Sunday School | Jesus Ruled as A Human King

You guys, we're gonna take—believe it or not, if you were here already this morning for the first service, okay? Did you guys appreciate what we covered on the whole "Jesus became king" thing? I did. It was beautiful, and I'm grateful for him. That was great.

I actually—wait, Harry's not even in here. Harry, this whole session is for you, buddy. Where are you? Yeah, I know. I was gonna give him one more crack at this.

Well, this is weird. You guys, normally we're like three times the crowd here, and I wanted to hit this, but I'm tired of stalling. So maybe the clock—I don't know what to do. Here's what we're gonna do: we're gonna take one more swing at this notion that Jesus became King, but I want to show it to you from a different perspective that I think might be helpful to kind of land it. And then we'll move on.

Though it's a little bit embarrassing to do it again. Not very embarrassing, because we really did kind of make the case. It is absolutely a foundational claim, but it's also one that is not honestly very broadly known.

So here's what we're gonna do. I want to show you that the plan from the very beginning was that the world be ruled by a human being. But that plan very early went off the rails.

The Original Plan for Human Rulership

So go back to Genesis 1, and we're gonna kind of do a biblical overview. We're gonna do this in three acts. We're gonna skim through this, starting with Genesis 1:26.

And God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air." Hear that? Rule over the livestock, over the earth, over all the creatures that move along the ground. And so God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. — Genesis 1:26-27

And then we get to verse 28:

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it." — Genesis 1:28

It's language of leadership, rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, over every living creature that moves along the ground.

Psalm 8 is a reflection on the creation account, and in particular, it's a reflection on this call that human beings were granted—the cosmos to rule. Here's what it says:

Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You've set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you've ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place... — Psalm 8:1-3

Okay, you hear all that? That's all very creation-oriented. Then it says:

What is man that you're mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him—is king language—with glory and honor. You made him a ruler over the works of your hands. You put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! — Psalm 8:4-9

Genesis 1 grants the world to human beings—to Adam and to his descendants. Psalm 8 rejoices in this, but it's also kind of puzzled, like, "What is it about human beings? You put human beings in charge of this thing." There's this puzzlement at the ordinariness of that.

But then Hebrews picks up Psalm 8, and listen to how Hebrews frames this. You go to Hebrews 2, verse 5:

For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, and it quotes Psalm 8: "What is man that you're mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet." — Hebrews 2:5-7

Okay, you hear that? That's straight up Psalm 8. But now look at Hebrews 2, verse 8:

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. Yet at present we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. — Hebrews 2:8

What he's saying here is even though Genesis 1 says mankind will rule, and Psalm 8 is a reflection on the puzzlement of that, Hebrews 2 affirms that it's the case. But then Hebrews 2 says, "However, time out—it doesn't seem like it's working very well, right?"

And the reason? Well, what do you recall from our previous weeks? Why isn't it working very well? Why has this promise, this plan, this purpose—that human beings would rule over the world—why has that gone off the rails?

Gil: Sin.

Yes, okay. Could you be a little more? Can you personify that?

Gil: Satan.

Okay, good. Okay, this is good. We're close. So I asked why has this gone off the rails, and Gil said sin, and then he remembered that humans wanted to become God themselves. But why? What was—who's the person behind it all?

It is Satan.

Okay, so listen to this. If you remember, Satan ends up usurping this back. We can see this in a number of places. Put in Luke 4: "The devil takes Jesus up and shows him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And he said to him, 'To you, I will give all this authority and their glory.'" You'll hear echoes of this in Matthew 28.

To you, I will give all this authority and glory for it has been delivered to me. — Matthew 28

He's lying. He stole it. "And I will give it to whom I will, and if then you will worship me, it will all be yours, right?"

This reality that Satan stole the kingdom of the world is one of the primary reasons that the second person of the Trinity became a human being. Okay, listen to this. This is back to Hebrews 2:14:

Since the children have flesh and blood—that's us, since the humans have flesh and blood—he, Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, he too shared in their humanity. So that listen to this: by his death, he might break the power of him who holds the power of death. That is the devil. And free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. — Hebrews 2:14

Okay, as a result of that, you go back up just go up the paragraph in Hebrews 2. Look at verse 9.

We see him, Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels—namely Jesus—crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. — Hebrews 2:9

Yeah, just verse 9.

Okay, so I know I'm going a little bit out of order, but I want you to follow the logic of this, right? Humans are given the world to rule it. It all gets screwed up. Why? Because Satan steals it. So I'm made—it's like, "Yeah, but the plan was that we would rule over everything. How odd?"

Hebrews says, "Yeah, it is odd. And you did you notice it's not working very well? But hang on, because it's changing. Because it has changed."

And what happened in Daniel 7, in Psalm 2, when Jesus was reflecting on in Matthew 28, and what Hebrews is pointing to right now is: the one human being—it's supposed to be all of us, but we're terrible at it. The kingdom was stolen away. And so the Son of God dressed up as a human? No, that's weak. He became a human. Actually, it wasn't just a costume. He became one of us. So that one of us could rule over the cosmos.

We look again, Hebrews 2:9:

We see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels—namely Jesus—crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death. — Hebrews 2:9

He became king through means of his death and his resurrection so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. It was his becoming a human being and dying on a cross. It was because of those two things—from which he was raised, by the way—that is what qualified him to become king. It always had to be a human being. That was the plan from the very beginning, which is why Hebrews 1—all of Hebrews 1—asks the same question three times.

It says in 1:5:

For to which of the angels did God ever say, "You're my son today. I've become your father"? — Hebrews 1:5

That's a coronation formula right there. Did he ever say to an angel, "Here, become king"? Or again, "I will be his father and he will be my son"? No, he never did.

So in Hebrews 1:13:

To which of the angels did God ever say, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet"? — Hebrews 1:13

That's Psalm 110. Okay, he's saying all of the language of kingship—it's all uniquely granted to Jesus and never to the angels, but only to a human being.

And we will get here in about a year and a half. We will reign with him. We will reign with him, and Genesis 1 will finally be ultimately true. It has begun to be true because of the beginning of Christ's reign, but he will exalt us to be kings and queens that we might reign with him. But we're not there yet.

How are we doing? We're not making this up, you guys. This is a big, big thing.

Now that's act one. I'm gonna do it three times today and three different from three different lenses. That's the first one.

Yes, ma'am. Satan exactly. Stole it. Yeah, that's my question.

That of that kingship of authority—was it when he lied to me, or when God brought the judgment where he said that you know that he would step on his head in Genesis?

Okay, great. So Robin's question as well: Can you take us to the scene of the crime? When did Satan steal that kingship of authority? Satan claims in Luke 4 that the kingdom was delivered to him. We accuse him of being a liar because he is a liar and say, "It wasn't given to you. You took it." But Robin's question is, "Well, when exactly did that happen?"

That's a difficult question to answer because there's not an unambiguous passage in the Scripture where we see it happen. Generally speaking, our understanding of who Satan is is based chiefly on—or let me say this: our understanding of Satan as a fallen angel, which would be his fall.

I would argue that his fall coincides with his usurption of the kingdom. That is what he was kicked out for. There are two passages in the Old Testament that are generally understood to describe this: Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. Maybe it's a little bit easier to recall that because 28 is twice 14.

Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28

These are the two passages that describe each of them describing a human king. In one instance, it's the king of Tyre and Sidon; in another instance, the king of Babylon. But those descriptions—when you read them, if you look them up, you'll recognize it immediately. In Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, the language there is just lavish. It seems hard to imagine the king of Tyre and Sidon warrants so grandiose a description, similar to the king of Babylon. So it probably is the case—though it's not 100% certain—that those two passages depict it.

But your question, I think, is where does it occur in the timeline? Like, when does it fit? Was it before creation? Was it after creation, when the snake shows up? How does that work out? And I don't know the answer to that. It strikes me that it happens somewhere between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. But I could be wrong about that. I have relatively high confidence on some things and low confidence on others. That's relatively low confidence. If I had to put a gun to my head, I'll say it's between Genesis 1 and 2, but I might be wrong.

There's still some authority, and this was attacking Job on earth. So Robin's comment there is that we saw Job—which, by the way, is super early. Job is the earliest book in your Bible. It's set during Genesis, but it's set very early in Genesis. And it is describing Satan as an accuser. It's almost like he is in some regard authorized to play the role of prosecutor. He's like a lawyer. We hate the guy, but it's his job to be the prosecutor. He is bringing accusation, and so there's a reasonably strong likelihood that Satan officially had that job. But then, like a lawyer, he came to like it too much and came to like himself too much and could not tolerate the mercy of God.

We are going to actually unpack these ideas more fully at the end. We get to, right before eschatology, we'll get into angelology and we'll try to make a little bit better sense of that. But for brief terms, that's my best sense of it. But again, I hold a lot of that loosely because there's not a great deal of biblical data.

So you see, even in the Gospels, Jesus tells Peter about Satan. Gil asked the question: doesn't Satan still have to function within parameters? And the answer is yes. Ultimately, God has sovereignty over all things. But you see a boldness—Jesus comes to Peter and says, "Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to sift you as wheat." So you see there's some version, similar to Job, of Satan and the Father in some kind of discussion about what he may or may not do.

That is—it's puzzling to get into all this. There you are, Harry. I'm giving this entire class for you, buddy. We're revisiting Jesus became king, but you missed my first round, so you'll have to listen to the tape. That's important. These guys are dear, gracious fellows. We are so grateful for your kindness to them and for having that conversation too. But listen to the tape and then we'll talk. You're gonna get this in three acts. You heard you missed act one. We're gonna be back to act three right now.

Here's the second thing: not only is there always gonna be a human king ruling the world, but the humans couldn't do it. The kingdom got stolen. God had to come as a human being to fulfill the original purpose of Jesus. Not only is that true, but in ways that we've already seen a little bit of—but we haven't fully explored—somehow the king of Israel is intertwined with the king of the cosmos. Whoever is going to be granted the universe to reign is kind of like... I don't know how to say it. In the United States, if it happened to be the case that some disproportionate number of American presidents were previously the governor of Montana, you know there's something about the Montana governorship that just keeps lending itself to the rulership or something like that. This is like this: whoever will rule the cosmos will get there through the agency or through the venue of a rulership of Israel. And we see that pretty early in the story.

The Promise to Judah

I want you to see this. This is something fascinating. I don't think a lot of people have seen it in Genesis 49, verse 8.

Judah, your brothers will praise you. Your hand will be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's sons will bow down to you.

Now, by the way, Judah is a human being. His children will be human beings. This is a human being who's going to be ruler over Judah.

Your alliance cub, you return from the prey, my son, like a lion he crouches and lies down like a lioness. Who dares to rouse him? Listen to verse 10: the scepter—the mark of the king—will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler staff from between his feet. Listen to this: until he comes to whom it belongs. And the obedience of the nations, plural, is his.

Right. So what that means is there's gonna be a little king of Judah or a little king of Israel from Judah. We might call him David. There'll be another little king over Israel from Judah. We might call him Solomon, right? And there's Rehoboam and there's Jeroboam. There's all these other worthless kings. There's gonna be king after king after king, and they're gonna all rule over Israel. But someday, the one is coming to whom it belongs. All these temporary little mortal kings, one after another—but the day is coming that the king will come. And what changes about his kingship? Every nation. The ruler staff will not depart from between his feet until he comes to whom it belongs, and the obedience of the nations is his. One day, the king of Israel will be the king of everything. That's the promise.

The Long Wait

Now what ends up happening is walk through the Old Testament. Centuries of history prove that no human being was qualified to serve as king of Israel—never mind the universe. It's just an endless embarrassment, right? And what you find throughout the Old Testament is, "We have a king. And maybe he's the one." Well, first of all, he's not from Judah, so that's a clue. But then he goes off the rails very quickly. But we replace him with David, who is of Judah and who is a man after God's own heart. And he's probably here. David is probably the fulfillment of Genesis 49 until he's not. And the end of his life completely spins into madness, right? Pretty much from Bathsheba on, it's a total train wreck.

And there's this sense of, like, "Ah, almost like"—have you noticed that when Jesus is crucified and he's walking, and the apostles or the disciples or the kind of the beat team disciples are walking down the road to Emmaus and they're like, "Yeah, man, we had hoped that he was the Messiah. But it turns out he's dead. So I guess it's not him." Remember this, okay? It's like being a Red Sox fan. We thought this is going to be the year. Year after year after year, this could always be the year. If you're a Red Sox man—I grew up, I was born in Manchester, New Hampshire. My father's a Red Sox fan was really the determining factor of your favorite baseball team—and like year after year after year of psych. It's a disappointment. It's a disappointment.

This is what they experience all throughout Israel, right? It's just disappointing king after disappointing king after disappointing king. Jesus was just the last in a long line of disappointments. Until he rose from the dead, right? And then he's like, "Oh wait, that was him. And it is him." Okay, but in between every wretched king that thought it was going to be him and it wasn't him and it wasn't him and it wasn't him and it wasn't him until finally something happens.

It's very important, but I want you to hear this first. Stay in Genesis 49 before—well, you can go to Ezekiel 21, which is where we're heading—but I want this ringing in your ears. Listen to this line again from Genesis 49:

The scepter will not depart from Judah, the mark of the king, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until he comes to whom it belongs, and the obedience of the nations is his. — Genesis 49

The ruler's staff will not depart until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.

What ends up happening finally in Ezekiel 21—after hundreds of years of disappointing kings—God finally is fed up. Because all of these little kings, what they're supposed to do is faithfully rule and then hand the crown to the next one. Faithfully rule and hand the crown to the next one until one final king will have the privilege of bowing before the real King and handing off his throne. That's what they're supposed to do. But they're so bad at even that, that he benches the entire team. Look at this:

O profane and wicked prince of Israel, whose day has come, whose time of punishment has reached its climax. This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Take off the turban, remove the crown. This is strong language. She's like, "We're done with you. Take off the turban, remove the crown. It will not be as it was. The lowly will be exalted and the exalted will be brought low. A ruin, a ruin I will make it a ruin, and it will not be restored until he comes to whom it rightfully belongs, and to him I will give it." — Ezekiel 21

In Ezekiel 21, God sets aside the promise of Genesis 49 and says, "Never mind, I'll do it myself." There will be—think about this—Genesis 49 promised an unbroken line of kings until the Messiah came. Was there a king of Israel when Jesus came? There was not. Why not? Because of Ezekiel 21.

Now the real King still did come. The ultimate purpose of the promise was not set aside, but their human role in the interim was—we're not doing it that way anymore because you're just so bad at it. Never mind, sit down. I will do it myself. And then he did it. He himself became a human being to fulfill the promise, and not only a human being, he became a descendant of Judah to establish a new kingdom over which he and only he was qualified to reign. At least that is—as I hinted—until he qualifies us to reign with him, which is also coming.

So basically they're all under the thumb of Rome, right? Under Pontius Pilate, under the Caesars, under Herod. So he would have been more like a governor. He was not the king of Israel for sure.

Now some who want to protect what they believe—I believe wrongly—the integrity of Genesis 49, some have said Genesis 49 promises there will always be a king, and therefore there must have been a king, and therefore it must have been Herod. And they come up with some gymnastics because they think they need to get God off the hook for making a promise in Genesis 49 that he didn't keep. But that's not how it works. You're allowed to promise your kids you're taking them to get ice cream and then ground them when they punch their sister in the face. Like, God had the authority to be like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, we're not doing it like that anymore. You blew it." However, he still brings his Messiah. So I don't think we need to do any work to try to force Herod into the role of king of Israel. He was not the king of Israel. He was the foreign oppressor of Israel.

The Irony of Their Request

This whole story is like the biggest "I told you so" in the world because He didn't want to give them a king. And they beg, and it's like, "Okay." It's such a funny thing because on the one hand they're crying out for a king, and then they didn't like it when they got one, which is what He warned. He's like, "Your king is just going to marry a bunch of women, get a bunch of gold, get a bunch of horses, and take advantage of you. You sure you want to play this game?" They're like, "Yeah, sounds great."

And so He was telling them, and yet prior to that, it was His plan for there to be a human king, right? But a human righteous king. And what they ended up with is a human wicked king—until one righteous one became human. And that's kind of the twist of this whole thing.

Surely there are going to be skeptics that come out at you with the angle of, "This whole kind of way you were talking about earlier, of 'This is king, king, king until'..."

Conditional Promises and God's Authority

So Gil's question is: what if people feel like this demonstrates there's some error in the Bible? What would a skeptical person say is an error regarding these kings?

I would just point out that we all know—every one of us has made promises that are nevertheless conditional promises. When the condition is not met, the promise can be set aside. Here's maybe the highest version, or maybe the lowest version, but you may someday make a promise to a woman to love her till death do you part. That's a promise you would make, but if she has an affair, that releases you from that promise. You could still keep it, but you also would be authorized to say there are things that can be done that break the promise keeper's obligation. We just know this in life.

God had the authority to say, "You blew it. There were conditions on this promise and you have set it aside."

Now our great hope and our great glory is that in Christ, for us—the promises that we need to keep ourselves, that we cannot keep—He has met the condition. He is the great promise keeper, which is where our great confidence and security lies: that we will not be set aside. But it is also what drives us to cling to Him and to remain in Him as a branch to a vine. Apart from Him, we can do nothing.

The Core Promise Remains

But don't lose sight of this, Noah. The point of Genesis 49 is that there will be a king who will reign over all in righteousness. That is the major premise of the promise: the king of Israel will become the king of the world, and that is kept. What was set aside is all of these faithless kings who simply could not do their duty.

The whole thing seems to be designed, at the end of the day, to exalt His grace and to humiliate our incapacity. I mean, how many swings do we get at this before He finally says, "All right, everyone sit down. I'll do it Myself"?

The Pattern Across Scripture

We've seen this through the lens of Genesis 1 and 2, Psalm 8, and Hebrews—basically Hebrews 2's reflections on this: there's to be a human king, but He's got to become that human to be that king.

We've seen it through the lens of the king of Israel, who was going to be of Judah and therefore human, who will someday be granted all things. But he's so bad at it that we just have to shut it down and then go directly to the human king of Israel and the King of the cosmos.

C.S. Lewis and the Fundamental Truth

Here's the third lens: C.S. Lewis. The notion that the King of the world has to be a human being—this is not novel. I'm not making this up. This is not something I'm giving to you. This is known. This is established. This is real. And it's so much known that C.S. Lewis wove it into his children's books because it was so fundamental. If you or your children have read these, you've seen it, but you may not have ever noticed what it was saying.

Okay, so go back in your brain to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Do you remember what the witch was specifically terrified about because she knew that it would end her reign?

Now there is an obvious question. There's an obvious answer, but it's wrong. And there's a less obvious answer that is right. What was she so terrified of? Two brothers and two sisters would sit on the throne of Cair Paravel. This is it. Two brothers, two sisters that would sit on the thrones of Cair Paravel. Okay, but those sisters and those brothers were a particular sort of a thing. Do you know what they had to be? Human beings—or as they would say it in Narnia, sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.

Now, people maybe in a different context tend to say it was Aslan. Of course, when Aslan comes, everything's gonna get ruined, right? And that is also true. But that's not the story that Lewis tells. The story that Lewis tells is about sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.

Here's what I'm gonna read you a couple of excerpts from that. When the witch meets Edmund, she interrogates him—remember this? So Edmund is the brother. Lucy goes in first. She's sweet and righteous love. She's the best character. But then Edmund's just a punk, right? He gets better. He gets redeemed, but he starts off as a jerk. And the queen meets him and she says:

"But what are you?" said the queen again. "Are you an overgrown dwarf that has cut off its beard?"

"No, your majesty," said Edmund. "I never had a beard. I'm a boy."

"A boy," she said. "Do you mean that you are a son of Adam?"

Edmund stood still, saying nothing. He was too confused by this time to understand what the question meant.

"I see you are an idiot, whatever else you may be," said the queen. "Answer me once and for all, or I shall lose my patience. Are you human?"

She got him to tell her that he had one brother, two sisters, and that one of the sisters had already been in Narnia and had met a fawn there. And that no one except himself and his brother and his sisters knew anything about Narnia. She seemed especially interested in the fact that there were four of them. And she kept coming back to it.

"Are you sure there are just four of you?" she asked. "Two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve, no more nor less?"

And Edmund, with his mouth full of Turkish delight, kept on saying yes: "I told you that before," and forgetting to call her your majesty. But she didn't seem to mind now.

And then later, Mr. Beaver is explaining this to the other three children who have not betrayed all of Narnia into the witch's hands. And Mr. Beaver says:

"That is why the witch is always on the lookout for any humans in Narnia. She's been watching for you this many a year. And if she knew that there were four of you, she'd be more dangerous still."

"Well, what's that to do with it?" asked Peter.

"Because of another prophecy," said Mr. Beaver. "Down at Cair Paravel—that's the castle on the seacoast down at the mouth of this river, which ought to be the capital of the whole country if all were as it should be. Down at Cair Paravel there are four thrones. And it's a saying in Narnia, time out of mind, that when two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve sit on those four thrones, it will be the end—not only of the White Witch's reign, but of her life."

"And that is why we had to be so cautious as we came along. For if she knew about you, your lives wouldn't be worth a shake of my whiskers."

The Gospel in Narnia

As Lewis is teaching six-year-olds, he is saying: the world is to be ruled by a human being. And when the real human ruler comes, it will be the end of the reign of Satan. That is what he wove into these stories that we didn't know when we read them to our kids, or when they were read to us.

He's teaching Genesis 1 and Psalm 8 and Hebrews 2. He's teaching Daniel 7 and Psalm 2 and Matthew 28. He's teaching Genesis 49 and Ezekiel 21. And he's pointing to the fact that the King—the human being who has been given the reign over the cosmos—has come. And his name is Jesus.

Do you believe me yet? It's all true. Christ has become King, and the centerpiece of the Gospel is that specific claim: that the old despotic, miserable tyrant who reigned in wickedness and malice and evil has been defeated. He has not yet been destroyed, but he will be destroyed. And you and I today live in a world ruled over by Jesus Christ, for all authority has been given to him.

And the Great Commission is the invitation to call people out of the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of light, as we await the day that He comes back and His kingdom is inarguably obvious to all. And again, as I said, He will invite us to reign with Him.

Groovy.

Okay, here's what's going to happen next week. I'm in Boston for my daughter-in-law's med school graduation, and while I'm there, you guys have the opportunity to come into a fantastic session on faith and Financial Peace University.

We hope you'll come, bring your friends, and get a taste—a free sample—of the incredible quality of that content. And then the week after that, I will be back and we will resume our study walking through this great big doctrine survey.

Good enough. All right. Thanks for coming. We'll see you.