The Source of the Kingship

 ‘Because the Lord hath loved His people, He hath made thee king over them.’—2 Chron. ii. 11, ix. 8.

CHRIST said to His Father, ‘ Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.’ At that mysterious date, not of time, but of everlasting love, God ‘chose us in Him.’  Before the world began, God, that cannot lie, gave the promise of eternal life to Him for us, and made with Him for us ‘a covenant ordered in all things, and sure.’ The leading provisions of that covenant were, a Lamb for our atonement, and a King for our government—a dying and a living Saviour. This God the Father did for us, and His own divine interest is strongly indicated in the typical words, ‘ God will provide Himself a Lamb,’ and ‘I have provided me a King.’  So the Source of the Kingship of Christ is God Himself, in the eternal counsels of His love. It is one of the grand ‘thoughts of God.’

1 John xvii. 24. 2 Eph. i. 4. 3 Titus i. 2.
4 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. 6 Gen. xxii. 8. 61 Sam. xvi. i.
‘ Ps. cxxxix. 17.

Having provided, He appointed and anointed His King:  ‘Yet have I set (margin, anointed) my King upon my holy hill of Zion.’  What a marvellous meeting-place is thus found in the Kingship of Jesus for God’s heart and ours! He says in His majestic sovereignty,  ‘I have set my King;’ and
we say in lowly and loving loyalty,  ‘Thou art my King.’
God has appointed His King ‘ to be ruler over Israel and over Judah.’ Thus He gives His children a great bond of union. For ‘one King shall be King to them all,’  and He shall  ‘gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad.’  ‘Satan scatters, but Jesus gathers.’  Shall we then let the enemy have his way, and induce us to keep apart and aloof from those over whom our beloved King reigns also? Let us try this day to recollect this, and make it practical in all our contact with His other subjects.
Why has God made Jesus King? Who would have guessed the right answer?  ‘Because the Lord loved His people.’ So the very thought of the Kingship of Christ sprang from the everlasting love of God to His people.  Bring that wonderful statement down to personal reality,— ‘ His people’ (that is, you and me). God made Jesus King over you, because He loved you, and that with nothing less than the love wherewith He loved Him. Which is the more wonderful—the love that devised such a gift, or the gift that was devised by such love ! Oh, to realize the glorious value of it!

1 Ps. ii. 6. 2 Ps. xliv. 4. 3 Ezek. xxxvii. 22.
4 John xi. 52, 6 Jer, xxxi. 3. 6 John xvii. 26.

May we, who by His grace know something of God’s gift of His Son as our Saviour, learn day by day more of the magnificent preciousness of His gift of His Anointed One as our King !