IN THE EYES OF THE WORLD he who is Emperor, places all Kings in the shadow. Only in the Emperor-title does a mighty monarchy find the complete fullness of its glory.
Austria had its Emperor, Germany had its Emperor, France had its Emperor. England for the sake of its colonies has changed itself into an Empire. And also Russia’s Czar, however incorrectly, has been called the Emperor of Russia.
This practice is even more general still, and free mention is made of the Emperor of Turkey, the Emperor of China, the Emperor of Japan.
“King” has almost become a secondhand title. Only recently it was still King of Prussia, King of Saxony, King of Wurtemburg. Even a King of Serbia—but it was Emperor of Germany.
With respect to this it is noteworthy, that in Holy Scripture no other or higher title is ever applied to God and to His Christ than that of King. Also, that to indicate that the dominion of the Lord God is likewise over the Kings in the earth, no other expression is ever used than that of “King of kings and Lord of lords”.
The domain of God is always called the “Kingdom of heaven.”
And even now it would offend our sense of piety, yea it would be unthinkable, to speak of God as Emperor, or of Jesus as Emperor Jesus.
Yet this deserves close attention.
For in the days when Jesus was on earth, and suffered and died, the emperor’s title stood far higher than now. There was but one emperor. But that one emperor bare rule over the entire then-known world.
What would have been more natural, than to apply to Jesus, Who was to be King not over any one country in particular, but King over the whole world, that illustrious, majestic and highly exalted title of Emperor.
And yet, this has not been done.
Even on Patmos, at the close of the Special Revelation, Christ gives Himself no other title than that of “King of kings and Lord of lords”; and to His believers it is said, not that as emperors with the Emperor, but that as kings they shall rule with Jesus their King.
The cause of this lies at hand.
The Kingly dignity has come up from the life of the nations organically, in a natural way; the Imperial authority has imposed itself upon the nations mechanically, by violence and might.
The Imperial power is Caesarism, Imperialism. And again and again history has shown to what atrocity as of itself the Imperial idea leads.
Hence it is of supreme significance, that Pontius Pilate, who, as representative of Rome’s Emperor, at the cost of the violation of right, condemned Jesus to death, and placed as superscription above His cross: This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.
“Yet have I anointed my King over Zion” reads Jehovah’s witness in the second Psalm, and that Psalm ends with the prophecy, that the “Kings of the earth” shall bend the knee before that King of Zion.
Over against that divinely anointed King the world-power under the Roman Emperor had lifted up itself. Also Palestine had been overpowered by the Imperial eagle. And when on Gabbatha Jesus appeared before Pilate, these two powers stood personified in Pilate and Jesus over against one another. The Christ, to Whom God as His King had given all power in heaven and on earth, and the lord-lieutenant of the Roman Emperor, who by force of arms had won dominion over the entire then-known world.
And in connection with this it is so striking, that, under the leading of the Lord, the imperial power nailed its own judgment above the cross of Jesus.
For did not the Kingship itself, which Christ received from God, imply the most absolute and sharpest condemnation of all Rome’s imperial power?
Surely, it was not so meant. According to Pilate’s intention that superscription was a word of scorn and insult.
But so it is every time in this holy drama. Caiaphas speaks of “one who must die for all the people”, and Pilate writes: “The King of the Jews”; and in these thoughtless words of Caiaphas and Pilate, God declares, as by His unwilling instruments, His holy mystery.
SO stood the contrast with respect to Rome’s emperor; but it was different in the Messianic sense.
“The Jews” means something altogether different from “Israel”.
“Israel” is the holy name, given of God Himself, to the people that sprang from Abraham. They only began to be called “Jews”, when their honor had been lost, when foreigners ruled over them, when the state as ordered by Moses had been vanquished, when their spiritual ideal was darkened, and when they placed their highest expectation in the coming of an earthly Messiah, who would establish for them again a realm of earthly glory. Thus Herod, the son of Edom, had been the king of the Jews.
But such the Messiah of the Psalmist, the Messiah of the prophets is not. He should be the rod come forth from the stem of Jesse, the King of Israel.
Between the Sanhedrin and Jesus the point of contrast lay not between King and Emperor, but between King of the Jews and King of Israel.
Thus understood, that inscription above the cross was a vituperation. The name of the false Messiah was placed above the cross of the Messiah, Who had been anointed of God over Zion.
The language of self-deception.
Of blindness to the realm of God, the Kingdom of heaven; of openness of eye and ear to the restoration of the bastardized, and from its origin alienated Jewish state.
SO, what was intended by Pilate as an insult to Jesus, became an insult to the Jewish national pride.
That superscription roused the anger of the Jews.
As it now read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews”, it was the Emperor, who played his mocking game with the expectant Jews. And therefore they said: Take away what stands written, and write, that Jesus has set Himself up as King of the Jews.
In this vexation of Jewish impotence the proud Governor took delight. He would not change it. It would remain as it was. The Jews had troubled him about this Jesus. And now he took pleasure in mocking these turbulent and irritable Jews in their powerlessness.
With that pretence of the Jews, of having a King of their own, it must be ended once and for all.
That then was their King; a King on the cross!
EVERY one of us, standing at the cross, would probably have enjoyed it too.
Victim of the cruel, fanatical Jewish hatred, it might easily have been a satisfaction to every one else, to see those bitter persecuting Jews caught in the snare of their own fanaticism.
But your faith, your love is your safeguard. Even the rise of such a feeling was utterly unthinkable in Christ; in Him, Who dying, still prayed for His embittered enemies.
He Who wept over Jerusalem, because it would not let itself be gathered together under the wings of His Love, even while dying on the cross still struggled with His love for His people, that in Him and His cross had rejected the Messiah of the fathers.
More still, as He looked on the cross, in process of erection, He felt the scorn of the superscription above it more deeply than any high priest.
It was the revilement of His Israel by the Roman tyrant. It was the revilement of the Messiah anointed of God by Israel that in Jewish fanaticism had become corrupt.
No, those Jews would have no more King. Ejected from their state they would wander about as exiles, century upon century, among the nations, and only in the dream of the Chiliasts would the unholy idea of a King of the Jews still keep itself alive.
Dying on the cross Jesus saw and foresaw and understood the shameful decline of His Israel, that committed its national crime on Him.
For one who loved Israel, such as Jesus alone could love, this was a new bitter draught from the cup, which the Father put into His hand.
But through and beyond the death of Israel, Jesus, dying on His cross, saw the birth, the development, the once surely coming triumph of the “Kingdom of heaven”.
And in that Kingdom His would be the crown of honor; handed to Him by the Father Himself.
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