The discussion between the Lord and Pilate was very dramatic. Based on the accusations of the Jews, the governor asked Jesus of Nazareth: “Are you the King of the Jews?” The governor was not interested with the charge, since it does not shake the throne of a Caesar. The charge would [also] not result in the execution of the Savior. Finally, the governor judging asks Jesus: “what have you done?” Jesus answered: “My kingship is not of this world”. The origin is not the earth. However, I confirm that I am a king. My task is confined to this: “For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.” [John 18: 33, 35-37]
In every nation and in the whole of humanity there is one human being or few people whose task is not to govern, i.e., to deal with politics, but rather to bear witness to the truth. The Nazarene had once said: “And for their sake (for the disciples’) I consecrate myself”. In the original meaning of the word it means that I have been set aside for God, or I am specialized in what concerns God, [or] as the believer says, I am in the image of God. I speak God’s language since God has descended to me and has dwelt in me, because I have humbled myself in front of God. However, had I built a tower for myself, as it was in Babylon in the past, so that I may reach at God with my own strength and with some other arrogant ones, God would have destroyed the tower and confused our languages, namely God would have made in every human being meanings different than the others’ meanings, while God has no place in these languages. Then, God would no more reign over us, since God would no more be the King of all languages, and not the only one in the human heart. Thus, every human being has turned into his/[her] heart, namely the heart has become a den for snakes, while snakes have been torn apart as they fight each other and they have earned kingdoms, all from the earth, and in our Lebanese expression we say they have become farms. Hence the ‘I’ could no more become ‘we’. The earth does not germinate a Kingdom for God. This is why Jesus, who has descended with His words from heaven, said to the earthly representative of Rome: “My kingship is not of this world”.
I and the world—we do not speak the same language, unless this world comes know that it is called to be – all through – a domain of heaven or heaven.
Maybe few are aware that they have come to bear witness to the truth and that their language is the language of truth only. And maybe they are not aware that their communication means are messages of truth, namely that they have come to sanctify themselves till their language merges with God’s language. This way they might be founded on sanctity of the truth.
I think that Christ’s words to Pilate, “My kingship is not of this world”, means that the Nazarene has come with a new language, with the word, and that you have to follow it and to endorse it, since otherwise you would not have accepted complete change of the human form. [It would further mean] that you are merely borrowing terms from the words of the Nazarene, while your conviction does not emerge from truth. You might think that it does, since you perform a role in society or you have a rank or power which allows you to form your own kingdom in this world and from it, so that it might conform to the wisdom of this world, and its skill. And you would enjoy your intelligence, which is from this world, thinking that it is from God since God is the source of intelligence.
Before Jesus said “My kingship is not of this world”, he thought about His disciples’ affiliation to His Kingdom: “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth” [John 17: 16-17]. They are responsible to bear witness to the truth and not to perform politics as Herod, the priests and Pilate. To bear witness to the truth is to be filled with holiness, i.e. there would be nothing in them other than the word of God, and they would not speak other than whatever emerges from the Word, which was from the beginning, namely before the universe and its politics.
“As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” [John 17: 18] So, as I do not say a thing from myself since I have received everything from you, similarly they would not say a thing from themselves but only from whatever they have received from me. They do not have an identity from their own selves. In their highest strive they are me, as if from eternity they were like me, as I and you are one from eternity.
Nonetheless, Paul the apostle admits that there is wisdom in this world, and wisdom of speech is a part of it. However, he explains that the world has not known God through human wisdom, since Christ is “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” [1Cor. 1: 24] Does this mean that there is no communication between the two wisdoms, and that nonconformity would forever exist between the language of the fallen human being and the language of God, and that the saints are separated from the sinners? The question is extremely difficult. However, whenever we get to know that the word of God is God’s reign in the world and that the truth of God is the truth, then we realize that no compromise is possible between the divine perspective and the human state, which is most of the times fallen.
The great allurement is to make the human word a substitute for the word of God, and this is the compromise, namely the descent from a higher level to that which is below, so that you would make use of the human logic in order to cover with it the divine logic, or to hide it, and to convince yourself that you are wise and a loving person and that you do all this for the benefit of people.
In this way proceeds the logic of those who attain the wisdom of the age. [They say to themselves that] these are the human beings and this is what they understand, so let us come down to them. And in reality the procedure moves on as you, thinking of yourself to be the servant of truth, adopt the wisdom of this world. This is the big illusion. The tower of Babylon had fallen and the languages were confused, and you have become from the people of the earth, and its soil has covered some of the light which you still had.
As for how to use the words of this world, its manners, and its lanes so that you would allow God to speak through them, this is the work of grace within you and it is the fruit of a permanent vigilance concerning the purity of your stance. To become a human being who yearns to divinity in every commitment of you, in order to sanctify your brothers [and sisters] in truth without counting a reward for yourself, and without embellishing yourself. This makes you well versed in the wisdom of this world, however without being subject to it.
How does a sinful world change? It does not change with excessive intelligence and with the increase of the intelligent ones, who were born and grown up in sin. Those who strike themselves with the words of truth every day, so that their sins would not creep into their skins, those can change the world. They can bear witness to the truth, since there would be no separation between them and truth. The world would be saved through little intelligence and much truth, through those who are poor to the splendor of the saints, until the Lord is manifested in the majority, so that they might bring the Lord’s Kingdom into the kingdom of this world.
Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi
Original Text: “مملكة المسيح” –An Nahar- 14.05.2011
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