“Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king! To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth: everyone that is of the truth hearest my voice.”
The Lord is saying, “I have been from all eternity the son of him from whom you issue, and whom you call your father, but whom you will not have your father: I know all he thinks and is; and I say this, that my perfect freedom, my pure individuality, rests on the fact that I have not another will than his. My will is all for his will, for his will is right. He is righteousness itself. His very being is love and self-devotion, and he will have his children such as himself—creatures of love, of fairness, of self-devotion to him and their fellows. I was born to bear witness to the truth—in my own person to be the truth visible—the very likeness and manifestation of the God who is true. Every fact of me witnesses him. He is the truth, and I am the truth. Kill me, but while I live I say, such as I am, he is. My Father is like me. You do not like to hear it because you are not like him. I am low in your eyes which measure things by their show; therefore you say I blaspheme. I should blaspheme if I said he was such as anything you are capable of imagining him, for you love show, and power, and the praise of men. I do not, and God is like me. I came into the world to show him. I am a king because he sent me to bear witness to his truth, and I bear it. Kill me, and I will rise again. Death is my servant; you are the slaves of Death because you will not be true, and let the truth make you free. Bound, and in your hands, I am free as God, for God is my father. I know I shall suffer, suffer unto death, but if you knew my father, you would not wonder that I am ready; you would be ready, too. He is my strength. My father is greater than I.
Commentary
by Dale Darling
In yesterday's reading, The one principle of hell is, "I am my own, my own king, and my own subject."
And today, in the least the principle of kingship, perhaps of heaven, is, "I am free as God, for God is my father. He is my strength. My father is greater than I."
"My will is all for his will, for his will is right. He is righteousness itself."
Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
Shall I live to bear witness to the truth - in my own person, Christ in me, the hope of
glory, to be the truth visible?
Thy will be done on earth as in heaven.
Now.