The “Christ Is King” Conundrum
How a public squabble ignited a divisive debate that only further alienates believers from each other and from God. Satan couldn't have planned it any better if he tried.
It’s Easter weekend!
The time when millions of professing Christians the world over take the opportunity to join in an ancient pagan fertility rite celebrating the very goddess who’s one of the generals at the forefront of the army of darkness currently actively dedicated to wiping Christianity and Christians off the face of the earth—for the marking as well of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah; who was crucified on the shameful Roman execution stake at the start of Pesach (the Passover Feast), and was raised back to eternal life by God the Father on the first day of the week after the Saturday Sabbath during that festival; that this year doesn’t begin until the evening of April 22.
Contrary to how that set-up may sound, this isn’t going to be about whether truly believing Christians should be marking the Lord’s resurrection while joining in a pagan celebration inimical to absolutely everything the Lord’s faith is and represents.
The set-up is to provide the context in which we’re going to take a look at how at the very time many of the world’s Christians are marking likely the most significant event in human history to date, a controversy over a three-word phrase—ignited by the public airing on social media of a professional difference that degenerated into a personal squabble—has set Christians at each other’s throats in heated debate over whether a fact that’s copiously corroborated by God’s word and historical record, is really a fact, and whether Christians should abandon adherence to it, as well as its public declaration.
The net effect of which is—again, at the precise time millions of Christians are engaged in celebrating a foundational event and principle of the faith they profess to believe and practice—the sowing of acrimonious division and discord among them and the weakening of the foundation of their faith by casting doubt on the validity of its principles.
Like the subtitle says, Satan couldn’t have planned it any better if he tried.
The Squabble
It all started with a recent shakeup at the conservative news and opinion outlet, The Daily Wire, when popular and outspoken conservative commentator and activist, Candace Owens, parted ways with The Daily Wire team (led by Ben Shapiro), over some apparently irreconcilable differences of opinion about Israel’s ongoing effort to secure itself, its country and its people in the wake of the Hamas mass-terror attack of Oct. 7, 2023.
To save us time and peace of mind, those interested in the details of the family feud can read about them in a piece from the Western Journal, as well as in ones from Mediaite and Rolling Stone; with a really good insider blow-by-blow of the whole affair at Censored Men’s TwitterX account.
The Scandal
To cut to the chase, the controversy blew up last week when the boys at The Daily Wire decided to take the low road in their brand-saving damage control, and smear Candace Owens as an “anti-semite” because of her affinity for the term “Christ Is King.”
Andrew Klavan, conservative commentator at The Daily Wire and progressive Christian, recorded a video monologue that went viral on TwitterX last week, in which he expounds on why the term “Christ Is King” is virulently anti-semitic, and why Christians should be loath to ever express it.
Unsurprisingly, Klavan and his cohort at The Daily Wire were slapped with an immediate tsunami of backlash from indignant Christians who recognize, acknowledge, embrace and proclaim the scriptural and spiritual truth that the only-begotten Son of God, the Redeemer of Israel and of all mankind, the Lord Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah, is the “King of kings and Lord of lords” Revelation 19:16 tells us he’s always been, is, and will be upon his imminent return.
The “scandalousness” with which the use of the term is characterized and attributed to “white supremacy,” is based upon—as far as my own investigation was able to determine—accusations made by radicalized-leftists and sympathetic media and activist outlets, that “far-right,” “white-supremacist” groups use “Christ Is King” as a slogan around which to unify in their hatred of the Jews; as well as by some Christians who employ it for the same reason, in advocating for the absolutely unscriptural notion held by a small minority of woefully uninformed, professing Christians, of the replacement of God’s chosen nation with God’s church.
The not-so-haha-funny thing is when I tried to find the term specifically and explicitly tied to any specific and explicit “far-right,” “white-supremacist” group that openly uses it as a slogan, all my searches into it turned up absolutely blank.
Which credibly tells us the only people who appear to be employing the term “Christ Is King” as an anti-semitic slogan, are the people deploying it as an ad hominem attack against the personal, professional, political, ideological or religious enemies they wish to silence, smear or discredit; which they try to do with baseless accusations of “anti-semitism!” because the enemies they’re out to get may have somewhere, sometime, publicly expressed their acknowledgment of the scriptural and spiritual truth that “Christ Is King.”
The shame of the whole affair is that in their zeal to save the reputation of their brand in the wake of the split with Candace Owens, the boys at The Daily Wire sadly chose the immature and irrational course of trying to do so by publicly smearing Owens with factually unsubstantiated but emotionally-charged accusations of anti-semitism that stand on about as solid legs as a chronic fentanyl addict bent over in half and wobbling on tranq-weakened extremities.
The massive, indignant backlash against the attacks on Candace Owens indicates that when we choose to behave this way with one another in an attempt to save ourselves and our reputations in the eyes of a scrutinizing public—by angrily attacking our opponents with personal smears, while hiding it behind flimsily concocted accusations against which to counterpose our own feigned, signaled virtue—the ultimate effect is usually the opposite of the desired one: the accusers most often come off as the very hateful creatures they attempt to paint their opponents as being.
The real, crying shame of the whole affair is that as a result of this public, spoiled brattiness on the part of ostensibly grown men who really ought to know better, a debate that’s been quietly simmering underneath the surface for a long time without much deleterious effect on the Body of Messiah as a whole, has now been blown up into the wide open.
Now Christians are once again set at each other’s throats; this time over whether “Christ Is King” isn’t just an anti-semitic slur, but an anti-semitic concept at its core; with many coming out and explicitly questioning whether the Lord Yeshua is really even a king at all.
All of which, again, has the net effect of fomenting division and acrimony among members of the church, as well as of weakening the faith of many; by casting doubt in their minds about a core principle of the Lord’s faith—in this case, about the identity, role and authority of the Lord Yeshua—which can then naturally lead to raising doubts in unsteadied hearts and minds about the validity of the faith as a whole. Which then weakens their own faith, resolve and obedience to the Lord; and may even lead to an abandonment of the faith entirely by far too many people, who otherwise may never have been moved to cave had they not been manipulated into it by disingenuously unleashed debates such as this one.
So, let’s do what we do here with everything that comes across our bow at the Kentucky Fried Christian Substack, and see where to put this whole debate in its proper place, by measuring it against what God’s word has to tell us about Christ being king.
The Word of God on the Sovereignty of the Lord
In Psalm 89:3-4, we read:
“I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant, ‘I will establish your line forever and make your throne firm through all generations.’”
This repeats what God, through his prophet Nathan, told King David at the end of his life in 2 Samuel 7:16; promising him he’d establish David’s throne as an eternal rule from which a descendant of David would be sovereign forever. Even though there’d been no overt prophesy of a Messiah at that time, this was as close as it came then to one, in which the understanding we can have from our historical perspective tells us God was obviously talking about the Messiah that would come from David, being made an eternal king.
The prophet Isaiah spoke prodigiously throughout his writings about the Messiah as both redeemer of Israel and all mankind, and as eternal sovereign. Isaiah 52-53 is where he says the most about the Messiah. But in Isaiah 9:6-7, he tells us this:
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.”
This clearly indicates the Messiah is to be the one who will also be the king who rules forever following the completion of his redemptive work. The only problem the ancient Hebrews had was in not understanding this was a two-part process, in which the Messiah first comes to the world to spiritually redeem it as a servant who sacrifices himself for all mankind; and then, only after he sits at the Father’s right hand and waits until God has made his enemies into a footstool, does he return to claim his rightful place as sovereign of Israel and the world in perpetuity.
Psalm 110:1: “The LORD says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’”
Hebrews 1:3-4: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”
The ancient Hebrews mistakenly believed the Messiah, when he appeared, would defeat Israel’s enemies right there and then, and assume kingship of Israel right away. Which is why so many had difficulty accepting the truth of the Lord Yeshua when he did actually show up as the Messiah: a far longer story than we have time for right here and now, and is beside our point anyway.
The prophetic establishment of the Messiah as king is further reinforced in Daniel 7:13-14:
“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”
Again, speaking of the eternal kingdom that’ll be established in a future following the sacrifice the Messiah first had to make as an obedient servant of the Lord.
The Lord Yeshua himself also had something to say about being a king, and we learn about it most explicitly from a passage in John 18:33-37:
“Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ ‘Is that your own idea,’ Jesus asked, ‘or did others talk to you about me?’ ‘Am I a Jew?’ Pilate replied. ‘Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?’ Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.’ ‘You are a king, then!’ said Pilate. Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.’”
Detractors of the fact that Christ is king, say he never said he was king, and point to his evasiveness in this passage as their evidence for it. However, on the contrary, he does admit to it, but only in the context of his spiritual kingship. He never belabored the point in his ministry about returning after his sacrifice and resurrection as king, because he was emphasizing his role at that time as the servant who had to sacrifice himself as a spiritual propitiation for the sins of the world that would allow humanity to be saved from total destruction by God’s righteous and holy wrath.
But the passage from John clearly tells us Jesus is a king and he knew it; only a king of a spiritual kingdom that has as yet to be established on earth, and only will be once God has poured his final judgment out on disobedient Israel and the faithless, sinful world; about which the Lord did have plenty to say, especially in Matthew 24.
In Ephesians 1:19-21, the apostle Paul corroborates the fact of the Lord Jesus’ kingship for us, when he writes:
“That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”
He beefs up the evidence locker when he adds this in 1 Timothy 6:13-15:
“In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords...”
Adding evidence about the Messiah Yeshua’s kingship to that contained in Old Testament prophesy, is more prophesy that comes in the New Testament, in the Book of Revelation, recorded by the apostle John.
Revelation 1:4-5: “Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”
Revelation 17:14: “They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings...”
Revelation 19:16: “On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: king of kings and lord of lords.”
These references clearly establish the undeniable truth of God’s word that tells us the Lord Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah, is not only a king, but the King of kings, whose kingdom over which he currently presides is still a spiritual one for now; but which will, in the very near future, be established here on earth as well.
Christ Is King!
So we see God’s own word tells us the Lord Yeshua is indeed a king, and describes how, why and when. Any doubt about the fact is both scripturally and spiritually unfounded. So’s any attempt to paint adherence to the concept as anti-semitic hatred; because God’s word tells us the Lord Yeshua—God born in the flesh as a Jewish man to Jewish parents and raised in the Jewish society, faith and culture—is the sovereign of a kingdom currently coexisting with this carnal world (only in the spiritual plane), and that that kingdom will soon be established as the rule on earth as well. And the faithful and obedient servants of God’s word who keep it, can recognize, acknowledge and proclaim that fact as a part of God’s truth with absolutely no reason for equivocation.
Acts 4:29: “...enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.”
Luke 9:26: “Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”
Nor do the Lord’s faithful use any of God’s truth, or the term “Christ Is King,” in any way to demean the Jewish people out of whom the Messiah, King of kings and Lord of lords, came; or to misconstrue Israel’s proper role in the course of God’s earthly plans.
That there are some people who may maliciously use the term “Christ Is King” in their ignorance of the truth, is inexcusable; but it’s also no reason whatsoever for anybody of good conscience to refrain from using the term while speaking God’s truth about it; or to be forced to feel like they should or have to. It’s like saying everybody has a moral imperative to stop using a hammer to drive in nails, because somewhere, sometime, someone once used one to bash in somebody’s skull.
Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?
So does trying to convince us all we shouldn’t be allowed to say “Christ Is King” because somebody claims some “white supremacists” nobody seems to be able to name or point out, use it as an anti-Jewish slur.
I’m not suggesting we should all start running around like unhinged maniacs, shouting into people’s faces “Christ is King!” But this kind of self-induced, self-loathing, self-flagellation to grovel before a hateful world to try to make ourselves more likable by it, is an equally ridiculous (as well as spiritually suicidal), proposition.
What that whole effort really appears to be—whether by design or simply incidentally to the hysterical incontinence of some people’s public behavior, I can’t and won’t say either way—is just another attempted slur of Christianity and Christians; as well as just another way to make us censor ourselves in our public promotion of God’s word, as part of a way of eventually shutting us up completely; as well as just another way of getting more of us to start doubting the foundations of the faith by which we profess to live.
Which is just another way of telling us to shut up, lie down and play dead, and expecting us to cheerfully comply.
Do we?
What does God’s word tell us?
Romans 12:2: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Matthew 5:11-12: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Matthew 24:13: “...but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”
(Photo Credits: FindRealLife.co.uk; Leyiyi)
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Thank you for the inspiration, I find it especially important at this point in time 🇨🇦