When I was ordained, and this goes back way back into the early 50s, a former pastor of the congregation into which I was being installed felt that he had a good text for me to remember. Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt that I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago has secretly slipped among you. They are godless men, who chained the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only sovereign in order. This former pastor was not saying that there are many apostates in the congregation that I was serving. But he did know that wherever I'd served, I'd have to contend for the faith, and he sure he was right. That faith that was entrusted to all the saints, and we know in Hebrews 11, the saints go right back to Adam and Seth in it all the way back. And there are always these people that were trying to come in to destroy the unity of the body, but also the wholeness of one's faith, that's from Jude. And that's the way the Bible finishes, warning us to contend because of the great antithesis that's out there, that's in here, that we're always involved in, that's great. Lord, as we commence our studies now for the last hour in this course in biblical theology, we thank you for your sustaining mercies and grace. God we've had unusual experiences that we've experienced your richness, the richness of your love of mercy, your upholding strength and power. Thank you, Lord. What was wrong, forgive, that we pray that you establish the work of our hands now and forever, in Jesus' name, Amen. We'll go on to the last part of the New Testament as it is before us, but it does. Again, give us the opportunity to cover the whole span of time. When we refer to James and we just refer to him briefly, there's not enough a lot of theology in the book of James, but who was this James? Was he the brother of Jesus Christ? Most scholars seem to think so, and we know that there was one time that some of the family of Christ would not really accept him. Because I'm sure that this is the first book that was written 50 AD, and they're also quite sure that it bears a very Jewish Christian character, but it nevertheless has a very, very expansive application. It's a kingdom book, kingdom living, covenant obedience. It is an epistolic rewriting of the sermon on the Mount. I've read that in a few theologies, and I've often dealt with it that way. But there's one thing I surely do want to urge you to do, and that is, if you preach a series on James, don't preach more in four or five sermons, or you'll get awfully repetitious if you do more than that, unless you start picking up a lot of the, and just use them as an outline for the entire Old Testament, New Testament covenantal living, kingdom life. But I've heard series on James go on and on and on and frankly. When I was young fellow at home, we had a preacher that thought that James was the Constitution for kingdom living, and he bore the stateiers with 17 sermons. There's a lot of good stuff in James, but you can handle most of that in five sermons. A sermon per chapter, I would say, but then again, some of you may want to speak differently concerning that, is James aware of the broader context. In chapter two, verse five, I'd like you to consider that for a moment. Listen, my dear brothers, has not God chosen those of you who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom. He promised those who love him. What does James mean by inherit the kingdom? That to me is the key verse here in chapter two. How do you inherit the kingdom, not only, but what do you inherit? And I'm convinced that again, we have to speak of this in the broader context of the entire scripture. All that's included, the king, the church, which is the army, the means of entering into the kingdom, inheriting the kingdom, a good biblical phrase, and how do you do this? Rich in faith, promised to those who love him, or the love for the Lord, or it's a key phrase here in James. But I want to go on to, first and second, Peter now. Peter, writing about 60 AD, shows an awareness of Paul's letters. He does not negate Paul. He does not fight with Paul. Paul put him down once, and you'll never find anything in Peter's letters that would indicate that he felt that he still had to somehow another exonerate himself, or do you take that little phrase, some things which are difficult to understand as you kind of put down of Paul? I don't think so. I think that what Peter's simply saying there is, I'm not intellectually the man that Paul is, but at the same time, don't twist his words either, and it seems that in Peter's day the nostics were very active, as well as maybe a few other sex, and the judoizers that were twisting Paul's words. So Peter warns against that. But the Christian life, much like James, the Christian life, the covenantal life, the covenantal duties, are surely referred to there. He gives evidence that the church was formed, and he wants to speak about the proper relationships that people have within the church. But two passages are surely outstanding when we think of him, think of Peter. He speaks of the kingdom. First Peter 2, beginning at verse 6, for in scripture it says, See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame. The cornerstone is personalized, first Peter 2, verse 9 and 10, starting at verse 6 here. Now to you who believe the stone is precious, that personal stone. Which of those who do not believe the stone, the builders reject, has become a capstone, and that stone that causes mental stumble and a rock that makes them fall, Jesus Christ is a stumbling block, Jesus Christ is the judge, Jesus Christ is the condemner. And here they surely think, thought of the broader context of the blessing and the curse of the covenant, Christ immediately the covenant, who execute the curse as well as the blessing. They stumble because they disobey the message, which is also what they were destined for. Those are under the curse. But you, he doesn't say you have made yourself, but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, where does that come from? What's he quoting? Exodus 19, verses 3 to 6, that precious possession, whom God carried as on wings of an eagle, whom he brought to himself, and declared that you are now my royal, my precious possession, my kingdom of priest, a holy nation, Peter is writing to Christian believers, whether they are Gentile or Jew, you are what is well, or wasn't the Old Testament, you are a kingdom, you are a holy nation, you are a priesthood, you belong to God, and then he goes on and declares what the duties are, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, now you are a people of God, and he comes back again to that same emphasis that we saw in Paul, God made you to be his, and he made you to be exactly what he made the Old Testament people to be, but you can be that so much more comprehendingly. You can understand it so much better because of the cornerstone that Zacharias spoke of, has come into the world, Jesus Christ, the mediator. I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world, abstain from missing for desires, live such good lives among pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits you, submit yourself for the Lord's sake, then he goes on to further application, to authorities, etc. So Peter sees the authorities, the government, has also part of the kingdom living. To be a member of the kingdom of God is not there for to put yourself in distinction from the kingdom, the kingdoms of this world, whoever your authority or king may be. On our first trip to Australia, 16-day voyage on the Orsova, Pacific and Orient line, luck sure he is living on those British line, as they were used to have it, the only bad thing about it was we couldn't have dinner and evening with our children, we had to bring our children in and feed them at five and then at seven, we had to come in with our coats and ties and whatnot and then we got our dinner and great food, great living, great living, no doubt about it, but 24 hours gets to be a long time on a trip, on a trip, it was especially bad, but even on a royal liner and within 10-15 minutes on board ship I met a man and thought hey, he could be my brother in Christ. He was, he was one as missionary to one of the islands north of Australia, we got to talk and let's have fellowship, yeah, let's see if we can get other Christians together too. So the very first day, we did the evening, we left about three o'clock, we did this day in the evening and we got the person to put an order out in the ship courier, all those that want to have Christian fellowships singing, praying, studying God's Word, meet at a certain place up on a deck where there's a piano, hey, there were 35, 40 people there the next morning, just like that and there was one girl, she was so pious, she tried to create the impression she had a halo around her head, she had not been able to find a place where she could serve the Lord Jesus in the United States because wherever she went she would be in Caesar's realm, she'd been secretary for a lawyer, she'd been secretary for a doctor and now she was going to go and really work in a Christian environment because now she could go be a secretary to a preacher in Sydney, once she could get into the preacher's environment then she'd be in the realm of Christ but the rest was all the realm of the devil, boy she had it cut down the middle or just a little segment over here and everything else was Caesar's the devil's realm and she would no longer be a secretary in the devil's realm, she had no concept of the kingdom of God, she had no concept either of submitting to the government, for her at that time Eisenhower, Eisenhower was not a godly man, brother when she found out what the guys, the pre-Mirrors were like in Australia, I never had chance to talk to her later but that mentality has always stood out to me that the world was dichotomized, there's the realm of Caesar and she was just waiting to be lifted up and as much as possible she was going to get in that environment, she would not submit to the authorities, well we had quite a fabulous fashion at one time and we tried to impress upon her that she had to think a little more broadly, more consistently, more fully, never saw her again, she saw me, if she saw me from a distance she turned around and went elsewhere because I was the devil's tool to suck her into the devil's empire, you ever come across people like that? Yeah, that's not what Peter is telling us, this kingdom is an all-inclusive kingdom but the satanic demonic parasite kingdom is there and you have to address it, no doubt about it but Peter goes on and speaks to that he is certain of that eternal kingdom, second Peter 1 verse 11 concerning the salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with greatest care trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow, it was revealed to them, their Peter in first chapter speaks concerning that great salvation of which the prophets spoke and then in second Peter 1 verse 11 he gives a little further broader statement there, he says therefore my brothers be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure for if you do these things you will never fall and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of a Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the eternal kingdom, what is it? Well, go back again to what he has said before that kingdom of which Jesus Christ is a great Lord and mediator, that Royal priesthood, that's the kingdom that he is speaking of, does Peter refer at all to the covenant? You not find the word, they attack at all in his letters, many of the Old Testament concepts and persons are surely referred to, that concept of holiness, being holy for the Lord your God am, holy, had great covenant or command from Leviticus 19, he speaks of what God did with Noah, with Abram, the prophets, the inscripture, aided word, indeed. But there's one passage that I like to draw your attention to for just a moment, that second Peter 1 verse 4, starting at verse 3, his divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption of the world caused by evil desires. He refers to the great promises and we know where the promises are, they're always in that covenantal context of the Old Testament and the promises that the Lord Jesus made as the mediator of the covenant, the great king, the revealer of the Father, but when he goes on to say that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires, that participation in the divine nature. I tell you, this passage, second Peter 1 verse 4 has caused quite a bit of division to logically speak in between Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed. Do we actually participate in divine nature? Have you dealt with this passage in your other New Testament classes? How is this understood? Is it some type of accommodation, you know, Kelvin, when he would execute at times as accused of accommodation that he would say, but this is basically how we have to understand it and they call that accommodation. And there's another question. Has the NIV, does the N-A-S-B, the King James version, properly translate that little phrase or can know with new and fuses when they translate that as partakers in divine nature? Why is fuses translated as divine nature? That's where the crux of the issue is. And the last article that I've read on this problem came out in the Calvin Theological Journal, April 90 issue. And the fellow, the name of Professor Walters, W-O-L-T-E-R-S, has quite an essay on the covenantal understanding of this passage. The word must not be partaker, but in many other places that same term means partner. Instead of partaker, we become partners with deity or with that nature, that divine nature of which he may have been speaking here in the context. His divine power, we become partners with him, who is this lord that has divine power? Now, what's the context of being partner? Covenantal, of course. And so if you understand this passage in that covenantal framework, we become partners with God, because of his covenantal work and through the mediating work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And once we are indeed partners with God, we escape the corruption of the world caused by evil desires. It isn't that we become divine, but we enter into that living covenantal relationship. We become partners with God. So if you keep the covenantal concept as a basic framework for your thinking, you're not going to deify saints. But I really believe that this is the proper solution. Now, I had this presented to us to as an option when I was at Westminster Seminary, that we have to think of that term as partner rather than partaker. Quite a difference. And here again, as a matter of translation, am I accommodating? Am I reinterpreting so that I can get out of the squeeze? No, I really believe that what I'm doing is I'm interpreting 1st, 2nd Peter 1 verse 4 in the broader context of Scripture. The Bible is a covenant document given to us that we may serve the king in his kingdom. And we are called upon and we are restored to be partners with our God. Peter in his two letters speaks of us as this kingdom, speaks of us as partners in the covenant. But oh, he loves his mediator. 1st Peter chapter 1, two gods elect strangers in the world scattered through Pontius. And then he goes on to say, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying work of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ by the sprinkling of his blood. Verse 7, these have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine and may result in praising glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Look, Peter loved the Lord Jesus and he surely calls his people to love him. Peter knew that the Lord loved him. Peter, do you love me? You know that I love you. As Peter had to show his love for the Lord, but Peter through that really came to know the Lord loved him. And that's his one great passion that we know the love of Christ and that loving him, we live in that covenantal fellowship that we can indeed be partners with God, covenant partners with him, living in this kingdom, being a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Notice the supreme place that he gives Christ, the mediator. First, Peter 2, verses 1 through 8, he tells us the rid ourselves of all the seat-hypocacy and the slander of every kind, that we may grow up in salvation. And as you come to him the living stone rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him, so the Q2 may be living stones. He uses the analogy of the builder, but at the same time don't build without Christ. You never become a partner of God in the covenantal context. You never become a royal priesthood if you separate yourself from the mediator the covenant, the king eternal. That's the message of Peter. Nothing new, but written to believers, Jewish people were likely in dispersion, the same message applied to people under persecution. Moving on to Jude, whether he is an apostle or brother of the Lord Jesus Christ, or whether he's both, it doesn't make an awful lot of difference to me. He writes 65 to 80 AD, but as I pointed out when I started, he is so aware of the antithesis that the people have to be aware of. He's not talking about two realms. He's talking about one realm, the kingdom of our Lord, within which are all these forces that continue to try to keep in, see in work, like big clouds that come with threatening and if you face them with the brightness of the sun of God, these clouds will dissipate, just like a rain cloud will dissipate under a strong summer sun, but the antithesis. He brings us right back to paradise. He brings us right back to the whole history of the Old Testament people and of the early stages of the Christian church. There's that great battle that's going on. There's that antithesis and he tells us that the angels are involved in this, right? Yes, Michael fights with the devil. This great battle is a cosmic battle, the fallen angels and the obedient God honoring serving angels are involved in it. This is a spiritual battle at heart, this between God's kingdom, the parasite kingdom, between the Lord Jesus Christ and the great usurper, the devil, who has been defeated, but he's got some powerful kicks yet in his death throws. Beware, watch out. You've got to get into that world and you've got to be a fighting Christian. You can't say peace, peace, peace, whatever the case may be, whatever the circumstances, it cannot be peace because you are confronted with the enemy that will not give up until the Lord Jesus returns. You know, Paul speaks of that in 1 Corinthians 15 to that's the setting of Jude as ministers. When you're confronted by people in your church, that you're starting to wonder as to how to address them, whether they come up with erroneous concepts to contend for the faith showing love for the wandering and the doubters. He speaks of that. Be gentle with those that doubt, fight for the faith, contend. Brothers and sisters, we're called to be fighters in this world, contenders for that which was delivered from the time that God spoke to Adam and Eve and told the devil, you're finished, your head's going to be crushed. That's an ongoing battle, the antithesis. I don't read much of this term in a lot of modern-day literature. In my tradition, we've heard much more of it than I've been asked why, but it's the fact, the book that I'm working on now in chapter 4, I'm spending a whole section on the antithesis established by God himself in paradise. When he placed enmity, he placed an antithesis, the seed of the woman over against Satan and his followers. And that antithesis, this opposition, this contradiction, this fight has gone on through the ages and is still going on. Don't ignore it. That's Jude's word to us, but Jude is not the only one who refers to that. If you're not aware of the antithesis, then John's epistles as well as his gospel and the book of Revelation will never get into the proper context in your mind. The epistles emphasize aspects of the gospel that John had stressed in his gospel, but he also is very anti-nostic. And I really believe that he is anti-nostic. He's very much already contending for the faith. And John makes some pretty strong statements in a few of his letters in which he says, you know, there are those that deny that Jesus is God and Jesus is human. He's not at all hesitant in his own way to speak as anathamist like Paul did. We've got to be aware of heresy. John loved that church of the Lord Jesus. John loved those people to whom he had preached, with whom he had counseled. The elders, the ladies in the church, he loved them with a passionate love for the sake of the Lord Jesus. And he saw heresy and especially heretical living. And this unity amongst the people, he saw them as two of the greatest dangers, vices, disturbing factors in the body of Christ. Great dangers and challenges to the reign of the Lord Jesus. I repeat, the lack of love loved one another, you know? And the heretical thinking of not accepting Jesus Christ as God come in the flesh, two great concerns of John. Nothing knew, but in the context in which he was preaching, in the context in which he had preached. And now, very likely from prison, he writes, what he's been preaching, it doesn't say contend, but he surely says, watch out. Be aware. Remember Jesus Christ, his love for you and your love for one another. But John closes the inscripturated revelation of God with one of the most challenging books of the New Testament, the Book of Revelation. I've gone through these outlines to try to find out what previously had been covered. I don't know if the professors got through their outlines and got through Revelation. Most of them did. Good. And I know that it is seminary like this. It's like it was that reformed theological seminary. When we used to have our coffee discussions, and that was always after chapel, there we had a beautiful faculty room. It was an inner sanctum. The student is called at the Holy of Holies. And in a way, that's what it was. The only time the student could come into the faculty lounge was when the faculty reserved the room to meet with his counselies. And that would have to be after hours. But for the rest, this was a place for the faculty. And I'll tell you, some of my most precious memories of working for seven years at reformed theological seminary was around the coffee table. Some of my most difficult times were around the big faculty table when we had a struggle with theonomy. But all those discussions around the coffee table, because we had three very strong post-millennial eschatologically oriented professors. And we had three that were rather strong pre-millennially oriented eschatologists. And there were eight. They didn't take medium ground, but they thought, hey, I'm going to give all honor and praise to the Lord who reigns now and his kingdom is here now. It will not be realized more fully in a post-millennial way. It will not be realized by a sudden first coming in. And we used to talk. We never argued. Believe me, we opened the Bible. And pretty soon it was a bellwood ring. It was time for a couple of prophets to go to their class. And then one said, tell us how the discussion went. And we'd often sit there until lunchtime. The president of the seminary finally said, Sam Patterson, God bless him. He was a great man, not because he's finally said, yes, I can't hold my pre-millennial position. But the other two never gave up. Never gave up. They thought that we had to hang in there. The post-millennialists never gave up. The our millennials never gave up. But the discussions continued. And a lot of this centered around the Book of Revelation. We got to agreement on quite a few of the other passages. For example, Paul on 1 Corinthians 15, when he speaks there about, and then for some pre-millennial, dysfunctional people that then includes a couple thousand years, forage in a call a second. I mean that little word then that translated then can refer to one second. It can refer to a thousand a year. It simply says there's a sequence. Hey, we got agreement on that. So out when 1 Corinthians 15, it was a little more difficult to deal with 1st and 2nd Thessalonians. And is there to be a rapture? All agreed that we should not make the distinctions between pretrib, mid-trib, post-trib, that this was unnecessary distinctions. And too much was being written on that. There wasn't really relevant and necessary. So on the discussion would go. And like I said, those that came with rather firm views, in spite of what they heard from the others, did not change. Why is that? Is that because all three positions are so well-founded in Scripture? Or is this because of our emotional preferences? Is it because of a world view that we have? Is it because of our hermeneuric? Is it because of the training that we've had from childhood on? Maybe these are all factors that are involved. When I was a young guy, my dad would sometimes keep me home from school because he couldn't afford a second man to help bring in the hay. This, you know, California, a first crop hay came in March, and the second one came middle May, and he had somebody be up on the wagon as they pitched the hay up there. But sometimes I stand for a half hour leading on my fourth, listening to that discussion between my father and his neighbor about the millennial kingdom. Hey, I learned a lot of theology out in the hay field. My father talked all about common grace and special grace, because these were issues that were quite alive in those days. Maybe that's why I'm today considered to be a member of the our millennial school because I picked that up in the stubble fields. But as I read the Scriptures, yeah, I'm confronted with these other, you know, I just bought this book at Dwight Pentecost because I want to read again how he deals with it. I'm always trying to learn honestly, class, but I haven't been convinced that I have to give up the fact that the Lord Jesus is king of creation, Lord of the nations, and he's reigning now, and I'm not at all convinced that there's a role in the whole plan of salvation for Israel to play for a thousand years after Christ's first return. Israel has played a throw, and many Israelites by flesh are coming into the kingdom under the Lord Jesus Christ. When I was in Australia, I had numbers of believing people who fled the Netherlands, who had been protected by many of the Dutch people there, and by the Belgians, and hadn't been caught up in the holocaust, and who were devout Christians, but they maintained their Jewishness biologically, ethnically, but considered themselves to be members of the body of Israel, the church, holders, there are many ministers today. And Dr. Weingarten, when I was at Kelvin Seminary, pointed out how there were, under what percentage of Presbyterian ministers that had either 50% or more Jewish ethnic background blood in their veins? And that part of Israel, that part of the church, and many of them were not saying we're looking forward to a thousand year rain on earth. The question I've always asked myself is, okay, let me go through the book of Revelation again, let me go through 1 Corinthians 15, let me go through Zachariah 14. As I look at those passages, what role in the plan of salvation, what contribution is Israel to make, that it cannot make as part of the kingdom in church? And I don't find that. I'm telling you what my problem is, that many of Israel going to participate in the blessings of the mediator, of course, and as I understand Romans 11, where Paul speaks of the tree, there is branches, dead, right? The nation of Israel as a tree finished. And now what happens? On to this dead trunk, hey, there's a living root because the Lord Jesus, the mediator covenant is the root. Now what happens? Contrary to nature, two branches are put into the tree, the dead Israelite and the dead Gentile. Both are dead. And by the miracle of God, both become branches in the one tree. God takes dead branches and he makes them into living branches. Israelite and Gentile. And thus all of God's people are saved, those whom he is known from eternity, be they Jew or Gentile, there's neither Jew nor Gentile, there's neither Greek nor Hebrew, male or female, bond man or female, all are grafted onto that living root, the Lord Jesus. That's the context that I find. That's the center, the heart of the kingdom. Now when John begins to work with his final book, Revelation, where does he start? Or he's on the island of madness. He has a vision. Whom does he see? He sees the Lord Jesus. He sees the man from Daniel, the son of man, grace and peace to you from him, who is, who was, and who is to come. And from the seven spirits before his throne, from Jesus Christ to the first one of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth doesn't say, who will become ruler? He is ruler. I mean, that's how John starts out. Christ is the great king over the cosmos. He is the king over the nations. He's Lord over everything. That's how John starts. To him who loves us and has freed us by our sins by his blood and has made us to be a kingdom and priest. Hey, he made us to be Exodus 19. What Peter wrote about in chapter 2. We are the kingdom. We are the priests. We are the royal nation. And who is he writing to? The seven churches. They may have some Jewish people in them. But they're mostly Gentile congregations, Asia Minor. And he definitely refers to them. You are. You are. You are. God made you this kingdom. He who is the king of the nations has brought you into his kingdom. Look, he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him. And those who have pierced him and all the people of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be amen. And then he goes on to see that he saw this Dannellic man, the one like the son of man. And he has the key of life and death. He is Lord, Lord of heaven, got complete control of hell. I'm going to say he's in it because you're got control over it. Those that come, those that go, they're there. And I take chapter 5 to give us the great theme when the scroll is handed to the lamb, the scroll referring to the whole council of God. No one could open it. And yet it had to be open to carry out to find out the names of those written. And what had to be done to indeed bring them in, then the lion of the tribe of Judah, the lion, spoken of in Genesis 49, of the Davidic line. Second Samuel 7, he it is that carries out the sovereign will of God, pertaining to election, pertaining to salvation, pertaining to bringing the saints into the eternal kingdom. He is worthy to take the scroll to open its seals because you were slain and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe, language, people and nation. Now you have made them to be a kingdom and priests. Hey, they got it again. The Christians, the believers, they are the kingdom, they are the priests. But oh, this kingdom and this priesthood is going to have her off time. And he describes that from different perspectives as he goes through the book. And I conclude not with chapter 20, time for bits, but I've got to go to chapter 19. And what do I see in chapter 19? I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called faithful and true, with justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a blazing fire. And on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows, but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood. And his name is word of God, logos. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine men and white and clean. Who is he? King of king and Lord of lords. Jesus Christ the king. Jesus Christ the Lord over everything. That's what was promised in Genesis 3, 15. That was promised to David. That was promised to Abraham, who was promised through Moses. Jacob spoke of it. Revelation concludes with a victorious mediator whose blood became indeed the blood of the new covenant, bringing forth an efficacious atonement, an establishing effect that he indeed is Lord, now, then and forever. I live under the reign of King Jesus. Now, you too, God bless you.