"Messiah the Prince" by William Symington. A Slight Assessment.
If I have it figured out, William Symington, a Scottish
Covenanter for the 19th Century, wrote “Messiah the Prince: The
Mediatorial Dominion of Jesus Christ” as an apologetic for his branch of the Scottish
Reformed and Presbyterian Churches in Scotland, many of whom had immigrated to
the America, but also had congregations in Ireland, France, and beyond.
His points (in a nutshell) seem to be:
1. Jesus fulfills the threefold office of Prophet, Priest,
and King. These three offices, though having different functions, are
indivisible. To receive Christ as (atoning, saving) Priest, one has the whole
Jesus – including his royal office (King) and declarative office (Prophet). One
can’t pick and choose. It is very much the way the saving LORD (Isaiah 32:5-6)
puts it in Isaiah 32:22, “For the LORD is our judge; the LORD is our lawgiver; the
LORD is our king; he will save us.”
2. As the prophetic, priestly King, he exercises his whole
authority for his church, “And he put all things under his feet and gave him as
head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who
fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:22-23).
3. All nations, then, are bound to submit to Jesus. “Nations
are thus invested with a high and noble character. They are the moral subjects
of the Redeemer. Their rulers are not the mere servants of men, the creatures
of popular choice, but the ministers of God, the moral deputies of heaven, the
servants, the representatives of the Prince of the kings of the earth” (pg.
146). This means that nations that do not acknowledge Jesus the King, are
dishonoring him, and we Christians are not to set up any magistrates (elected
or appointed) who are “his open and avowed enemies – men who deny his divinity,
who blaspheme his name, who deride his worship, and who openly profane his
sacred day” (pg. 166)! Therefore, the (Christian) Government, is to establish
the true religion in a land, support the church, etc. (pg.178-179).
4. When Christians are under anti-Christ governments, they are
“to submit to it; but they are to submit to it as a chastisement sent them by
God, and to conform, for the sake of peace, to the general order of society;
while they take care, at the same time, to bear a full and honest testimony
against its evils, and to avoid whatever is calculated to involve them in a
participation of its guilt” (pg. 171). The way this concept and # 3 above
worked out in the U.S., was that the early American Covenanters – because the
U.S. had no stated allegiance to Christ in its founding documents – did not
vote in elections or serve in the Government or military.
5. The Church is strictly independent of the State, in that magistrates
may not dictate her creed, obligate her ordinances, appoint her officers,
control her discipline, or interfere in any way with her constitution or
administration (pg. 192). But the State, also, must give – not passive, but
authoritative protection to the Church (pg. 193). This, at least, means “legal
recognition.” Yet, it may not dictate to its subjects what religion they must
pursue and practice (pg. 194).
6. Finally, to bring nations to submit to Jesus as Prophet,
Priest, and King, is the work of the King himself, and “to purify, sanctify,
revolutionise, nay, Christianize, the nations of the world, is what none but he
could perform: and were it not that he is Head of the nations, as well as Head
of the church, we should have to despair of these glorious anticipations being
ever realized” (pg. 154-155).
If I have grasped Symington’s premises rightly, then I can
say that most of them I am wholeheartedly on board with (#1, #2, #5 and #6).
And I can agree with the desire of #3, without going all the way into a State
Established Church. And I can happily
accept the concept of #4, though not the way it was understood in practice. Daniel,
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and how they were obeying the LORD’s written directive
in the letter of Jeremiah 29 as they served their pagan Government, come to
mind.
Was the book worth my time? Absolutely. I found it instructive, giving me some good aspects to ponder more fully. Do I recommend it? Surely.
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