The Lord Is King.docx

The Lord Is King… The Lord is King, He is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed, He is girded with strength. Yea, the world is established; it shall never be moved; Thy throne is established from of old; thou art from everlasting.(Ps.92:1-2) One of the most beautiful hymns of the Great Vespers in the Orthodox tradition is the hymn The Lord is King (Listen at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiF4WePVE24). This beautiful hymn is taken from the 92nd psalm. At the lighting of the evening lights, the faithful gather and sing this hymn that has been a part of sacred hynography from the time of David, who penned it. It is this very proclaimation, however, that will be the subject of this essay. You see, it is very clear, when we read through the Psalms that God is King, and sits upon the throne of heaven. Psa 10:16 The LORD is King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land. Psa 24:8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. Psa 47:2 For the LORD most high is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth.

It is also clear that it is God who judges the nations: Psa 9:20 Put them in fear, O LORD: that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah. Psa 22:28 For the kingdom is the LORD'S: and he is the governor among the nations. Psa 66:7 He ruleth by his power for ever; his eyes behold the nations: let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah.

In fact the Psalmist declared that it is God, sitting upon His heavenly throne, that lifts up and that brings down the nations. He writes:

Psalm 75:6 For exaltation comes neither from the east Nor from the west nor from the south. But God is the Judge: He puts down one, And exalts another. For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup, And the wine is red; It is fully mixed, and He pours it out; Surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth Drain and drink down. While I am sure that most have read and would acknowledge the importance of these passages, and the clear image of God as King and Judge in the OT, it seems that most never stop to consider that very fact. This is particularly the case when it comes to statements concerning the Kingdom of God in the NT. When John the Baptist, and then Christ, begin to preach “the Kingdom of heaven is at hand”, how can they make such a statement? Surely they cannot be asserting that there has been no Kingdom of Heaven up until that point, and that the Kingdom was about to begin. How could that be when the Law and Prophets adamantly affirm the Lord is King? It seems we have misunderstood what is meant by the Kingdom of Heaven being “at hand.” Further, because the eternal Kingdom of God has been overlooked at times, the nature and reality of the Son of Man receiving the Kingdom has also been misunderstood. As we have written before, the nearness of the Kingdom in the NT directly correlates to manifestation of God in the world. The Lord’s prayer admonishes us to pray “Thy Kingdom come – Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This is a parallelism and shows us how the Kingdom comes. It comes when the power and will of God are manifested in the earth. This is why Christ tells the Jews that His casting out demons was a sign that “the Kingdom of God has come near to you.” But it would be missing the greater point to simply relegate the actions of the NT to merely an act of God in the earth. There is a greater truth to be grasped here. When we begin with the concept that God has always been King of Heaven, and has from ancient times executed judgment over the nations, then we may begin to

grasp what is begin reported to us in the pages of the NT. It is in the Gospels that continuously see Christ referred to as the Son of Man. This is a term that had the general meaning of a human being in the OT, but it also was used particular in certain important Messianic passages. I believe there is an important reason for this. One such passage is the very important passage from Daniel 7: Daniel 7:13 I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed. It has been pointed out that this phrase could be translated “one like a son of man.” This, in some cases, raises eyebrows because it is assumed that this somehow damages the Messianic nature of this passage. On the contrary, it only strengthens the point. The very important point that a man – a real and human person – would be exalted to the very throne of God. A son of man was brought before the ancient of days. God assumed human nature. This is the affirmation of the ancient and Apostolic Church, and this was the prediction of prophecy. Now it begins to emerge why the proclamations of the NT are important. It is not just that God is King, He has always been King, it is that the Son of Man has been exalted to the throne of God. Peter preaches this: Acts 2:32 This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear…Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Christ prays in the Gospels:

John7:5 And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory I had with You before the world existed. What we are seeing is the Son of Man – a true human being – acting from the throne with the power of Almighty God. Just as God judges the nations from His throne, so Christ now judges the nations from the throne of heaven. In Proverbs we read: Prov 24:12 If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works? But then we read of Christ: Matt 16:27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. In his martyrdom Stephen sees this in glorious vision: Acts 7:55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, 56 and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” It is this act, the exaltation of the Son of Man, that represents the consummation – the purpose and glory – of all the ages. God became man, lived as a man, suffered death as a man, consumed death in Himself and ascended victoriously into the heavens. Not the end (termination) of the ages, but the purpose of the ages. That one thing by which all other things find their meaning and being. This is why Paul can write of Christ: Col 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

He also tells is that this was the purpose of all the ages, to being all things into on in Christ: Eph 1:9 And He has made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together in Christ. Surely heaven and earth were united in He who is fully God and fully man. And it is this Divine act of grace that is the thing for which the ages find their purpose. The significance of the exalted Son of Man cannot be overstated, not by an innumerable number of tongues in praise! The writer of Hebrew proclaims: Heb 4:14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. In the Orthodox Paschal service we have a wonderful procession in which the celebrant leads a processions to the large doors of the Church, pounding on the door he begins to cry out from the psalms “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.” Here he represents to us the Christ who goes to conquer death and the grave. From behind the doors a voice sounds the refrain: “Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.” This is done three times and the door opens, the faithful filing in in procession into the dark sanctuary where we will celebrate the victory of Christ over death. Here is the proclamation of Pascha. Here is the gospel – who is this King of Glory? Who is it that has won the victory for us? Who is it that has overcome our enemies and triumphed over them publicly? It is our Elder Brother and Kinsmen. Our Advocate and High Priest. The Lord Jesus Christ – the Lord is King he is clothed in majesty! It is with this that we see that the victory of the Son of Man is perhaps the major theme of the Gospels, the hope of the Epistles and the promise of the Apocalypse. The Kingdom had drawn near, not in temporality but in proximity. Christ Himself was the Kingdom incarnate. The Kingdom was near because the King was present,

God with us. Further, the Kingdom would be present in the Church of Christ, which is His body. Where the Church is, there is the Kingdom. I will conclude with saying that it is unfortunate that in the modern era there has been a shift from looking to the glorified Son of Man in prophecy, toward an attempt to predict the future. This was an endeavor that seems to be nearly absent in the ancient days of Christian thought. Perhaps this is in part because the Fathers understood that the incarnation of God in Christ, and the exaltation of the Son of Man was the act of history around which all others revolve. There can be little doubt that this new emphasis has taken the focus from the victory of Christ, and placed it on temporal events. William L. Vincent © 2019