Yonsei University Church 2021. 11. 21.

Title: Christ the King

Scripture: John 19:33-37

Introduction

Christ came to this earth as the royal family of Judea. Isaiah 9:6 says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 11:1 says, “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit,” indicating that Christ will come as a descendant of the royal line of David. In Matthew 2:2, which records the birth of Jesus, the magi came to Herod's palace and said, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him? We saw his star in the east, and we have come to worship him.” He knew that Christ would come as King. Luke 2:4 says, “So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.” When Christ was nailed to the cross, Pilate put the guilt of Christ on the cross. On the plaque of the cross was written 'King of the Jews', and he wrote it in Greek, Roman, and Hebrew. The historians say that ancient history was formed in three lines. Greek culture and literature, Roman law, and Hebrew religion. In time, after Paul preached the gospel in Greece, Greek culture and literature were absorbed into the Hebrew religion. It is said that the laws of Rome were also absorbed into the Hebrew religion and became a single branch. If you go to the ruins of Rome now, you can see Christianity. The providence of God was what caused ancient history to recognize Christ as King of the Jews.

Look at the kingship of the king of the world. In the ancient world, kingship was absolute power. But behind the scenes, the history of usurpation that splashes blood is repeated. There are some kings who have given up the monarchy they wanted to get their hands on. Among the kings of the world, there are countless kings who reigned over the people and ruined the country with evil spirits. In the Joseon Dynasty, the king was called ‘Jo’ or ‘Jong’. However, there are some kings who did not receive such a name and remained as ‘gun’. Yeonsan-gun and Gwanghae-gun. On the other hand, there were many good kings. These are the kings who benefited and contributed to the people and the country through selection, and they were respected and left a name.

What about the king of this world that the Bible teaches? Judge Samuel was a good judge, but his sons Joel and Abijah heard the people's wrath. They perverted the judgment, and by doing evil, the people asked for a king. God said that if a king was set up in the kingdom through Samuel, the king would make your sons hard labor and oppression, but the people said, “No. We must also have a king.” The wickedness and misery of God's people provided an excuse for the dynasty of Israel. How dizzy has the country been since then? After Solomon, the kingdom was divided into Judah in the south and Israel in the north, and they fought and quarreled with each other, and eventually Israel was destroyed by Assyria and Judah by Babylon.

Calvin said that the most ideal church system is a combination of democracy and autocracy. The kingship of God is not governed by majority vote. Although the church has a democratic system, it must be established according to the absolute word of God. This is because the church is both a divine entity and a human entity. The church is a community of people, yet Christ is Lord, Christ is King and our Judge. That is why Christ is called King of Kings.

It is said that “a king was born” at the first coming of Jesus Christ to this earth. It is said that “the King is coming” when Jesus Christ returns to this earth. Jesus Christ is once and forever King of us and of this world.

First, Christ is the King of the kingdom.

John 18:36 says, “Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” Although Christ is a King, he is not the King of a kingdom of this world, but a King of a kingdom that is not of this world.

Which country does not belong to this world? It is the kingdom of God. It's heaven. The king of the kingdom of God is a king who has nothing to do with this world. Christ is the King of the kingdom of God, which has nothing to do with the kingdom of this world.

The kingdom of God is theologically ‘sovereignty of God’. The kingdom of God is the kingdom where the sovereignty of God rules. Christ is the King of the kingdom of God. Because Christ is the creator of the world, he rules the world. Because Christ the King commands, even the wind and the sea, which were created by the Word, obey the king's command. As King, Christ rules over the powers of Satan. He cast out demons and healed the demon-possessed. Christ as a king healed all kinds of diseases, so He had control over human diseases. And as a king, Christ overcame the power of death and rose again.

The Garden of Eden was a perfect model of God's kingdom until man sinned. He said that God also created it and that it was good, and that after he created man, it was very good. Eden, exceedingly good in God's eyes, was a kingdom of God ruled by the perfect sovereignty of God. However, because man sinned, he fell into a country ruled by evil.

In the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ that the Lord taught, “Let the kingdom come, and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The Lord's Prayer is a very important and difficult prayer. It is not a prayer that we pray with our mouths, but a prayer that we practice with our lives. Those who pray this prayer must live so that the kingdom can come to this country. You are entitled to this prayer if you live in love, justice, peace, and fairness just like the Kingdom of God. And we must live so that the will of heaven becomes the will of the earth. Christians must live so that the kingdom of God may come on this earth, and they must live so that Christ becomes the king of this kingdom.

The kingdom of God is a kingdom in contrast to the kingdom of this world. For the Jews, this is the Kingdom of Judah, the Kingdom of David. An ideal king appeared and longed to establish an ideal nation and give them liberty, freedom, and peace.

Even after Christ's resurrection and before His ascension into heaven, the disciples' thoughts did not go beyond the scope of this kingdom. In Acts 1:6, the disciples ask Christ, “Lord, is the time now when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” The original Greek word for this word is “basileia to israel”. It means “to bring back the kingdom to Israel.” They thought that if the kingdom of God was restored, it should be in the land of Israel. Before the coming of the Holy Spirit, even the disciples could not escape from narrow Judaism. They thought that the only perfect nation under God's rule was Israel, with Jerusalem as its center.

To the Jews, Christ was the King of the Jews. Christ's answer to this question was, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8). These words commanded the globalization of the gospel. It was the testimony that Christ was not the King of the Jews, as they thought, but the King of the whole world.

Look at the real world we experience. This country is far from the kingdom of God and the sovereignty of God. This world is a country where evil is infested, corruption is rampant, discrimination and class undermine human dignity, secular thinking dominates humans, and holiness is lost. As Augustine discussed in ‘The City of God’, since the expulsion from Eden, mankind has been divided into ‘a kingdom on earth’ and ‘a kingdom in heaven’. Later, Christ will unite the two kingdoms as the King of Judgment.

Christ's whole life was to preach the kingdom of God, who reigns as King. Christ came to restore the destroyed kingdom of God. Matthew 4:17 says, “From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Christ's first proclamation was the kingdom of God. After fasting for 40 days to prepare for public life and being tempted by Satan, the first proclamation was “the kingdom of God.” It was the king's proclamation.

Matthew 9:35 says, “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.” Christ came to this earth as the king of that country and preached the gospel of that kingdom. It was the mission of the king to come to this earth to preach his kingdom.

Why did Christ remain in the world for 40 more days after His Resurrection? If you are resurrected, shouldn't you just go to that country? Christ had to do his last thing on this earth. It was to spread the kingdom of God. That's why Acts 1:3 testifies, "After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God." The same is true of the Apostle Paul. In Acts 28:31, the conclusion of the book of Acts, “He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!” For Paul, preaching the kingdom of God where Christ is King and teaching that Jesus is the Christ was his life and the conclusion of his mission.

Professor George Ladd, who did an in-depth study of the kingdom of God, passed away shortly before I went to study abroad. I didn’t get to listen to his lectures, but people who have heard say that Professor Ladd shed tears whenever he talked about the kingdom of God. He was filled with emotion and gratitude just thinking about Christ, the King of the Kingdom of God. Because Christ is the King, we hope that this kind of emotion overflows to us as well.

Second, Christ is the King of truth.

John 18:37 says, “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Christ is the King, the King who bears witness to the truth.

Truth means the reason or duty. A statement is said to be true if it is true to the facts. Often, truth is a universal law or fact that can be accepted by anyone, anywhere, anytime. So truth is a transcendent value of knowledge.

The Greek word for truth, aletheia, refers to something that is not concealed, that is, something that is revealed. A fact that is clear to everyone is called truth. The truth is a value that does not change through the ages. But is there really an unchanging and clear value in the world? The truth defined by humans can change according to the times and regions.

But why can Jesus Christ be the King of truth? Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Christ is the truth and is the King of truth because it is unchanging and constant. The garments of Jesus Christ were a robe without seams. Some interpret the robe of Jesus as a symbol of the steadfast character of Christ.

Christ is the truth. He was the truth when Christ was born. John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Christ was born full of truth. The forerunner John the Baptist testifies of Christ: John 5:33 says, “You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth.” Christ testifies himself to be the truth. Christ testifies himself to be the truth. John 14:6 “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” he testified.

In John 18:38 it says, “Pilate said, What is truth?” When Christ stood before Pilate's court, Pilate revealed the folly of seeking the truth in front of Christ, who is the truth. It is possible with spiritual wisdom to believe that Christ is the truth, the King of truth. It was not something that could be known by human knowledge or experience.

The Hebrew word for truth is ‘Ameth’, which is made up of the first, middle, and last letters of the 24 Hebrew letters. The truth must be the same in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end. On the other hand, the Hebrew word for false, shakar, is made up of the last three letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The difference between truth and lies is clearly expressed in words.

Jan Hus was born in 1370, 100 years before Luther's Reformation, as the son of a poor farmer in Bohemia, and studied philosophy and theology at the University of Prague to become a priest. It was John Wycliffe who influenced Huss theology and faith. Wycliffe was a pioneer of reform who criticized the existing church order and insisted on thorough church reform based on the Bible. Hus criticized the papacy and was charged with disobeying the papal summons. He did not respond to the pope's summons because he valued the authority of the Bible more than the papacy. As he was being tried and taken to the stake, he exclaimed: “Lord Jesus, for your very sake, I bear this cruel death without complaint. Please have mercy on my enemies.” There is an article that Hus left before being burned at the stake. “Faith Christians, seek the truth. Hear the truth. learn the truth love the truth tell the truth keep the truth Defend the truth until death. For the truth sets you free from sin, from the devil, from death of the soul, and finally from eternal death.” After that, the Bohemians suffered many religious hardships, but the Reformation blossomed and later formed the Moravian Brotherhood, a religious community. The Moravian Brotherhood became the mother of pietism and served as the avant-garde (vanguard unit) of world missions. In the history of the church, there is no one who stood on the truth, defended the truth, and cried out the truth like Huss. It was Jan Hus who set the first button for the Reformation 100 years before Luther called for the Reformation.

If you can know the truth, keep the truth, and lay down your life for the truth, then it is a true life and a happy life. ‘Truth and freedom’ should be more than the lessons of Yonsei, it should be the compass for all of us. I hope you have the wisdom and courage to lay down your life for the truth like Hus did.

Because the Word of the Bible is the truth, it is the unchanging standard and the gospel of salvation. Because Jesus Christ is the truth, He is the only unchanging Savior. This truth has the power of our salvation and eternal life.

Madame Bush, who passed away as president of Harvard University, spoke of the four major shortages in modern society. “First, there is no song to sing together, secondly, there is no flag waving high, thirdly, there is no reliable truth, and fourthly, there is no respectable leader.” We live in a world richer than ever. But behind the scenes, we live in a world that is more impoverished than ever. It is this poverty and lack of truth that brings about an unhappy era.

Conclusion

Isn't it that we have pushed Christ the King out of the throne, and that the worldly things take its place in Christ's place? When the most real and worldly things, such as money, fame, power, and pleasure, have dislodged Christ from the throne and usurp His throne, mankind will live in misery and ruin.

Luke 1:32-33 says, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” May Christ, who came from this earth with the throne of David and became our King, be the King who rules our hearts, our homes, our nation, and our world. I hope that all of us will become Christians who enjoy the joy and grace of living as servants of the eternal King, Christ, and as the people of the infinite kingdom.