I AM King
We started this series with learning about the God who is - I AM - and moved to Jesus being the utmost priority - Cornerstone - and journeyed to the beginning where we learned God was there before the beginning of time - Creator. It seems logical to me that we discuss God’s kingship, His sovereignty, over us.
The kingship of God, of Jesus, is not something I can convince you of. Rather, it is something I want to declare to you. I want to pull back the lens for a moment and walk through a few stories from the Bible that reveal God’s sovereignty and challenge you to bow your life to his reign.
So first - what is a king? In Bible times, a king was a male political and military ruler over a nation or people group. Kings usually went unchecked in their power. Many nations had kings, but there is one group of people that went for a long time without an earthly king - Israel. When Moses delivered the Israelites from Egypt, he basically became their leader. However, Moses always went to God for what to do, essentially just acting as a spokesperson for the real king -Yahweh, I AM. In the few hundred years that followed, God appointed prophets and the people selected judges to manage them. God’s prophets were his spokespeople, and the judges were there to settle disputes among people along with the priests.
But when Samuel, Israel’s prophet, was getting older, the people came to him.
“They said to him, ‘You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.’”
1 Samuel 8:5
Samuel’s sons were wicked, but they wouldn’t have had the same role as Samuel, for only God appointed prophets (Deuteronomy 18:14-22). Most likely, Samuel had appointed them as judges, and because they were wicked, the people obviously did not approve of this. Samuel, while a prophet of God, was still very much a man, and he took Israel’s rejection of his sons and desire to depose him personally.
“But when they said, ‘Give us a king to lead us,’ this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: ‘Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.’”
1 Samuel 8:6-7
While Samuel is upset, God gently reminds Samuel that he isn’t the leader they are rejecting. Samuel works for Him. Israel is rejecting God as king. This is a problem for two main reasons. First, God is King whether they acknowledge Him or not. The Sovereignty of God is not dependent on our obedience, loyalty, or acknowledgment. He is King. The second problem with Israel’s desire for an earthly king is that they were wanting to be like the other nations, as verse 5 points out. They weren’t called to be like the other nations. They were called to be different and set apart. They longed to be like the rest of the world, which I personally think reflects the largest problem in today's Christian culture - a desire to be like the world rather than set apart.
As directed by God, Samuel points out to the people all the problems that will come with an earthly king, yet they still demand a king, and God gives them what they want.
“But the people refused to listen to Samuel. ‘No!’ they said. ‘We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.’ When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. The Lord answered, ‘Listen to them and give them a king.’”
1 Samuel 8:19-22
Now, this should not have surprised Samuel, and it definitely didn’t surprise God. Samuel, a prophet and student of the Torah, would’ve known that Moses, a prophet, predicted this in Deuteronomy 17:14-20. It’s worth reading all that Moses says, but we will focus on just the following:
“When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, ‘Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,’ be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite.”
Deuteronomy 17:14-15
God’s Sovereignty prevails. His desire was not for Israel to have a king, but He knew they would rebel and want a king, and He knew He would give them one. And He knew his ultimate plan.
Let’s travel to another prophet’s book to see the plan that God orchestrated long before. Daniel was a young man when he was taken into Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel gained favor and respect in secular Babylon even while he refused to become like the Babylonians. Unlike the Israelites who responded to Samuel, Daniel obeyed God and longed to be set apart rather than blend in. While Daniel was serving in Babylon, God gave Nebuchadnezzar a dream. Daniel, by the power of God, told the dream to Nebuchadnezzar and interpreted it. To summarize, the dream itself was a statue with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron mixed with clay. A rock was cut out, struck the statue, and it all went to pieces, leaving nothing behind. The rock then turned into a mountain and filled the earth. Here is the interpretation that was given:
“This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king. Your Majesty, you are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; in your hands he has placed all mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds in the sky. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.
After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.
“In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.
“The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.”
Daniel 2:36-45
The rock in this dream is Jesus Christ. Remember when we learned about the Cornerstone? It’s all coming full-circle here. Jesus is the king that will rule a kingdom that will never be destroyed. The King of all Kings. His kingdom will fill the earth.
Side note: I love that a non-Israelite receives this dream and interpretation. It’s amazing how we see God’s invitation to the Gentiles even before Jesus came. Ol’ Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t part of the chosen people, yet he could’ve responded to the truth by pledging his allegiance to Yahweh and joining Israel rather than opposing her. We see this in the stories of Rahab and Ruth - both were women who were not Jewish but decided to follow Yahweh when faced with a choice, believing in a coming Messiah, the promise of a King above all Kings. Both women were in the line of Jesus, too, further showing that God welcomes all who call upon His name and turn to Him.
Now, let’s continue to the New Testament where we meet King Jesus. Jesus was not the king the people were expecting. They envisioned a warrior who would take over politically, not one that would die to redeem them and be raised again to reign forever. But He was the promised king. In fact, when Jesus was arrested, he was asked if he was the king of the Jews, and this was his response:
“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.’”
John 18:36
Long before his arrest, Jesus taught his followers how to pray:
“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’”
Matthew 6:9-10
His kingdom wasn’t of the world, but He would bring it to the world.
So back to Jesus’s arrest. It was customary at the time for the criminals charges to be written and displayed. I think it is important to realize the “crime” to which Jesus was being charged because it is significant. All four gospels reveal that Jesus was accused of claiming to be the King of the Jews. Here is the account from John:
Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.” Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
John 19:19-22
The Jewish people believed that Jesus’s claim of kingship was false, but the truth was that He was their king, whether they acknowledged it or not. Sound familiar? Pilate refusing to change the wording is the providence of God at work. The statement declared the truth to the dismay of the chief priests.
In my research, I stumbled across something I’d heard before about the inscription written above the cross when Jesus was crucified. Basically, if we go with John’s wording of what was on the cross from John 19:19, the Hebrew would form an acrostic. Acrostics were common in that day, and it would not be strange for the priests to look for any hidden meaning in an acrostic. The acrostic, or first letter of each word, in Hebrew would’ve read YHWH - the name of God. This would certainly make the Jewish priests angry if true, which would only amplify their desire to have the wording changed.
I dug pretty deep to determine if this was fact or fiction because I’ve been trying to learn more about the Hebrew language (I’m still on the aleph-bet though). I was sent down a rabbit hole for hours. I was hung up on the fact that the word for king, melech, starts with the Hebrew letter mem, which would make this claim false. However, upon further research into Hebrew conjugations and Greek translations of Omicron - fun stuff, right? - I came to see that it is possible that this could be true, that it would be vemelech, and not just melech.
It’s neat to think that the name of YHWH was displayed on the cross, pointing to Jesus as God and King. And while we don’t know for sure if John’s wording is the exact wording or if the translation of the Greek text to Hebrew is accurate, it is definitely possible, and I would say plausible and probable. It would be just like God to do something like that. Regardless of whether YHWH was inscribed, what was written declared the kingship of Jesus once and for all, and that is praiseworthy.
So Jesus was crucified, but He was also resurrected, and Hebrews tells us exactly where He is now.
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”
Hebrews 1:3
He’s with the Father in heaven, and He will come again. He will be victorious and triumph. Praise the Lord!
“They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.”
Revelation 17:14
Beloved, you’ve been called and chosen. Will you be found faithful to the King of kings?
Prayer: King Jesus, thank you for your sovereignty and perfect will. You, O Lord, know my heart and that I want to be found faithful. Help me to surrender to your lordship every day and faithfully trust and follow You. Remind me that the things of this world do not compare to You. Set me apart, devoted to you. Amen
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