XXIv INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. the province of civil rulers. " When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone." (John vi. 15.) When one of the company saluting him said, "Master, speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me," he said unto him, "Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?" And when questioned before Pilate, "Art thou the king of the Jews?" our Lord, in acknowledging the justness of the title, took care to distinguish his claim from that which was involved in the ques- tion as put by Pilate: " Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world." Words and deeds could not more clearly attest that he claimed no temporal or civil jurisdiction over men. Nor was this jurisdiction delegated to him by the Father. It is true, as the apostle declares, that "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things" (that is, overruling head) "to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." (Eph. i. 17, 22, 23.) This implies a universal power and pre-eminence "over all things," including, of course, earthly kings and govern- ments, so that he has a right to demand their homage, and to overrule every thing connected with their administration to the ad- vantage of his church; but it does not imply that he is invested with the government of these earthly kingdoms, or that their rulers are to be regarded as his viceroys, ruling under him, or by delegation from him as mediator. The church is his body, his only body, of which he is the only head, the kingdom in which he reigns, to whichhe has given laws, and of which he is the sole governor. To speak of his "headship over the nations" as bearing any analogy to his "headshipover the church," is obviously to confound two things essentially different. Nations, though "put under his feet," as a conqueror, and though bound to acknowledge him as the head of the church, are in no proper sense the body of Christ. He can only be said to be their head in the sense of having the superiority over them, and the right to overrule them to the advancement of his spiritual kingdom. As mediator he neither gives them a corpo- rate existence nor administers jurisdiction over them; and therefore earthly rulers neither receive their power from the Head of the church, nor are they amenable to him as their governor. Like Solomon, his prototype, he may subdue the surrounding nations, and render them tributary to the advancement of his own spiritual king- dom; but still he is not the king of the Philistinès, nor of the Am- monites, nor of the Sidonians, but the king of Zion. He denies
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=