel sees the glorified Son of Man, who appears before God in the form of a human being but is clearly of heavenly origin. He comes to the place of coronation accompanied by the clouds of heaven. He is clearly no mere human being.
The expression “like a son of man” identifies this King of the world not only as human but also as the heavenly Sovereign or King incarnate. During his earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus maintained this same emphasis on his divine yet human nature, that he was truly human as well as truly God.
In Daniel’s vision the messianic Son of Man is brought before the throne of the God to be awarded the kingly crown of universal dominion which signifies his appointment as absolute King and Judge by virtue of his atoning ministry as God incarnate and his ascension into heaven shows that he will be enthroned in glory as all his enemies are defeated.
Because of the revelation of Daniel, the Jews understood that the Son of Man is to be the supreme source of political power on earth when his earthly kingdom is established; all humans will worship and serve him.
Under this Old Covenant vision of Daniel, for nearly 600 years the Jews will hold on to hope of the Messiah, that a Son of Man would come and become their King, and would rule justly and divinely and to protect His people from the insidious powers of earthly rulers and kings. Our lesson in Daniel shows that in the past, the old Covenant Jews knew the coming Messiah would be King Then!
King in the Present
This brings us then to our Gospel lesson today from John. Jesus has been arrested in the Garden and has already faced four trials and has been handed back over to Pilate who has already rejected the Jewish leaders’ religious crimes against Jesus without penalty. But the claim that bothers the Romans the most, is the claim that Jesus is the worldly King of the Jews and that he might start a political insurrection that could threaten the Roman control over the Jews and Israel.
Pilate needs to understand this more fully. Pilate asks, “Are you the ‘King of the Jews’?” Your people and your high priests turned you over to me. What is it you have done or will do?” Pilate was looking for clarification because he did not trust the Jewish priests. To Pilate this scraggly, sandal wearing man, this Jesus did not look like a contender to the vacant throne of Judaism. Jesus responds:
“My kingdom doesn’t consist of what you see around you. If it did, my followers would fight so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. But I’m not that kind of king, not this world’s kind of king.”
Jesus’ answer bewildered Pilate. “But you are a king, then, aren’t you?” Jesus agreed by confirming Pilate’s conclusion and he declared that his purpose was to bear testimony to Truth. He said that anyone who was devoted to Truth, would know that he was their Heavenly King. In his own words reminds Jesus reminds us that if we believe and are devoted to the Truth found in the coming and sacrificing Christ that he is our King and that we are his willing subjects in the Present.
In the Present we worship a King who could forgive his executioners and minister to the thief on the cross next to him, while suffering his own unimaginable death on a cross. For nearly 2000 years, believers in the present, including all of us here today, have accepted Jesus Christ as our King in the Now. Christ our King is right here with us now and has committed to be in solidarity with us in our joy and in our suffering.
If you are looking for the Truth that Christ the King is in your present simply look at the majesty in the world around you, in the lightening in the clouds, in the Sun during the day, in the stars at night and you can believe. Look around at those that you love and who love you and know that Jesus is King Now!
King in our Future
Finally, the Apostle John again brings us a glimpse of the Future Christ the King in his apocalyptic prophesy of Revelation. The arrival of the final kingdom of Jesus is heralded by John with the cry “Look! He is coming with the clouds”. Christ’s final physical coming will be supernatural and will be obvious and apparent to the entire world as every eye will see, including those lost souls who put him to death in the first place and those lost souls that rejected his sacrifice for them afterward.
John says that those poor subjects of Christ’s final kingdom will be dispatched to hell but the ones which have come to believe and call Christ King will live with him in the reign of the King of Kings in the New Kingdom. Because we have faith in a living savior, who has promised to return to be with us, as Christians know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Christ is King of our future!
Hear the Good News…….
As F B Meyer reminds us: Christ is the King: Then, Now and Forever. The kingdom of Christ is not a fanciful place or notion. The words He spoke, the deeds He did, have shaped the life and thought of the civilized world. He is supreme over all creation. The Father hath set Him at his own right hand, far above all principality and power; angels do his bidding; all demon-powers are beneath his feet. Jesus, our brother, is King: Then, Now and Forever.
We want something more than a story, something more than a directional sign to show the way; we wanted, we needed forgiveness then, we want salvation now, and we desire eternal life and these are only possible through the sacrificial death of the Redeemer.
Satan offered Him the kingdom of the earth when he met Him in the wilderness, but Jesus would not give up his kingship over all of creation, far and wide, to settle for anything else. With his face set for Calvary, He went down the mountain to the valley of the shadow of death; and having traversed it. He came to his disciples and said, “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.” He, my friends, is our King!
His kingdom is an everlasting one. All other kingdoms will pass away before Christ’s as “the chaff of the summer threshing-floor.” The shaking of the kings and kingdoms of this world has already begun and is destined to shake to the ground and the most stable edifices of human pride; but since we are to receive a kingdom that cannot be moved, let us not be troubled and let us have immense hope and confidence in Jesus Christ as King: Then, Now and Future!
The book of Revelation begins with the proclamations of who God was, will be and is; how Jesus is was born to man yet King over Eternity. The passage ends with the reassurance that “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” the beginning and the end, and everything in between, the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
No matter when we are, how we are, where we are, God is there! God is present at the beginning of all things and will be there at the end of all things. There is grace in that knowledge. There is hope in that knowledge. There is comfort in that knowledge. No matter what happens in our lives, that is the foundation on which we rest, on which we stand. We should be filled with hope as we live our lives because we know God through Jesus Christ; at the same time both the Son of Man and the Son of God is King: Then, Now and Always.