Word of Salvation – Vol. 14 No.19 – May 1968

 

That Every Knee Shall Bow

 

Sermon by Rev. J. W. Deenick, B.D. on Philippians 2:9-11

Sermon for Ascension Day or the Sunday before Pentecost.

SCRIPTURE LESSONS: Psalm 110; Philippians 2:1-11

(On ascension day also Acts 1:1-12)

PSALTER HYMNAL: 125; 365 (after Acts 1); 246 (after Law);
                                    400 (after Creed); 366 467; 368

 

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ,

            “Jesus shall reign wherever the sun.
             does its successive journeys run.”

That is how we sing it.  Jesus SHALL reign.  Why do we not sing: Jesus DOES reign?  Is this not what we believe, that Jesus reigns?  Or is His kingdom still to come?

Many Christians seem to be confused about that question.  They would like to believe that the kingdom of Christ is a present reality, and in a sense they feel that the bible gives them a right to believe that Jesus IS king.  If it is true that all power in heaven and on earth was given unto Him, as Jesus Himself claimed that it was, and if Peter was right on the day of Pentecost when he said that in his ascension Jesus went to sit at the right hand of God and that in this He was made Lord and Christ, well, what else then are we to believe than that Jesus IS king?  And why then should we not sing: “Christ now HAS dominion”, instead of: “shall have dominion”?

Yet, on the other hand, this conviction of Jesus’ already present kingship and rule over all things is being assailed by doubts in the hearts of many believers.  It seems so unrealistic.  It even seems untrue.  If Jesus really ruled would then not this world be a different place?  Would then not the church be different too?  More triumphant in its mission, more holy in its life?  If Jesus really ruled would then not THE enemy be powerless?  But now he is not.  This world seems to be occupied far more by the power of demons than by the dominion of Christ.  And so we are inclined to give in to the temptation that we no longer believe in the present reality of Jesus’ kingship and that we see His dominion more as something for the future, either as a millennium that is still to come or as the final glory of God’s eternal kingdom.

But then again many have felt that this would not be correct either.  The bible is too outspoken in its assertion that Jesus Christ is the King of Kings.  And in order to explain why it is that we experience so little of this kingship of Christ, they say: “Yes, but we have to see Jesus’ dominion as a spiritual dominion.  He rules, yes, but in the hearts of people; He rules, yes, but only in the lives of those who honour Him.  His government over all the nations we do not expect to come until the day of His return.”

Now, what is the truth in all this and what is left of the comfort that because of Jesus’ kingship over all things we are safe, and the church is safe, and the nations are safe, in His loving and almighty care?  And why was it that God made Jesus sit at His right hand, if it was not to rule?

We will listen to this text and find God’s answer to our questions.

The text says that God bestowed on Christ a supreme Name and that He did so because Jesus Christ was entitled to that Name and also for the purpose that in all the creation Jesus Christ be recognized as Lord.

The text begins with the word “therefore”.  Therefore has God exalted him.  Wherefore?  For what reason?

That is clear enough.  We find it in the preceding passage.  Jesus has been exalted by God because He first humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even death on the cross.

This had been an act of obedience.  God had wanted Him to give His life as a ransom for many.  God had wanted Him to go down into the deepest mire, into the deepest contempt, where everyone despised Him, everyone made fun of Him, and where He had no name left and no honour.  Pontius Pilate gave Him the name of King of the Jews, but he meant it as a joke.  And the Jews?  How did they hate His very name.  Later, after His death, they would practically ban His name from their books.  They would not even call their children by the same name as His.  So they despised even His name.  But because of this and because of all that He did in that state of contempt for a sinful world God in His ascension exalted Him, and gave Him the highest possible name.

Now when God gives us a name, He gives a great deal more than merely the name; He gives at the same time that which the name implies.  When God names us, He, so to speak, nominates and appoints us at the same time.  When He names us His children, He declares that we ARE His children and we then naturally ARE what God calls us and we HAVE what God calls us.  When He calls us conquerors, then we are just that and He gives us the victory.  When He calls us heirs of eternal life, we ARE heirs and we HAVE the heritage already, we have eternal life already.

So when God gave Jesus Christ His Royal Name, the highest name you could think of, the name was at the same time the position.  The nomination was at the same time the appointment and the installation, the crowning to His high office.  In His ascension into heaven Jesus of Nazareth, the son of David, was exalted to the kingship of His father on the throne in Jerusalem, but it was at the same time a far higher kingship and it was in a different Jerusalem; it was a kingship over all the nations and a kingship for ever; and its throne was in the Jerusalem that is above, God’s eternal city that is in heaven.  Thus Jesus Christ now rules from heaven as King under God.

The point is: what does this mean and what difference does it make?  We know from the Scriptures that God Himself is sovereignly in charge of all things.  What does it mean when it says in this text that God gave the highest position of universal power to Jesus?  Does that make any difference with regard to the affairs of this world?  Is the world now, after Jesus’ ascension, ruled differently from how it was ruled before His ascension?  Is God’s government over all things now, through Jesus Christ, different from what it was when Jesus had not yet received the name that is above every name?

Yes, there is a difference.  Now, that God rules over the affairs of this world through Jesus Christ the nations are governed in a spirit of love and mercy THAT REACHES OUT TO ALL PEOPLE.  God’s government had always been in that spirit, but during the Old Testament it did not reach out to all the nations.  The mercy of God was temporarily reserved for Israel.  But that period was over now.  God’s grace and love in Christ now began to reach out to ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE and that is why so soon after Jesus’ enthronement the day of Pentecost followed and the Jewish church was sent out into all the world.

In the text we find this too, that at the name of Jesus every knee in all the creation should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord.

It is the King’s command that all men everywhere repent and that all men everywhere partake in the love of God and in life eternal.  That is the King’s command and that is the purpose for which, and the spirit in which, He rules as Lord.

It says in the text that every tongue must confess that Jesus Christ is “LORD”.  The word Lord here means the most high Ruler.  In the Old Testament there are two words for Lord: Yahweh and Adonai.  Yahweh is the covenant name of God, but here Paul thinks of the name Adonai.  It means the excellent One, the exalted One.  Now, this name must be given to Jesus Christ.  Every tongue must confess that He is the excellent, the exalted, the most high Ruler.  Here again we must remember, of course, that the church lives by faith and not by sight.  We BELIEVE this.  We do not SEE it.  Unless we see it by faith and unless we remember that Jesus’ rule is a rule “IN THE MIDST OF HIS ENEMIES”.

We read this in Psalm 110, that the Christ when He comes will rule, yes, but in the midst of His enemies and for the purpose that all His enemies might be overcome.  Christ’s kingdom is in all the Scriptures a fighting kingdom.  We should never forget that.  When people complain that the devil is still so mighty and that sins seems to abound everywhere and that the nations never seem to come to peace and the gospel never seems to reach the vast majority of the world population, there is no use in denying it.  This is true and the Bible knows it only too well.

Yet, through the midst of all the confusion and the antagonism the kingdom of Jesus is fighting its way through to the final triumphant outcome in which all the enemies will be overcome and destroyed for ever, and every knee shall bow.

Yes, Jesus IS King and He HAS dominion, but IN THE MIDST of His enemies now, and until such time that He SHALL have dominion finally when even the last enemy has been submitted to Him.

But what then can we see of the spirit of mercy and love by which He rules the nations?  We can see it only by faith; and only by an ACTIVE FAITH that does its utmost to do the King’s will in this and follow the King’s command.

Because the King works and rules only THROUGH His soldiers and messengers and ambassadors.  The kingdom of Jesus is a fighting kingdom but WE will have to do the fighting.

And it is only when we FIGHT FOR IT BY FAITH, that we will SEE IT BY FAITH that the spirit of the love and mercy of Christ reaches out to all the nations.  It is only when we are a missionary church that we will see the love of Christ reaching out to sinners in darkness.

It is my experience that people who complain most about the fact that we do not make any headway and that Christianity is on the decline are those who DO nothing about it.  It is the mission minded Christian who sees by faith how the King marches on.

The statistics are not encouraging.  They tell us that in Egypt one in every 163 people is known as a Christian, in Arabia one in every 100,000 people, in Turkey one in every 160,000 people, in China, one third of the world population, one in every 2 million people is known as a Christian.  The statistics of the battle of Jesus Christ have never been encouraging.  As far as that goes the church still carries its cross behind Jesus, the cross of being the ridicule of the world, the cross of having no name and no honour.

However, we live by faith, not by statistics.

But we cannot live by faith unless it is an active faith, a mission minded and evangelism minded faith.

Yet, what do we do for missions?  And what do we do for evangelism?  What do we do for our neighbour that he too may bow his knee for the King of kings?

O God, change us, change us radically, that we not merely confess Jesus to be King, but that we also make Him rule in more and more lives and make Him receive the homage of more and more knees bowing for Him.

Or are we no soldiers of the cross?

And are we no Christians at all?

Amen.