Acts 5:31 “God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior.”

No Christian doubts that Jesus is royalty, royalty of a sort that far surpasses all the nobility in all the world.

But Peter’s understanding of the term “Prince” does not include some of the notions that word suggests to us nearly 2000 years later. The stress is not on making and enforcing of laws. That Jesus does this is, of course, true. But that is not his main concern with us.

When we Christians see Jesus mainly as heavenly law enforcement, we wind up with all kinds of distortions in our relationship to him. We feel less cared for and more watched. We experience less peace and more fear. We serve less freely, less joyfully, and more driven. A big, threatening, otherworldly cop tapping his billy club in his hand is not the picture of Jesus Peter wants us to see as we look to God’s right hand.

Nor does Peter choose the term “Prince” to suggest that Jesus is something less than the King. He is not junior royalty, royalty in training, rather than the Ruler of heaven and earth. Many times we would happily demote Jesus to such a figurehead position. Then we feel free to take issue with him on some pet desire of ours. I have heard otherwise sober Christians challenge a direct quote from Christ when they didn’t want to give up a selfish practice or let go of a cherished misbelief. We presume to be Jesus’ teachers, instead of his students; to explain to him how things really work or what is really right.

No, in calling Jesus Prince, Peter brings to mind another function of royalty. It is often forgotten in our time. In medieval times people believed that God had created three estates on earth: the clergy to pray, the nobility to fight and defend, and the peasants to produce food. The idea that the nobility had the responsibility to fight for the people they ruled was not unique to that time. It stretches at least as far back as the Kings and Judges of Israel. Every year King David went to war to protect his people against attackers.

This is the sense in which Jesus is our “Prince:” a hero or champion who will fight to defend his people. He didn’t leave us in the struggle with sin alone. He didn’t even give us a part in overcoming the debt created by our guilt. He took the whole battle on himself when he let our sin kill him in our place.

Nor did he sit back and watch the futility with which we attack death. The whole human race puts its collective heads together. We gather all our technology and medical know-how, and what do we accomplish? We drive death back a few months here, a couple of years there. The life expectancy for an average American grows or shrinks by a year or two. When he rose from the dead, Jesus didn’t merely extend our life expectancy. He destroyed death altogether. Now the life expectancy of the average Christian is infinity, because our Prince defeated our enemy and gives us life that never ends.

Can you think of a better place to see Jesus as our Princely Protector than at the right hand of God? There he has all the weapons he needs to defend our faith. This Prince at God’s right hand is fighting on our side.