Christ is the "King of Glory." To the obedient saint, the one who permits Jesus to have His way in him, there will be given glory beyond all comprehension.

We have not known the warrior aspect of the Personality of Christ. We may conceive of Him as the gentle Shepherd or the wise Teacher. But the King of Glory! The Lord mighty in battle! This we do not understand. The poison of humanism that has filtered into Christian thinking prevents us from perceiving correctly the harshness of the passages of Scripture that are directed toward God's enemies.

According to the parables of Jesus, the outraged king on his return will slay his enemies (compare Luke 19:27). So it is in the Kingdom. The wicked will be crushed. The Kingdom of God is not a democracy, it is a kingdom that wages total war against the enemy.

The Lord is "strong and mighty." We are not able to drive out of ourselves the love of the world, the love of sin, or the love of self-will. The Lord Jesus is strong enough to overcome the darkness in us and to bring us forth in His image.

The Lord Jesus is "mighty in battle." It is important for the Christians to understand the degree of darkness that is in us. Lawlessness, rebellion, and lustful self-centeredness proceed from the enemies of God. These are not human imperfections alone, they are spiritual enemies. They can be overcome only by relentless war waged against them by a superior, wiser power. That Power is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in. (Psalms 24:9)

Again, the Spirit of Christ in David exhorts us to open our heart to Himself. The elements of our redemption which we have experienced thus far, the Passover blood of protection, repentance, water baptism, the baptism with the Holy Spirit, have meaning only in terms of the promised redemption. They are as a seal, a pledge on the redemption that comes to us when the King of Glory enters us and drives out all the spiritual darkness that has held us in the chains of rebellion, corruption, and death.

Let us not repeat the tragic error of the Jews. The Jews hope for Christ and for the glorious new world to come. But when Christ came they rejected Him because He did not come in the manner their scholars had anticipated. He was born in a stable and died on the cross.

The same danger confronts us Christians. We hope for perfect redemption from the power and corruption of sin and for the glorious new world to come. Let us make sure we do not reject the present-day aspects of the Divine redemption when they do not come in the manner our scholars have anticipated.

Because redemption is coming to us in the ordinary struggles and facts of our life; because there is personal pain involved as the Lord brings down to death the elements in us that keep us in slavery; and because the glory is not being given to us in a rainbow-burst of love and joy in a paradisiac environment; we may tend to ignore what God is doing, just as the Jews ignored the Presence and Word of Jesus of Nazareth.

To be continued.