King of the Curse

God speaks to Adam following their first sin.

“Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

Cursed is the ground because of you;
    through painful toil you will eat food from it
    all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
    and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
    and to dust you will return.” – Genesis 3:17-19

In the traditional Eastern manner of learning and speaking, everything has a larger significance than its literal translation and the term thorns is no different.  Literally, this means man would no longer be in paradise, but would be opposed in his efforts to survive.  It also meant that man would suffer death.  Man was cursed.

The thorn imagery is used in Proverbs 15 to describe an obstacle to the lazy man and in Isaiah 34 to describe the consequence of God’s judgement.  Jesus used the thorn in Matthew 13 to describe how good seeds would be choked out and not grow.  Thorns are obstacles to man and a reminder of the consequence of sin, the curse of death.

Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around Him.  They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on His head. They put a staff in His right hand. Then they knelt in front of Him and mocked Him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said.  – Matthew 27:27-29

Jesus wore a crown.  He was king, a ruler.  The crown was a crown of thorns, so He was a ruler of the thorns.  Jesus is the king, the ruler, over the curse on man.  The curse that opposes man and results in his death.  Jesus rules that curse, He is king over it, and He overcomes it. 

The Roman soldiers were mocking Him, calling Him the “King of the Jews”, but what they should have been saying is “King of the Curse”.  Everything that opposes their physical and spiritual life is under the authority of the person they are mocking and they are too blind to know it.  How about us?  Do we mock Jesus as God’s Son by declaring that He is God but not having faith in Him to be king over the curse upon us?  He rules over everything that opposes you.  Do you believe it?  Do you really believe it?