Behold Your King!
My favorite Christmas song is “O Holy Night”. I have a CD version sung by the choir at my former church in Houston, with a solo performed by John Drury. It is amazing! I woke up early the other morning with the words, “Behold your King” running over and over in my mind – part of a verse in O Holy Night:
“He knows our need, to our weaknesses is no stranger! Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!”
Then, yesterday we got a Christmas card from a couple who are missionaries in the Far East. On their card was this Scripture:
“Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, O Daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you” (Zechariah 9: 9 NKJV).
This prophecy was fulfilled 500 years later when Jesus entered Jerusalem to celebrate the final Passover of His life in Matthew 21: 5: “Behold, your King is coming to you.”
And in John, after Pilate examined Jesus, Pilate brought Jesus out to face the crowd.
“And he said to the Jews, Behold your King. But they cried out, ‘Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him.” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar!” Then Pilate delivered Him to them to be crucified” (John 19: 14 – 16 NKJV).
So, this phrase “Behold your King!” was spoken about Jesus before He was born, when He was born, as He entered Jerusalem to be crucified, and even by a Gentile when He was sentenced to death on the cross.
Powerful words that resonate across the Millenia. Jesus is our King! He was a King before the creation of the world, He was a King when He was born, and He died a King. In fact, as I wrote in my last post, Jesus was a King born to die.
Most earthly Kings are not born kings. They must grow up and reach an age when they can be coronated. Think of Prince Charles in the UK. He is still not King, although he was born to be a king.
But Jesus is more than an earthly King. He is King over all creation – past, present, and future. As we celebrate His birthday, do we really acknowledge Him as our King? Think about this when you sing ‘O Holy Night’. Because if we do, then we need to bow down to Jesus, give Him our loyalty, our obedience, our gratitude, and our total dependence. Our King demands total surrender of our lives to Him because that is what Kings expect from their subjects.
Wherever the King is, His Kingdom is there also. On Christmas Eve, as we celebrate the birth of our King, we are also (or should be) celebrating His Kingdom – the Kingdom of God – which entered the world at the moment Jesus, our King, was born. The King cannot be separated from His Kingdom.
Here are three aspects of the Kingdom of God I believe we should all reflect on this Christmas as we worship our newborn King.
First, the mission of Jesus was the Kingdom of God; He had no other agenda. John writes about Jesus’ last minute on the cross – the final culmination of all that He did and said:
“When He had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished”. With that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit” (John 19: 30 NIV).
I have read many interpretations about what “it” means. What is finished? In His commentary on the Gospel of John, Dale Bruner writes:
“What has been finished, made whole, completed, consummated? In short and at least: the revelation of God; the mission of the Messiah; the reconciliation of the world; the rout of the devil” (Bruner, The Gospel of John, pg. 1114).
All of these for sure, but with respect to the Kingdom of God, I believe “It is finished” refers to the mission of the Messiah. What is that mission? Jesus tells us in Luke 4: 43:
“I must preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other towns as well because that is why I was sent” (Luke 4: 43 NIV).
‘Sent’ in Greek is Apostello. It is the root word for apostle. It means “to send out on a mission”. Jesus’ mission, the reason why He was born, lived, died, and rose again, was to preach and release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world – to redeem, ransom, and restore the world back to its original purpose, function, and condition. His Kingdom mission was for the earth and each of us to be restored back to a relationship with Him, for the glory of the Father.
How exactly did Jesus ‘preach’ or announce the Kingdom of God in Luke 4? First, He preached in the traditional sense in the synagogue in Nazareth when He read Isaiah 61 from the scroll that was handed to Him (Luke 4: 16 – 21). Then, He preached in a nontraditional way in Capernaum when He cast out a demon (Luke 4: 33 – 35), healed Peter’s mother-in-law from a high fever (Luke 4: 38, 39), and that evening healed all who came to Him (Luke 4: 40, 41). So, ‘preaching’ to Jesus was more than words. He also announced the Kingdom by healing the sick and casting out demons.
When Jesus died on the cross, the invasion of God’s Kingdom into the kingdom of the world was completed. The beachhead was secure. D-Day was successful. VE is still in the future, but the victory is ensured.
Second, the Kingdom of God is the gospel.
“After John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye and believe the gospel” (Mark 1: 14, 15 KJV).
For Jesus, the gospel is the Kingdom of God.
Back to the Luke passage, in Jesus’ words:
“I must preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other towns as well because that is why I was sent” (Luke 4: 43).
The Greek word for ‘preach’ in this passage is Euaggelizo meaning “to announce the gospel, the good news of the coming of the Kingdom”. Gospel in Greek is Euaggelion. So, as I wrote above, Jesus came to announce the good news, the gospel, which is that the Kingdom of God has broken into the kingdom of the world. And that is indeed good news because it means the end of slavery to sin, death, disease, and satan is at hand. Jesus is bringing freedom to the whole world – “Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her King.”
The gospel is not about sin management; it is about the Kingdom ruling and reigning in our hearts now, not just when we get to heaven, for the purpose of pushing back the darkness, taking back the territory, and defeating the power of evil.
Third, the Kingdom of God is salvation. How do we know this? We are told in the Bible.
In His encounter with the Rich Young Ruler, Jesus tells His disciples:
“How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God”. The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God”. The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?” (Mark 10: 23 – 26).
The Greek word for ‘saved’ in this passage is Sozo, meaning “to make well, heal, restore to health” as well as “to deliver from the penalties of Messianic judgment”, or salvation. Sozo is the verb form of Soteria, which is Greek for ‘salvation’.
The disciples equated entering the Kingdom of God with salvation.
Luke 7 and Colossians 1 also help us to see that the Kingdom of God is the same thing as salvation:
“He rescued us from the dominion of darkness (slavery to satan in the kingdom of the world) and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son He loves, where there is redemption and the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1: 13, 14).
“Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven . . . Your faith has saved you. Go in peace” (Luke 7: 47, 50).
In these two passages, Colossians and Luke, we see that in the KOG there is the forgiveness of sins and the forgiveness of sins is a mark of salvation; i.e. KOG (a) = forgiveness of sins (b); forgiveness of sins (b) = salvation (c); therefore KOG (a) = salvation (c).
(if a = b and b = c, then a = c).
We are saved when we enter the Kingdom of God; life in the Kingdom of God is salvation. It is not just life when we die and go to heaven. The Kingdom of God is here on earth, now. But we must be born again. We cannot enter the Kingdom of God unless we are born of water and the Spirit.
“I tell you the truth, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again”; and “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit” (John 3: 3, 5).
And . . .
“If you confess with your mouth that “Jesus is Lord”, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10: 9).
“You will be saved” – saved is Sozo, again. As we saw above, to be saved (Sozo) means to enter the Kingdom of God. I take from these passages that being ‘born again’ occurs when we confess Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead.
The good news of Christmas is much more than our King was born. The Angels, Shepherds, and Wise Men did more than worship the newborn King. They came to proclaim and celebrate the newborn Kingdom – the Gospel and the beginning of salvation for the world, at least for all the world that will receive Him as their Lord and Savior.
As we worship Jesus on Christmas Eve, let us also thank Him for His greatest Christmas gift to us – the Kingdom of God within us and among us.
“Behold your King” and behold His everlasting Kingdom.
As David prophetically wrote over 500± years before the advent of Jesus:
“All You have made will praise you, O Lord; Your saints will extol you. They will tell of the glory of Your Kingdom and speak of Your might, so that all men may know of Your glorious acts and the glorious splendor of Your Kingdom. Your Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and Your dominion endures through all generations” (Psalm 145: 10 –13 NIV).
Hallelujah!
Merry Christmas,
John