This is a little piece that has been inside me for many years. I gave it once, in a much shorter and much less thought-out version, to a group of young and eager Christians in the Holy Land. It caused my first experience in Christians pointing out in a friendly way that I might be wrong. For some reason, the criticism that I was handed that evening was difficult to cope with and has stayed with me since but I think I have gotten over it now (after all, 15 years should be enough time!)
The idea struck me during a worship time. There we were, in the late 1990’s singing some wonderful songs and I found myself wondering about the words. Several of them were suggesting that god was our King and I began to question what it is that this term means. We all know that we have a Queen in the UK but I wonder how many Christians have ever stopped to think what it means to have the celestial King Himself ruling our lives in this very world. Another thing that helped put this talk into my head was what I had recently finished studying. My degree was in history but I specifically wanted to focus on medieval history and the history of the church. I came across many kings in my studies and I wondered how they compared to God. Was there a standard that Kings were supposed to follow? What was a King for? I knew that I was more likely to find any answers in the medieval period, when Kings were Kings and their subjects knew it well. I wondered what the Bible said about it and I wondered what the ideals were going to be in Scripture.
Before I start, I would like to get a couple of things out of the way. Firstly, the medieval Kings were often merely Primus inter Pares or First among Equals. God is not that, nor has he ever been. There is no other name that can claim his majesty and sovereignty. Secondly, I know that God didn’t want the Israelites to have a King. We see in the First book of Samuel what God feels when his people ask for a King
When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as Israel’s leaders. The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. But his sons did not follow his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice. So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 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.” 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. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.” 1Sa 8:1-10
God felt rejected, this was his job and the Israelites were to be warned. What I am going to try and do is look at what shadows of God we can see in our understanding of kingship. Thirdly, I am not about to discuss the ideas of worldly obedience. That is not my intention. I don’t want people to hear this and think that they need to be more obedient.
Now that those points are out of the way, let’s begin. At the very heart of good Kingship is a relationship. It is a relationship between the King and his people. Within this relationship each side agrees to accept responsibilities whilst holding on to their rights. (This was the most contentious point when I first looked at this topic, I used to call them obligations but it was pointed out to me that God has no obligations).
Starting with the king. He makes the following promises in his oath to govern. He promises to lead his people, to legislate for their protection, safety and welfare. He also promises to love his people. It is with these promises that the King sets out to make the lives of his subjects as happy and as wonderful as they can be.
The great kings of the high Middle Ages most definitely led their people. They led them into battles and through trials and tribulations. This was something that they took on wholeheartedly. Even though there were probably selfish motives in their actions, their leadership was undeniable. God makes the same promise and even more wholeheartedly. There are, of course, many examples of his physical leadership as well as more metaphorical ones. He led the Israelites through the desert and he leads people today. It isn’t his fault that too few people follow him (more on that later).
It is important to realise that when God leads he does so in many different ways. This was the same with medieval kings. Sometimes they led on their chargers as their army met that of another king. At other times, they stood at the back and directed their troops into action. Still more, kings would delegate authority. This was done for one of two reasons; firstly because the King couldn’t be everywhere at one time and secondly, to allow others to grow in experience and knowledge. Now, God can be everywhere at once so that is not his reason for delegating but delegate he does. He will often lead through others and it is good to know that this could be anyone. (I plan a future piece about this so keep your eyes posted!)
Secondly, the king was the law. What he said was the law. From Hammurabi in ancient Babylon though Hywel Dda in medieval Wales, the Great Kings all have their law codes. Today we see the Royal Courts of Justice and Queen’s Counsellors and we see Rex V whomever in legal cases. IT may be a poor shadow of the past but our justice system is rooted in the power of the queen. Whilst the Queen sits on no bench of justice but her judges swear their loyalty to her and to her justice.
God is no shadow giver of justice. He has given laws and he sits on the bench ready to judge. I really do not want to get bogged down in the minutiae of the legal codes as set out in the Bible (I have noticed that the most legalistic interpretations I have ever heard of these passages come from atheists attacking us, weird eh!).Better men than I have tried to sum up all the laws of God but nobody does it better than the Holy Spirit working through the writers of the Bible.
Here is the beautiful verse written by Micah
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
Here is the interaction between Christ and an expert in the Law from the Gospel of St. Luke
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” Luke 10:25-29
Thus, I don’t feel the need to spend too long defining laws and explaining them. Rather I would like to talk about the purpose of the law. The Law as set out by God (and to a lesser extent in the human world) is about Love. Loving God and loving your neighbour. The laws that God provided are meant to protect us but also they are a continuation of God’s leadership. Such laws that come from God shine a light on the correct path to follow, the path that God is leading us down. The laws are what God wants us to do because it is what he does. There has been much debate of late as to whether or not Britain is a Christian nation. I personally think not. However, one cannot help but see the influence of Christianity on our laws and our society. The laws of Britain shine out with the concepts of fairness, justice and mercy shown in Scripture. Yes there are more and more unjust (in terms of our faith) creeping in to modern Britain but we cannot deny the influence of the church.
God is the ultimate source of law. When he is taken out of the law then things go bad quickly. When I was a young Christian, I went with a large group from church to Spring Harvest in Skegness. The theme that year was the 10 Commandments. I was very impressed with what I heard. Particularly with one anecdote from an American Prison. The governor, it turns out, had been challenged in Chapel about them. He decided that from the next day, none other than do not kill would be enforced in his prison. Within a week, the prisoners were begging to have them put back in place! After all, as Dostoevsky says ‘If there is no God, then all is permissable’.
The fact that the law is about protection, and well-being, it leads nicely into the third aspect of the role of the King. They were meant to love their people. This was the one that many of them got wrong. Most medieval kings loved themselves more than their people. Their love of position, power and prestige was greater. Examples are hard to find. Richard the Lionheart loved his people so much he hardly visited England. Henry VIII was a great lover of women but not his people. Even into the modern world, Queen Victoria, the most beloved of Nineteenth Century monarchs was warned that her continued seclusion and abandonment of her people would cost her the crown. Our current Queen’s father was cut from a different cloth. He and his wife clearly saw their position as a duty to be carried out and they loved their people through the darkest of times. The Queen readily admits that she loves her people. She knows her duty is from God and she goes about it willingly and with a smile on her face.
This bit was easy when it comes to finding examples of God loving his people. The Bible is a great love story and is full of examples of God loving his people. The greatest of these is captured in John’s marvellous gospel. I remember as a child, asking my dad what all those signs saying John 3:16 were at sporting events and big gatherings (is it me or do they seem to have disappeared from the modern world?). Now, my dad wasn’t (still isn’t, so please pray) a Christian but he knew that it was a Bible verse. The words he used were actually from Genesis 9:7! We know what it actually says. God loved the earth so much he gave his only son. Later in John Jesus tells us that there is no greater love than that of a man prepared to lay down his life for his friends. Jesus did exactly that. God undoubtedly loved, does love and will love us. This is what colours all aspects of his Kingship. The vital difference between him and the earthly kings we have had, this is no obligation or responsibility, and it is his very nature. God can do nothing else and this is a remarkable thing.
So God leads us, he legislates for us and boy does he love us. What does he get from it? Perhaps it would be less depressing to think about what he is supposed to get from it. For sure he does not get enough out of the relationship with his subjects as He should.
Returning to the earthly kingdoms for a little while, it is easy to say what the Kings had a right to expect. When they led, their people were meant to follow. When they made the law, their people were meant to obey. When they loved their people, they were meant to worship their king and show love back.
Following is difficult as a Christian. We know this. The King may lead us into battles and we need to be prepared to fight. We don’t have a choice about this. We don’t pick the battles, the King does. This is an important point to remember. If God says we need to fight the encroachment of secular values on our lives, we need to fight. When he says that we need to make a stand, we need to make a stand. He never changes. Malachi 3:6 tells us this. If he does not change, what right have we to change what He tells us? I know that this is difficult and sometimes we don’t want to fight the world. We might disagree with God (we are only human after all) but we need to be aware that it is our obligation and we should realise what this disobedience it. It is sin. Plain and simple.
Thankfully, God does not just lead us into battle. If we were to focus our eyes on him, we would see that all too often he wants to lead us to pastures new, even when it means going through the valley of the shadow of death. This is what it means to follow. God will show us the path and will lead us in the right way, we just need to ensure that we try to follow. Scripture is littered with the examples of people who went their own way. Eventually, these stories all have one thing in common. They all end with God. We would do well to remember that all things will end with God and that ultimately His way is the best way.
Where to even start with obeying the law. The Lord wants us to obey his laws. They are for our own good and our own protection after all. They are not there to ensure that we pander to the whims of some fella in the sky. The problem is, well one of the problems at least, that there are so many laws. I cannot remember all of them. Some of them are vague and some of them are frighteningly specific. Even those well-known ones such as the commandment not to kill are totally turned on their heads by Jesus. I think that the best policy is to look to the summaries of the law that I mentioned earlier and to try my best. Yes, I will fail. Yes I will break some laws (many of them) but I know that it is ok because the Lord is nothing if not just and merciful. I have done and continue to throw myself on his mercy. As King, it is in his hands to distribute justice and I have no right to expect mercy. Thankfully, the great kings of our past were often the most merciful and just (Solomon anyone?) and they were a pale imitation of our true king. He will be merciful. I hope he will at least.
Do we love God? It is fashionable these days to be an atheist. If you are a deist, then you should at least be a pluralist. You should accept that all faiths have merit and that all paths to a god are equally meritorious. This is patent and absurd nonsense. You cannot have more than one religion being true. Islam says God is one. Christianity says he is triune. Both of these cannot be true at one and the same time. Neither can the Buddhist who believes there is no god be the same as the Jew who worships the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. What is unique about Christianity (apart from its nature as the truth) is that with our God, there is the possibility of relationship. He wants us to seek him, find him and once we have found him, to fall in love with Him. He doesn’t force us to love him, he is just so loveable. Now, this should be easy but we are too easily distracted from Him. We love other things and this means we don’t have all our heart to give to him. Sometimes we put these things above him and this clouds our view. Suffice it to say, God does not get the love He deserves from us.
Thus, we do not fulfil our responsibilities to God. We get everything from him. He provides for our safety, he leads us in the right path and he loves us. We frequently go astray and we don’t love him as much as we should. This must, at the very least, be incredibly painful to Him. At worst, it is something that the earthly kings understood all too well. It is the ultimate crime. Disobeying the king, not fighting when commanded, ignoring the law and showing a lack of respect was treason. In the modern world, treason is mostly forgotten. God doesn’t forget. He knows that we are guilty of treason. The punishment for treason is death.
We deserve to die. There is no doubt about it. Thankfully, there is another aspect of Kingship that I have left out of this talk. History is replete with Kings who disguise themselves and go out among their people to see what life is like. Shakespeare wrote of it beautifully in Henry V and there are many other examples. It is something God did too. He disguised himself and came down to see what life was like for his subjects.
I adore the Christmas story and I am always moved by a small comment I once heard.
He could have been born in a palace. He could have had the kings of the earth round his golden crib. He could have had choirs of angels proclaiming to the world the birth of a god and he could have had an army of guards to ensure his eternal safety. He was born in a stable, with a few animals and some locals as visitors. He knew no security or wealth. He knew no power or riches. He knew life as a normal, tiny, scared and poor human.
God, as Jesus, came and found out what life was like. He found out how difficult we have it (no matter who creates the difficulties). He spent time tired, scared, hungry and alone. Of all the kings of history, none but God truly knew the lives of his people. This was a magnificent thing. God, in knowing why we failed, poured out his mercy on his people. Christ is unique among all the religious founders and objects of worship. He is God and man. He knows exactly what we are like and he is fully King and fully Subject. His relationship with God is perfect and is something that should be followed.
The problem was, however, that we were still traitors. It may or may not have been our fault but nonetheless we deserved punishment. God had a plan to get around this though. Earthly kings faced rebellions often and every rebel was a traitor. They didn’t all die. Often, a token number faced the penalty in the stead of all. This is exactly what God did. He needed to punish us for our sins. He couldn’t simply ignore them; that would mean him not being God. It would mean us having no consequences for our actions and thus no free will. It was at this point that one human stepped up and took the punishment. Jesus went, willingly, in the place of everyone else. I am sure that we have all seen the scene from the end of Spartacus where the slaves are asked to hand over their leader to the authorities; many of them choose to die instead of him. Well, that is what Jesus did. He stood and said ‘I’m Derrick’, ‘I’m Jessica’, and ‘I’m John’. He took our punishment so that we didn’t have to. God was satisfied with this. In the past, Kings would pardon large numbers of people after the token punishment and God has done the same. All he requires for us to receive this free pardon is for us to take it. He is holding it out to us. Once we have accepted that we need the pardon, all we need do is approach the outstretched hands of God and take it from Him.
(Update - December 2014. This formed the basis of my most recent talk in church. I tried something different with it, I didn't plan it out to within an inch of its life. I followed what I thought God wanted to say. Unusual for me that!)
