04/04/2026
KING JESUS 👑
Before the cross, Jesus was already King. Isaiah 52 does not begin with suffering but with identity: “the servant will be highly exalted.” Before the nails, before the crown of thorns, before the rejection, He was already exalted. He did not become King after the cross, nor did He earn His position through suffering. He walked into suffering as King, and that changes everything.
The cross was not a moment of weakness; it was a moment of authority. It was not taken from Him—He gave Himself. The King of heaven stepped into our world not with visible glory, not with earthly power, and not with a throne people could recognise, but in humility. He came ordinary, unnoticed, and unimpressive to the human eye, and because He did not come as expected, He was rejected. “He was despised and rejected… and we turned our backs on Him” (Isaiah 53). Humanity looked at the King and chose to look away.
Then came the cross. He was beaten, scourged, pierced, and crushed—so disfigured He hardly looked human. The King did not look like a King, and still He stayed. Not because He was powerless to stop it, but because He was fully committed to it. This was never meaningless suffering; this was substitution. “We thought He was being punished, but He was carrying our sin.” Our rebellion was placed on Him, our guilt was placed on Him, and our punishment was carried by Him.
At the cross, justice and mercy meet. Justice, because sin is not ignored, and mercy, because sinners are not destroyed. God does not lower His standard; He fulfils it through Jesus. The cross is not God overlooking sin—it is God dealing with sin completely. The truth is that we are the problem: “all of us have gone our own way” (Isaiah 53). It is not only about wrongdoing but about choosing our own path over God’s. Yet instead of leaving us there, God places all of it on His Son.
Jesus does not resist. “He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, yet He did not open His mouth.” This is not weakness; this is willing obedience. This is Kingly surrender. It looked like defeat. He was condemned, cut off, ignored, and treated as if His life had no value. No one cared, and yet His death changed everything. This was always the plan. It was not an accident or something out of control; redemption was being accomplished.
“He will see what was accomplished… and be satisfied.” Nothing was wasted, and nothing was incomplete. Everything the cross was meant to do, it did. That is why Jesus could say, “It is finished.” Not that it had started or that it was almost done, but that it was finished—the price paid, the debt settled, and the way opened.
So we must understand this clearly: before the cross He was King, on the cross He was King, and today He is King. The cross did not crown Him; it revealed Him—a King who does not rule by force but by sacrifice, a King who does not demand your life but gave His first.
Now the question is not whether Jesus is King. The question is whether He is your King. Romans 12:1 calls us to offer our lives as a living sacrifice—not part of our lives, not when it suits us, but everything. Because if He gave everything for us, how can we give Him anything less?
