What is it like for the Kingsman to relate to Jesus, the King?
It’s very much like what happens when a man finally stops wearing his own crown long enough to notice whose head it was always meant to sit on. A soldier can carry a great deal on borrowed authority for a long time before it wears him down — pretending the final say is his, pretending the weight is his to bear alone. The Kingsman doesn’t have to live that way, because he already answers to a King whose crown was never in question.
Pilate asked Him outright — are You the King of the Jews? — and Jesus didn’t dodge it. My kingdom is not of this world, He said, and if it were, His servants would be fighting for Him right now (John 18:36). That answer unsettles the categories a man usually reaches for when he thinks about kings, and it’s meant to. This isn’t a throne secured by armies, elections, or the shifting approval of a crowd. Daniel saw it centuries before Pilate ever asked the question — one like a son of man given dominion and glory and a kingdom that will never pass away or be destroyed (Daniel 7:13-14). John saw the same reality from the far end of history, robed and named King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16). Between those two visions sits everything the Kingsman needs to know about the crown he serves under — a rule no rival can touch, a kingdom no force can win, a government too heavy for any shoulders but His, and a reign that has already moved him out of one kingdom and into another.
The Rule No Rival Can Touch (Ephesians 1:20-21). Paul says God raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but in the one to come. That list is deliberately exhaustive, because Paul knows exactly what a man is tempted to do with it — quietly file one exception under the throne rather than over it. This deadline. This diagnosis. This person who seems to hold more power over him than Christ does most mornings. But a King seated above every name that is named doesn’t leave a name off the list. The Kingsman can stop treating his hardest pressure as the one exception the crown doesn’t cover, because there isn’t one.
The Kingdom No Force Can Win (John 18:36). Standing in front of Pilate, with a crowd outside shouting for His death, Jesus told him plainly — if His kingdom were of this world, His servants would be fighting to keep Him out of that courtroom. They weren’t, because it isn’t. That’s a hard adjustment for a man who instinctively reaches for leverage, for the last word, for the win that makes the argument stop. The Kingsman feels the pull to defend the King’s honour the way he’d defend his own — raised voice, forced point, every disagreement treated like a hill worth dying on by his own hand. But the kingdom Jesus described to Pilate was never going to be built that way, and it isn’t kept that way either. The Kingsman doesn’t need to fight for ground that was never won by force to begin with.
The Government Too Heavy for Any Shoulders But His (Isaiah 9:6-7). Isaiah pictures a child born, a son given, and the government resting on His shoulders — Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, reigning on David’s throne with justice and righteousness from that time forward, forever. An entire government resting on one set of shoulders – what a shattering thought. The Kingsman knows exactly what it costs to carry weight he was never issued — an outcome he can’t control, a person he can’t fix, a world that keeps refusing to behave. Isaiah isn’t calling him to train harder for a load built for someone else’s frame. He’s showing him whose shoulders that government has rested on from the beginning, so the Kingsman can finally put his own hands down.
The Reign That Has Already Moved Him (Colossians 1:13). Paul tells the Colossians that the Father has rescued them from the domain of darkness and transferred them into the kingdom of His beloved Son. That word, transferred, does more work than it first appears to. This isn’t a change of opinion or a fresh coat of motivation — it’s a change of citizenship, settled once, that decides which government a man actually answers to. The Kingsman still feels the old domain tug at him some mornings — the deadline that behaves like a king, the opinion of a room that behaves like a king, the habit that governs him more than he’d like to admit. Colossians doesn’t send him back to fight those pretenders on their own ground. It tells him he’s already gone. Any claim the old kingdom still makes on him is a claim it no longer has the standing to enforce.
A rule no rival can touch. A kingdom no force can win. A government too heavy for any shoulders but His. A reign that has already carried him somewhere new. Taken together, they leave the Kingsman with very little left to defend and a great deal more to simply live inside of — a man no longer trying to hold a crown that was never his to wear.
That’s what it means to relate to Jesus as the King in the life of the Kingsman.
For His Name’s Sake
C. L. J. Dryden
Shalom
Life With CD 