Adapted from the book, Quiet Talks About the Crowned Christ by S.D. Gordon (1914).
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The Christ Crowned:
The Factby S.D. Gordon (Part 1)
In the early 1900s, S.D. Gordon was a widely traveled speaker in high demand. A prolific author, he wrote more than 30 devotional books, most with the phrase "Quiet Talks" in the title. His first book sold half a million copies over 40 years! He died in 1936.
E.W. Kenyon said that "S.D. Gordon is a sporadic outburst of divine grace. He is unusual, as are all of God's rare tools... he is perfectly balanced in the Word and in the Spirit. He represents that rare but vanishing class of spiritually minded men of the last generation." |
Christ is crowned. Not in any vague far-fetched meaning, but in the plain common-sense meaning of the word, He is crowned.
For crowned means put in the place of highest power, with full right to exercise that power at will. And when the crucified Jesus went up that Olivet day, before the astonished eyes of the disciples, into the sightless blue, on the cloud, He was received in the upper world by the Father. And He was lifted up into the place of highest honour and greatest power. He sat down at the right hand of the Father (Mark 16:19).
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He had said it would be so. Breathing the air thick with bitter hate on the night of His trial, He had quietly said to the Jewish rulers that even so it would be, bringing at once about His person the bursting of the storm of hate (Matthew 26:64). Now His unfaltering trust in His Father has its sweet reward.
The Holy Spirit poured out on Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, was the gift of the crowned Christ. The rushing sound as of a mighty wind that filled all the house, the tongues of flame plainly seen, the bold talking to the crowds of foreign Jews of God's mighty power, the faithful witnessing about the crucified Jesus in the city that hounded Him to death, the convinced crowds openly declaring at the peril of their lives their belief in the despised Jesus, the strangely rare unselfishness even in money matters, and the winsome graciousness of spirit that marked, not only the inner circle, but these greatly increased crowds, -- all this said one thing in clear unanswerable tones of unmistakable power, Christ is crowned (Acts 2:33; 3:13-16; 5:31-32; 7:55,66). For the sending down of the Holy Spirit was the act of the crowned Christ.
And every touch of the Holy Spirit's presence within trusting hearts, -- the sweet peace, the quiet assurance, the longing for purity, the drawing away to prayer, the hunger for God's Word, the intense desire to have others saved, the passion to please this wondrous God of ours, -- all these simple marks of the Holy Spirit's presence in our hearts, all tell us, and each tells us, in unmistakable tones, that Christ is crowned. For this wondrous Spirit within is the gift of the crowned Christ.
When Jesus went up from the earth, holding as His sure captive the captivity of suffering and death to which He had with such great strength yielded, He received gifts, coronation gifts. The Father gave Him all. He gave Him the disposal and control of all. This was the crowning.
And in His great out-reaching love Christ received these gifts on behalf of men, His blood brothers. And at once He gave to men, to His trusting disciples, the all-inclusive gift, the Holy Spirit, His coronation gift (Psalm 68:18; Ephesians 4:8; Acts 2:33). So God came anew to dwell with men as originally planned.
This blessed Presence within tells me, by His mere presence, that Christ is crowned.
The writers of the New Testament make a chorus of sweet music on this chord, ringing out in clear tones the full notes of delight and joy. Luke's simple narrative sounds the note four times. Paul swells it out with a joyous fulness that grows in volume and intensity as his narrowing prison walls shut out more and more the lower lights, and centres his upward gaze upon Jesus, "far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named," with "all things in subjection under His feet" (Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20-22; Philippians 2:9-11; Colossians 3:1). John's special companion and working partner, Peter, makes this note blend with and dominate the minor chord of suffering for Christ's sake (I Peter 3:22).
The Christian Hebrew who wrote so eloquently to his fellow-countrymen of the immense superiority of Jesus and so modestly withheld his own name, strikes this note five times with strong, clear touch (Hebrews 1:3; 2:8-9; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2). He quotes that Eighth Psalm, which so wonderfully gives God's own ideal for man's mastery over all creation. And then he tells us that in Jesus the ideal will yet be fully realized. And that while the whole plan has not yet fully worked out as it will, yet even now we see the Jesus who tasted death for every one, crowned with glory and honour as part of the plan which He carried out in suffering the extreme suffering of death.
And our Lord Jesus Himself, talking out of the glory to the man who was His bosom companion on earth, reserves as His last tender plea to us to live the overcoming life this -- "he that overcometh I will give him to sit down with me in my throne as I also overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne" (Revelation 3:21).
And so we find out just what this word crowned means. Jesus was received in the upper world, exalted, glorified, made to sit down at the Father's right hand, put far above all rule and authority, with a name greater in the sweep of its power than any other, and with all things put in absolute subjection under His feet. This is the simple, direct meaning of the sentence -- Christ is crowned.
What a contrast the two faces of that glory cloud saw! The face looking down, and the face looking up! The one -- the downward face -- looked upon a cross, a Man hanging there with a mocking crown of thorns without and a breaking heart within, scowling priests, jeering crowds, deserting disciples, sneering soldiers, weeping women, heart-broken friends, a horror of darkness, a cave-tomb under imperial seal, and blackest night settling down over all.
The other -- the upward face -- looked upon a great burst of the upper glory, the countless angels singing swelling songs of worship, the wondrous winged cherubim, the redeemed hosts from Eden days on reverently bowing and exultantly singing, the exquisitely soft-green-rainbow-circled throne, the Father's face, once hidden, but to be hidden now never again, the shared seat on the Father's throne, -- what a contrast!
Here crucified -- there crowned. Crucified on earth, one of the smaller globes of the universe. On the throne of the whole universe of globes -- crowned! From the lowest depth to the one extreme height. From hate's worst to Love's best. From love poured out for men to love enthroned for those same men; love triumphant each time, on cross and on throne. What a contrast! What a coronation! What a welcome home to a throne!
It is most intensely interesting to recall that, of course, this is just what the very word Christ means, -- the Crowned One. We sometimes get so used to a word that it is easy to forget its real meaning. The word Christ has been used so generally for so many centuries as a name that we forget that originally it was a title, and not a name.
And it still is a title, though used chiefly as a name. Some day the title-meaning will overlap the name-meaning. We may never cease thinking of it as a name, but there is a time coming when events will make the title-meaning so big as to clear over-shadow our thought and use of it as a name.
It helps to recall the distinctive meaning of the words we use for Him who walked amongst, and was one of us. Jesus is His name. It be longs to the man. It belongs peculiarly to the thirty-three years and a bit more that He was here, even though not exclusively used in that way in the Book.
There's a rare threefold sweetness of meaning in that five-lettered name. There is the meaning of the old word lying within the name, before it became a name, victory, victor, saviour-victor, Jehovah-victor. There is the swing and rhythm and murmur of music, glad joyous music, in its very beginnings as a common word.
Then it has come to stand wholly for a personality, the rarely gentle, winsome, strong personality of the Man of Bethlehem and Nazareth, and of those crowded service-days. And every memory of His personality sweetens and enriches the music in the old word.
And then the deepest significance, the richest rhythm, the sweetest melody, come from the meaning His experiences, His life, pressed into it. The sympathy, the suffering, the wilderness, the Cross, the Resurrection, all the experiences He went through, these give to this victory word, Jesus, a meaning unknown before. They put the name Jesus actually above every name in the experiences of tense conflict and sweeping victory it stands for. This threefold chording makes music never to be broken nor forgotten. "There is no name so sweet on earth,
No name so sweet in heaven,
The name before His wondrous birth,
To Christ the Saviour given." Lord is a title, of course. It was used of one who was a proprietor, an owner, or a master. It was commonly used as a title of honour for one in superior position, as a leader or teacher. In speaking of Jesus it is coupled with the title Christ as an interchangeable word (Acts 2:36), as well as an additional title. But peculiarly it is the personal title given Jesus by one who takes Him as his own personal Master (Romans 10:9), while it still retains its broader meaning.
But Christ is peculiarly the official title of Jesus. There is only one Christ. Lord is used of men. It is used of both the Father and the Holy Spirit, as well as of Jesus. But the name Christ is used of only one person, and can mean only that one. There could be only one Christ.
The word or its equivalent was used occasionally in the Old Testament in a narrowed sense for the King of Israel, who is reverently spoken of as "the Lord's anointed," that is, God's Messiah or Christ (I Samuel 16:6; 24:6-10; II Samuel 1:14-16; 19:21, and elsewhere; Psalm 18:50, and frequently in Psalms).
But the one common thought of it among the Hebrew people, growing ever intenser as the Old Testament period merges into the time of the New, was that there was one coming, the Messiah, the Christ, God's chosen, the one anointed and empowered, to be their Deliverer. The one question that sets all hearts a-flutter about the rugged John of the deserts was this: "Is he the Christ?" (John 1:20,25; Luke 3:15). In their thought there was only one to whom the title belonged.
And even so it is. Christ is the official title of the One Chosen and anointed by God to be ruler over His Hebrew people, and over all the race, and the earth, and the universe, -- God's King, to reign until all have been brought into full allegiance to the great loving Father (Philippians 2:10; I Corinthians 15:24-26). The Christ is the Crowned One, God's Crowned One. The very word Christ tells that Christ is crowned.
There is an intensely interesting question that crowds its way in here, and it proves an immensely practical question, too. Why was Christ crowned? We can say at once that this was His due. He was given that which belonged to Him in good right. He was reinstated in His former position, with all the power and glory that were His before His errand to the earth John 17:5; 1:1-3; Colossians 1:15-I7).
Then too this was His vindication after the shameful treatment of earth. Before the eyes of all the upper world, both loyal and disloyal eyes, this man whom earth hounded so shamelessly is vindicated; He is set right by the Father (Matthew 26:64; Acts 2:22-24, 32-36; Philippians 2:9-l1; Hebrews 2:9).
But there is yet more than this. It is a more of a sort that concerns us very closely and it sets one's heart a-beating a bit faster. This crowning was part of a plan, a plan of which our earth is the centre. It was the second great part of a plan of which the suffering and dying were the first great part. Both were for the sake of us men and our earth-home, and the lower creation.
This is the thing being emphasized in the second great paragraph of the Hebrews (Hebrews 2:5-18).
Man was made the under-master of the earth and of the lower creation, but lost, weakly surrendered, his place of mastery. The new Man came to recover for man what had been lost and to realize this original lost plan.
And so He became our brother, sharer of our flesh and blood, tempted like as we, perfected in His human character by the experiences He went through, then tasted to the bitter dregs the death that belongs to our sin. And then following that, He was crowned with glory and honour. And so He rises to the place of mastery over all that belongs to perfect man. So He brings all creation into the glad subjection which is its natural happy state. It is for earth's sake, for the race's sake, and for the sake of our faithful companions and servants, the whole lower creation, that Christ has been crowned.
We think more about the personal meaning to ourselves of His having died and risen again. We need to remember, too, this broader meaning. The dying and rising secures our salvation personally. The crowning and the reigning will work out the redemption of all nature and of the lower creation (Romans 7:19-22; Jeremiah 9:10; 12:4,11; 23:10; Genesis 3:17-19; Acts 3:21), and this in turn will mean much for men living on the earth in the Kingdom time, and for the race as a race.
This leads at once to another question that presses in. What is the domain of the crowned Christ? If we take the crowning in the common meaning of that word, it means that there is some domain that Christ rules over. What is it that He is crowned over?
And the answer is so sweeping as to seem far-away and dreamy to us who are living on this sin-hurt earth. He is the crowned Ruler of the whole created universe and all intelligent beings in it. He has been placed over absolutely every "rule and authority and power and dominion, and not only in this present age but in the coming age" (Ephesians 1:20-22; Hebrews 2:6-8). There is simply no limit in extent to His domain. Everything has been placed in subjection to Him and is now subject to His word, and His alone.
There is a striking passage in Philippians that fits in here (Philippians 2:9-11). In speaking of the exaltation of Jesus Christ, Paul is careful to explain particularly that every knee would bow, in the heavens, and, on the earth, and under the earth or in the world below.
This threefold division is very striking. The heaven things are understood at once, and things of the earth sphere. But there is a third world to be taken into account, that strange uncanny world of evil spirit beings in rebellion against God's authority. It is spoken of repeatedly as principalities and powers, indicating numbers and organization, dignity, and power (Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 2:15). All of this is included in what has been placed under Christ's authority (Colossians 2:10; Ephesians 3:10; 4:8-10; I Corinthians 15:24).
Continued in part 2...
This page Copyright © 1999 Peter Wade. The Bible text in this publication, except where otherwise indicated, is from the King James Version. This article appears on the site: http://www.peterwade.com/.Would you like your own copy of books by Peter Wade and other authors? Go to our Catalog. | |
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