Jesus, the Earthly King or President of All the Nations: His Wonderful Leadership
As you probably know, these weekly emails focus on Jesus’ good character during His three and a half years of public life. We study many aspects of Jesus’ character from His compassion to clean anger and also cover His protection, approachability and self-control among others. As we study these elements of Jesus’ character, we realize that we are, in fact, seeing God’s invisible character. During the fall we looked at Jesus’ life before He was a human as He interacted with people like Abraham, Joshua and Isaiah. For the next few weeks let’s turn our attention to Jesus as the future King or President of the earth. As we look at this aspect of Jesus’ identity let’s also link in all that we have learned about His character while He was a human.
I want you to get to the end of this particular message. Please read on. It is a bit longer because I have to set the stage for the next month. At the end I make some very particular statements about Jesus’ leadership compared to regular earthly leader. Don’t miss that.
Since Christmas has only just passed, let’s start with Isaiah 9:6-7
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.”
Many would recognize this classic Christmas text as describing the birth of Jesus. However, notice the word government. What government is the text talking about? Notice also whose throne and kingdom Jesus will reign on… David’s. Notice also that justice and righteousness (or goodness) will be the hallmarks of Jesus’ kingdom.
Let’s also consider what the Angel Gabriel said to Mary regarding her son Jesus:
“You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” Luke 1:31-33
Gabriel clearly identifies Jesus’ kingdom existing on the throne of David and never ending. Often we spiritualize Jesus Kingdom as a “heavenly” kingdom. And to be sure that is the source of His authority. However, is Jesus’ Kingdom only a heavenly kingdom? No, David’s throne was a throne on earth not heaven.
Let’s reinforce this point about Jesus earthly kingdom coming to earth with chapter 2 of Daniel. For brevity’s sake I will not include the entire text. However I would like to summarize this chapter and then focus on verses 34, 35 and 44, 45. Daniel is serving King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. The King has a dream of a giant statue with a gold head, silver arms and chest, bronze belly and thighs, iron legs and feet that were partly iron and partly clay. Then a Rock cut without human hands appears and strikes the statue specifically on the feet and crushes the whole statue to dust. The wind then blows away the entire thing. Fascinatingly the rock grows into a mountain and keeps expanding and growing. As human history has shown the kingdom of gold was the Babylonian kingdom, the silver was the Persian and Medes kingdom, the bronze was the Greek kingdom and lastly the iron was the Roman kingdom. However, that leaves the feet. That kingdom is partly iron (Roman) but also combines with clay. This is the part of the statue that touches the earth when the rock smashes it to pieces. Interesting.
Now let’s focus on verses 34-35 and 44-45 of Daniel chapter 2:
“While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.” Daniel 2:34-35
““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. 45 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.” Daniel 2:44-45
What or who is this rock? How does it destroy all these world empires? Notice that verse 44 says “in the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed… it will crush all those kingdoms… but it will endure forever.” Which Kings? Well, the Kings in that last kingdom represented by the feet. This appears to be a future political kingdom that is related to the Roman Empire because it is partly of iron.
However, the kingdom that crushes all the rest will endure forever. That is how we know it is God’s kingdom, because it endures forever. This earthly kingdom comes at that time in human history and grows and grows and grows. Daniel 2:35 says that it grows to fill the whole earth!
So, the point is that Jesus’ kingdom is a heavenly kingdom but is invading the earth and there is a time in political human history where it crushes and takes over all the current nations. Here we begin to see Jesus as the King reigning on the earth. Have you ever considered how Jesus taught us to pray?
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.” Matt 6:9-10
Interestingly Jesus taught us to pray that the Father’s full kingdom and rule would be done on the earth… not just in Heaven. In fact Jesus teaches us to pray that as God’s will is done in Heaven, in every detail and aspect, so would God’s will be done on earth, in every detail and aspect. That includes all political decisions, all civil decisions, all public education, all business choices, all family culture … everything. Can you imagine that? Most people cannot. We only think of a heavenly, somewhat irrelevant, heavenly kingdom.
Interestingly even Revelation 5:10 comments on this earthy dimension of those who follow Jesus. The 24 elders and others sing this song to Jesus:
“And they sang a new song, saying:
You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”
They identify Jesus as being worthy to receive all the kingdoms of this world (scroll) because He laid His life down on the cross to bear the sins of all human beings who would repent of evil and turn to Him for mercy and strength to pursue goodness. Then these singers identify where the kingdom will come… on the earth. The whole heavenly court is focused on the Kingdom of Heaven crushing the world kingdoms and coming to earth… permanently. Sound familiar? Daniel 2 talks about the whole theme of Revelation; the unveiling of Jesus as the rightful King of the earth and the battle plan to drive the devil, his demons and all persons married to evil off the planet. It is a good but violent conflict. In the end peace and goodness will prevail because Jesus will rule as the King or President of the entire earth.
Here is the real point. What do we know about Jesus’ leadership from His earthly life?
Jesus is compassionate with the right people and demonstrates clean anger at the right people. Jesus is compassionate and tender towards the weak, the oppressed and the poor. However Jesus demonstrates clean anger, while leaving the door of repentance open to those who oppress and exploit others. The Pharisees were abusing the people and doing it in the name of God! They receive Jesus’ sharpest condemnation.
However, contrast Jesus to our current world leaders and those of human history. They make friends with other oppressive leaders who can further their personal agendas of power, wealth and fame. On the other hand they are angry with the poor, the weak and the vulnerable. Think of Stalin, Hitler, Idi Amin and the rulers of the middle ages among others. They killed and oppressed the general masses of regular people but they made alliances with other leaders like themselves. Jesus leadership and His earthly kingdom are exactly opposite! Justice and goodness are the hallmarks of His kingdom. Jesus is so different. His kingdom, when it fully takes over the earth, will be so different.
Jesus spoke of His own leadership a number of times. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mk 10:45) Jesus uses His power and authority so differently than human kings. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Lk 19:10) You can see example after example of Jesus searching out the one lost sheep or the prodigal son who sins but turns back to God (Luke 15). Jesus goes after the woman at the well who is ostracized by the shame of having five husbands. He kindly draws her to eternal life (John 4). Jesus heart is moved by the widow of Nain and raises her dead son (Lk 7). Jesus is filled with compassion for the suffering leper and touches him to heal him (Mk 1). Jesus reaches out to the crowd of 5,000 concerned that they might faint on the way home and multiples food to feed them all (Mk 8)
On the other hand, when the synagogue ruler is angry with the everyday people for coming to the synagogue to get healed on a Sabbath, Jesus goes toe to toe with him in clean anger and correction! (Lk 13) When Jesus sees the temple being used to extort money from the Israelites coming to worship God (through the exchange rate and the selling of expensive animals) He releases His fury and fierceness and attacks the Pharisees corrupt system (Jn 2, Matt 21)! When the Pharisees accuse Him of being an agent of Satan Jesus doesn’t run from the fight. He confronts the Pharisees with their blatant hypocrisy and evil and identifies their allegiance to the devil by their actions (Jn 8 & Lk 11)
Jesus is so healthy and wholesome. He is kind and compassionate with the right people. He is also angry and fierce towards the right people. Jesus’ leadership as the future King of Kings is so unique and wonderful!
Take Away
God Is Just Like Jesus:
Jesus’ leadership of both goodness and fierceness exactly reveals God’s leadership of goodness and fierceness. John 14:9 says, “If you have seen Me [Jesus], you have seen the Father [God].” Jesus character and emotions perfectly reveal God’s character and emotions.
1st Commandment Prayer:
Jesus, I haven’t clearly seen how differently you related to different people. You really are a hundred percent good one hundred percent of the time! I love seeing your compassion, kindness and tenderness to the weak and oppressed. But I also like seeing your strength and power towards those who are oppressing others. I also love seeing you leave the door of repentance open, even for the oppressors! You are the ultimate role model! I want to be just like you!