Jesus the King: Understanding the Life and Death of the Son of God

by Timothy J. Keller

Regardless of such differences, though, every culture says identity is performance-based, achievement-based. And Jesus says that will never work. If you gain the whole world, he says, it won’t be big enough or bright enough to cover up the stain of inconsequentiality.

I went to the cross—and on the cross I lost my identity so you can have one.” Once you see the Son of God loving you like that, once you are moved by that viscerally and existentially, you begin to get a strength, an assurance, a sense of your own value and distinctiveness that is not based on what you’re doing or whether somebody loves you, whether you’ve lost weight or how much money you’ve got. You’re free—the old approach to identity is gone.

If your agenda is the end, then Jesus is just the means; you’re using him. But if Jesus is the King, you cannot make him a means to your end. You can’t come to a king negotiating. You lay your sword at a king’s feet and say, “Command me.” If you try to negotiate instead, if you say, “I’ll obey you if . . . ,” you aren’t recognizing him as a king.

When someone gave himself utterly for you, how can you not give yourself utterly to him? Taking up your cross means for you to die to self-determination, die to control of your own life, die to using him for your agenda.

You see, if there really is a dance, then there really is a King who loves us without need. And if there really is a stain we can’t wash out, then there is going to have to be a cross.