How does God reign?

[AI translation] A week ago today, the preaching was already about God's royal reign among us. We saw then that God reigns over this earth and over mankind like a good Shepherd over His flock: shepherding, guiding, protecting, feeding and caring for His sheep. In the image of the Shepherd-King, we are taught of the reign of God's all-embracing love.Now I want to talk again about how God reigns, but from a different perspective. This is the basic tenet of the whole biblical statement: God reigns. And He rules over His chosen people, the mother church, and He rules over the whole world! God rules by revealing and interpreting the inner mysteries of His rule and reign. He does this because He is not content with the fact that by His divine power He is able to impose His will on the whole world, on the universe, but He desires that man acknowledge His rule, that he voluntarily and consciously bow down before Him. The majority of men do His will involuntarily, unwillingly and unconsciously. Jesus speaks in this way in the parable of servants and subjects who "hated their Lord and said, 'We do not want Him to rule over us.'" But there in the parable it is also revealed that they were His "subjects" against their will! So those who rebel against Him, or who don't even want to know about it: they are also within the scope of His reign! However, outside the vast majority of people, there is a minority who have come to know God's works, recognize His will, and are happy to obey Him. That is what we must strive for and reach! For to believe in God is nothing other than to agree with my whole being and confess that He rules over me and over the world! That is what this parable of Jesus is about. Let us now examine our Word more closely, and try to understand from it what the laws of God's rule are.
1) First of all, we see that God rules in a way like this "noble man" of the parable, a ruler, a king, who, before he went into a far country, called his servants and gave them ten shekels, and said to them, "Trade with him until I come. He gave them some of his own treasure, and increased his own wealth by his subjects from afar! So, as it were, he drew them into his own thinking, into a little circle of his own rule, he entrusted to them some little portion of his own power, of his own dominion. As it were, through them, through their faithful or unfaithful stewardship, he exercised his sovereign work and his rights! In a way, this is how God reigns, in that of the immense riches which He has given, revealed and made available in Jesus Christ, He has distributed among His subjects a lot of the riches and goods of His grace - more for some, less for others - in order that His subjects may multiply these goods and gifts in this world.
It would be difficult to list all these divine treasures, these gifts! Something from the treasury of God. Not as a list, but as examples, let me mention a few. For example, He has given a portion of His power to the government, to be used by the government, to maintain order, to provide for the welfare of the country, for work, for bread! The authority may not know it, but the believer knows God is behind the power of the state, who has entrusted a part of His sovereign power to the state authorities and exercises it through them. In our eyes, pagan state power is also a "gira" that comes from God's treasury. Or, for example, He has also given a certain small part of His creative power to man, and thus man becomes a parent, a creator of new human life, a father and mother. Sexual life in itself is not sinful, not impure, not an ugly thing, but a gift. It is good from the treasury of God, a "gyra" through which God as the creative power reigns in the world! Or, for example, from His wisdom He has also given something to man. The human endeavour of science to discover the riches of the world and to search the mysteries of the world is not in itself satanic, for God has given it the appropriate "gira" from His treasury. Or, for example, out of His love, He has distributed many, many garlands among men: every mother uses them for her child, every friend uses them for his friend. The many works of philanthropy, the many kinds of social care, humanism, all speak to the fact that there are many such "gira" from the divine treasury in circulation on earth. Or, for example, some of His beauty and harmony that He has also given to man: in His artistic creations, in the real beauty, there is often a glimmer of the light of the "gira" from God.
So the state, the artists, the scientists, the mothers and fathers, the workers, and all men receive a share of God's riches, so that God includes them, as it were, in His reign. Whether they know it or not, they are all God's "subjects", having received from Him the "giraffe" from which and with which they live - whether they live well or badly. In and through them, God reigns, is invisibly behind the scenes, and brings His riches to fruition in this world through people.
Newton once said that there are two things that inspire awe before God: the starry sky above him and the word of conscience within him. Well, it might be said that we who acknowledge God as Lord of the world: we see always and everywhere the witnesses of His invisible reign. For wherever in this world something truly good, something truly beautiful, something truly healing happens, wherever people understand each other, help each other: the reign of God is manifested in it, the "gifts" from His treasury come to fruition in it.
2) If this is so - that God should give us so much of His reign, so many "grains" to distribute among men - it increases our responsibility to that "grains" immeasurably. For in the parable we see that every "gira" distributed, however used, ultimately flows back into the divine treasury. Even the one who deliberately and knowingly withdraws his "gira" from public circulation - that is, does not use it properly, like the wicked servant in the parable - his "gira" remains the property of God, and we must give account for it to Him. This statement of the wicked servant - "Thou shalt take what thou hast not put away, and shalt reap what thou hast not sown" - expects such faithful, unselfish, devoted stewardship of the divine goods entrusted to us that it will not be to us, but to our Lord, that we shall profit! In other words, the man who wants to live under God's rule must use the gifts he has received from Him in such a way as to increase the glory of God.
What does this mean in practice? Again, let me illustrate with a few examples: we have said that the sexual instinct, for example, is a divine gift, a "gira" from the heavenly treasury in man. It is not, therefore, to be wasted, defiled, scattered in the dirt, in the mud - but to be preserved in its purity, in its holiness, and thus made the basis of a truly Godly marriage and of a conscientiously undertaken family happiness, and there something of the kingdom of God is made manifest. Or, for example, we have seen that artistic inclination is also a gift from God. I once had a conversation with a very talented, young, serious, believing music student. He told me that in his field there was a great temptation to reap one's own rewards, to serve one's own glory. But I, this young man said, I want to create in such a way that people don't faint at how great an artist I am, but feel something of how great God is! I would like to publish beauty in such a way that something of the eternal harmony of God will resound into this world! Maybe that's not the right way to put it, but somehow, that's as low as a believing artist can go! We are responsible - that is, accountable to God - because God holds us accountable for what we have done with His gifts, His "giras".
Have you received love in Christ: has it made people's lives more? Because you received it! You have received a child from God: will it make you more human than you were? Have you received forgiveness of sins, peace: has it eased the tension in the world? Do you receive light in God's Word: will you serve with it among men or keep it to yourself? Have you received faith in God, in Jesus Christ the Saviour, and how does it benefit the people around you?
God reigns; this also means that He holds everyone, all His subjects, accountable for all their actions. In our Word we have such an accountability before us. Let us not see in it only the final judgment. Believers also see the great historical reverses of fortune as a temporal reckoning within the reign of God. Such judgments occur both on the individual line and in the life of large communities. And these temporal reckonings, which become more and more general as history unfolds, point to the final reckoning so often spoken of in the Bible, the Word of God!
3) We then see in this parable that he who is faithful in the few is then entrusted by God to more: "Well done, my good servant; for thou hast been called of few, let thy kingdom be over ten cities." (v. 17) Just as with accountability, let us not put off this trust in more until after the grave! Yes, it applies to this too, that faithful stewardship of the "giras" here will have its reward in that other life, in eternity. But not only there! Here too! The trusting-in-more begins here, and means that whoever, for example, represents God's reign of love well, God will give him an even greater share of that reign of His. The reward for a service well done is not rest, but more service, more responsibility. If you have loved someone well, your reward is not necessarily that they will love you more, but that you will be free to love more, even your enemies! God trusts you more! If you have taken good care of your family, God will trust you with strangers. Could you make peace with the one you were justly angry with? God has commissioned you to do the ministry of reconciliation on a much wider scale, in society, in the workplace and even internationally.
Or, for example, it is often the case that parents, when they lose a child, people, when they lose a partner, feel that life has become meaningless, empty, meaningless. But in such cases, too, it is a question of a commission from God coming to an end and a new commission beginning. Maybe God takes away the precious life you have faithfully fulfilled all your trusts to, because he wants you to trust more, he wants you to sacrifice for others, for strangers - give your money, your time, your care - because it is harder to give your life for strangers, for strangers' children, for people who are not of your own blood than for those of your own. It is harder, therefore more difficult! Dare to take it, and so even what is a loss for you can be a blessed gain for others! And once you are a gain, a blessing to others, your life is no longer aimless.
4) Finally, the question arises: what will happen to those who do not want to acknowledge His reign? Such a judgment is also found in our Word: "Slay ye mine enemies before me." This is how a historic judgment took place in Jesus' day. There are such reckonings in the reign of God, but that is not the real secret of His reign. As Jesus is telling this parable, He is on His way to Jerusalem, to Calvary, to die there "for his enemies". And it is in this very attitude that the ultimate secret of God's reign is revealed: redeeming love. Before God enforces His chastening justice, His final judgment, He first offers His grace in Jesus Christ. This is the deepest mystery of God's reign: that Jesus dies for unfaithful prophets, for wicked servants, so that if any of them believe in Him, they will not perish but have eternal life. God wants to glorify the deepest secret of His reign on this earth - both in you and through you.
Let me conclude by summarising what has been said in three short sentences:
- Be still: God reigns!
- Take heed, for he will also ask you for all that he has entrusted to you.
- In you and through you he wants to show his merciful love to the world!
Amen.
Date: 11 March 1956.