The King of Glory

Scripture Reading: Psalm 24:1-10

OH – 83 “O Worship the King”

CH – 256 “Ye Servants of God”

Think back to our scripture for this morning, and let me read it again before you.

In Psalm 24 the poet king David writes of the glory of God, his King, who rules in heaven and on earth.. :Please give special notice to the closing verses.

1 The earth is the LORD’S, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein.

2 For He has founded it upon the seas, And established it upon the waters.

3 ¶ Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place?

4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully.

5 He shall receive blessing from the LORD, And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

6 This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him, Who seek Your face. Selah

7 ¶ Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in.

8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, The LORD mighty in battle.

9 Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in.

10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah

Notice that David uses the covenant name for God. That’s what it means when your Bible capitalized the word, “LORD.”

YHWH, pronounced “Jehovah” by some or “Yahweh” by others.

He leaves no doubt concerning his object.

The King of Glory is the One God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, Eternal Father, in whom and for whom all things exist and have their being.

Never is this name used for any other than Israel’s God.

Yet, in all Christian literature this psalm is used to refer to Jesus as well as the Father.

I love that part of Handel’s Messiah where these words are sung picturing the triumphal entry of Christ into heaven. How about you?

Whenever you can get a seat at BMA for their performance of the Messiah, listen for this passage.

It is a wondrous picture of our risen Lord as He returns in triumph having left Satan’s pretensions and his kingdom in ruins by His sacrifice.

Ellen White, in an article of Signs of the Times, writes:

Christ's ascension to heaven, amid a cloud of heavenly angels, glorified Him. His concealed glory shone forth with all the brightness that mortal man could endure and live…

The same holy beings that announced His advent to the world were permitted to attend Him at His ascension, and to demand a triumphal entrance for the royal and glorified Being.

"Lift up your heads, O ye gates," they cry as they near the heavenly portals; "and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in."

The angels at the gates respond in lofty strain, "Who is this King of glory?" And from thousands and ten thousands of voices the answer comes: "The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in." Again the angels at the gates cry, "Who is this King of glory?"

and again the response swells triumphantly upward, "The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory." {ST, May 10, 1899 par. 15}

Brethren and Sisters, this is the King whom we serve here this morning.

We serve Yahweh, The Eternal and only God; Creator of all things, the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the end.

And we serve Jesus, also called Eternal Father and only God, Creator of all things, the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the end: Our Savior and The Prince of peace.

At least, that’s how Isaiah put it.

Isaiah 9:6

For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Clear as the scriptures have been on this subject, there are still those who pretend that Jesus is not God. They teach that He is a created being who serves God, God’s son, but that he is not God and should not be worshiped as God.

Perhaps some of these have knocked on your door recently. They have a magazine called “The Watchtower”.

They represent a viewpoint that goes something like this.

“How can there be three persons in one God? It doesn’t make sense. Three persons means three gods. Common sense should tell you there can not be three beings yet only One God. And since the Bible is clear that there is only One God saying: ‘I the LORD thy God am one God.’ We must worship only the Father, Jehovah. Only He is God.”

That sounds reasonable doesn’t it?

If you asked me to explain how there could be a Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all individual beings yet all one God, I could not give you a satisfactory explanation. But then,do I have to?

The truth of the Godhead does not rest on my ability to explain it.

The Bible, over and over again, points to the a plural Godhead, and identifies it’s members. To this all reputable Christian scholars, including Ellen White, agree. The Bible teaches that God is one God in three persons.

To believe otherwise would require us to ignore the plain teaching of the Word of God.

So Jesus as well as the Father can claim to be “The King of Glory”

Some years ago I studied on this point with some of those who publish the Watchtower, showing them how the Father and Jesus are both God.

I took them to the scriptures showing them that both Jesus and the Father are Co-eternal. For they teach that Jesus was a created being.

In Isaiah, God presents Himself with these words:

Isaiah 44:6

"Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God.

God says He is the First and the Last.

Now look at the Revelation, chapters 1 and 2, where we clearly see Jesus speaking to John saying:

Revelation 1:11 …, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last," and, "What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia…"

Revelation 1:17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, "Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last.

Revelation 2:8 "And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write, ‘These things says the First and the Last, who was dead, and came to life:

Both Jesus and Jehovah say they are the First and Last.

I asked my visitors, “how many first’s and last’s can there be?” They could give no answer.

Only one being can claim to be the first and the last, the beginning and the ending, and that being has to be eternal.

For Jesus to be First, it meas the Father could not have preceeded Him.

For Jesus to be Last the Father will not exceed Him

They are equals in time and emenence.

For Jesus as well as the Father to claim to be first and last identifies them both as that Eternal, preeminent being.

But how then, you say, can the scriptures make claims like Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 6: 4, called the Shema.

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!

It helps here to realize that the word used for “one” is carefully chosen by Moses, and the Spirit who guided Him.

There are several Hebrew words that could have been used.

“Yachid” which means “only”, “solitary”, “only one”: as in “only child” Proverbs 4:3

“Echad” which means one, but is used sometimes for the oneness of a group of things, as in the “one cluster of grapes” brought back from Canaan by the 12 Hebrew spies in Numbers 13: 23 There are many grapes yet one cluster.

“Echad” therefore can be inclusive of a unity of beings that form one Godhead. I.e., the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And that is the word used in the Shema: “The LORD thy God is one (echad).”

It is also interesting to note here that the Hebrew word for God here is “Elohim” rather than “Eloha”

“Elohim” is the plural form of the word “God.” This again suggests that the Godhead is composed of more than one being.

When Moses pictures God planning the creation of man in Genesis 1, we find God (Plural) speaking to another being as an equal saying:

"Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion…” Genesis 1: 26

There is obviously more than one being involved in “Our likeness.”

The New Testament, over and over again, points to this unity of three, Co-equal persons, instructing us to worship them.

Jesus instructs us in Matthew 28: 19 to:

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name (singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Three beings are mentioned here who share one name. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Hebrews 1

1 ¶ God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,

2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;

3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Then again:

5 For to which of the angels did He ever say: "You are My Son, Today I have begotten You"? And again: "I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son"?

6 But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: "Let all the angels of God worship Him."

7 And of the angels He says: "Who makes His angels spirits And His ministers a flame of fire."

8 But to the Son He says: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your Kingdom.

Here even God calls Jesus, God.

Now look at verse 10. I’d like you to see it in the context of the 10 commandments of God and the Sabbath day.

In the Ten Commandments we are told that we are to keep the Sabbath holy because “in six days the LORD [Jehovah or Yahweh] made heaven and earth”

In Hebrews 1 verse 10 Paul tells us that Jesus is the LORD who made all things, including the Sabbath day.

10 And: "You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands.”

I could go on and on from the New Testament, comparing it to the Old in its descriptions of the being we call Jesus.

This is why the Seventh-day Adventist Church has come to teach, as it’s Second articles of belief (after the inspiration of Holy Scripture), that the Godhead consists of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; all together making our co equal, co eternal, all knowing, all powerful, unchangeable God.

There is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three co-eternal Persons, God is immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing, above all, and ever present. He is infinite and beyond human comprehension, yet known through His self-revelation. He is forever worthy of worship, adoration, and service by the whole creation. – Fundamental Beliefs, 2

With all that said, it is amazing to me that there are some within the church today that question this statement.

They do not say that Jesus is a created being, but they do deny that He is eternal, stating that there was a time far back into antiquity when the Father was alone.

I have looked at some of their reasons, and the major point seems to be that Jesus said he proceeded forth from the Father.

Therefore, they conclude, the Father must have existed before the Son since the Son came from Him.

In John 8:42 Jesus tells the Pharisees

"If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.”

A careful reading, however, shows that this text was never intended to say that Jesus had not been with the Father for eternity.

Jesus is referring to His incarnation as a man, that he proceeded from the Father to earth to live as a man.

This becomes even clearer in John 16:28 where Jesus informs the disciples:

"I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father."

It’s a round trip ticket.

The scriptures testify over and over again of the eternal nature of the Son.

· “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last” Rev 1:11

· “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1

· “Unto the Son He says “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” Hebrews 1:8

But what if the skeptic is not one who accepts the New Testament as coming from God.

What if we are dealing with a Jew or a Muslim?

How can they be helped to see that the Godhead is plural?

How do we use the Scriptures to help them to see the testimony that Jesus is the true messiah?

An elder of the church recently asked me to prepare an explanation of these things from the Old Testament to help deal with just this type of witnessing.

I said I would try.

First, let’s remember that “the path of the just is like the shining sun, That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.” Proverbs 4:18

We shouldn’t expect the Old Testament to be as replete with teaching about Jesus as is the New. But that does not mean that there is no evidence for the plurality of the Godhead, and the divinity of Christ.

We have already looked at the grammatical clues in the plurality of the word for God: “Elohim”

We have noticed that God was planning the creation of man with at least one other, addressing that person or persons as an equal saying: “Let Us make man in Our image…” Genesis 1:28

Now let’s go to a text we used earlier, and point up something we overlooked at the time.

The duality shown in Isaiah 44:6

Isaiah 44:6

"Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God.

Do you notice it? Two beings are mentioned here.

“Thus says the LORD [Yahweh] the king of Israel,

and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts.”

The Redeemer cannot be the same as the King of Israel, for the redeemer is called “his Redeemer.” The one is in relationship to the other.

Yet, both are titled with the covenant name “LORD” Yahweh.

Furthermore, both are making the statement together saying “I am the First and I am the Last. Besides Me there is no God (Elohim).”

Here is an indication in the Old Testament that the Redeemer and the Father are two beings but one God.

They are in eternal union, and eternal distinction with each other.

This is why we see so often in the scriptures God saying that He is Israel’s redeemer.

Psalms 78:35 Then they remembered that God was their rock, And the Most High God their Redeemer.

Isaiah 43:14 Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel:

Isaiah 47:4 As for our Redeemer, the LORD of hosts is His name, The Holy One of Israel.

Jeremiah 50:34 Their Redeemer is strong; The LORD of hosts is His name.

In the New Testament the redeemer is identified by the name: Jesus.

But in the Old Testament scriptures, before the incarnation, He is referred to by His title. “Redeemer.”

Note also the texts we quoted in the New Testament, especially in the book of Hebrews chapter 1. These were not scriptures originally written by Paul, but they were quotations of scriptures taken from Paul’s Bible, the Old Testament.

Psalm 110:1 The LORD said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool."

Psalms 2:7 "I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.

The apostles did not prove the divinity of Christ by their own words, but by the evidence already given in scripture.

The Old testament prophets looked forward to the incarnation of the Messiah, testifying to His divinity with words we rehearse every Christmas season.

Isaiah pronounces his identity and Godhood.

Isaiah 7:14 "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.

“Immanuel” means “God with Us”

Isaiah is clear that the messiah to be born would truly be God.

In declaring His coming birthplace, Micah also declares that Messiah would be the eternal being, without beginning or ending.

Micah 5:2 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting."

The Christ is to have an eternal nature, one that has been “from everlasting.”

Isaiah even declares that he is to be known as the “Everlasting Father”

Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Now I am asking you to look at the next set of scriptures very carefully, for they reveal an amazing truth about the Son of God.

In Psalm 2, where God says “this is my Son, today I have begotten you”, verse12 declares:

Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, And you perish in the way, When His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.

In Jeremiah 17:5 however, God decrees:

Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength,

How can these two texts be reconciled?

If Jesus were a man, we would be cursed if we trusted in Him. For Jeremiah says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man.”

Yet David says: Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him. (the Son).

Both statements can only be true if Jesus, the Son of God, is no mere man, but in actuality God in the flesh.

So that next proof is that the OT scriptures tell us to trust in LORD and also only in the SON equally.

The testimony of scripture is clear.

God the Father is the King of Glory. And so is Jesus the Son.

Jesus Himself prayed to the Father in Matthew 6:13 – “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

Yet the scriptures end with the declaration of Christ that “He shall reign for ever. – Rev. 11:15

And as Revelation declares at the beginning: “To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.” Revelation 1:6

Jesus is also the King of Glory

So here is the important question for us all to answer here this morning.

Do you want to enter with Him into His everlasting Kingdom?

It is a political decision and we all must make it.

His kingdom is for those who have accepted His righteousness in the place of their own and who follow Him.

They have admitted their need and confessed their sins.

They have Believed on His name

And they have Claimed their place within His kingdom by faith in His name.

All who put their trust in Him shall live for all eternity.

Today we live in a world of fears and uncertainties.

We do not know what will become of us in the near future.

Don’t put your trust in politicians, or armies, or human banking systems, or technology.

Jeremiah wrote: “Cursed is the one who makes man his hope.”

Only the LORD can save us.

Put your trust in Him, and give Him your praises and your obedience today.

Let’s pray

Hymn 256