THE LORD IS KING

February 19, 2023
THE LORD IS KING
PSALM 99
The Lord is King. Let the peoples tremble! The Lord sits enthroned among the cherubim. Let the earth be moved. The Lord is great in Zion. He is high above all the peoples. Let them praise your great and awesome name. God is Holy!
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Almost surprisingly, the understanding of the Kingship of God as it is viewed in the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures, and the understanding of the Kingship of God, as it is viewed in the New Testament or the Greek speaking Scriptures, in major aspects are the same or very similar to each other. It should not be a great surprise indeed, as they approach the same God, although the historical-cultural background changed significantly almost in every century.

Nonetheless, in order to avoid anthropomorphism, we may rename the Biblical term of the King of the Universe with the neutral term of the Ruler of the Universe, though if we can accept, internalize and conceptualize that God is not human, and we keep this always in the  forefront of our spiritual eyes, then the case might be simplified enough not to fall into anthropomorphism, thus we do not try or shall try to wrap God with human qualities, with human genders and with any physical or psychological characteristics depict human beings.

Nonetheless, one of the major attributes of the discovered nature of God, therewith the sages of old and the sages of a bit newer old all agreed, is the absolute sovereignty of God over the universe. It should be self-evident, that the creator created the Universe, out of sheer nothingness, thus the Creator fully owns the Creation. For the Bible tells us this we know that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” There was no co-creator, God was alone.

In every morning prayer of the old tradition, entitled “Adon Olam”, which means the Lord of the Universe, the prayer begins with the statement that “The Lord of the universe, Who reigned before anything was created, When all was made by his will, then was His Name proclaimed King. And when all shall end, the Awesome One will still reign alone. He was, He is, and He shall be in glory.”

In the Book of Daniel, chapter three even Nebuchadnezzar, the emeperor king of Babylonia, the destroyer of  powerhouses of the ancient world, the conqueror of Assyria and Egypt, the same Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed also the Temple of the Most High God in Jerusalem, when his sanity was given back to him after seven years of madness, when he had grazed grass with the animals, the same  Nebuchadnezzar declared by imperial decree to all the peoples, nations, and languages, who dwell in all the earth, that:

“ It has seemed good to me to acknowledge the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done to me. How great are his signs! How mighty are his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. His dominion is from generation to generation.  (…) Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways justice; and those who walk in pride he is able to abase.”

The decree was of the utmost importance, because that was about the repentance of one the greatest original sins ever, which is challenging God’s kingship, denying God’s sovereignty over the world and human life, which is the very definition of the ungodliness, the self-entitlement, the self-righteousness, tyranny, despotism and blasphemy.

At the dawn of the written human history, the Mesopotamian texts claimed the the Kingship of Heaven descended from the skies to the city of Uruk or Erech, and then its ruler, Nimrod, declared himself Emperor of the World, built the Tower of Babel, as a prevention of the next flood, and in order to attack Heaven to literally dethrone God.

According to the Bible, only one man stood up for the One God against the Emperor, and it was Abraham, to whom God promised that through him all the families on Earth will be blessed, and God will make him a father of great nations.

The ancient, original sin is still all around to claim the world for the evil empires, and its symbol, the pyramids are still standing, as this sin pervaded the whole human history, from Mesopotamia to Egypt, from Greece to Rome. That is why, the children of Israel were advised by prophet Samuel, that they shall not ever elect a king, because they had had one already as it is well written in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 44, that “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts: I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God.”

Thus, also it should not be a surprise, that when the Son of the King of Heaven came to Earth in the name of the King, then the herald before him, John, and the Son himself, Jesus, declared that God is the only King of the Universe, and the Kingdom of Heaven is near, moreover it is here, as the Son is here to claim the world for God, as he said in the Gospel of Matthew, that “it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'" The reclamation must have happened in public, not because anybody, any earthly kings and emperors could have ever been mighty enough to take a simple morsel away from God’s glory, but because humans must acknowledge the Kingship of God, and the rule of the Son, whom God sent to the world, or we will perish one by one, or as a human nation as a whole too, we will perish from Earth and will be denied to enter Heaven.

We can be certain, that the eras and the ages of the Empires must end one day, in order to receive the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. The Hymn 256 in the Voices United, entitled ‘O God beyond All Praising’, goes with the tune of a well known British patriotic song, I Vow to Thee, My Country. The latter also goes for the extra mile beyond praising of Britain all over other nations, and beyond praising of the patriotic sentiments of the British patriots, as a love, which pays the price unconditionally for Queen or King and country. The extra miles are requiered by the Gospel, and without the extra miles, it is almost impossible to enter Heaven. The patriotic song actually goes for the extra mile, sung by generations, when the patriotic hymn admittingly declares, that “There is an other country, (beside Britain) I have heard of a long ago, most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know, (even most great over Britain). We may not count her armies, we may not see her King, her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering. And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase, and her ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace.”

So may all the still standing and future empires stand down for good, may all nations acknowledge the kingship and the laws of God, may all nations receive the Kingdom of Heaven with joy and acclamation and peace on Earth. May all nations accept the rule of the Heavenly King, and the Kings’ Son’s rule on Earth by the illuminating, peace-making and all providing Holy Spirit, in order that we shall prosper on Earth and be admitted into Heaven after this life, and when everything in the visible universe ends, we be saved. May the Lord be praised beyond all praising, according to the will of God, by the Holy Spirit,
AMEN .