Title: I Am King / John 18:33-38
Contents
Subject: I am the King
Bible: John 18:33-38
Today's text records a long and important conversation between Pilate and Jesus. Pilate questioning from the position of a judge was a typical politician. According to Josephus, a historian of the early church, he received political training for a long time at the invitation of the Roman Senate sent to Syria, and was a man with a strong hatred for Jews. And his murder of the Samaritans testifies to how cruel Pilate was. He was sent as governor of Judea, and although there was a governorship in Caesarea, he had a government office in Jerusalem and ruled the Jews. At this time, Jewish religious leaders decided to kill Jesus and brought him to Pilate. When Pilate met Jesus, he took a nap and asked Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “Are those your own words? Or I ask who I learned it from, and my country is of this world and does not belong to it.” When Pilate again asked, “Aren’t you the king of the Jews?” Jesus said, “I am the king,” and said that he came into the world for this purpose that is, for the truth.
Pilate confirmed Jesus' innocence by asking what the truth was. But in order to maintain his position and power, he sacrificed Jesus on the cross. Ultimately, Pilate did not understand Jesus' words. What kind of kingdom is the kingdom of God in which Jesus' kingship is recognized and his authority is ruled, and what is its truth?
1. The kingdom of Jesus is not a physical kingdom.
Jesus said that my kingdom is neither of this world nor of this. In general, power means power or domination, and king means physical force to force others to obey. However, the kingdom that Jesus establishes is not a kingdom that is established through obedience. Rather, it means sacrificing oneself by giving up on the cross and defeating the forces of evil and winning through the power of love. If the kingdom of Jesus was physical, he said that he would have defeated the Jews and the Romans and would not have been arrested by the government, just as in the days of Hezekiah and Isaiah, when Sennacherib's army was slaughtered by eighty and five thousand men in one evening. Christianity is not a physical religion. We cannot evaluate the faith of the church by its quantity and size or measure the blessings and values of Christianity with material things.
2. The kingdom of Jesus is the kingdom of truth.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Also in the text, when Jesus said that I was born to testify to the truth, Pilate asked what the truth is (verse 38). Jesus uses truth, way, and life as different expressions of the same content. A professor at a university once published a research paper called “The Whole Life Theory”. According to him, every cell in our body also has life. However, it cannot play the role of life by itself, and when cells come together to form a body, and when members come together to form a body, even the life of a cell can have its value and role. The Bible tells us to love your neighbor as yourself.
In fact, loving and cooperating with my neighbor is a necessary condition for my existence. Because of all plants, our own survival is possible, and because of the sun, life on Earth can exist. Furthermore, because God exists, the universe exists, and we exist. It is the truth that makes this possible. In Christianity, salvation is also possible in this truth. In John 17, there is a prayer of deep dialogue between Jesus and God. Here Jesus says, “He made us one, even as we are one” (verse 21). This signifies the mystery of the oneness of the Trinity.
Augustine referred to the union of the Trinity as no confusion, no subordination, and no separation. In the same way, eternal salvation is possible when we too are in the truth that becomes one.
3. The kingdom of Jesus is the kingdom of love.
It is only love that the Trinity becomes one. It is blood that each cell of our body can act as one body. It is said that it is love that we become one and achieve perfection (John 17:23). The kingdom of Jesus is the kingdom of love. It is a country where love embraces the whole, unites with love, and serves and obeys each other. There are three Greek words for life. There is the life of the body, the life of things, and the “joe” that we receive through faith in Jesus Christ. This is the life that died when the relationship with God was cut off in Adam's time and is restored through faith in Jesus. It means being born again by believing in Jesus. This life works only in a relationship with God, a relationship of love and obedience.
Dear classmates! In a conversation between Jesus and Pilate, Jesus said to Pilate, “I am the king” and “I am the truth.” But Pilate did not realize this and, out of his own greed, drove Jesus to the cross. In the same way that cells in the body that go against the truth, betray love, and live according to their own desires cause bad diseases, Pilate made a mistake that is unprecedented in history. We believe that the kingdom of Jesus is not a physical kingdom, but a kingdom of love and truth, and we pray that you will enjoy eternal salvation in this truth.
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