In a prior post,
I wrote that God expected the nation of Israel to trust in him for national rule
and military protection. When Jesus was on earth, how did he feel about
depending on human rule?
At John 18:36 Jesus
answered: “My Kingdom is no part of this world. If my Kingdom were part of this
world, my attendants would have fought that I should not be handed over to the
Jews. But as it is, my Kingdom is not from this source.” The foregoing
rendering is from the New World Translation. In this link, 20 of the 21
translations cited, also use the word “world.” The one unique rendering is the “New
International Version,” which renders Jesus’ words as: “My Kingdom is no from
an earthly source.”
Please
direct your focus to the statement that Jesus’ kingship is “not from this
source.” Regardless of which ruler Jesus had been standing in front of, would
he not have been able to use the same words? Before answering that, consider Jesus
words in these
two passages. In both, Jesus speaks of “the ruler of this world” having
received a judgment (past-tense) and then at some future time “will be cast
out.” Who is this undesignated ruler? Revelation 12:9
indicates precisely who it is—Satan the devil. How many governments are under
his control? The Bible says ALL of them.
In essence
then, Jesus was saying that his rulership doesn’t originate with any of the governments
under Satan’s control, which is all of them. It comes only
from God, his Father. If Jesus felt that strongly, how about us? While we pay our taxes and obey the laws of the land,
when called on to express our allegiance, we always indicate we are supporters
of God’s Kingdom.
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