JESUS - the Prince of the kings of the earth

 JESUS - the Prince of the kings of the earth

"And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth..." (Revelation 1:5)

Among the titles of Jesus in the bible, I have to admit this one stumped me for a while.

Jesus is far superior to the kings of the earth. A prince is a young king, waiting to take over from a reigning king, and is typically understood to be lesser in significance and power to a king.

But it occurred to me that this usage of "Prince" in this particular title of Jesus actually refers to "a king in waiting". Jesus is...a king in waiting, waiting to rule...the earth. And the book of Revelation talks about this period in the future when Jesus Christ will rule the earth. This is the period also known as the second advent in some denominations.

This is a part of our gospel that gets limited airtime in many churches. This is sad because, for many Christians, the bible stops at the book of Jude. Folks are scared of the book of Revelation, for a strange reason.

(I'd like to rant about how the fear of the book of Revelation is absurd because it is the one book in the bible that promises a blessing on those that read it, and how this book is God's gift of comfort to us Christians to make us strong and give us hope in evil times, and how it is front-row access to see how God finishes up His work of redeeming the world and how amazing a read the book is....but I digress. This is topic for another post.)

Back to the topic: Jesus as the Prince of the kings of the earth. Do we know that Jesus is coming back...to rule? He's not just coming to snatch His children away before the world blows up (like the rapture stories we have all been told). He is actually like, coming, to be a real Ruler on this earth of ours.

This coming reign of Jesus is spoken about in different sections of the bible. Psalm 72, sections of Psalm 2, 45, and others.