Rising within the Holy Scriptures are references to “princes” in the earth. These princes are men of leadership and power throughout the centuries of history. Such leaders are presented as exalted ones, men of greatness, prefects, rulers, those who have risen in prominence amidst both history and prophecy. This Christmas we view with hope the coming Prince of Peace Who will rise above all exalted ones of history.
Princes of Biblical History
Within the pages of biblical history, the concept of “prince” is understood as a person of chief rank or authority. The title is given for the leader of a nation (1 Kings 14:7), a satrap over a province (Dan. 3:2), or the head of a tribe (Num. 1:16) or tribal family (Num. 25:14). The English word prince is a rendering from various Hebrew and Greek words.
We are first introduced to this title in Genesis 12:15, which speaks of princes who attended Pharaoh in Egypt, when Abraham went there to escape from the famine in Canaan. In Genesis 17:20 God promised Ishmael that twelve great princes would come from him. Princes are declared as leading, prominent men of the tribes of Israel. In Ezekiel 44 we read that during the Millennium, within the Temple built by Messiah, there will be a prince who will sit at the gate of the outward sanctuary, who will eat bread before the Lord. We also read of this prince in chapters 45 and 46. This particular prince cannot be Jesus Christ, for though great, this prince will personally be noted for worship and in leading the people in worship. It may be that God will honor David, who in the latter years of his life longed for a Temple for God, and prepared abundantly for it, yet was not permitted to build it. Possibly David will be this prince mentioned in Ezekiel, who longed to remain in the presence of the House of God, and (in time to come) will be in a glorified body leading Israel in worship to their King.
Ezekiel 28:2 reveals the prince of Tyrus (Tyre), an evil enemy of God’s people. But there is presented an authoritative prince behind this prince of Tyre who is Satan himself, described in 28:13–18. Here the prince/king of Tyre is a shadow and type of Satan.
First Corinthians 2:8 speaks of “the princes of this world,” whose hearts were set on crucifying the Lord Jesus. Had they known, however, what would result from the death of Jesus Christ, they would not have crucified Him. These were princes influenced by the prince Satan. Daniel 9:26 speaks of a “prince that shall come” who will destroy the city of Jerusalem and the sanctuary. This prince (referring to Antichrist) will confirm a covenant with the Jews for one week.
Daniel’s book gives much insight concerning princes who are great, high rulers in the spiritual world. The prince of Persia in Daniel 10:13 was the one who withstood Gabriel; the angel Gabriel was sent by God to speak with Daniel concerning his prayer at the outset of the chapter. It is stated that Michael, “one of the chief princes, came to help me.” The prince of Persia was Satan, the spiritual power behind the Persian Empire, who endeavored to convince Cyrus not to permit the Jews to return to Jerusalem at the end of the appointed time of seventy years. And yet the prince of the Jews, the angel Michael, fought against the prince of Persia, Satan. Michael won by moving upon Cyrus to let the Jews return to their homeland. We must remember that Satan is called the prince of this world (John 12:31) and the prince power of the air (Eph. 2:2).
The Eternal Prince of Princes
Another prince arises in biblical history Who is called “Messiah the Prince” (Dan. 9:25), Whom Daniel will also call the “Prince of princes” (8:25). Isaiah will call Him “The Prince of Peace” (9:6c). In the unfolding of the biblical history of princes, there will be the confrontation of the prince power of the air (the prince of this world) with the Prince of Peace, the Prince of princes, yea, Messiah the Prince. How will this confrontation come about and what will be its outcome?
To gain the answer to this twofold question, it is important to reflect upon the beginning and let the biblical story unfold. Dare we think upon the concept when time did not exist, when only the Trinitarian God existed in their eternal home of heaven. There was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in a filial, interpenetrating relationship, as three distinct personalities, yet in the mystery of one substance. In this relationship the Father was eternally loving the Son, and the Son was eternally loving the Father, with the Holy Spirit eternally spirating or proceeding out of the Father through the Son in love.
Before the creation of the vast universe, even before the creation of space itself, there was God the Trinity, and only the Trinity. The Father appointed the plan of a love gift for His Son. This love gift would be the fullness of creation. The creation of an immense universe became the initial presentation of this gift, which would include an innumerable host of angels composed of various orders in power and authority. They would be identified in the realms of principalities, powers, and dominions. Initially, in this love gift of creation, there was a spirit realm that existed in the presence of the Great Spirit God.
But in that unique angelic realm of innumerable hosts of angels, there was a prince, an anointed one, a cherub who covered the throne of God, one who seemed to have been the angel made for the Son, perfect in beauty, in music, in doxology to God. This was the son of the morning, Lucifer, who rose up against God His Creator. In his rebellion, this high ruler convinced one third of the angels to rebel with him against God; because of this rebellion, they were cast out of heaven, never to know a recovery from this fall and never to see the light of truth in the heaven of heavens again.
God then designed within the vastness of the universe a solar system with planets; its princely planet is call Earth. Here the Lord made many creatures; this variety of creation on the earth was a love gift for His Son. God created this love gift through His Son; nothing was made without coming into existence through His Son (John 1:3). It was in this creation presented in Genesis 1:3 that God made a creature called man; this creature became the prince of all the creation on earth. He was to have dominion over all the creation of the earth (Gen. 1:26).
God placed this man in a royal garden called the Garden of Eden. The Lord God gave a stipulation to the man: he could partake of the fruit of all the trees of the garden for his pleasure, but one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was forbidden fruit. God made it clear that in the day that he ate of that tree, he would surely die. Yet there was also a Tree of Life that awaited the man; the partaking of this tree would seal a perpetual, unending time of existence. It must be remembered that God made man with the ability not to sin or die; if he had partaken of the Tree of Life, then God would have sealed him with the inability to sin or die. Sadly, Adam chose to fall away from his Creator, to bring death to the creation, and to carve out his own path that would lead to destruction. Because of man’s choice to fall away from God, all of creation would be plunged into subjection to vanity (Gen. 3:14–19; Rom. 8:20).
The man Adam was expelled from the garden, kept from the Tree of Life, and both his individual life and all of humanity were given to the great nature of sin and the trouble it would bring. Job’s words certainly became a part of the testimony of humanity: “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble” (Job 14:1). The unfolding of Bible history declares the tragedy of humanity in its plight of sin, darkness, despair, and hopelessness without God. Although there was no hope of recovery from the fall of the angels, would there be any hope for man and the planet Earth?
Rising from the shadows and types of the Old Testament and from the clear announcement of the New Testament, the Gospel tells of a plan that God made from the foundation of the world. In this plan God would somehow bring about the restoration of this love gift to His Son. The cost of this gift would be overwhelmingly great: it will cost His very Son, the supreme love of the Father’s heart. Yes, it would mean the very life of this Eternal Son—in death. The plan was sealed even before the earth was made; this plan gave fallen man mercy and the postponement of judgment.
A sliver of prophetic light was given that day at the fall of man. The serpent, which Satan used as an instrument to bring the temptation, would be cast to the ground by God, to the very dust from which man was taken. This great mystery behind this curse of the serpent would be unveiled one day when the woman’s seed would crush the serpent’s head. Yet in the crushing of the serpent’s head, the seed of the woman’s heel would be crushed. The serpent’s head would be brought to the dust, yet God would come through the dust of man to crush its head.
The Coming of the Prince of Princes
Four thousand years of history unfolded as God’s men preached the message of the Gospel to come. Providential expressions of shadows and types were given, as many prophecies that became voices of hope poured forth from the prophets. Then, when the fullness of time was known in history, God the Holy Spirit came to a young virgin and created a microscopic seed which was used to bring about a holy conception within her. At that moment, the Son of God left the palace of heaven and slipped into that creation within the womb of the Virgin Mary. The Son, the second member of the Trinity, entered into that womb; and, from that moment on and forever, was joined with creation. The eternal Son now entered the dimension of time as a man. For nine months the Father formed and fashioned the precious body of His Son (Heb. 10:5).
Then came the appointed night when the Child was born among men, yet He was the Son that was given. Yes, God had now entered “into” creation; God now inhabited “time.” For 33½ years He became obedient to the law of the Jewish ethnic race into which He was born; He perfectly kept that Law in all of its aspects. One day He stepped out of a crowd to be baptized by John, who announced Him to the Jewish world. He preached, He lived. He lived as a man, as a servant, and gave the fullness of earthly life to His Father on earth in the dimension of time.
But the day came when He knew that His crucial “hour” had come (John 13:3). This “hour” was a season of time that commenced in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He was alone praying. It was here that God the Father showed Him a cup. Although certainly it was to be a cup of suffering, down in that cup was a deep darkness that had never been known before. The Son prayed, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). Jesus uses the infinitive instead of the imperative in this request. It deepens the note of humility and resignation, as if to say, “Father, if Thou art willing to remove this cup from me . . .” The infinitive indicates that there is no expectation of a response; it is almost a sigh, for no further request is made. “Father, if Thy decreed will is to remove this cup from me . . . nevertheless not my wish (or desired will), but thine be done.”
The depth of this cup revealed something beyond the sufferings of the cross; it revealed that in His drinking of that cup, the Son and Father would be separated from each other. Because He would bear the sins and judgment of all history, it necessitated the experience of eternal separation, for that was part of the judgment of eternity a sinner would bear. Hell is an eternal banishment of the sinner from God. Therefore, the Father would have to turn His back on His Son Who would become the substitute for the sinner. An eternal separation would take place in time. This separation was an eternal judgment which the eternal Son experienced. This is a mystery that only God could comprehend and that only God could bring about.
Jesus, the Son of God, had told a betraying disciple earlier that night, “That that thou doest do quickly.” This Judas Iscariot began gathering many soldiers provided by the Sanhedrin Court; he came into that Garden of the “Olive Press.” Also in the Garden of Gethsemane, the battle against the prince power of the air began, as Christ entered into an agony so deep that the Father had to send an angel to strengthen him (Luke 22:43, 44). His “agony” was not a struggle of His will over the cup that would be given to Him by the Father to drink. No, this agony was where the battle commenced with the Devil, that culminated in the judgment of the Devil on the cross.
It was early that morning that Judas came and betrayed the Son of God with a kiss. The Son was taken through six court trials and suffered in His created body four great beatings by men. He had to be on the cross by 9:00 a.m., the time of the morning sacrifice, and would hang for six hours (the number of man) until the evening sacrifice at 3:00 p.m.
The first three hours Christ resolved the appointment of His personal life to the Father in a Burnt Offering—He had become obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross (Phil. 2:8). This was the sweet-smelling savor of the Son’s death before the Father. Then His address to the Father now turned to “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” At noon, He entered into the judgment of the Father, as He was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21) and bore our sins in His created body (1 Pet. 2:24). Within those hours, the Eternal Son of God experienced the greatest chastenings of God upon Him, including the eternal damnation of hell and of separation from God.
But the moment came when He knew that all had been fulfilled (John 19:28), and He cried, “It is finished” (John 19:30), or the Greek rendering, “It is absolutely perfected, consummated, brought to completion.” It would be here that the Prince of Peace, Messiah the Prince, would judge in the final verdict the prince of this world, the prince power of the air, the Devil. This Prince Messiah made peace between God and man, that whosoever would believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Christ had to die in time, for Adam fell in time, on a given day, in a moment of crisis. Christ died on a tree, the means through which the first temptation came to Eve, and it was through the symbol of that tree (the term being used six times in the New Testament to represent the cross) that man was reconciled to God. The hanging on a tree was added to the aftermath of a capital punishment; the dead body was hung and displayed on a tree to expose the shame of the cursed one (Deut. 21:20–23). Christ would take the place of rebellious sons and bear in Himself the curse for man.
Though slain from the foundation of the world in the eternal present-tense mind of God, the Son had to enter time and wrought salvation for man in time. He dismissed His Spirit from that body, which went to the place of the departed spirits of men, His body being placed in a tomb. But on a given day, the first day of the week, His Spirit slipped back into that carefully preserved body and arose from the dead in time. He shewed Himself alive with many infallible proofs during a forty-day period. He then ascended into heaven where today He waits for the word from His Father to come and take His waiting people home to heaven. Until then He is the Prince of Peace ruling within the hearts of those who believe and have come to put their trust in Him.
Conclusion
It has been two thousand years since that glorious ascension of the Son into heaven, leading captive all of those righteous from upper Hades. Only God the Father knows the day when He will send His Son back to the air, Who will descend from heaven with all who are in Him in heaven (1 Thess. 4:14), and then take a generation of watching, waiting saints upon the earth unto Himself. He will then return to heaven with them, as His second ascension. He will take a book from the hand of His Father, open the seals of that book, and resolve the Day of Man in judgments upon the earth. He alone knows the time period.
Daniel’s Last Week against the Jewish nation will begin the last seven years of the Tribulation Period—the time of Jacob’s Trouble. The Son will then come from heaven with all the saints in glorified bodies; His feet will touch the Mount of Olives, causing an earthquake, wherein He will make His way to Megiddo (Zechariah 14). The thirty-day Battle of Armageddon will take place followed by a period of forty-five days (possibly for the renovation of the planet, Isaiah 35); then the Millennium will begin. Satan will be cast into a bottomless pit (Revelation 20) but released at the end of those days for a final, futile battle (Rev. 20:7–10) followed by the White Throne judgment.
[Although some would not agree with our ordo apokalupsis (order of events), we take the Book of Revelation in a natural unfolding sequence with the conjunctions and and now being constantly used for the beginning of chapters and verses. Whatever the order one takes, there must be the firm allegiance to the Second Coming of Christ and His resolve of all of history.]
We are then told, in Revelation 21 and 22, that a new heaven and a new earth will consummate the restoration of all things. Though in the Millennium the curse is partially lifted, the new earth will be one of perfection. Humanity will step from the final days of the Millennium into the new earth, where nations will inhabit the planet forever, with nations and families bringing forth children sinless and living forever. When Christ and God the Father come within a New Jerusalem, they will be the temple and the light, for the sun will be no more. God will move to His footstool.
As we reflect this season on the first coming of Messiah the Prince, the Prince of Peace, may we ever be reminded that He is the Prince of princes. One day He will return for His own; He will set up His kingdom and rule the world; and there will come a “time” when He will bring in a new earth that will exist with His presence and the presence of His people forever and ever. A people will be wrought by God’s amazing grace, redeemed out of every kindred, tongue, and nation throughout the history of the earth to be the Bride of God’s Son throughout the ages. We conclude with words from my dear father’s commentary The Book of Revelation:
Between the heaven and the earth, regenerated and glorified, with the Lamb and the saints and the perpetual generations translated to the New Jerusalem City, the Lamb and the Lamb’s wife will be all the glory. Then the holy angels in the principalities, powers, and the dominions will be taught by the saints the manifold wisdom of God as revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ephesians 3). Then all the holy angels will acquiesce in holy awe and respond in wonder that they knew He was great in power, but because of Jesus at Calvary, they now know of the Gospel and that He is also great in grace. Then all the universe will ring out the reverence of worship and the song of the final victory, “Worthy is the Lamb, Worthy is the Lamb, Worthy is the Lamb!” And the Eternal Golden Ages will roll on and on and on. Hallelujah! Amen! (page 144).