The dread influence of the devil over men is seen in many ways, but with the same end in view, the denial of the rights of God over His creature. This is to be seen in heathendom, where the true God is unknown, the darkness of superstition having resulted from their not thinking it good to retain God in their knowledge (Rom. 1:28). God, in His sovereign goodness, separated the nation of Israel from the heathen around them, but very soon the word of God to them was cast aside, and His rights among them refused, with the result that God judged Israel, and called them “Lo-ammi,” not my people (Hosea 1:9). Professing Christendom is no better than the heathen and Israel, for with the profession of respect for God and His Christ, the will of God is ignored, and the will of man substituted, and in what passes for the service of God completely sets aside the rights of God and His Christ.
At the Beginning of Man’s History
As soon as God had placed Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden Satan intervened to deny God His rights over man. God had commanded His creature not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, having, according to His rights as creator, reserved this tree for Himself. The eating of the forbidden fruit was the denial of God’s right to keep for Himself a very small portion in the great inheritance He had given, in His beneficence, to His creature. Ever since that time, men have acted without reference to God, in this way disputing His rights in the world that He created, and over His creatures, the work of His hands.
When God prohibited man from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He had added, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17). The giving of life, and the taking of life, was the prerogative of God. Cain must have known this, for after having taken the life of his brother, and being asked by God as to Abel, he said “I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper” (Gen. 4:8-9). Cain had not only acted wickedly towards his brother, he had also challenged God as to His right to take away life. After the flood, God gave man the right to act for Him in taking away a man’s life, but it was not to be at the discretion of man, for His word is, “at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man” (Gen. 9:5-6). God put the sword into the hand of man to execute His judgment.
The Rights of God in Israel
In the terms of the law that God gave to Israel, His rights were proclaimed. They were not to have any other gods before Him: they were not to make any idols, or to fall down and worship them. Indeed, God’s rights are summed up for Israel in Deuteronomy 6:5, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” This was God’s righteous claim on Israel, and is God’s righteous claim on all His creatures. We known that sinful man is incapable to answer to God’s rights over him, but this is no wise sets aside the rights of God.
The sorrowful history of Israel shows how lightly they regarded the rights of God. Even before the tables of the law came into the camp at the foot of mount Sinai, Israel had set aside the rights of God, having made a golden calf, and worshipped before it. Right down Israel’s history there was the same thing, the grossest forms of idolatry, with all the attendant evils, marking the nation, until God was compelled to judge them, and lead them into captivity among the nations. They had surpassed the heathen in their refusal of God’s rights, in spite of all the light and blessing God had given them.
Caesar’s Rights and God’s
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, certain of the Pharisees and the Herodians, sent by the chief priests and scribes (Mark 12:13; Luke 20:19), put to Him a subtle question, seeking to discredit Him before the people or to make Him challenge the right of Caesar. The question was, “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? Shall we give, or shall we not give?” (Mark 12:14-15). Had the Lord said they should not give tribute to Caesar, they would have reported Him to the Romans for sedition. If He had said, Give tribute to Caesar, they would have said He was not a true patriot.
The answer of the Lord, on asking to be shown the tribute money was, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s ” There was no question as to whom the coin belonged, for it bore the image and superscription of Caesar, and they could not dispute the right of Caesar to claim what was his own. They might well have asked themselves the reason for their having to pay tribute to a foreign power, and why Israel who had been so highly favoured of God, and separated from the nations, should be in this servile condition.
Having told the Pharisees and Herodians to give Caesar’s His rights, the Lord added, “and to God the things that are God’s.” This was indeed the reason that they were compelled to give tribute to Caesar: they had not given to God the things that were His. Had Israel been faithful to God they would not have been under the power and authority of a foreign yoke. The unfaithfulness of their fathers had brought them under bondage to Babylon, and in captivity there: their own unfaithfulness, a remnant that had been restored to the land from captivity, had kept them under bondage to the Romans. God’s rights had been denied by their fathers, and were still being denied by them.
God’s Rights Over the Dead
After the Lord Jesus silenced the Pharisees and the Herodians, the Sadducees came to Him with their question. They spoke of a woman who was supposed to have had seven brothers as husbands, one after the other, than asked, “In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife” (Mark 12:18–23). Their question brought from Jesus, “Do not ye therefore err, because ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God?”
God has not only rights over the living, but also rights over the dead. The living may refuse to give God His rights, but men cannot do this when they are dead. Moreover, God has the right to raise from the dead whom He will. There are those whom He will raise at the resurrection of the just, and those whom He will raise for the resurrection of judgment. As the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He has the righteous dead with Him above, and He can speak of them as if they were already before Him in their resurrection state.
The Rights of Christ as King
When the Lord Jesus was born into this world there were those who came from afar saying, “Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship Him” (Matt. 2:1-2). If there was no public recognition of the rights of the Son of God to His throne in Israel, God took care to give a testimony to His rights from outside the pale of Israel. How very solemn was the rejection of the rights of Jesus by His people Israel, the declaration of it being public and unmistakable as the words on His cross testify, “This is Jesus the King of the Jews” (Matt. 27:37; John 19:21-22).
If Israel refused to have God’s King sit upon His throne, God has set Him down at His right hand, upon His throne (Psalm 110:1). The kings of the earth, Herod, Pilate the representative of the Roman power, and the high priest of Israel, were all united in the rejection of the Son of God as King, and denied Him His rights, but God’s answer to this is, “Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion” (Ps. 2:1–6). Many other Psalms, such as 24, 45, and 72, show that the day is coming when Christ will be accorded His rights as God’s King among His people Israel.
Christ’s Rights Over His Own
Through His death upon the cross the Lord Jesus has acquired new rights, even as it is written in 2 Corinthians 5:15, “And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again.” The risen Christ has communicated to believers His own life, and in this life we are to live here for Him. It is our privilege, because of the responsive love produced in our hearts for Christ through His love for us, to seek to live for Christ, but He has also rights over us as having died for us, and as having given to us the life in which it is possible for us to live for Him.
Christ’s Rights Over All Men
When Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, he said to the Jews, “let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). The day is coming when every tongue will be compelled to own the rights of Christ as Lord (Phil. 2:11), but the opportunity is given now to all who hear the Gospel to submit to the claims of Christ by confessing Him as Lord (Rom. 10:9), and to do so brings God’s salvation to them.
It is also written of the Lord Jesus on high “that the Head of every man is Christ” (1 Cor. 11:3), and it becomes us to acknowledge this place of Headship that God has given to His Son. The life and breath of every man is in His hand, and all the resources of the wide universe are His, and it is to Him we owe our existence and preservation as we pass through this world. Every man is responsible to God to own the rights of Christ as Head of every man, to own that he owes everything to Christ, the One who died for all upon the cross, and who is now glorified at God’s right hand.
Peter accuses the false teachers of the Christian profession of “even denying the Lord that bought them” (2 Peter 2:1), and because of their evil teaching, and their denial of the Lord, they bring upon themselves swift destruction. Christ has rights over all, even over those who deny Him, and this because He bought them by His death. All men belong to Him because He is their creator, but also because He bought them by His death. It is one thing to be bought, and quite another to be redeemed. All are bought, but only those who have faith in Christ are redeemed, bought and set at liberty in His life.
Christ’s Right Over All Creation
In Hebrews 1:2 the Son of God is shown to be the “appointed Heir of all things,” which manifests the rights of the Lord over the vast universe of God. Added to this, the Son is the creator, for by Him “also He made the world.” So that the Son has a double claim over the creation, as Heir and as Creator, How very great the Son is, and God has called the angels to acknowledge His rights, for God’s word to them is, “Let all the angels of God worship Him” (verse 6). From other Scriptures we learn that Christ has the right to the pre-eminent place in every circle in which He is found (Col. 1:15–18), and when found among those He deigns to call His brethren, He is found among them as the Firstborn (Rom. 8:29), and He is anointed with the oil of gladness above them (Heb. 1:9). Such are the rights of the Son of God.
Another claim that Christ has on all things, and that makes known His rights over all, is that He tasted “death for every thing” (Heb. 2:9). The rights of Christ through His death do not only cover mankind, but also the wide creation, even as is shown in the type in Leviticus 16, where atonement is made for things as well as persons, the whole universe being involved (verse 33). How very blessed it is for us to contemplate the rights of the Son of God, and to own them as we bow before Him.
R. 24.1.70