The Last Righteous King: A Reflection on Josiah

King Josiah’s story is the testimony of a boy king who sought the Lord’s will and ignited an entire nation with righteous fire. He came to power at the age of eight, after the death of his father. He inherited a kingdom whose identity was lost in their blasphemy and mutated by their idolatry: a kingdom with pristinely preserved high places, overshadowing a decaying neglected Temple. He inherited a kingdom, wherein idols were exalted and God was forgotten: His house was forgotten, His face was hidden and His Law was lost.

This comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the history of Judah. They were a nation, whose throne was in constant vacillation between worship and whoredom. During one reign, high places and idols would go up, only to be torn down during the next. During one reign, priests would burn incense to Baal, while in another they would offer sacrifices to God. Indeed, throughout their history, readers see and endless spiral of turning away and drawing near. However, amidst all this, these kings allowed the Temple to dilapidate and the Law to be lost.

Josiah was a righteous king: the last righteous king, one who comes on the hills of waywardness amidst the trauma of the royal coup that killed his predecessor/father. Righteous kings were a blessing to Judah, because their righteousness seemed to prod God’s favor over the people. There was always a reward in heaven stored up for the righteous king. For example Jotham’s reward was victory and strength, because he set his ways toward God. Hezekiah’s reward was extended life and prosperity. When he humbled himself and repented of his pride, God caused his kingdom to prosper. Even Manasseh, who waited until his distress to call on God, was rewarded with deliverance from God.

So, what reward laid in store for the king whose reign was likened by the chronicler only to David? What reward was coming to the king who sought God’s face when he was only 16, cleansing Judah of its idolatry at 20, repairing the Temple and finding the Torah at 26? How did God plan to bestow favor upon the one who threw Him an epic Passover, unmatched by any of his immediate predecessors?

According to 2 Chronicles 34:22-28, Josiah’s reward was death. God’s word came through Huldah the prophetess that He grew irredeemably tired of Israel’s waywardness. Most insulting to Him was the fact that they lost the Torah and ignored His prophets. As a result of this, God was sending the children into exile at the hands of the Babylonians. This daunting word did not come with an “if” clause, nor was God bluffing. The impending forecast was inevitable, but as a reward for Josiah’s faithfulness, God promised to gather him with his fathers before all this took place.

Reflecting on Josiah’s story causes a clear lesson to begin to surface for the 21^st century post-Christendom church: that God does not measure the holiness of a people by how they legislate, but by how they live. When defining true worship, He does not regard our laws, rather He regards our hearts.

Notice that this proclamation of doom came when a righteous king occupied the throne. It is not that God was not pleased through Josiah’s reform, but that none of his decrees and statutes could bring the hearts of the people to God. At issue was not whether idolatry was legal or illegal, but that it was the prevailing preference of the people. Although the God of glory made them His choice dwelling, they settled for hollowed out carvings and construed constellations; having eyes but not seeing and ears but not hearing.

This observation is especially relevant for our Western, American, post-Christendom context, because of the church’s long-standing association with power. The weapons of our warfare have become very carnal and all the more weak: and this is not a shot at ancient events like the Crusades and distant figures like Constantine. Even today, the church has taken up carnal weaponry, replacing preaching and prayer with ballots and bills. We equate standing for righteousness with electing “godly” politicians. We equate prophetic speech with passionate political involvement against the political party we don’t like.

Through this replacement, we have been deceived into thinking that these carnal measures are means that truly gain victories for the kingdom. Therefore, it has become more important to “win the culture war” than offer the world a new transformative reality through the gospel. Such a premise offers justification to the George Tiller tragedy, wherein the abortion doctor was gunned down at church by a fanatic, pro-life “Christian”.

In a light more relevant to the black community, we have replaced gospel preaching with political activism. “Go ye therefore” has been replaced with “vote or die”. Whether or not the Church is dead has been measured with standards that decentralize the concept of the transcendence and holiness of God’s will: a thing distinct and completely free from human construction. We have redefined prophetic speech to focus on racism and injustice: all the while failing to communicate God’ vision for our families, communities and schools. We march like King, but neither pray like King, nor confess like King; immortalizing and deifying him all the while neglecting the God who burned in his bones, silencing the Spirit that ignited his words and decentralizing the Christ that gave his message vibrancy and relevance.

The hard truth remains that what looks like power is actually a weakness that makes the whole church more polarized: ultimately being reduced to a passive puppet for its respective political and cultural camps. More importantly, we miss God’s will entirely throughout in process. At issue is not the legality or illegality of abortion and gay marriage. Rather, what seems to grieve God is our general confusion over who we are and gradual disregard for the sacredness of life; a privilege given only by the Creator. To the same token, what grieves God beyond the existence of injustice and racism is our collective failure to see the image of God in every person, preferring rather to see the false inscription of Caesar.

The solution to what ultimately grieves God is not legislation that will dictate people’s actions, but transformation that will change people’s hearts. This solution does not call for a Josiah, but for the people of God to be the people of God and bear witness to His reign by living in His reality before the world. This will allow the world to “see our Good works and glorify our Father in heaven”. Through this being and witness-bearing, we regain the greater power once surrendered by previous generations. With this power, whether or not laws change, lives will be transformed, because the body of Christ will offer the world a reality no longer driven by the edicts of a crumbling culture, but one anchored in the Solid Rock: the coming Lord.

 

Samuel James Doyle is a teacher–preacher, and currently serves as the Youth Pastor at the East Saint Paul Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.