My family and I are Sherlock Holmes fans. It started when we were in St. Louis and the Mystery television program began airing the episodes of Holmes played by Jeremy Brett. We purchased a copy of the Holmes stories and the enthusiasm has never waned.
One of my favourite stories - and one of Conan-Doyles’ favourites too, by the way - is the “Musgrave Ritual”. It’s my favourite for a number of reasons but one of them is that I’ve long been a student of the Stuart period of British history. The story is about what happened to the crown of Charles the First after his beheading. It turns up, having been cut into pieces, a moldering ruin in appearance – unrecognizable – and tossed into a pond. It may seem an odd end for a royal crown, but when you think of it, it is the end for all the crowns of this world. They are all corruptible, not only because they are made of the material of this world, but because they represent the kingdoms of this world, all of which have either passed away or will pass away. History is full of the stories of how easily crowns pass from one head to another and even perish altogether. As one of the old Puritans put it, “Earthly crowns are like tennis-balls, which are bandied up and down from one to another, and in time wear out.” (Brooks, v. 522, G.).
It is therefore quite remarkable that the Bible speaks, as we read in our Epistle this evening, of crowns that are incorruptible and everlasting. This is remarkable because they are crowns meant for people, for earth-dwellers, for you and me. We can easily imagine a crown on the head of angels never losing its beauty and brightness, but a crown upon people, whose crowns are so characteristically transitory, is extraordinary.
But then, of course, these are not crowns of earthly gold or gems from the mines under our feet. These are crowns forged in heaven and given to us freely by God Himself. It is their divine origin that gives them their permanent character.
If an angel were to appear here with us today – or we might say, should one of the angels that frequent our assemblies make himself known to us – and he were to begin to pass out among us such crowns as we have been describing – crowns which surpass all the glory of men – would we not be totally amazed at the treasure we held in our hand? Yet, such a crown is to be ours someday! Why, then, do we hardly ever think about it? I cannot be absolutely dogmatic on the matter, but it does seem to me that we do not think of our crowns. I never hear them mentioned in conversation. I know for myself, I don’t think of the crowns much. Why are we like that? If something so wonderful and valuable is to be ours, why do we not think about it more?
Surely, one of the main reasons is that our thinking is so bound to this earth. Jesus and the apostles had to worn us about that. The cares of this life can distract us so easily from the things that seem so far into our future. The business of each day readily corrals our thoughts and puts them under its yoke to plow its fields. Indeed, our minds are distracted, not only from the crown Paul says we are to pursue, but from all manner of heavenly things and things of this earth that are to come. It’s very difficult for our minds to be on things above and not on this earth.
There seems, though, to be another reason we forget our crowns instead of strive for them. It’s because we are embarrassed about them. For one thing, we are Americans, and Americans have little sympathy for crowns, at least on our shores. Now, Americans can be just as intrigued with the goings on of British royalty as any one in England, but the very idea of monarchy is, to the typical American, ridiculous. But it’s also because of the very faith which promises the crowns to us. It is precisely because we are Christians that we are embarrassed about the crowns which Christians are meant to pursue and possess. A Christian is a person who believes the story of the Bible, that he is in that story, and, by faith, has taken his place in that story. The story is that mankind has ruined itself in the sin of Adam and all the sins of all the ages, but that God has sent a Redeemer to this earth to become Himself a man, to make the ungodly righteous before God, and to restore to him divine sonship, to a royal position in the universe, thus to reign, with Jesus the King, forever. We take our place in that story by a faith that, not only believes the story is true, but personally and actually receives the gift of redemption procured for us by Jesus. We accept His presence and rule in our life, that our very natures may be re-created and that we, at the end of this age, may appear with Jesus, body and soul, and live with Him happily ever after.
The glories that Jesus has earned by His great work of humility and sacrifice He intends to share with those who have believed in Him, who have been loyal to Him and loved Him in this life. These glories are represented by crowns - indeed, the whole thing about crowns could just be symbolic, but we shall see. But we know, and, by grace, feel deeply in our souls, that we do not deserve them! Who are we to share His glory? It is embarrassing that such as we should be so honoured.
Consider Him! He is none other than the divine Son of God! By virtue of His divinity, He inherently deserves all the worship of all the universe for ever. He alone is worthy of all the honour of all the crowns of heaven. That is why we read in Revelation the depiction of the twenty-four elders, seeing God on His throne, taking their crowns off of their heads and casting them before His throne. They belong to Him, not them!
Consider what He has done! No one has been as humble and stooped so low and served mankind so. None has been so holy. None has suffered death so. None has loved the Father so and been so faithful to Him. None is like Jesus. God justly gives Him a name above every other name in heaven and earth and demands the worship of all creation at His feet. But what do we do? We whine and complain about our Father’s providences, we lazily fail to watch and pray and we foolishly wander into all kinds of sins and errors. We will occasionally be downright disobedient to Him. We even fail to be thankful. What a sorry lot we are! We feel we have no business being in the company of someone so regal and grand and holy as Jesus. And yet, it is the will of God that we be so.
But this embarrasses us. And well it should. We really aren’t worthy of the crown. So it is, that we don’t think about it. If we do, sometimes, it seems like a mistake that God will fix. There are things like that in life. There are things in this world that don’t make sense and so we talk of how God will sort it all out in the end. Well, we feel like that about the promise of crowns. Yes, God says we will receive them, but surely He knows we don’t really deserve them and so He’ll have some way for us to do something else with them. The embarrassment of the ceremony will come and go and then we’ll have some neat way of giving them to Jesus or stashing them off somewhere, and then the awkwardness will be settled and we can get on with things.
We also try to rationalize away the embarrassment, using an argument based on something that is true about our crowns. The crowning of a countless number of people by God, in the name of Christ, magnifies the glory of Christ. Our crowning makes His kingship even greater. As Paul says in 2 Cor. 4:15: "For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God." It’s like a king’s court. The greater the glory of the court, the greater the glory of the king who reigns over that court. Now that’s something nice and practical for us. That helps. If it brings Jesus more honour, well, OK, we’ll go ahead and receive the crown. Not only is this true about our crowns, but the idea of being able to add to Christ’s glory is an enormously powerful motivation for doing all we can to earn a crown for Him.
This idea of adding glory to Christ’s glory has an important application for us, by the way. If in this life we are able to add to His glory in the life to come, then how little should be our trouble to seek our own glory and reputation in this world. Granted, it is important that we do what we can to preserve a rightful honour in this life. After all, if we are identified with Christ, to behave in a dishonourable fashion in this life brings disrepute upon Him. This is common sense. But our concern is not directly for ourselves. It is for Him and His reputation that we care. Indeed, we should be willing to lose the good approval of the whole world of humanity if the retention of it were to mean a deed that would dishonour our Lord. It is an amazing privilege to be able to live for the honour of Jesus in this life and to be able to add to His honour in the life to come with a crown worn in His name is even more amazing.
But in all our thinking about the Christian’s crown, are we thinking as the apostles thought? The apostles seem to have no embarrassment over the issue at all. Indeed, they encourage, even command, attention to the crowns to come. Even more shocking to our sympathies is their apparent eagerness in owning these crowns, not just for the honour they bring to Christ, but for themselves and their own honour and vindication. Hear their words in the following verses:
2 Tim.4:6: “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. 7: I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: 8: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” Here Paul speaks of God being righteous by giving him a crown. In other words, it would be the only fair thing for God to do. He looks for the glory that he will own. In 2 Cor. 4, he speaks of the weight of glory which our sufferings are working for us.
James writes in 1:12 of his epistle: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”
For James, the crown is a blessing of reward for the trouble we have gone through for the Lord.
Peter chimes in with his first epistle: I Peter 5:2: “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; 4: And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.” Peter says the crown is a reward for faithful service; a recompense for the suffering inherent in the faithful exercise of one’s ordination vows, and it is mentioned as a source of motivation for that faithfulness.
Now this seems rather selfish to us, does it not? It quite makes sense enough to seek to do all I can for the Lord now if it is going to mean something for Him, but, considering how unworthy I am to share His glory, why should I be ambitious for a crown for myself? But the words of the apostles cannot be faulted. There must be something that they understood that we do not.
May I suggest that, first of all, we forget that it is always right to want whatever God wants. If God has some reason which does not make sense to us to crown us – and indeed He seems rather eager about it – then for us to not share something of His “excitement”, if you will, about the matter cannot be right. Indeed, where such a desire is lacking, there must be a lack of understanding and even grace.
But it still grates on our sympathies. If we start accepting the idea that it is right to desire the crown for ourselves, and that God is happy with such a desire, then it seems like God is promoting self-agrandizement or some kind of self-regard that doesn’t seem to fit the idea of humility. I think the answer to this problem is that we need to have more confidence in the grace of God which is already ours through the inward working of the Holy Spirit. We need more confidence that God is transforming us. There is a natural human desire for recognition which is not all bad. Indeed, it could be argued that it is related to our being created in the image of God. Now, this desire for recognition is being sanctified. It is still wrong to want recognition for the sake of our pride before men, but it is possible for us now, by God’s gracious transformation of our hearts, to desire recognition in the court of our King and rightly so. After all, the ideas of vindication, reward for labour, and glory for one’s sufferings, exist in human culture, not because someone dreamed them up because they thought it would be a good story, but because they are part of the values which are inherent in God’s universe. Such things are important to us, because they are important to God. They are the very things He has given to His Son. And just as his Son really did want these things for Himself, so we, created in His image and sanctified by His grace, ought to want them, and can want them, as well.
Such things as vindication, reward, and glory, are part of life in the royal court of heaven. They are not puzzled by these things. Do we really think they don’t realise we are unworthy, in ourselves, of such things? Do we really think God doesn’t know that? They know better than we! To allow our unworthiness to keep us from joining in the robust celebration of this court is foolish impertinence. No true hero thinks himself worthy of honour. And beside that, in the eyes of this royal court, to not want to be vindicated and rewarded is - shall I say it? - wimpish. We do not realise how much God really has, through union with His Son, made us a part of His own ambition for glory to go to whom glory is due. Just as King Arthur would only have the best to share his court, so our God would only have true heroes be present, who not only share glory with His Son, by virtue of His grace to them, but have sought to own that glory themselves, by His grace through them. He makes real saints; not just saints in name only. God would have His rewards and honours to be true rewards and honours, and they cannot be unless we have done that which is rewardable.
What is more, for us to consider God’s glory something we want to have as our own possession is to testify that such glory is worthy of possession. To not have a lively desire to have the glory of God is to make the glory of God seem something less important than anything else one might desire. Is this not the prize of prizes?
As C. S. Lewis says, our desires are not strong enough! By God’s grace, we should long, as did the apostles, to have our own crown, to be vindicated ourselves, to be rewarded and have glory ourselves. We can also be confident that, when we stand on that Day and receive these things, we will not be able to receive them with anything but the best motives, purely and righteously. On that day, we can only want, perfectly, what God wants, and God wants all those who have fought a good fight for Him to receive what is justly theirs. And when those crowns are finally given, what a song of praise will ring that royal court! And every saint of God will fix his eye upon the greatest hero of all, and if we can, let us then cast our crowns at his feet. He is indeed worthy! But let us not be embarrassed or confused if He puts it back on our head.
One of my favourite stories - and one of Conan-Doyles’ favourites too, by the way - is the “Musgrave Ritual”. It’s my favourite for a number of reasons but one of them is that I’ve long been a student of the Stuart period of British history. The story is about what happened to the crown of Charles the First after his beheading. It turns up, having been cut into pieces, a moldering ruin in appearance – unrecognizable – and tossed into a pond. It may seem an odd end for a royal crown, but when you think of it, it is the end for all the crowns of this world. They are all corruptible, not only because they are made of the material of this world, but because they represent the kingdoms of this world, all of which have either passed away or will pass away. History is full of the stories of how easily crowns pass from one head to another and even perish altogether. As one of the old Puritans put it, “Earthly crowns are like tennis-balls, which are bandied up and down from one to another, and in time wear out.” (Brooks, v. 522, G.).
It is therefore quite remarkable that the Bible speaks, as we read in our Epistle this evening, of crowns that are incorruptible and everlasting. This is remarkable because they are crowns meant for people, for earth-dwellers, for you and me. We can easily imagine a crown on the head of angels never losing its beauty and brightness, but a crown upon people, whose crowns are so characteristically transitory, is extraordinary.
But then, of course, these are not crowns of earthly gold or gems from the mines under our feet. These are crowns forged in heaven and given to us freely by God Himself. It is their divine origin that gives them their permanent character.
If an angel were to appear here with us today – or we might say, should one of the angels that frequent our assemblies make himself known to us – and he were to begin to pass out among us such crowns as we have been describing – crowns which surpass all the glory of men – would we not be totally amazed at the treasure we held in our hand? Yet, such a crown is to be ours someday! Why, then, do we hardly ever think about it? I cannot be absolutely dogmatic on the matter, but it does seem to me that we do not think of our crowns. I never hear them mentioned in conversation. I know for myself, I don’t think of the crowns much. Why are we like that? If something so wonderful and valuable is to be ours, why do we not think about it more?
Surely, one of the main reasons is that our thinking is so bound to this earth. Jesus and the apostles had to worn us about that. The cares of this life can distract us so easily from the things that seem so far into our future. The business of each day readily corrals our thoughts and puts them under its yoke to plow its fields. Indeed, our minds are distracted, not only from the crown Paul says we are to pursue, but from all manner of heavenly things and things of this earth that are to come. It’s very difficult for our minds to be on things above and not on this earth.
There seems, though, to be another reason we forget our crowns instead of strive for them. It’s because we are embarrassed about them. For one thing, we are Americans, and Americans have little sympathy for crowns, at least on our shores. Now, Americans can be just as intrigued with the goings on of British royalty as any one in England, but the very idea of monarchy is, to the typical American, ridiculous. But it’s also because of the very faith which promises the crowns to us. It is precisely because we are Christians that we are embarrassed about the crowns which Christians are meant to pursue and possess. A Christian is a person who believes the story of the Bible, that he is in that story, and, by faith, has taken his place in that story. The story is that mankind has ruined itself in the sin of Adam and all the sins of all the ages, but that God has sent a Redeemer to this earth to become Himself a man, to make the ungodly righteous before God, and to restore to him divine sonship, to a royal position in the universe, thus to reign, with Jesus the King, forever. We take our place in that story by a faith that, not only believes the story is true, but personally and actually receives the gift of redemption procured for us by Jesus. We accept His presence and rule in our life, that our very natures may be re-created and that we, at the end of this age, may appear with Jesus, body and soul, and live with Him happily ever after.
The glories that Jesus has earned by His great work of humility and sacrifice He intends to share with those who have believed in Him, who have been loyal to Him and loved Him in this life. These glories are represented by crowns - indeed, the whole thing about crowns could just be symbolic, but we shall see. But we know, and, by grace, feel deeply in our souls, that we do not deserve them! Who are we to share His glory? It is embarrassing that such as we should be so honoured.
Consider Him! He is none other than the divine Son of God! By virtue of His divinity, He inherently deserves all the worship of all the universe for ever. He alone is worthy of all the honour of all the crowns of heaven. That is why we read in Revelation the depiction of the twenty-four elders, seeing God on His throne, taking their crowns off of their heads and casting them before His throne. They belong to Him, not them!
Consider what He has done! No one has been as humble and stooped so low and served mankind so. None has been so holy. None has suffered death so. None has loved the Father so and been so faithful to Him. None is like Jesus. God justly gives Him a name above every other name in heaven and earth and demands the worship of all creation at His feet. But what do we do? We whine and complain about our Father’s providences, we lazily fail to watch and pray and we foolishly wander into all kinds of sins and errors. We will occasionally be downright disobedient to Him. We even fail to be thankful. What a sorry lot we are! We feel we have no business being in the company of someone so regal and grand and holy as Jesus. And yet, it is the will of God that we be so.
But this embarrasses us. And well it should. We really aren’t worthy of the crown. So it is, that we don’t think about it. If we do, sometimes, it seems like a mistake that God will fix. There are things like that in life. There are things in this world that don’t make sense and so we talk of how God will sort it all out in the end. Well, we feel like that about the promise of crowns. Yes, God says we will receive them, but surely He knows we don’t really deserve them and so He’ll have some way for us to do something else with them. The embarrassment of the ceremony will come and go and then we’ll have some neat way of giving them to Jesus or stashing them off somewhere, and then the awkwardness will be settled and we can get on with things.
We also try to rationalize away the embarrassment, using an argument based on something that is true about our crowns. The crowning of a countless number of people by God, in the name of Christ, magnifies the glory of Christ. Our crowning makes His kingship even greater. As Paul says in 2 Cor. 4:15: "For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God." It’s like a king’s court. The greater the glory of the court, the greater the glory of the king who reigns over that court. Now that’s something nice and practical for us. That helps. If it brings Jesus more honour, well, OK, we’ll go ahead and receive the crown. Not only is this true about our crowns, but the idea of being able to add to Christ’s glory is an enormously powerful motivation for doing all we can to earn a crown for Him.
This idea of adding glory to Christ’s glory has an important application for us, by the way. If in this life we are able to add to His glory in the life to come, then how little should be our trouble to seek our own glory and reputation in this world. Granted, it is important that we do what we can to preserve a rightful honour in this life. After all, if we are identified with Christ, to behave in a dishonourable fashion in this life brings disrepute upon Him. This is common sense. But our concern is not directly for ourselves. It is for Him and His reputation that we care. Indeed, we should be willing to lose the good approval of the whole world of humanity if the retention of it were to mean a deed that would dishonour our Lord. It is an amazing privilege to be able to live for the honour of Jesus in this life and to be able to add to His honour in the life to come with a crown worn in His name is even more amazing.
But in all our thinking about the Christian’s crown, are we thinking as the apostles thought? The apostles seem to have no embarrassment over the issue at all. Indeed, they encourage, even command, attention to the crowns to come. Even more shocking to our sympathies is their apparent eagerness in owning these crowns, not just for the honour they bring to Christ, but for themselves and their own honour and vindication. Hear their words in the following verses:
2 Tim.4:6: “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. 7: I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: 8: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” Here Paul speaks of God being righteous by giving him a crown. In other words, it would be the only fair thing for God to do. He looks for the glory that he will own. In 2 Cor. 4, he speaks of the weight of glory which our sufferings are working for us.
James writes in 1:12 of his epistle: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”
For James, the crown is a blessing of reward for the trouble we have gone through for the Lord.
Peter chimes in with his first epistle: I Peter 5:2: “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; 4: And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.” Peter says the crown is a reward for faithful service; a recompense for the suffering inherent in the faithful exercise of one’s ordination vows, and it is mentioned as a source of motivation for that faithfulness.
Now this seems rather selfish to us, does it not? It quite makes sense enough to seek to do all I can for the Lord now if it is going to mean something for Him, but, considering how unworthy I am to share His glory, why should I be ambitious for a crown for myself? But the words of the apostles cannot be faulted. There must be something that they understood that we do not.
May I suggest that, first of all, we forget that it is always right to want whatever God wants. If God has some reason which does not make sense to us to crown us – and indeed He seems rather eager about it – then for us to not share something of His “excitement”, if you will, about the matter cannot be right. Indeed, where such a desire is lacking, there must be a lack of understanding and even grace.
But it still grates on our sympathies. If we start accepting the idea that it is right to desire the crown for ourselves, and that God is happy with such a desire, then it seems like God is promoting self-agrandizement or some kind of self-regard that doesn’t seem to fit the idea of humility. I think the answer to this problem is that we need to have more confidence in the grace of God which is already ours through the inward working of the Holy Spirit. We need more confidence that God is transforming us. There is a natural human desire for recognition which is not all bad. Indeed, it could be argued that it is related to our being created in the image of God. Now, this desire for recognition is being sanctified. It is still wrong to want recognition for the sake of our pride before men, but it is possible for us now, by God’s gracious transformation of our hearts, to desire recognition in the court of our King and rightly so. After all, the ideas of vindication, reward for labour, and glory for one’s sufferings, exist in human culture, not because someone dreamed them up because they thought it would be a good story, but because they are part of the values which are inherent in God’s universe. Such things are important to us, because they are important to God. They are the very things He has given to His Son. And just as his Son really did want these things for Himself, so we, created in His image and sanctified by His grace, ought to want them, and can want them, as well.
Such things as vindication, reward, and glory, are part of life in the royal court of heaven. They are not puzzled by these things. Do we really think they don’t realise we are unworthy, in ourselves, of such things? Do we really think God doesn’t know that? They know better than we! To allow our unworthiness to keep us from joining in the robust celebration of this court is foolish impertinence. No true hero thinks himself worthy of honour. And beside that, in the eyes of this royal court, to not want to be vindicated and rewarded is - shall I say it? - wimpish. We do not realise how much God really has, through union with His Son, made us a part of His own ambition for glory to go to whom glory is due. Just as King Arthur would only have the best to share his court, so our God would only have true heroes be present, who not only share glory with His Son, by virtue of His grace to them, but have sought to own that glory themselves, by His grace through them. He makes real saints; not just saints in name only. God would have His rewards and honours to be true rewards and honours, and they cannot be unless we have done that which is rewardable.
What is more, for us to consider God’s glory something we want to have as our own possession is to testify that such glory is worthy of possession. To not have a lively desire to have the glory of God is to make the glory of God seem something less important than anything else one might desire. Is this not the prize of prizes?
As C. S. Lewis says, our desires are not strong enough! By God’s grace, we should long, as did the apostles, to have our own crown, to be vindicated ourselves, to be rewarded and have glory ourselves. We can also be confident that, when we stand on that Day and receive these things, we will not be able to receive them with anything but the best motives, purely and righteously. On that day, we can only want, perfectly, what God wants, and God wants all those who have fought a good fight for Him to receive what is justly theirs. And when those crowns are finally given, what a song of praise will ring that royal court! And every saint of God will fix his eye upon the greatest hero of all, and if we can, let us then cast our crowns at his feet. He is indeed worthy! But let us not be embarrassed or confused if He puts it back on our head.
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