When did the mediatorial reign of Christ begin?

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canuk

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I just arrived home from church and wanted to pose this question as it was raised in our adult sunday school class.

We are going through the Shorter Catechism and we are at the part about the office of Christ as King. Our pastor through out this question as something for us to mull over and give an answer next Sunday.

My thoughts are somewhat like this. The two levels of Christ's Lordship are His natural Lordship and His mediatorial Lordship. His natural Lordship is the Lordship He possess by original right because He is God, and God rules over all (Psalm 103:19). He has always been Lord in this way, since He has always been God. His mediatorial Lordship, on the other hand, is the Lordship He has because He is Savior of the world. This Lordship is based upon His suffering and death, by which He won our salvation. "For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living" (Romans 14:9). Whereas His natural Lordship is original, His mediatorial Lordship was won. Whereas His natural Lordship is eternal, His mediatorial Lordship was acquired (Hebrews 1:5; 5:5).

Am I on the right track?
 
From the foundation of the World.

A great book on the subject is Messiah the Prince by William Symington. It is the best. There has always been a need for a mediatorial reign in creation.

[Edited on 11-6-2005 by puritancovenanter]
 
The position of Symington was that "Christ was formally appointed to the kingly office by his Father from all eternity in the covenant of grace" (Messiah the Prince, p. 40, emphasis his) and in that sense his dominion as Lord has always existed but that as Mediator and King that he was actually invested with regal power at and after his resurrection (p. 43). Psalm 2.7-8 which promised the crowning of Messiah as King was fulfilled in Christ's resurrection and ascension (Acts 13.33; Heb. 1.5 and 2.8). The whole chapter in Symington's book on the Appointment of Christ to the office of king is very helpful. He explains how the "economical" relationship between God the Father and God the Son involves a dominion that is both co-extensive and co-eternal, and yet required humiliation and then exaltation and royal investiture of power and dominion in history wrt to God the Son.

He was King from eternity; from the entrance of sin into our world he exercised the regal functions; in the lowest depths of his humiliation, occasional signs of dignity and power appeared. But not until his resurrection from the dead and ascension to the throne of the Father, was his investiture with this power publicly and formally recognised....The appointment of Christ to the kingly office has been represented as inconsistent with his divinity. It is supposed to imply inferiority. But the economical character of the Son removes the difficulty at once. It is not as God absolutely considered, that it takes place; but as Mediator. In this capacity it is easy to suppose him invested with authority; and, considering the deep humiliation to which he voluntarily submitted in this character, there can be no difficulty whatever in understanding either the fact or the nature of his exaltation.

A good introduction to the doctrine of the mediatorial kingship can be found here.

Matthew Henry on Psalm 2.7ff is very helpful:

We have heard what the kings of the earth have to say against Christ's kingdom, and have heard it gainsaid by him that sits in heaven; let us now hear what the Messiah himself has to say for his kingdom, to make good his claims, and it is what all the powers on earth cannot gainsay.

I. The kingdom of the Messiah is founded upon a decree, an eternal decree, of God the Father. It was not a sudden resolve, it was not the trial of an experiment, but the result of the counsels of the divine wisdom and the determinations of the divine will, before all worlds, neither of which can be altered--the precept or statute (so some read it), the covenant or compact (so others), the federal transactions between the Father and the Son concerning man's redemption, represented by the covenant of royalty made with David and his seed, Ps. lxxxix. 3. This our Lord Jesus often referred to as that which, all along in his undertaking, he governed himself by; This is the will of him that sent me, John vi. 40. This commandment have I received of my Father, John x. 18; xiv. 31.

II. There is a declaration of that decree as far as is necessary for the satisfaction of all those who are called and commanded to yield themselves subjects to this king, and to leave those inexcusable who will not have him to reign over them. The decree was secret; it was what the Father said to the Son, when he possessed him in the beginning of his way, before his works of old; but it is declared by a faithful witness, who had lain in the bosom of the Father from eternity, and came into the world as the prophet of the church, to declare him, John i. 18. The fountain of all being is, without doubt, the fountain of all power; and it is by, from, and under him, that the Messiah claims. He has his right to rule from what Jehovah said to him, by whose word all things were made and are governed. Christ here makes a two-fold title to his kingdom:--

1. A title by inheritance (v. 7): Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. This scripture the apostle quotes (Heb. i. 5) to prove that Christ has a more excellent name than the angels, but that he obtained it by inheritance, v. 4. He is the Son of God, not by adoption, but his begotten Son, the only begotten of the Father, John i. 14. And the Father owns him, and will have this declared to the world as the reason why he is constituted King upon the holy hill of Zion; he is therefore unquestionably entitled to, and perfectly qualified for, that great trust. He is the Son of God, and therefore of the same nature with the Father, has in him all the fulness of the godhead, infinite wisdom, power, and holiness. The supreme government of the church is too high an honour and too hard an undertaking for any mere creature; none can be fit for it but he who is one with the Father and was from eternity by him as one brought up with him, thoroughly apprized of all his counsels, Prov. viii. 30. He is the Son of God, and therefore dear to him, his beloved Son, in whom he is well pleased; and upon this account we are to receive him as a King; for because the Father loveth the Son he hath given all things into his hand, John iii. 35; v. 20. Being a Son, he is heir of all things, and, the Father having made the worlds by him, it is easy to infer thence that by him also he governs them; for he is the eternal Wisdom and the eternal Word. If God hath said unto him, "Thou art my Son," it becomes each of us to say to him, "Thou art my Lord, my sovereign." Further, to satisfy us that his kingdom is well-grounded upon his sonship, we are here told what his sonship is grounded on: This day have I begotten thee, which refers both to his eternal generation itself, for it is quoted (Heb. i. 5) to prove that he is the brightness of his Father's glory and the express image of his person (v. 3), and to the evidence and demonstration given of it by his resurrection from the dead, for to that also it is expressly applied by the apostle, Acts xiii. 33. He hath raised up Jesus again, as it is written, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. It was by the resurrection from the dead, that sign of the prophet Jonas, which was to be the most convincing of all, that he was declared to be the Son of God with power, Rom. i. 4. Christ is said to be the first-begotten and first-born from the dead, Rev. i. 5; Col. i. 18. Immediately after his resurrection he entered upon the administration of his mediatorial kingdom; it was then that he said, All power is given unto me, and to that especially he had an eye when he taught his disciples to pray, Thy kingdom come.

2. A title by agreement, v. 8, 9. The agreement is, in short, this: the Son must undertake the office of an intercessor, and, upon that condition, he shall have the honour and power of a universal monarch; see Isa. liii. 12, Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, because he made intercession for the transgressors. He shall be a priest upon his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both, Zech. vi. 13.

(1.) The Son must ask. This supposes his putting himself voluntarily into a state of inferiority to the Father, by taking upon him the human nature; for, as God, he was equal in power and glory with the Father and had nothing to ask. It supposes the making of a satisfaction by the virtue of which the intercession must be made, and the paying of a price, on which this large demand was to be grounded; see John xvii. 4, 5. The Son, in asking the heathen for his inheritance, aims, not only at his own honour, but at their happiness in him; so that he intercedes for them, ever lives to do so, and is therefore able to save to the uttermost.

(2.) The Father will grant more than to the half of the kingdom, even to the kingdom itself. It is here promised him, [1.] That his government shall be universal: he shall have the heathen for his inheritance, not the Jews only, to whose nation the church had been long confined, but the Gentiles also. Those in the uttermost parts of the earth (as this nation of ours) shall be his possession, and he shall have multitudes of willing loyal subjects among them.


[Edited on 11-6-2005 by VirginiaHuguenot]
 
My presumption Andrew is that He has always been a mediator also. He is the one who went to Abraham and met him confirming a covenant and also again before the destruction of S&G. He is the one who met Moses in the Burning Bush. He is the one who stood as Captain of Isreal when confronting or engaging Joshua. He is the one saying, "who will go for us" to which Isaiah responded, "Here am I Lord, send me." No man has seen God in His full Glory at any time but we have seen Christ who is God. This ministry of going between God and Man has always existed from the foundation of the world.

1Ti 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
 
I agree Randy that the Second Person of the Godhead has always from eternity been appointed to the office of Mediator. But I think it is most proper to speak of him in that capacity since the Incarnation and in particular from the point in time of his self-sacrifice on the Cross and his ascension to the right hand of the Father to intercede for his people. The efficacy of his Mediation applies to all of human history but the office of Mediator was something that he assumed officially as God Incarnate and at a point in history tied to those events concerning his death and subsequent resurrection and exaltation (see WCF, VIII.IV).

Thomas Ridgeley:

It was requisite that the Mediator should be Man....The reason assigned is, that he might perform obedience to the law....It was requisite that the Mediator should be God and man in one Person. [see WLC #38-40]

[Edited on 11-6-2005 by VirginiaHuguenot]
 
Originally posted by puritancovenanter
Okie Dokie.

Either way He has all dominion. Aye?

Aye! :up:

Psalm 145.13: Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.

Isaiah 9.7: Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Matthew 28.18: All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth.

Ephesians 1.22: And gave him to be head over all things to the church.

Philippians 2.9-11: Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

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