Jesus as King of kings and lord of lords

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ontheway1

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There are no more kings and lords in this day and age. How can I understand and interpret the phrase “king of kings and lord of lords”?
There are many hymns in the church hymnal where “Jesus is our brother”. How can he be lord of lords at the same time?
 
ontheway1 said:
There are no more kings and lords in this day and age. How can I understand and interpret the phrase “king of kings and lord of lords”?
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I mean, you still understand what a king is, even if it’s not a common form of government anymore.
 
Don’t take it literally. It is for us to understand that the Lord is above any authority of this world.
 
I stand corrected. Having visited a few of those monarchies, I am somewhat aware of their existence.
 
I mean, it’s not literal anyway. Jesus is not literally an earthly king. It’s just language to help us understand that Jesus is above all other authority using concepts (monarchy) that people at the time we’re familiar with.
 
ontheway1 said:
There are no more kings and lords in this day and age. How can I understand and interpret the phrase “king of kings and lord of lords”?
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King of Presidents, Prime Ministers, CEOs, billionaires, dictators, all world leaders, anyone in power.
No need to be so literal with the wording.
Incidentally, some places still do have a monarchy and/or a ruling class with some power even if it’s not what it once was.
There are many hymns in the church hymnal where “Jesus is our brother”. How can he be lord of lords at the same time?
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If we love and serve God, then we’re the brothers and sisters of Christ the King. And the beloved children of Mary our Queen.
I think that’s pretty awesome. Who wouldn’t want to be the King’s brother and the Queen’s child?
 
Tis_Bearself said:
If we love and serve God, then we’re the brothers and sisters of Christ the King. And the beloved children of Mary our Queen.
I think that’s pretty awesome. Who wouldn’t want to be the King’s brother and the Queen’s child?
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We are all princes and princesses then?
 
We are all called to be priests, prophets and kings. Jesus as the King of Kings would be the King of all of us.

So you could think of the faithful as being princes and princesses, or sub-kings and sub-queens.
I personally don’t really care whether I’d be a princess or a lady-in-waiting or a handmaid or a scullery maid.
What’s important is being part of Our Lord’s beloved family.
 
ontheway1 said:
There are no more kings
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I have a friend from Saudi Arabia, and even though some of the power of the king is delegated to the local governments, Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy.
 
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RolandThompsonGunner said:
I mean, it’s not literal anyway. Jesus is not literally an earthly king. It’s just language to help us understand that Jesus is above all other authority
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You are right, of course. I am just wondering if we have still retained the understanding that Jesus, the Christ, the Annointed One of God, is the authority above all other authority? Do we still acknowledge Him as the Savior of the world?
 
The Torah is about God’s people escaping from a monarch, with God giving them the Law and a prophet to rule them.

The monarchy in Israel is not something God wanted to create, but people asked for it. I think you get the impression God wanted people to be ruled by the Law and the direct inspiration of GOD’s holy spirit.

Jesus preached the coming of the kingdom of God, which is what we ask for. I am not sure he meant anything overtly political so much as he continued the message of the OT…
 
Isn’t the House of Lords still a part of the British parliament?
 
It is, its power is somewhat restricted now and there are less hereditary peers sitting. It still exists as an upper chamber though.
 
Well, the Catholic Church celebrates in the OF the last Sunday of Ordinary Time as “Our Lord Jesus Christ King of the Universe”.

And both the OT and NT speak of kingdoms and kingship.

What we have on earth is our limited human experiences of what kingdom means.

That might mean that what is in Heaven is so completely different that we wouldn’t recognize it as a kingdom except that, once we ARE in heaven, we will possess the understanding and see the temporal ‘root’ or image and recognize its fulfillment in Heaven.

Or it might mean that we will recognize it, the way that we can look at a tiny child’s drawing of a stick figure and a green ‘blob’ as they tell us, “here is the girl and here is the flower’. Our human ‘stick figure’ would be ‘fleshed out’, as it were.

Guess we’ll find out. However, I have no problem referring to Christ as king and imaging Him as King and Lord, even if my imagination is limited to both looking on the Telly at the Queen ‘today’ and going through images like the Bayeux tapestry and pictures (and words) of ‘faroff kingdoms long ago”. I know it’s not going to be likely that heaven will have knights in armor (and it’s amazing how SMALL some of the knights in England in the 15th century were, too), but the idea of kingdom with one ‘reigning on high’, that I can do.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
We are all called to be priests, prophets and kings .
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I am not familiar with the author of this blog or her particular views. This does seem like an elaborate interpretation of selected quotes from various church documents. Sort of an attempt at collecting out of context quotes to prove the point she is trying to make.

I haven’t analyzed every part of her statement (takes an awful lot of time) so If my superficial objection seems too harsh, so be it.

In general, calling myself a priest, a prince, or a prophet seems a bit presumptuous. At least to me.
 
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ontheway1 said:
I am not familiar with the author of this blog or her particular views. This does seem like an elaborate interpretation of selected quotes from various church documents.
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It’s not “her particular blog”. It’s an article from “Catholic Digest”, a publication of very long standing, similar to “Reader’s Digest” but with all Catholic articles. I read old ones that my aunt had when I was a child in the 1970s. I think the ones she had around were form the 50s and 60s. Edited to add, I just looked it up and it was founded in 1936.

She’s also not giving her interpretation. What she wrote is based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church and she references every section.

If you don’t like the article fine, but it is the teaching of the Church, as stated in the Catechism, not something an author made up. And it’s not published by a “blog”.
ontheway1 said:
I haven’t analyzed every part of her statement (takes an awful lot of time)
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Yes, it would appear that you didn’t read it, much less “analyze” it.

When you have more time, please consider reading it and thinking about it, as it provides some insight into your original question about what “King of Kings” really means.
 
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All good suggestions.
I actually started looking into the definitions of the “priestly class” and found a lot of material on this. It appears that the term “priest” is used in the OT to designate certain portion of the Levite tribe. They were the priests of the time.
According to a Jesuit site I referenced, the term “priest” is not used in the NT to mean what it means today. There is a lot of literature just on this one term.

When the author of your article writes in reference to Christ’s annointment as cited in the baptismal rite - -

This anointing is a stirring reminder of the sublime dignity conferred on us. We, too, must embrace these shared offices of priest, prophet, and king.

— I acknowledge the honor bestowed on me at baptism, but as to sharing in God’s kingship? This sounds a little too close to being co-chair of a committee.
OK. I went back to the CCC to check on the priesthood question, and found something unclear. CCC 1268 calls us to “holy priesthood” and “common priesthood”, all in the same paragraph. The Catholic encyclopedia says this:

It has been said above that the real priesthood was hereditary in the house of Aaron alone, and that to the other descendants of Levi was assigned a subordinate position as servants and assistants of the priests. The latter are the Levites in the narrow sense. They were divided into the families of the Gersonites, Caathites, and Merarites (Exodus 6:16; Numbers 26:57), so named after Levi’s three sons, Gerson, Caath, and Merari (cf. Genesis 46:11; 1 Chronicles 6:1). As simple servants of the priests, the Levites might not enter the sanctuary, nor perform the real sacrificial act, especially the sprinkling of the blood ( aspersio sanguinis ). This was the privilege of the priests (Numbers 18:3, 19 sqq.; 18:6). The Levites had however to assist the latter during the sacred services, prepare the different oblations and keep the sacred vessels in proper condition.

There is difference between holy priesthood and common priesthood, but there is a contradiction in the above cited paragraph of the CCC.

But…I will go back and try to analyze the context of the original documents from which the quotations were taken. If nothing else, I will learn more about the Bible and the magisterium. And this is where the value of CAF lies.
 
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Not sure at all why you think there’s an either-or here. Jesus Himself told us that “all authority has been given Me over heaven and earth,” one of the last things He said before ascending. ALL authority. A king is simply one that represents ultimate authority, and even if a king of a country has authority, Jesus has far more. Jesus is the authority of authorities; king of kings. As to your second question, yes He is Savior of the World. He is EVERYTHING: the entire world has been created “through Him, and for Him, and in Him.”
 
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