Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation | Page 5

for the race as a race.
This leads at once to another question that presses in. What is the
domain of the crowned Christ? If we take the crowning in the common
meaning of that word, it means that there is some domain that Christ
rules over. What is it that He is crowned over?
And the answer is so sweeping as to seem far-away and dreamy to us
who are living on this sin-hurt earth. He is the crowned Ruler of the
whole created universe and all intelligent beings in it. He has been
placed over absolutely every "rule and authority and power and
dominion, and not only in this present age but in the coming age."[19]
There is simply no limit in extent to His domain. Everything has been
placed in subjection to Him and is now subject to His word, and His
alone.
There is a striking passage in Philippians that fits in here.[20] In
speaking of the exaltation of Jesus Christ, Paul is careful to explain
particularly that every knee would bow, in the heavens, and, on the
earth, and under the earth or in the world below.
This threefold division is very striking. The heaven things are
understood at once, and things of the earth sphere. But there is a third
world to be taken into account, that strange uncanny world of evil spirit
beings in rebellion against God's authority. It is spoken of repeatedly as
principalities and powers, indicating numbers and organization, dignity,
and power.[21] All of this is included in what has been placed under
Christ's authority.[22]

Is Christ Reigning Now?
But there is still another question that has been impatiently pushing
underneath for some time. And it also is an intensely practical one.
Does this mean that Christ is actually ruling now over this domain of
His? How about the affairs on the earth? Are all things here subject to
Him? Is this the way He would have things go? And some of us think
the evil spirits seem pretty free in their movements. This present order
of things that we are living in the thick of, is this the reign of the
crowned Christ? And some of us feel the stress of things so much that
we can scarce keep patient for a thoughtful poised answer to our
questions.
There are those, and good earnest folk they are, too, who tell us that
Christ has come, and is constantly coming, more and more, into our
common life. The higher ideals that are crowding for expression, the
more spiritual conceptions of man and his brotherly relations, the
constant striving toward better civilization, the bettering of the
condition of the poor and less fortunate, the increased recognition of
men's rights in the complex industrial world, the increasing effort to
correct evils by legislation, the great moral reforms that are sweeping
aside the awful liquor curse, and loosening women's bonds, and
safeguarding young womanhood and children, the newer
aggressiveness in the missionary propaganda and in much of the
activity of the Church, even the attempt to humanize and civilize the
warfare that in itself is stupidly savage and utterly inhuman,--is not all
this a coming of Christ and of the Christ-spirit into our common life?
many ask.
And there is only one answer to such questions, a strong emphatic
"yes." It surely is the Christ-spirit that moves in all of this. This is a
coming of Christ; and a blessed coming, too. There was nothing of this
sort before the Christ-spirit began to sweeten the world's life. And there
is none of it to-day except in those parts of the world where the
Christ-spirit influences life.
But--there's a "but"--it proves a blessed but; this is only a crumb or two
falling from a loaded table. And he who judges Christ by these crumbs

only, wholesome and toothsome as they are, will have a very skimpy
conception of Christ.
All of this sort of thing that has come has come very slowly. It has had
to fight through and in, every step of the way that it has come. Its
coming has been opposed stubbornly, maliciously, viciously every inch
of the road, as only those know who are in the thick of the struggle for
these reforms, panting for breath sometimes.
It is as though a few whiffs of wholesome life-giving air have breathed
through the cracks and crevices of the breastworks and fortifications of
evil in which all our common life seems entrenched. But the
fortifications are still there. If the sweet, wholesome breathing in
through cracks and crannies has been so blest, what would it be if the
forces of evil were clean removed from the scene, and the Christ-spirit
became the whole atmosphere breathed fully and freely without
restraint, with no bad draughts, and