The King of Kings
Jesus Christ, the King of kings, allows men and nations to pursue their evil dreams and to work out their sins. What men in their evil imaginations see as the solution to man’s problems becomes in time their curse.
- R. J. Rushdoony,
California Farmer 261:8 (Nov. 17, 1984), p. 19.
Paul, in 1 Timothy 6:15, speaks of Jesus Christ as “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.” Ernest Gordon translated the latter part of this verse as “the King of those kinging it, the Lord of those lording it.” Behind all the powers of history, in other words, stands the Great King, Jesus Christ.
This Great King allows men and nations to pursue their evil dreams and to work out their sins. Thus, what men in their evil imaginations see as the solution to man’s problems becomes in time their curse. The storms of history then in due time sweep away all things that are not founded on the Rock. As Paul says in Hebrews 12:22–29, the things which are all around us, and we ourselves, are being shaken so that only those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
We must therefore expect crises which will shake us. They will come from the Great King to test us and to prove us. We have no right to expect God to treat us as fragile cut glass.
Isaac Watts, in his great hymn “Am I a Soldier of the Cross?” (1724), asked,
On flow’ry beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize,
And sailed through bloody seas?
Watts then said, “Sure I must fight if I would reign,” and he prayed for courage to endure as a good soldier of Christ.
We are in a time of shaking. The Great King is allowing men and nations to pursue their course to its deadly end. We shall be shaken. The question we need to ask ourselves is this: are we earthquake-proof? Are we so grounded in Christ that we cannot be shaken?
- R. J. Rushdoony
Rev. R.J. Rushdoony (1916–2001), was a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of numerous works on the application of Biblical law to society. He started the Chalcedon Foundation in 1965. His Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) began the contemporary theonomy movement which posits the validity of Biblical law as God’s standard of obedience for all. He therefore saw God’s law as the basis of the modern Christian response to the cultural decline, one he attributed to the church’s false view of God’s law being opposed to His grace. This broad Christian response he described as “Christian Reconstruction.” He is credited with igniting the modern Christian school and homeschooling movements in the mid to late 20th century. He also traveled extensively lecturing and serving as an expert witness in numerous court cases regarding religious liberty. Many ministry and educational efforts that continue today, took their philosophical and Biblical roots from his lectures and books.