Jesus Christ the King

Mark 15:1-2
Gregory Broderick | Sunday, October 17, 2021
Copyright © 2021, Gregory Broderick

This is the last sermon in our series on the book of Mark, and it is fitting that it should end on this subject: Jesus Christ the King.  We started this series in September 2019, which now feels like a very, very long time ago—before masks or shutdowns.  We have seen many things—two dozen or so births, a couple of weddings, and even a few people who have departed to be with the Lord.

In September 2019, Rev. Perry preached the first sermon: “Jesus Christ the Son of God” from Mark 1.  The very first verse of the book of Mark explains what Mark is trying to communicate.  He says, “The gospel about Jesus Christ.”   Rev. Perry preached about the gospel, the Christ, and the witness.  And this book of Mark details the key facts about this Jesus Christ in an action-packed and fast-moving sixteen chapters.  We have the good news for all people.

The book of Mark tells us from the outset that this Jesus was no mere man, no ordinary man.  He was the Christ, the very Son of God; very God and very man.  Through the witness of John the Baptist in Mark 1, we are told early in this book that this Christ, this Messiah, was different than all others who came before and all others who would come after.  And the rest of the book records Jesus’ ministry, both His key teachings and His miraculous works that would prove that He was the Christ, just as He said.  And of course, the end of the book, which we have been in for some time, details Jesus’ death on the cross in our place.  And it details His glorious resurrection, which is the evidence that His sacrifice on our behalf was acceptable and sufficient.  He died to make the sacrifice, but He rose again to show that His sacrifice was acceptable and sufficient in the sight of God.

Just before the death and resurrection, we see Jesus Christ repeatedly called a king.  In fact, He is charged with being a king at His trial.  I am here to tell you this morning He is guilty as charged—not guilty of sin, but guilty of being a king.  In fact, He is the great King.  He is King of kings and Lord of lords, and He rules and reigns forever as King.  That is our focus this morning.

1. Jesus Christ Is King

In our text this morning, Jesus declares in plain and straightforward terms that He is indeed a king.  Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, asked Him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” And Jesus answered, “Yes, it is as you say.”   So this is a clear claim.  In context, this was a dangerous admission to make.  It was an offense against Rome and an offense against Caesar to claim to be a king.  And, in fact, this was the charge for which He was executed.  The Romans executed Him because He claimed to be a king.  Mark 15:26 says, “The written notice of the charge against Him read: The King of the Jews.”   So this, a clear claim to be a king, is what we call an admission against interest.

Why did He make such an admission?  First, because He had to die for us to be saved.  It is why He came.  He came to die the death that we deserved.  Second, because it was the will of God the Father.  God’s perfect salvation plan was that Jesus, very God and very man, would live a perfect life and die for our sins on the cross, suffering God’s full wrath that we deserved because of our sins.  So He had to die to fulfill the plan and hence the admission.

But there is even a more fundamental reason that Jesus admitted to being a king.  It is because it is true.  Jesus always told the truth and never lied, not even once.  In fact, Jesus is the truth.  He declared in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”   He was fully man but also fully God, and we know that God cannot lie (Num. 23:19; Tit. 1:2).  So He had to admit this truth because it was true.

Now, it was all prophesied about this Christ well in advance of His advent here on earth.  Psalm 2:6 speaks of His kingship.  It speaks of the Christ as “My King on Zion, My holy hill.”   In Zechariah 9:9 we read, “See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”  Jesus Christ is descended from King David, and He is the fulfillment of the promise in 2 Samuel 7:12–13.  God promised, “I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish His kingdom.  He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever.”   In Isaiah 9:7 we read, “Of the increase 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.”

He is a king, but He is no mere earthly king.  His name shall be called Mighty God (Isa. 9:6).  That is what it says of this King, and that is who Jesus Christ is.  Psalm 45:6 speaks of His kingdom.  It says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of Your kingdom.”   His kingdom is described in Daniel 2:44: “The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people.”   Only the Christ and only His kingdom fit the bill of these prophecies.

There have been many great kingdoms and many great empires throughout human history, but they all fade away.  None last for ever and ever.  The Medo-Persians are no more.  The Greeks and their powerful fleets rest at the bottom of the sea.  Mighty Babylon is a heap of ruins on the outskirts of Baghdad.  Rome is nothing more than a tourist attraction these days.  The sun has set on the British Empire, and it seems that the American century is drawing to a close.  Other kingdoms may rise, and other kingdoms may fade also, but the kingdom of Christ always perseveres, continues, and advances.  It grows and it conquers, and the glory of Christ as King shall never fade but only brighten and brighten until it shines like the sun.

These prophecies that I read, and there are others too, are now a reality.  He achieved His heaven-sent, God-ordained mission, and He now reigns as King for ever and ever.  That is a present reality.  Ephesians 1:20–21 describes it this way: It says that God the Father raised Christ from the dead “and seated Him at [God’s] right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”   He is the King; He is the great King at God’s right hand.  He has been set on the throne, and all His enemies have been made a footstool under Him (Acts 2:30–35).

He sits and reigns and rules at God’s right hand even today (Heb. 1:3–4).  He is the ruler of the kings of the earth even today (Rev. 1:5).  He is King of kings and Lord of lords, and He will defeat all His and our enemies (Rev. 17:4).  He is seated on the throne yesterday, today, and forever (Rev. 4 and 5).

What kind of king is He?  He is a great and powerful king.  Many people have a diminished view of King Jesus as a fair-skinned, long-haired, white-robed, meek, mild, and simpering hippy, handing out hugs and begging people to love Him.  This is a false view of King Jesus.  The Christ is a mighty, powerful warrior-king who destroys all His enemies and strikes terror into the hearts of those who dare to oppose Him.

Look at this description of Him from the book of Revelation:  “His eyes were like blazing fire.  His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of rushing waters.  In His right hand He held seven stars and out of His mouth came a sharp double-edged sword.  His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.  When I saw Him, I fell at His feet at though dead.”   He is mighty indeed.

Look at Revelation 19: “With justice He judges and makes war.  His eyes are like blazing fire, and on His head are many crowns.  .  .  .  He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, .  .  .  and the armies of heaven were following Him.  .  .  .  He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty” (Rev. 19:11–15).  This is, of course, highly symbolic language.  It can be difficult to decipher exactly what it means.  But this much is clear:  He is mighty.  He is powerful.  He is Lord, and He has all authority.

Before, He came in meekness and in humility.  He came in human flesh to die the death that we deserved and to bear all of our sins, all of God’s wrath, on the cross for us in our place.  Even to become a man was a total humiliation for Him.  He was with God from the beginning, and He was God (John 1:1).  But He lowered Himself to become a man to pay for our sins.

But He is no longer the helpless baby that we picture in the manger.  He is no longer the despised and neglected servant, nor is He the lamb silent before His accusers, or the God-forsaken Savior on the cross.  Now He is the great King.  Now He is the great Judge.  Now He rules and reigns in glory at God’s right hand.  Now all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him.  He reigns in power and glory as the great King today.

Now He is the great King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16).  And He will come again.  He will come again, not in weakness, not in humility, not in humiliation, but in power.  At that time, not holding out His hands all day long, but riding on a war horse and destroying all His and our enemies with the sharp double-edged sword of His mouth.  As the Apostles’ Creed puts it, “He shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom shall have no end.”

He will usher in a new age when He comes again:  a new city, and a new kingdom.  A city and a kingdom free of sin, free of Satan, free of death, free of mourning, free of crying and of pain.  A city and a kingdom where we His subjects will be free to fulfill our highest purpose to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever in perfect fellowship with Him.  He is a great King.  He is the great King.  And He shall reign for ever and ever.  Hallelujah.

2. Christ the King Rules

This seems a rather obvious point:  that as the great King, Jesus Christ rules.  He is not a symbolic king who puts on fancy clothes and shows up at a few state occasions but wields no actual power.  That is the kind of kings we have left on this earth.

No, He is a real king who really rules with real power.  Like any real king, He has a kingdom.  And we know His ultimate kingdom is not of this earth, as He told Pilate in John 18.  He is not limited by borders or by castles or by armies.  But even though His kingdom is not of this earth, it does have an earthly component.  First and foremost, He is sovereign over all who are on this earth and over all that happens here (Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 11).

Second, He has His subjects on this earth; namely, believers in Jesus Christ who have confessed Him as Lord and Savior.  It is not just that He is a king or even the king.  But when we confess Him as Lord and Savior, we are saying He is my King, He is my Lord.  I am pledging my everlasting loyalty to Him.  We have a share in Him, and we will share in His glory.  And amazingly, He has a share in us, and He, for whatever reason, takes His share in us, praise the Lord.  He owns nothing less than all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.  When I confess Christ the King to be my Lord and my Savior, I am now announcing that I have become His loyal subject.  As Paul says in Romans 1:1, I have become His doulos, His slave, to carry out His purposes.  When I declare Christ as my King, when I declare myself a member of His kingdom, I am no longer my own, but I belong to Jesus Christ, my new King.

This is not like the slavery or subjects that we imagine in old-time repressive kingdoms.  No, this is a happy kingdom.  I am happily His citizen.  I am happily His subject.  I am happily His slave.  It is a great privilege and honor to be a citizen of the kingdom of the great King.

We were redeemed by our great King.  We were bought with a price, the precious blood of Christ.  And now as His loyal subjects, we owe Him exclusive fealty, exclusive loyalty.  This means we belong to Jesus Christ alone and not to any other.  We cannot have a divided loyalty in the kingdom of the great King.  As Jesus Himself said, “A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand” (Matt. 12:22).  You cannot be a loyal subject of the King of kings and Lord of lords, and also a loyal subject of something else.  It doesn’t make sense.  James calls any such divided loyalty a form of adultery, and he rightly declares that such a divided loyalty is actually hatred towards God.

There are really only two kingdoms—the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil.  We used to be in the devil’s kingdom.  All mankind excepting the Christ is born into the devil’s kingdom.  But we left that kingdom, and we defected to a new kingdom—a kingdom of freedom, a kingdom of righteousness, a kingdom of peace, with a new King, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Because we defected, we can no longer freely move about in the old kingdom.  We denounced its king.  We renounced our citizenship, and we declared war on its very gates when we said, “Jesus Lord,” and pledged our loyalty to Him.  We are now rightly regarded as enemies of the old kingdom.  We are now rightly regarded as a threat to the old kingdom.  And we are now hated by its cruel king.  In fact, he is on the prowl for us, prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8–9).

Our loyalty to the old king is gone.  It is over.  We renounced it.  Our new and exclusive loyalty is now to our new and good and loving King, who rescued us from the chains of sin, from the kingdom of darkness, and who brought us into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9).  So we owe Him exclusive loyalty.

We also owe our new King a duty of obedience.  And we know from books and movies that a king makes and executes the law for the good of his subjects and citizens.  Our obedience to our new King is a sign and proof that we are His.  It is the evidence that our confession, “Jesus is my Lord,” is true.  Our obligation is to obey our new King by living according to His holy decree (Rom. 8:12).  And this extends to all areas of life, from the minor things (“Whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we must do it for the glory of God” 1 Cor. 10:31) to the major things—where we live, where we go, and what we do.  The book of Acts says He determined the exact times and places men should live.  So I don’t just go wherever I want to go; I go where King Jesus directs me.

Being led by His governing Spirit is proof not just that He is our King but that He is also our heavenly Father (Rom. 8:14, 16).  So our obedience, though necessarily imperfect in this life, is a sign that we love our new loving King who saved us in love.  In John 14:15 He said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commands.”  We show our love and loyalty by obeying His commands, especially His command to go into all the earth to tell other people about Him, to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and to teach them to obey whatsoever things He has commanded (Matt.  28:19–20).  We are to obey our new King in faith because we believe—in fact, we know—that His commands are for our good (Eph. 2:10; Rom. 8:28; Eph. 6:8).

A king whose people do not obey him is not a king.  A king whose people do not obey him is a joke.  He is not a king.  He is delusional.  He is weak.  He is powerless.  But Jesus Christ, the great King, is none of those things.  He is the mighty King who commands His people and who demands their obedience.  And He deals with them when they disobey.  Sometimes He must even deal with them severely if they disobey (Heb. 12:5–11; 1 Cor. 11:30).  So let us remember that as His subjects we owe Him.  In fact, we are overjoyed to fulfill our obligation to obey Him.  And let us remain His loyal and obedient subjects, the loyal and obedient subjects of Christ the King.

3. The King Has Heralds and Ambassadors

Our King is mighty and victorious, as I have described.  One day He will rule and reign in perfect harmony with all His chosen people, having ridden out on His warhorse and having cast all His enemies into the lake of fire.  One day, but not yet.  He is victorious now.  In fact, He has even secured the final victory already.  But for today, His victories come by His heralds and ambassadors, not by the sword.  He sends out heralds and ambassadors to conquer new territory for His kingdom by sharing His gospel with other people.

If you do not know what a herald is, it is a messenger, sent especially to announce what is about to happen.  In the old-time movies, or maybe in the Robin Hood cartoons, there will be a trumpet blast, and then a man in a funny costume will come out crying, ‘Hear ye!  Hear ye!” He is going to tell you what is about to happen.  (GTB)  That man is the herald.  We don’t see much heralding in our time today.  You might see it occasionally at the Queen of England’s speech to open Parliament, or at the beginning of the Supreme Court’s day, when a man comes out and says, “Oyez!   Oyez!   Oyez!”   It means, basically, “Hear ye!   Hear ye!   Hear ye!”  Our great King also has heralds to tell that He is coming.

Before His advent on the earth, it was primarily the prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, etc.  They not only told of the trouble that God would bring on disobedient Israel, but also of God’s deliverance of His people.  And, of course, this was all a foreshadowing of the true deliverance, the eternal deliverance, that Jesus Christ would bring for God’s chosen people.  It all pointed to Christ.  And they heralded His coming, sometimes explicitly—look at Isaiah 53—and sometimes more subtly, more indirectly.

Shortly before Christ came to this earth, shortly before He was born of the virgin Mary, God the Father sent angels as heralds.  We read about it in Luke 1:32 and 2:11, and we sing the song, “Hark! the herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn king!’” They were announcing His coming.

Then the apostles heralded Him.  He has come, and He will come again.  And today, in our time, His heralds are His pastors and His preachers who speak His word from His Holy Scriptures.  We come saying, “Hear ye!  Hear ye!  This is what He has done.  He has offered salvation to all who put their faith in Him.  He paid the price for our sins on the cross and He offers His salvation by grace through faith.”

We explain how He wants us to live lives of holy obedience to Him.  We explain what is about to happen.  We don’t know when, but what is about to happen is that He is coming again in glory to save His people and to judge the whole earth.  We explain that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10–11).  Now, you can make that confession today by faith and be saved, or you can wait and make the confession on that day and be banished to eternal hell.  Either way, everyone will make that confession at one time or another.  The reason I know that the great King has decreed that it will happen, that you will confess it.  And I tell you, His word never fails.

As His herald, I say “Confess it today.”   You have to confess it either way.  Confess it today.  Put your faith in Him today.  See that you are a sinner who has lived as an enemy of the great King of kings, but who can still find mercy from Him today.  Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead after He paid the full price for your sins on the cross.  Do that, and the Bible says, you will be saved.  The very word of God promises that you will be saved (Rom. 10:9).  This offer is available to all people.  Romans 10:13 says that all who call on Him in such a way will be saved.   So become a citizen and a subject of this King today.  Become a beloved son and daughter of the King today.  Heed His herald, whom He has sent to you today to announce what is coming.

I said He has heralds and ambassadors, so let us look at ambassadors.  An ambassador is an accredited diplomat or representative, sent from one ruler to another people to deliver an authorized message.  We are all explicitly called the ambassadors of Christ in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and also Ephesians 6:20.  So this is speaking about you.  It is not limited to pastors or elders or preachers or whomever.  Every Christian is an ambassador for Christ.  Every Christian is to live out his role as an ambassador for Christ.  If you are looking for your ambassadorial credentials, you can find them in the Great Commission.  In Matthew 28:19–20 we read, “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”   So those are your papers that you can go and present when you go to speak the authorized message of the King.

Some people will fulfill this role literally and totally with a whole life calling.  Think of Paul, who dedicated his time to going all over the world on the exclusive mission of sharing the gospel.  Or we think of others—Hudson Taylor, William Carey, or Sundar Singh, who crossed the Himalayans to bring the gospel to India and other areas over there.  But these are exceptional cases.  Most will not be given such a singular mission.  But we still are ambassadors for Christ.  My point is that you do not have to be a missionary to some far part of the world to be an ambassador for Christ.  In fact, we live right next to a university to which the whole world comes.  It is very convenient.   You can be an ambassador to the whole world by going about two miles down that road.

We are ambassadors for Christ everywhere we go.  We are ambassadors for Christ in our homes, especially to our children and our households.  We are ambassadors for Christ in our workplaces, for those who have not confessed the name of Christ.  We are ambassadors for Christ in our churches.  Every church is a mixed multitude of saved and unsaved people.  We are ambassadors for Christ in our cities and to our relatives and to our families.  We are to go to these people and give the authorized message.  Everywhere we go, we should be spreading the aroma of Christ as His authorized ambassadors (2 Cor. 2:15, 17).

What is that authorized message?  It is that everyone is a sinner.  It is that everyone is due the just punishment of eternal hell.  It is that the great King offers to everyone the most generous terms, that if you put your faith in Him and surrender to Him unconditionally, He will save you, He will preserve you, He will protect you, He will provide for you.  In fact, He will adopt you as His own beloved sons and daughters, and then He will personally guarantee your safe delivery to eternal glory and eternal life with Him forever.  Hallelujah.

Now those are generous terms, and that is a pretty good message to go and deliver to other people.  I have delivered a lot of not so pleasant messages.  This is a good message to deliver.  So I say, first, receive it in yourself, but then spread it to the whole world.  Glory in this message that we have to send.  It is a good, authorized message that we have to deliver.  Glory in it, and invite everyone to be a child of the King as you are.  It is a high honor to be a child of the King.  It is a high honor to be an ambassador for the great King of kings and Lord of lords.

4. He Is a Good King

I said He is great and powerful and mighty and a warrior on the horse.  I said He destroys all His and our enemies.  And although He has need of no one and nothing, He is still a good king, a merciful king, a loving king, because it is His nature to be so.

He could have decided not to create anyone or anything in the first place.  He did not even have to create the universe.  But He did, not out of any need or something that was lacking in Himself, but as an outworking of His glory (Isa. 6:3; 43:7; Rom. 1:20).  God created us and loved us even before creation of the world.  He loved us when we sinned and when we lived as His enemies (Rom. 5:8; Col. 1:21).  He loved us sacrificially with an infinite and everlasting love.  He is a good King.

This love paid the ransom price for us, the most expensive price ever paid for anything ever:  the precious blood of Jesus Christ, Himself very God.  We owed the infinite penalty.  We owed the infinite debt which we could never pay as finite creatures.  We all sinned.  We all deserved eternal hell.  We were all destined for that eternal hell.  And I said, we were opposed to and hostile to the great King of kings and Lord of lords.  We were, the Bible says, without hope and without God in the world (Eph. 2:12).  In fact, we were slaves to sin (John 8:34), slaves to fear (Rom. 8:15).

It was a desperate condition, and it is the desperate condition of every person who is outside of Christ.  And then, in that state of affairs, when we were in that desperate condition, the good King moved, not to destroy us as His enemies, but to save us, to adopt us, to call us to Himself.  Jesus Christ—very God, perfect in glory, in perfect fellowship with God the Father from all time, with the Holy Spirit from all time, from eternity past before all time, our great King of kings and Lord of lords—Jesus Christ agreed to come.  He agreed to be lowered from perfect God to lowly man.  He was born of a woman, and He lived His entire life without one sin.  He suffered maximum temptation at the devil’s hand.  He suffered abuse and humiliation at the hands of the religious leaders purporting to act in His very name.  He was despised and neglected by the very people He came to save.  And at the end, He was stripped, beaten, mocked, and crucified, all out of envy, all out of enmity.  And then, after all of that, He took the full blast of God’s wrath that we deserved, 100% down to the very last drop.  And then He died the death that we deserved for our sins.  So in a manner of speaking, He went to hell and suffered the whole punishment there on the cross.

Why did He do it?  He did it for us.  He did it for His declared enemies.  We didn’t even ask Him to do it for us.  He did it because of His great love.  He did it because of His rich mercy.  He did it because He loved us.  We are not lovable, but He loved us.  He loved us because He loved us.  Not because of anything in us, but because of the great love and rich mercy that is in Him.  He did it for all His chosen people, and He made it available for all people everywhere.  Simply call upon His name in faith.  Trust in Him to save you, and you will be saved (Rom. 10:9, 13).  And it is guaranteed.  It is not a hope-so.  It is guaranteed because God said so.

And it is proven:  God raised Him from the dead by the Holy Spirit.  He never sinned, and so death could not keep a hold on Him.  The wages of sin is death, but He never sinned.  So death could not keep a hold on Him.  His resurrection is the proof that His payment for us was acceptable, that His payment was enough, and that the infinite debt is wiped out.  He covered the whole penalty we owed (1 John 2:2).  Jesus paid it all.  And then God worked in our hearts by the same Holy Spirit who raised Christ from the dead so that we could confess Him as Lord and Savior.  He joined us together as His family, as the body of Christ.  He joined us together in love.  He adopted us as His own sons and daughters.  He provides for us food and clothing and everything we need for life and godliness.  He gives us everything we need, and much, much more—exceedingly abundantly beyond anything we could ask or imagine.

He works all things together for the good of those who love Him and who have been called according to His purpose.  He leads us as His beloved sons and daughters, as subjects of His kingdom.  The great King leads us in triumphal procession.  He defends us from every enemy.  He preserves us in His own right hand.  He disciplines and sanctifies us for our good, conforming us evermore to the likeness of Christ.  He gives us grace, more grace, much grace to rejoice in every circumstance, including many trials and hardships.

He gives us brothers and sisters to walk with us through the sunshine and through the valley of the shadow of death.  He gives us His word, His Bible, His objective truth written down for us so that we can turn to it when we are confused, afraid, frustrated, lost, or disoriented.  We can go to His objective word written for us like the north star to guide us out of the valley of the shadow of death.

He gives us the peace of God which passes all understanding to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  He gives us a hope and a future, a glorious future, an eternal future, a guaranteed future—a glorious future with God the Father and King Jesus and all of God’s people from all time.  He gives us all these things.  He is indeed a good King.

It is all guaranteed.  He gave me a new heart and a new mind, and He put His Spirit in me and He moves me to follow His decrees and to be careful to keep His laws, and you and you and you and you too.  It is all guaranteed because Christ died for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.  All glory to good King Jesus!

This is the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  Believe on Him and be saved.  Amen.