The triumphant announcement of the gospel is that the true King of the whole world is Jesus. The creation that due man’s sin had fallen into the corruption of malevolent rulers has been rightfully claimed by the One who absolved the curse for man’s sin by overcoming its death grip on God’s creation and image bearers, thus making a way for sinful man to commune with God. This is the universal and eternal gospel—the King is alive, and his name is Jesus.
The Christian life is one lived joyfully obedient under the sovereignty of King Jesus. Jesus’ kingship is not isolated to the “spiritual” parts of our life or to the “scared” places in creation. Jesus is King over the whole of creation and the entirety of our humanity. The resurrected Jesus proclaims, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” in Matthew 28.17. Jesus is King over everything. Until he isn’t.
Of course I don’t mean that somehow Jesus can cease being the supreme Sovereign of the universe. He has once and for all sat down on his righteous, life-giving throne from where he rules his kingdom that will endure world without end. I mean that Jesus is forever and always King, but we have a sad tendency to persist in ignorance of such a glorious and wonderful reality. Like a child unmoved by the election of a new President of the United States, we are too unmoved and unchanged by the appointment of Christ the King to the throne.
If your life would look no different if Jesus were not King, then you do not know Jesus well.
If Jesus were not King, would your life look any different? Would the rhythms and patterns of your daily life alter? Would your desires change and priorities shift? Would you fall to ground in utter misery because in losing the King you have lost everything? If your life would look no different if Jesus were not King, then you do not know Jesus well. Your life is not constrained by and obedient to his good and life-giving reign.
As those who claim to love him, if our life is not fundamentally and markedly altered by the reality of his kingship, we must repent of our hypocrisy. But we need not despair. There is grace yet. And in knowing our unworthiness to enter in the presence of King Jesus, the sweetness of our eternal fellowship with him will be all the more lovely. And we will inherit the eternal kingdom of our eternal King with a humility that proves a fountain of abundant joy yet unknown in this world.
