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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
which
he
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
"headship
over
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