What Democracy Cannot Give
“Who is this King of glory?” Psalm 24:8
King of Glory – The contemporary endorsement of democratic republics has an unsettling corollary. It alters our appreciation of the hierarchy of authority and our perspective on dependence as an essential element of living. As a result, we are hard pressed to see the world through the eyes of the ancient near East. We assume that God favors the democratic system with its emphasis on individual freedoms and the will of the people. Nothing could be further from the truth! God is not the President of heaven. He is the King of Glory. The difference between these two views is enormous.
For most of the history of humanity, men lived under the rule of kings (or the equivalent of kings). Our contemporary “experiment in democracy” is merely a blip on the scale of political history. As noble as this experiment might be, it contains its own fatal flaw – a flaw that we are just beginning to see materialize. Democracy is based on the Greek ideal of individual rights. Our constitution endorses this view of inalienable rights. This ideal is both its triumph and its downfall, for as men come to believe that they are entitled to rights simply because they are alive, they come to believe that whatever they wish for themselves should be the law of the land. In other words, men begin to think that their personal desires are their rights. When the majority of the people finally adopt this view, society collapses into personal power plays. We are experiencing just the tip of the iceberg of this deadly consequence. And it all comes about because we no longer live under a king.
The king was the absolute ruler of his people. His word was law. There were no elections, no courts of appeal, no civil liberty unions, no political legislators. My life and your life depended entirely on the will of the king. His subjects honored him and held him in great respect. Why? Because he was the shepherd for his people. He was responsible to God for the protection and provision of his subjects. He was God’s vice-regent.
When David calls God the melek hakkavod (king of glory), he speaks a language that everyone in the kingdom of Israel understood intimately. God was the King of the king. The king ruled only because God allowed him to rule and ultimately all the subjects of the kingdom were dependent on God’s gracious favor for their very existence. Personal rights? No way. The citizen of the kingdom served the king, not himself. His life belonged to the ruler, not to his own plans and desires.
Our system of government removes us from one of the most important dimensions of God’s reign. In order to be a part of God’s kingdom, we must re-orient our thinking. Unless we do, we will not understand why God is the King of glory. When you become a citizen of God’s kingdom, you come under the rule of the King. Act accordingly.
