THE LORD JESUS AS KING
[p. 135] THE LORD JESUS AS KING
John 18: 37; Genesis 14: 18 - 20; Deuteronomy 33: 4,5
I have before me tonight to speak a little about the Lord Jesus as He is presented to us in the Scriptures as King. It is not the title by which He is known to us exactly. The term ‘Lord’ is that by which believers imply His authority, but it is akin to the term ‘King’, kingship being more official, and conveying in itself as I hope we shall see, much in the way of testimony from God.
What I wish to dwell upon first of all is that in His answer to Pilate the Lord says that He was born king. He says, as you will observe, “I have been born for this”. Now, in approaching this subject I thought it well to touch on the Lord’s royalty which, I may say, is hereditary; He is the root of David, being God, but He is also the offspring of David. We who belong to the assembly have intelligence as to Him both as the root of David and as the offspring of David. The gospel of John unfolds for us the truth of the Lord’s Person, and that underlies His being the root of David. The gospel of Matthew unfolds His official position, so that it is the “Book of the generation of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham”. Matthew 1:1 Thus the assembly, for which the gospels were written, understanding the gospel of John, understands how the Lord Jesus is the root of David. David was not an accidental king, beloved friends. In the first book of Samuel you have first the desire of a pious woman to have a son, and this desire was granted, so that we have Samuel, the prophet. Then we have the desire of a people to have a king, and their desire was also granted, and so we have Saul, for man’s unregenerate [p. 136] desire must ever result in confusion, and so God says that He gave them a king in His anger. We do not want to have anything from God given in His anger. We may ask, and ask amiss, we may ask for things to consume on our lusts. We must be on our guard against such desires and petitions.
The Israelites of old asked for a king. They wished to be like the nations around them, and they wished to have a king, whereas God was their King. And God gave them a king. “I gave thee a king”, it says, “in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath”, Hosea 13: 11. Then we have David. Who asked for him? No one among men. What his mother’s desires were we know not. We know that his father had no such desire for his son, for when Samuel came to anoint the king according to the word of God, to Bethlehem, to Jesse’s house, David was not sent for to be present. Who desired David? God. It was no accident that he was chosen. He was a king after God’s heart. “I have found David”, He says, “... a man after my heart, who shall do all my will”, Acts 13: 22. What is the secret of all that? The root of David. David’s root was Christ. The assembly understands it, so that when the Lord announces Himself as the root and offspring of David the assembly knows what that means. The Lord announces Himself, “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify these things to you in the assemblies. I am the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come”, Revelation 22: 16, 17; they understand! The Spirit is infinitely aware of all that these terms signify; and He has the assembly with Him in intelligence and in affection, so that she knows who He is and with the Spirit says, “Come”.
Pilate was ignorant of all these things, and he says to the Lord, “Thou art then a king?” This brings out the Lord’s reply, as I have read to you, “I have [p. 137] been born for this, and for this I have come into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth”.
God had Him in view when He had David anointed. What you find in the gospel of Matthew is that the gentiles recognised this fact before the Jews. The wise men from the east arrived at Jerusalem and they say, “Where is the king of the Jews that has been born?” Matthew 2:2. It is not, ‘Where is He who has made Himself King’, like Adonijah, or like Absalom, or like antichrist. Such climb into power on the dead bodies of others. Ruthless murderers! These wise men from the east wanted to see the king that was born. As you look into His countenance you see royalty; true royalty emanates from God. The time is coming when “the blessed and only Ruler shall shew”, as the scripture says, “the King of those that reign, and Lord of those that exercise lordship”, 1 Timothy 6:15.
The wise men were guided by His star, the star of the King. They were not governed by fleshly, national feelings of patriotism. They were not envious of the Jews that they should have a king. They did not say, ‘King of the nations’. “Where is the king of the Jews that has been born?” They were in the mind of God. The star guides them to the house “where the little child was”. The Holy Spirit says, “the little child with Mary his mother” (Matthew 2:11), not the mother and the child, for the King born, beloved, was greater than His mother, for He is the root of David. So they enter the house, and opening their treasures they presented “to him gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh”, and they worshipped Him.
Pilate had his answer. The Lord says, “Thou sayest it, that I am a king”. He did not hide the truth. He was wearing a purple robe, the insignia of royalty as suffering, for suffering goes before reigning. Let us remember that. “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him”, 2 Timothy 2:12. If Pilate had eyes to see, he could see royalty. How majestic is Jesus as He stands before the high priest, and as He stands before Pilate! And so we have the inscription of His accusation written, “Jesus the Nazaraean, the King of the Jews”, “in Hebrew, Greek, Latin”, John 19:19, 20. The world has committed itself to the murder of Him in whom royalty shone, in whom it is shining, and in whom it will shine. A King was there, and the world has committed itself to His murder. As Paul says later, speaking of the hidden wisdom, the wisdom which God hath prepared before the world “for our glory: which none of the princes of this age knew”, 1 Corinthians 2:8. Caiaphas did not know it; Pilate did not know it. “For had they known”, he says, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”. He was there before the eyes of Pilate. You can understand the feelings of that poor weakling, a representative of Caesar, when he said, “Thou art then a king?” Pilate had asserted over and over again that He was innocent, and yet he scourges Him and hands Him over to His enemies to be put to death. He was in the presence of a Monarch before whom all the Caesars would pass away into oblivion. It says of the antichrist, who is the embodiment of them all, “whom the Lord Jesus shall consume with the breath of his mouth, and shall annul by the appearing of his coming”, 2 Thessalonians 2:8.
I have read from Genesis because we have in Melchisedec the first intimation of this wonderful kingship of which I have been speaking. There was a king spoken of earlier, Nimrod, who “was a mighty hunter before Jehovah”, Genesis 10:9. I suppose he used men and beasts for sport, for kings after his type care nothing for men’s lives. Men are but chattels in their minds, as the other creatures of God. Then there were those kings that were at war, four against five. A sort of ‘world war’ was on. Melchisedec [p. 139] was not embroiled in that. Abram came into it to rescue his brother, a worthy cause surely, under all circumstances. And in ‘returning’, as the writer in Hebrews says in chapter 7, “from smiting the kings”, Melchisedec met him with bread and wine. So that Melchisedec is the first king representing Christ. It was “Melchisedec, King of Salem, priest of the most high God”, which is “first being interpreted King of righteousness”, Hebrews 7:1, 2. We have such a King as that. We have One who is not only personally righteous, for Jesus loved righteousness, as the centurion witnessed when he said, “In very deed this man was just” (Luke 23: 47); but He is King of righteousness, and that means that He has it by Him and will enforce it. As He comes out by and by, we shall see righteousness. Righteousness shall reign. It is not reigning now. Grace is reigning now through righteousness, or none of us would be here. Presently righteousness shall reign. And so it says, “when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness”, Isaiah 26:9. Now they turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. God is wonderfully patient, but there is the King of righteousness, and when He takes up the reins in this world He will enforce righteousness, His judgments will be in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. They are not learning it now. A few of us are, thank God. We are taught righteousness. The world is not. It is unrighteous, and lawlessness is taught in it. The very schools are teaching it. Let us not be deceived as to the world. We are living in an awful age. Lawlessness is pursuing its course; we have arrived at the apostasy, and it is developing rapidly. But here is the King of righteousness. He is teaching us righteousness through grace, “the grace of God which carries with it salvation for all men has appeared, teaching us that ... we should live soberly, and [p. 140] justly, and piously in the present course of things”, Titus 2:11, 12. Grace reigns through righteousness. So He bears with us, and that accounts for the way things are. How much God bears with in us! He goes on with us and teaches us on the principle of grace.
He is first King of righteousness by interpretation, and then “King of Salem, which is King of peace”, so that we have peace through righteousness, beloved friends. For “the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever”, Isaiah 32:17. An unrighteous person can never understand the peace of God. We must learn righteousness and practise it and then peace follows.
And then the King brings forth “bread and wine”. Melchisedec conveys to us the great salient features of kingship as exercised in grace, and every one of us who knows the Lord Jesus in His position in heaven will attest that. We will bear witness to the fact that He is all these things to us; and I would urge the youngest here to know this blessed Man in heaven, and you will know all these things. You will find that He comes in the way of righteousness, in the way of peace, and in the way of supply. He brings forth bread and wine.
Every king according to man, instead of bringing forth supplies, demands them. From Nimrod down to the present day the kings of this world subsist on what they get from the people. So God warns the people of Israel as to what a king would do. He would take their sons and daughters, their fields and vineyards. He would give them nothing. What had Saul to give? What has Christ to give? All the wealth of heaven. He demands nothing. He brought forth bread and wine.
I cannot dwell longer on this, but it is a delightful subject conveying to us the salient features in Christ, and none of us should rest until he knows Christ in [p. 141] these features. When we know Him in these features we shall never come under the domination of the king of Sodom, that is, the power of this world. See what the bread and wine mean. Bread, we are told later, strengthens man’s heart. You need your heart strengthened. And wine makes the heart glad. It is better than what the world can give. Indeed wine gladdens the heart of God and the heart of man. Melchisedec is king and priest. He is priest of the Most High God, and he blesses God and Abram. Now as we thus learn Christ, He will become King in our affections. So that in going on for a moment to Deuteronomy 33, from which I read, I want to show you how that as you apprehend and learn Christ as King of righteousness and King of Salem and Priest of the Most High God, He ministers to your needs spiritually and acquires a place in your affections. “He was king”, it says, “in Jeshurun”, that is to say, king in an upright people. Wherever there is an upright man or woman in the world, Christ has a place there. You get to know the Lord as I have been saying, and now He is enthroned in your heart, and as enthroned in your heart He preserves you from every rival, for there are rivals: “as there are gods many, and lords many, yet to us there is one God, the Father ... and one Lord, Jesus Christ”, 1 Corinthians 8:5, 6. And so Mary Magdalene says, “they have taken away my Lord”, John 20: 13. He had a place in her heart. So to us there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. He is God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Can all you young people say that? That we have got the Lord? He is our Lord.
Moses typifies Christ here not in His official position as King but in His moral greatness. I want to make that clear to you. Moses was never crowned. He was not in the regal line at all. He belonged to Levi. He was of the priestly line. Therefore, if he is alluded to as king it means what he was morally.
[p. 142] I will just refer for a moment to a passage in Proverbs to explain that. The writer speaks of four stately things; Proverbs 30:29, 30. The first is a lion. He turns not away for any. The second is a warhorse; he smells the battle afar off. The third is a he — goat; that means the christian who is separate. It means a servant of God who accustoms himself to retiring to be with God. Moses was called up to the mount to be with Jehovah and he was there forty days and forty nights, and he neither ate nor drank. What an experience! But what moral formation there must have been in that man during those forty days he was with God! No natural sustenance! He drew all his sustenance from God. How he would come down from that mountain imbued with the sense of divine support and as the possessor of true moral greatness! So he draws near to the camp, and he hears the noise of the people. He understands it. He has an exercised ear. Joshua thought it was war. ‘No’, says Moses, ‘it is not war, it is the voice of singing’. A false god was there. They were making merry in his presence. Idolatry was there and Moses enters into the camp of Israel; he burns their idol, the calf, grinding it into powder, and putting it into the water, he compelled the Israelites to drink it. One man in the presence of thousands of men, and they have to give way before him. There was no rising up in the presence of Moses. He was not there a crowned king with an army behind him. He had been forty days and nights with God in the mount. He was imbued with a sense of the presence of God and the support of God and the protection of God, and a nation had to give way before him.
That is the idea in which he was king. From that point onwards Moses rises. God honours him. And so in this remarkable chapter it is said that “Moses commanded us a law, The inheritance of the congregation of Jacob”. He was the law — giver. The speaker [p. 143] instances the value of the law. The law was spiritual. It was God’s law, not only the ten commandments but the whole law of God. The Israelites had come to value it. It is a great thing, beloved friends, to learn law in the true sense. I connect Romans 7 with this. I do not think any believer acquires a place in the testimony unless he learns to value law. I do not mean now the legal sense, but as from God. The writer in Romans 7 says, “I delight in the law of God according to the inward man” (Romans 7:22). If I delight in it I regard it as an inheritance, so “Moses commanded us a law, The inheritance of the congregation of Jacob”. What the congregation of Jacob would have been as governed by these laws! No other people had such laws. They were divine laws. They were wise laws. They were spiritual laws; now they were valuing them.
If you look carefully into Romans 7 you will see how the believer works out this principle. He arrives at the value of the law of God and he wants to do it. When he comes to chapter 8 he sees the way: “the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit” (Romans 8:4). You have the Holy Spirit, and you are fulfilling the law. You delight in it. You are in the spirit of it.
“Moses commanded us a law”. It is really Christ. “And thus fulfil the law of the Christ”, we are told; Galatians 6:2. Do you think of the law of Christ? “Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfil the law of the Christ”. No true believer is afraid of law. The law of God enters into everything. “I delight in the law of God”. Moses commanded us a law and it is called “the inheritance”. Then it goes on to say, “He was king in Jeshurun”. That is to say, we have come to admire the one who gives us law. We value him. “His commandments are not grievous”, 1 John 5:3. That is the way you come to appreciate [p. 144] Christ. He is King in your heart. He has acquired moral greatness in your soul through experience. It is one thing to read the Scriptures and hear sermons, but it is another thing to prove what Christ is to you in a moral sense so that He becomes greater and greater to you every day. “He was king in Jeshurun”, it says, “When the heads of the people And the tribes of Israel were gathered together”. There you have the people together. The heads of the people and the tribes. The heads represent the mature wisdom that was there, and the tribes the family feeling. When these are together Christ is supreme. He is King in Jeshurun. The next thing is, you will say, “My heart is welling forth with a good matter: I say what I have composed touching the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Thou art fairer than the sons of men”, Psalm 45:1, 2.
The soul advances in the knowledge of Christ, into appreciation of Christ and, I may add, into admiration of Christ. You love Him and you speak of Him. Your heart is welling up, with a good matter, and that is really the normal state of those who love Jesus. You think of something of your own. However little, it is your own and you speak of it “touching the king”.
Well, I hope what I have said will help all to have a better appreciation of Christ as King.