Who is the real King?

One of the most powerful and disconcerting confrontations recorded in the gospels – and there were many – occurs near the end of the earthly life of Jesus as He confronts Pilate. While Pilate was not too thrilled with going after Him, having found no fault with Him, the baying mobs outside wanted blood. So he finally gave in to their demands.

All four gospels record His time before Pilate. This is how Luke 23:13-25 records events:

Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas”— a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” A third time he said to them, “Why? What evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

Pilate did not view Jesus as being a big risk but it seems the crowd did. As we read in John 19:12-16:

From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.

Note that some of the Jews, including many of the leaders, insisted, “We have no king but Caesar.”

Plenty of Jews did see Jesus as their Lord, but too many others were willing to give their allegiance to a pagan ruler instead of their actual Messiah.

All this should be familiar territory for the Christian. We know very well how the gospels record the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus. But the issue for Christians today – two millennia later – is this:

• How many contemporary believers view things much the same way as these Jewish leaders?
• How many will say, ‘We have no king but the secular state’?

Some may object, “No Christian today thinks that way.”

Hmm, not so fast. Simply recall what happened a few years ago. In the guise of “keeping us safe,” our secular rulers closed our churches and ordered us not to hold any public worship services. Even home churches and Bible studies were effectively banned in many places, including Dictator Dan’s Victoria.

And here is the real clincher:

• Just how many Christians readily went along with all this?
• How many were quite happy to forgo worshipping the Lord with other believers for many months on end?
• How many were willing to let the State become Lord, as it closed our churches and demanded that we obey them, rather than God?

The sad truth is that the majority of Western Christians simply went along with these draconian lockdowns and never said a thing about them. Yes, a brave minority did speak out, including a few courageous pastors who kept their churches open to worship the living God. And some of these pastors ended up being arrested and jailed for doing this.

But most believers acted as if the State was Lord.

So the question is, are we all that different from what these folks did 2000 years ago?

When crunch time comes along, how many will simply submit to whatever dictates the State hands down to us – even those that conflict with our Christian faith? If the Covid wars of 2020-2022 were a test run to see how easily and quickly governments could take total control over a population, we have seen the clear results, and what can come next is too frightening to consider.

Is the Church ready to challenge the earthly powers if need be, to be true to Christ and his Kingdom? What should we learn from this episode of long ago? Much commentary on all this can be appealed to here but let me draw upon just one.

James Montgomery Boice, in his five-volume expository commentary on John speaks to this matter. Speaking of “We have no king but Caesar”, he says this:

Nothing could be more ludicrous on the lips of the priests of Israel than this protestation. It means, “We are loyal to Caesar and to Caesar alone.” But actually they hated Caesar and maintained that only God was their king. Why would they say such a thing? One would think they would have choked on it as they said it. Yet so great was their hatred of Jesus that they would rather deny their own convictions than see him escape crucifixion. Still, the leaders of Israel spoke truer than they knew. They thought that they were loyal to God and hated Caesar. But it was the Son of God, God Incarnate, whom they were rejecting; so they are actually showing that indeed they do not honor God instead choose Caesar.

He reminds us that this was not just the Jews rejecting Jesus as Lord:

It is the verdict of the human race. What else does the fall of man mean if it is not the willful rejection of God’s rule? It means, “We will not abide by his restrictions.” What does the crucifixion of Jesus mean (both by Jewish and gentile hands) if it does not mean, “We will not have this man to rule over us”?

He concludes his chapter with these words:

In the words of the Lord we have the proper picture: God and Caesar, with God in the dominant position. In the reaction of Pilate to the threat of the Jews (“If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar”) we have a warped position: God and Caesar, but Caesar in the dominant position. In these verses, with which the issue of God and state is closed, we have the worst stance of all. Now it is no longer God and Caesar, in whatever relationship. It is Caesar alone. God is forced out of the picture entirely. Nothing is worse than this. Tyranny is not worse, for even under the worst of tyrants, if God is in the picture, he can at least be appealed to for help and the injustices may be corrected. Without God, what is there? Nothing but the rapacious lust and cruel arrogance of human beings.

 

We may be more specific. Without God in the picture, there is no check on Caesar. We need a check. In America we recognise this secularly, for we have developed a system of checks and balances according to which one branch of government has control on another. . . . We recognise the need of checks and balances on the secular level because we know by experience that people in positions of power are untrustworthy. But if this is true on the merely human level, how much more true is it on the cosmic level. The united voices of the rulers of even so great a land as ours cannot be ultimate. God is ultimate. So if we forsake God, we are at the mercy of our governors.

 

Second, without God in the picture, we have no sure means of guiding government properly. This is not the same thing as a need for checks on our rulers. We need checks to keep government from becoming a law unto itself and therefore abusing in tyrannizing the governed. But suppose the government is not tyrannous. Suppose it operates well, as our government generally does. Even then it needs God, for it is only from God that we can receive a system of morality and a wisdom beyond our own. Only this is able to lead us upward to the fullness of those domestic blessings that God has for a people who sincerely seek his face.

 

There is an attempt in America today to remove every possible vestige of religion from national life. Will God be our God nationally? Or will we force him from national life? We can do either. We can have “no God but Caesar.” But God help us if that happens! God save us from it for Jesus’ sake.

Yes, this has always been the real choice for every single human being on the planet:

• Will God be God?
• Will He be Lord?
• Will Jesus be King? or
• Will some human ruler, government or state take the place of God and His Son?

That is the issue that we all must face. We must choose wisely.

Bill Muehlenberg teaches ethics, apologetics and theology at several Melbourne Bible Colleges. His independent blog, Culture Watch, has over 5,000 articles commenting on the major cultural, social and political issues of the day.