The summum bonus!

When Christ says ‘my kingdom is not of this world,’ He’s talking about how the authority and origin of His kingdom is not from the human, earthly system that’s here right now. That belongs to the Adversary.

Luke reports in Chapter 19 of his book, “And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.
[12] He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return.
[13] And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.
[14] But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. They thought the kingdom was going to be set up immediately so he’s going to give them a parable.”

Jordan explains, “When Jesus began to speak in parables (starting in Matthew 13) all of the parables He tells them have to with the delay in the establishment of his kingdom. He came to the point in Matthew 12 where it was clear Israel, on the record, would not accept Him as the Messiah.

“In fact, if you go back and read old-time authors 100-150 years ago, oftentimes they would put the fall of Israel in Matthew 11 and 12 because there was a crisis that came in the earthly ministry of Christ and, at that point, it’s in Matthew 12, for the first time, that He tells some of His disciples, ‘Don’t go tell anybody who I am.’ Up until then He’s been out proclaiming who He is.

“In Matt. 17 they come off the Mount of Transfiguration and He says, ‘Don’t go telling anybody what you saw up there.’ You say, ‘Well, that would kick a soul-winning program in the ditch!’

“Everybody today talks about, ‘We go by the great commandment and the Great Commission,’ and boy, did you ever notice in Matthew 12, 16 and 17 that Jesus tells this very little flock, His apostles, ‘Don’t go tell people who I am.’ You say, ‘Why would He do that?!’ Because He recognizes they’re not going to receive Him and He begins to tell them about going to the Cross, and involved in doing that, He gives them a bunch of parables which are always speaking to the issue that there’s going to be a delay in that establishment of His kingdom.

“In Luke 19 He’s going to give them sort of a timeline for it. Verse 12. The nobleman is going to go away into a far country, Christ is going to ascend into heaven, and He’s going to go there to receive for Himself a kingdom and to return. So He says, ‘I’m going to go away and then I’m going to come again.’

“When He goes away, He’s going to take His possessions, put them into the hands of His servants and say, ‘Occupy ‘til I come. Go take care of my message, my truth, my stuff, until I come back.’ Verse 13. But His citizens hated Him.

“Historically that turns out to be Stephen in Acts 7.

“Notice where does He receive the kingdom from? He went into the far country and got it there and then brings it back down when He comes. ‘It isn’t the authority of this world that’s going to set me up; it’s going to be the authority of heaven.’

“Watch it happen in prophecy. Daniel 7:9. That’s talking about the Antichrist. So where you are here is you’re prophetically looking into the future into the 70th week of Daniel, the time of the Antichrist.

“Notice where the Son of Man gets His kingdom. He gets it from the ancient of days. If you go to Rev. 4-5 you see that scene enacted out there where He comes before the Father. Who’s worthy to open the book, take the title deed to the universe, open it up, break the seals, and claim possession? It turns out to be none other than the Lamb that was slain.

“What John is telling Pilate is, ‘I’m not worried about your political power because my kingdom, if it was focused on political power, then all my disciples would take up arms and clean your plough.’

“In John 18:36 you see one word that the new bibles tend to leave out but it’s the key. When he says ‘but NOW,’ He’s saying, ‘Right now, my kingdom isn’t the issue because if it was, we’d fight!’

“Rev. 11:15. Now what kind of kingdoms are on this earth? Literal, physical ones that one day Jesus Christ will reign from. He’s not saying, ‘The nature of my kingdom is to just rule in the hearts of men.’ He’s talking about how, ‘Right now the physical stuff isn’t the issue.’

“To me one of those more helpful verses in all of that is Matthew 6:33. Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount.

“God makes all of these provisions for his creation, then he says, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these physical things will be added to you.’

“You see God’s promise to Israel of physical blessing, material prosperity, headship over the nations and all of that stuff rested, not on Israel being such a wonderful, lovely people, but it rested on the righteousness of God equipping them for Him being about to use them in His plan.

“What they needed to understand is He came to save Israel from their sins and it had to start with the circumcision of the heart that Deuteronomy 30 told them they had to had in order to receive the blessings in the land. That verse Matthew 6:33; that’s what Israel was missing. They were seeking all the physical things and Jesus said that’s not the issue. The issue is ‘seek ye first the kingdom of God. You get that and this other stuff will follow,’ because that was the program.

“John 18:37. Pilate didn’t ask Christ, he just said, ‘What is truth?’ He’s not saying that as this is a profound philosophical discussion we should have about discovering truth. Aristotle, Plato, Socrates; those great Greek philosophers were focused on that question: ‘What is the supreme good? The summum bonum?’

“They developed the Greek philosophy about that. That’s why you had Zeno and Epicures with the different ideas and so forth. The Epicureans and the Stoics Paul talks to in Acts 17. It all focused around ‘what is truth?’ and the pursuit of that issue.

“Pilate is not doing that here. Pilate is not asking the question; He said in other words, ‘What’s truth got to do with anything?! Who cares about truth, man, you’re on trial for your life?!!!’

“Have you ever noticed that if you get caught up in the judicial system, truth really isn’t the issue? You get lawyers on one side and the other. Both take the same laws and twist them in 180-degree pretzels different from one another.

“The closest the thing you can get in the judicial system to truth is when you can get in front of a jury who kind of understands how to follow rules of evidence but even then, somebody’s going to determine what you can tell the jury and what you can’t tell them.

“Pilate’s making an accurate statement. He’s saying, ‘I’m in charge of the government here. Truth isn’t the issue here. It’s, ‘What can we get done?’ Pilate is a consummate compromiser.

“What kind of unscrupulous coward could Pilate possibly be? He knows the truth. ‘I find no fault in him.’ That’s the truth. John 19:4. But what did he do in the interval? He beat him up; scourged him.

“Pilate knows truth isn’t the issue here. Trying to keep the lid on a volatile situation, finding a compromise that will work just to keep the peace, that’s all it is. Luke 23:20. He wasn’t just willing to release Him; he’s trying to figure out a way to release Him.

“John 19:11. Notice the people demanding for Jesus to be crucified have a greater sin than Pilate. What does that tell you about Pilate? He had sin that was great—his cowardice, his compromising, his willingness to allow an innocent man to be murdered and lynched.

“But the sin of the people who demanded it was greater and when they cried, ‘We’ve been putting up with this enough! Let’s get this over with! Don’t give us this guy, give us Barabbas!’

“They were bloodthirsty and really they were bloodthirsty robbers and that’s why it says there Barabbas was a robber. Luke 23:18. Notice that Barabbas is guilty of sedition. He’s a usurper. He’s a robber and murderer. That’s exactly who the leaders of Israel were. They were usurping the kingdom from his rightful king, robbing God of His honor and bloodthirsty for the death of His Son.

“Jesus talked about Him in just those terms. Matt 11:12. From the time of the John the Baptist, as that message of the gospel of the kingdom was being preached by him, as that message was preached, what kind of a response did it get from the leaders? It got a violent response! ‘We don’t want to lose our power so we got to go kill him.”

“In the parable in Matthew 21, when Jesus told them about the vineyard He uses the same type imagery. 21:33. Now, if you’re an Israeli you’d understand those things. The Lord is a strong and mighty tower. He’s talking about how He planted His truth in it. So you’ve got a nation with God’s religion in it that’s the vineyard with the fig tree and He lets it out. He puts it in the hands of some leaders to take care of it. And He goes into a far country, and when the time of the fruit drew near, He sent His servants for the husbandman that they might receive the fruits of it.

“It’s, ‘Give us this guy who’s a usurping, robbing murderer!’ That’s exactly who they are. Barabbas (bar = son and abbas = abba father). The name Barabbas means ‘son of the father’. But the son of which father? Turns out to be the son of his father the devil.

“There’s some real good preaching in this text. In an old famous sermon about Barabbas the preacher waxed quite eloquent, describing Barabbas having been caught for his murderous sedition and robbery and Luke says he was a notable prisoner, an infamous guy, an enemy No. 1.

“He’s captured, put into prison, he’s ready to be executed and the morning of his execution he hears the soldiers coming down the hall of the dungeon and they come and open his cell and unshackle him from the wall and get him up and carry him out, one on each side of him (big Roman soldiers), dragging him to his execution.

“They get him up to the end of the hall to the door of the prison and they say, ‘Now you’re free,’ and he says, ‘What?! How can I be free?!’ and they said, ‘Another’s going to die in your place.’ They said, ‘Give us Jesus, not Barabbas.’

“That was a good day for Barabbas because a Savior took his place. He didn’t deserve it—a murderous, thieving, usurper deserved nothing but a just execution. But one unbeknownst to him . . . ‘While we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly.’

“So there’s some good preaching in that. But you can’t do that preaching until you come over to Romans because that message isn’t there until then. And there’s some mythology that goes along with Barabbas-- one died in his place and later he hears the gospel and gets saved.

“You can imagine how Barabbas felt on that day because you know what it’s like to be guilty like he was and yet have one die in your place.”