“Come! Let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our God, our Maker.”
Kneeling is a concept that we rarely use in today’s culture. It shows an extra level of humility and submission. In ancient history, guests who entered into the court of royalty knelt to show submission and honor to the ruler. Many churches used to have benches to kneel upon to pray to further demonstrate their submission to a powerful God. But one doesn’t have to physically kneel to show submission. As we worship our Maker in prayer and song, we can also bow our hearts or our spirit as we humbly submit to our “Glorious and Mighty” King!
The book of Revelation is filled with people of “every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues” (Rev 7:9) bowing or kneeling before the Lamb on His throne, worshiping Him, and even casting their crowns at His feet. This is the picture that Matthew Bridges had when he wrote the text to Crown Him with Many Crowns in which he begins each new verse with a title or attribute of Jesus to show us why we should kneel and cast our crowns at His feet.
The Lamb
“Crown Him with many crowns, the lamb upon His throne.” The Lamb refers to the OT sacrifice of a lamb to atone for sins which was fulfilled in the NT when John the Baptist said to Jesus “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” This Lamb was sacrificed on a cross for your sin and for mine. “When [we gaze at] the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died,” as Isaac Watts writes in When I Survey, we should be so overwhelmed with the perfect sacrifice of the Lamb that we should bow before this Lamb on His throne and worship Him!
The Lord of Love
“Crown Him the Lord of Love.” God loved us so much that He gave His only Son to be murdered for us. The song goes on to point out the wounds in the Lamb’s side and hands and how “no angel in the sky could full bear” to look on that sight. Even God turned His face away from His Son. To Watts, the blood flowing from “His head, His Hands, His feet” brings thoughts of the great “sorrow” He was going through and the “love” for us which He had as He endured that suffering. We should be overwhelmed with this love of Jesus that we should bow before this Lamb on His throne and worship Him! “Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all!”
The Lord of Life
“Crown Him the Lord of life, who triumphed o’er the grave [and] who rose victorious….” Our Lamb didn’t stay dead, however; he conquered death and rose from the grave so that we can live eternally with Him! He now gives eternal life to all who believe in Him (John 3:15). We should be so thankful for the eternal life that He gives that we should bow before this Lamb on His throne and worship Him!
The Son of God
“Crown Him the Son of God.” The Son of God points to Jesus’ deity as part of Trinity. He existed “before the worlds began.” John also points to this fact and that Jesus was active in creation. We can look anywhere in creation and see the beauty and majesty of our creator displayed in the world which are all themes in the song Glorious and Mighty. We should be so amazed by the work of creation that we should bow before this Lamb on His throne and worship Him!
Our God truly is worthy to be praised and we should look forward to bowing before our King as the song says: “Majesty, we’ll sing with creation, when You come again in the clouds, every knee will bow down and worship the one true God!