Ultimately and eventually, there is and will be but one Lord. The one Lord will rule over all His kingdom and all of creation; every knee shall bow before him and acknowledge Him as the rightful, singular Lord. As has been said,

God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. – Php 2.9-11

This Lord has come and will come again; He has made Himself known and revealed His name to those who are His own. His name is Jesus. When He comes again, He will abolish all rule, authority, and power; He will reign until all His enemies have been subdued, defeated, and abolished. Nothing will escape His dominion. When His work is accomplished, He will then subject Himself to God and transfer the kingdom to Him. There will be one Lord, one God, who is all in all (1 Cor 15.23-28).

Until His return, however, we live in a world of tension. There is a Lord and a lord; there is a Kingdom and a kingdom. The former is the Lord Jesus Christ; the latter is the prince of the power of the air, the spirit which is now at work in the sons of disobedience (Eph 2.2), the evil one who presently has the world under his power (1 Jn 5.19). Every person will serve one or the other: non-Christians are slaves to sin and to him who holds them captive through their fear of death; Christians have a choice. At any given moment, in every situation, whenever a decision or choice is to be made, believers in Jesus Christ choose whom they will serve. Through obedience they can serve the Lord of the Kingdom; through disobedience they will serve the lord of the kingdom.

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings – and especially The Lord of the Rings, upon which much of this blog is patterned and from which much is to be learned – choice is critical for significant characters. There is no mention of Christ, although His character and deeds are reflected in numerous characters and behaviors throughout the novel. Satan, the lord of the kingdom in which we now live as aliens, is reflected in the person of Sauron (although Sauron himself is but a former slave to the more evil and powerful Melkor). Evil is personified in Sauron; good is distributed amongst the many who populate the world of men, elves, dwarves, hobbits, and wizards.

The purpose of this blog is to draw from the wealth of wisdom and depth of insight in Tolkien’s covertly Christian book in order to shed additional light on the Christian life and the struggle against, not flesh and blood, but spiritual forces that oppose all that is good. Characters and events elaborate and shed additional light on the unseen realities of life. There is much wisdom to be found in Tolkien’s words, wisdom that originated in the Bible and has found new expression on the lips of Gandalf, Aragorn, Faramir, and others in Middle-earth.

There will be some small-minded, rigid people who will eschew the use of Tolkien’s masterpiece for such purposes. To them I say: go elsewhere. I have found solid food and refreshing drink in the realms of Middle-earth. If they are unable to find gold or mithril in The Lord of the Rings, I wish them well in other places. But I will not suffer them to despoil the joy or spiritual food that some may find on this blog. When setting out to hunt the orcs that had taken Merry and Pippin, Legolas said:

No other folk make such a trampling . . . It seems their delight to slash and beat down growing things that are not even in their way.”

Sadly, there are not a few orc-minded Christians roaming the Godblogs. Why they must destroy beauty where others find it, I know not. If they find their way here, however, and seek to tear down that which is being built, I will not allow them to remain. They may certainly go elsewhere to complain, criticize, slander, and be divisive; I, for one, do not care: I will not acknowledge them, link to them, or read them. They can live out their days in their highly-polished bitterness.

But to return and complete my statement regarding the purpose of this blog: it is to encourage those who trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior to serve Him. It is to motivate believers not to lapse into willful or negligent service to Satan, who works through the world to appeal to our fleshly desires. I hope that, in some small way, those who read what is offered here will be strengthened to resist the lord of the kingdom and encouraged to serve the Lord of the Kingdom. In the characters that Tolkien described, qualities both good and evil are cast in a different light. The horror of evil is clearer in its stark contrast to that which is good; the goodness and spiritual depths of the wise of Middle-earth provide examples to be studied and even emulated.

Middle-earth, in the end, is not merely a myth created by Tolkien but a mirror of the True Myth which is the Gospel. There is no one-to-one correspondence to be found – this is not allegory, after all – but that which is revealed and transpires in the Ages of Middle-earth points the way to the One true Lord of the Kingdom while warning us of the lord of the kingdom who seeks to enslaves us in rebellion against the One God.



Namárië.