The Roar Against God

Like the *roaring of the lion is the *horror of a king; *he passes over himself *with rage *because of *the forfeiture of his soul. (MAST)

*[Like the roaring of the lion] literally, the roar of the young lion. But this is a comparison with an unjust king. The image illustrated here is of the king who is obsessed with himself like a proud lion who defends his territory. As the lion becomes a horror to anyone or anything that approaches his sphere, so it is with a king who is depraved of the light and life of the nature of God. Rather than serving others with the grace and riches that he receives from the Providence of God’s mercies (Matt.5:45), he serves the “title” or “idea” that he has of himself with the power that he receives as a king. He becomes a horrifying beast in the darkness of the wilderness that preys upon the subjects of his kingdom. He treats his subjects like meat, which exists to satisfy the appetite of his territory. He prowls around his subjects with the pride of faith that they exist only to serve him. While this may be true of the animal kingdom, Christ did not come to be served but to serve and give his life a ransom for many; and that it was His glory to serve in this way, that we should be lifted up to the glory of His eternal Day of joy, where He receives the crown of our love and service in the kingdom of the Son of the Father’s everlasting love, which also roars like a strong lion. But the contrast is in the manner of His love for the glory of the Son. This love for His own glory is not generated out of the nature of a beast that devours for self-gratification, but out of love for the Triune pleasure of the shared glory of the one nature and union of God. It is a mutual, shared love for a co-equal glory in the created order of Christ’s visible image of the Living God (Col.1:15;Rev.7:15).

*[is the horror of a king] Again, this is a comparison for the illustration of a lion that produces terror in those who attempt to threaten the sovereignty and pride of his territory. The lion roars, but it is the king who is observed to be this horror in the eyes of the kingdom. The very subjects that he is made king to protect are devoured by his acts of pride. This is what Solomon is warning his son about. Do not be like this roaring lion that mauls anything that encroaches upon your pride. Rule your kingdom (Gen.4:7), but rule with wisdom by your side (Heb.1:2). Make yourself equal to wisdom (Lk.6:40), and wisdom will exalt you (Lk.7:31-35;Php.2:5-11). The kingdom is not the kingdom because of you, but you are made wise for the kingdom. Do not be the horror of this kingdom; rather, be the horror of the kingdom of darkness (Matt.10:25). This kingdom is the kingdom of God’s Light. Do not rule this kingdom under the influence of the night and stagger in its drunkenness (1Thess.5:7), but walk in her light as God is her Light (1Jn.2:6).

*[he passes over himself] literally, to pass over. This is the equivalent of saying he hardens his heart in the knowledge of his own sin. The verb is participle to the king as the verb, in its Hitpael stem, acts upon itself. The king is the cause of his own rage. He enrages himself in the fact of his inability to have control over his subjects. He is commanded to rule over sin, but he cannot cross over because of his inability to act as the representative of himself. Therefore, he gives himself over to his own sin in a fit of rage (Rom.9:20-24). The Spirit comes alongside him to teach him wisdom, but he denies wisdom and comes alongside the rage that is already warring within his members. Out of the previous “proverbial” context, this king is drunk (passes over himself) with the pride of his fame and title. His “position” goes to his head rather than his “responsibility” going to his heart. This king believes that his title and position are his without respect to his deserving of them, and therefore rages when he finds that his orders and decrees are forfeited or denied. He rages because he cannot pass from death to life by his own sovereign decree (Jn.3:3,7;5:24;1Jn.3:14).

*[with rage] Again, because of his high view of himself, he stirs up within himself the imagination of his worthiness to be king. But when stumbling over his “drunken image” of himself (Rom.12:3,16), he is enraged with the subjects of his kingdom who refuse to carry him. He works up this rage in himself in the glory of his own pride as the whole kingdom just passes him by. He is but dust in the wind that cannot hold itself together as solid clay. But, again, in his high imagination of himself, he blames those who refuse to carry him on their shoulders. This roaring lion is the image of a proud king who has no love for the greater purpose of the kingdom. He literally rages over the glory of himself (Heb.5:5).

*[because of] Again, in the Hithpael stem, the reflexive action of the verb is causative of the participle, himself, in the verbal noun, to forfeit. The participle, then, is the forfeiture of his own soul. The king is acting upon himself out of himself in his own depravity, which is the inability to do righteousness for the fruitfulness of God’s kingdom (Jn.8:44-45). This king rejects the sovereignty of God for the pride of his own existence. He believes he knows better than God. So he passes over his salvation (the universal call to repent unto life (Acts 17:30;1Tim.4:10) in the rejection of his inability to reconcile himself to God (Rom.2:1,19;9:20).

*[the forfeiture of his soul] literally, because his soul is forfeited. The Hebrew term for sin is to “miss the mark” like an arrow misses the target. In this disposition, man is an offense to God and incapable of cleansing himself from any wrongdoing against God. Therefore, because he is the passive recipient of this forfeiture of soul, he blames God in a fit of ignorant rage. Because he cannot be saved on his own terms, he turns away from Christ saving him on God’s terms. God is not the active fault of this man’s fit of rage, but God is the cause of it. It’s because of who God is above him that he shakes his fist at the terms of God’s saving grace. Therefore, he gives himself over to the pride of his own sin. He creates an external image of his imagination of himself to cover the forfeiture of his naked and empty soul. He seeks to redeem himself with works that do not profit the glory of God. He loses his salvation to the glory of this external image that he made for himself (Matt.16:26). Though the extended hand of God’s mercy has called out to him to be filled with the knowledge of God and the Spirit of His grace, he remains dead in the void of his soul for the glory of his self-estimation. Until this king comes to an end of his self-image, he can never be recreated in the image of the new man after the likeness of Christ. Until he cries out to God from the forfeiture of his own soul, God will not fill its eternal void with the Spirit of Life and Peace of God (Matt.5:3). Until this king lays down his rage, wisdom will not rule and reign alongside him over the dominion of sin (Lk.13:24).