What do we conjure up in our minds when we hear a word like “king” or “monarch”? Doubtless it depends in part on where we live in the world. The last king that America had, King George III, by and large is not held in very good regard. America is a democratic republic, thank you, and we neither want nor need a monarch. Probably we do not want to go quite as far in our anti-royalty and anti-clerical assessment of things as Voltaire, who said that he would be satisfied when the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. Nevertheless, whatever monarchs there are in the world, we are pretty glad they are not here but over there somewhere. If we are in a more positive mood, we might think of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and then we concede that royal pomp has its attractions. They sure know how to put on a decent royal wedding, don’t they, with prancing horses and gold-encrusted chariots and spectacular crowns and those long trumpets with such a shrill, piercing sound? There is something pretty entrancing about that, isn’t there? Mind you, Queen Elizabeth II is a constitutional monarch, which is a polite way of saying that she does not have much real power. She is limited by a constitutional structure, apart from whatever moral influence or advice she might offer to her prime minister.
This is very different from, let us say, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Although some constraint comes from the larger family, this is closer to an absolute kingdom. It is different again from the kingdom of Thailand. The Thais love their king. You really cannot speak any word against royalty in Thailand. The people would not have it, even though the limitations on his power are quite significant.
God’s Kingdom over All
So perceptions of what we mean by “king” and “monarch” differ in different parts of the world. In biblical times, however, there was no understanding of what we mean today by “constitutional monarch.” If you are a king, you reign! That is what kings do. You have the authority. The fact of the matter is that God is often presented in Scripture as the king. The Psalms say, for example, “The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all” (Ps. 103:19). And Daniel 4:35 says, “He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’” This is another way of saying that his sovereignty covers absolutely every domain. That is built into the very creation account: he made everything, it is all his, and he continues to reign. He remains sovereign over the whole lot. In that sense you and I are in the kingdom of God whether we like it or not. You cannot not be in the kingdom of God in this sense. If he really does reign over all, even those who disbelieve him, who hate him, and who think that there are other gods are in God’s kingdom.
God’s Kingdom over Israel
The notion of the kingdom of God—the reign of God—is in fact very flexible in Scripture. You have to pay attention to the context to make sense of what is being said in any particular passage. In the Old Testament, once God has called his people—the Hebrews, the Israelites—to himself, first with the covenant with Abraham and then with the covenant under Moses’s leadership, God is still understood to be the king of his people. God himself is to be their ruler, their king. In that sense the Israelites constitute his nation. You are under his kingship in that sense only if you belong to this covenant community. This is rather different from the notion of God’s reign that is roughly equivalent to the limitless extent of his providential sway. For the moment, however, we shall focus on the small scope—the way God reigns over his covenantal people, the Israelites.
The Book of Judges
After the people finally get into the promised land, they go through cycles that are really depressing. After two or three generations, what they knew of God’s kindness in the past—of how he had spared them, how he had secured them, how he had provided for all of their needs—is forgotten, and they become virtually indistinguishable from the pagans all around them. After a time God sanctions earthly judgments of various kinds. For instance, they are attacked and harassed by other tribes living in the area—Midianites or others. Eventually they cry out to God again for mercy, forbearance, and forgiveness.
God then raises up a judge. This judge leads the people in renewal and in small pitched battles against some of their oppressors, and the people reestablish themselves and renew their covenantal vows to be faithful before God. Then in another two or three generations, everybody forgets, and they collectively slide down in disgrace and shame to various forms of really awful debauchery, let alone the idolatry that underlies it. There follows another round of judgment, another desperate appeal to God for help. Then God raises up another judge, and the cycle begins all over again. The downward spirals in the book of Judges are so appalling that in the last two or three chapters it is really difficult to read them in public because they are so grotesque and barbaric. As the book progresses, you begin to hear a sad, repeated refrain: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit” (Judges 21:25). This is the way the book ends: bloody mayhem. It is as if the book ends by saying, “O God, how we need a king to order our lives and secure our nation.”
Saul
Pretty soon you discover that some people want a king not so they can be a little more secure, or so that somebody in authority can hold them to be covenantally faithful, or to police things when the moral and ethical fabric is being torn apart. No, some of the people want a king simply so that they can be more like the pagan nations all around, all of whom have their own petty kings. The cry, in effect, is this: “We want to be like them. They seem to have things in civil order. We would like to have exactly the same sort of constitutional arrangement.” God says, “All right, if you really want a king, we’ll go ahead, but you will be sorry!” God marks out for them a strapping young man by the name of Saul, who seems suitably humble, diffident (he doesn’t really want the job), and careful; he loves the Lord. Yet in a few short years he becomes a corrupt, paranoid, fearful, brutal, and ungodly man who craves more power. Anybody he sees as a threat to his authority, he wants to kill. It’s a mess (see 1 Samuel 8–31).
David
But God raises up another king. He says, “Now let me show you, at least in principle, what a good king would be like. Here is a man after my own heart.
His name is David.” So after Saul is gone, David becomes king. Initially he turns out to be a very good king, an able administrator. He secures the frontier; he unites the tribes. Eventually he moves his capital from the little town of Hebron to Jerusalem—the same site as modern Jerusalem. He establishes himself there and brings a measure of order, peace, and prosperity (see 1 Samuel 16; 2 Samuel 1–5).
2 Samuel 7
“After the king [i.e., King David] was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, he said to Nathan the prophet, ‘Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent’” (2 Sam. 7:1–2).
That “ark of God” is what was described in the last chapter. The ark was a box placed in the Most Holy Place, a box that held certain elements in it, including the stone tablets on which were written the Ten Commandments. The top of the ark of God was where the blood was sprinkled on the Day of Atonement. At this juncture in Israel’s history, about 1000 BC, this ark of God still resides in a tent—a tabernacle. “I am living in a cedar palace,” David says to Nathan. “The place where God meets with his priests is nothing but a pretty tent.”
3Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you.”
4But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying:
5“Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? 6I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. 7Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’
8“Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 9I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. 10And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning 11and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.
“‘The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: 12When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by human beings, with floggings inflicted by human hands. 15But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’”
17Nathan reported to David all the words of this entire revelation.
18Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and he said:
“Who am I, Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? 19And as if this were not enough in your sight, Sovereign Lord, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant—and this decree, Sovereign Lord, is for a human being!
20“What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, Sovereign Lord. 21For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant.
22“How great you are, Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. 23And who is like your people Israel—the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, and to make a name for himself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? 24You have established your people Israel as your very own forever, and you, Lord, have become their God.
25“And now, Lord God, keep forever the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house. Do as you promised, 26so that your name will be great forever. Then people will say, ‘The Lord Almighty is God over Israel!’ And the house of your servant David will be established in your sight.
27“Lord Almighty, God of Israel, you have revealed this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build a house for you.’ So your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. 28Sovereign Lord, you are God! Your covenant is trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant. 29Now be pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever in your sight; for you, Sovereign Lord, have spoken, and with your blessing the house of your servant will be blessed forever.”
2 Samuel 7:3–29
The king was supposed to be God’s vice-regent, the under-king. God still remained the king, the final sovereign over all the people, but the king was supposed to mediate God’s justice to the people, to mediate God and his ways and his laws to the entire people. But here we have a remarkable set of relationships.
1. A King with Religious Initiatives Restrained (2 Samuel 7:1–11)
King David wants to do God a favor. He is now settled. The very first verse says that the nation is enjoying rest. (Notice this theme of rest again: rest from their enemies, rest in the promised land.) David looks around. He has been in the new capital city long enough to obtain a fine palace for himself, yet the center for corporate worship for the entire nation is still this now slightly ratty tent. He may remember that the book of Deuteronomy, back at the time of Moses, had foreseen a permanent center, so he thinks, “Well, it’s about time. Why shouldn’t I be the person to build it? That’s what I would like to do.” And Nathan the prophet says, in effect, “Great idea. God’s with you. Go right ahead.” Then God intervenes and says to Nathan, “Not quite so fast. This is not the way it is going to happen.” And God gives two or three reasons why it will not be so:
1. God alone takes the initiative in these turning points in the story of the Bible (see 2 Sam. 7:5–7). Have we not seen this already? Think back to Abraham. Does he wake up one day and in his devotions say something like this?
God, quite frankly this world seems to me to be sliding to hell in a teapot. I think we should do something about it. I think we should start some new race among the human race, a kind of subunit. I’d like to head it. I’ll be the great-granddaddy of this entire new humanity. We’ll call them “Hebrews.” You can be our God, and we’ll be your people. You tell us what to do, and we’ll obey you. And we’ll start off this whole new dynastic structure. Isn’t that a great idea? And this new race, this new covenant community, will show the world what it’s like to be in right relationship with you.
Is that the way it happened? No, God took the initiative: he called Abraham, moved him to the land, and gave him a covenant. Even in that scene in the middle of the night where God puts himself under a kind of covenant vow to look after his people, God himself takes the initiative to walk that bloody alleyway alone (see Genesis 15). God takes the initiative in Genesis 22 to provide a lamb.
Or think of Moses. When he was a young man, Moses did wonder about the possibility of starting a revolution and leading the people out of slavery. In fact, he got caught up in a murder, so he had to run for his life. He lived on the back side of a desert for the next half century or so. In fact, when God did take the initiative, Moses was not too keen on going: “God, I’m getting a bit old now, and I have a speech impediment. I’m not a leader. I’m just a shepherd.” But God takes the initiative and in due course uses Moses.
God will not share his glory with anybody else. God is really not open to our suggestions about how to run the universe, and that is in effect his first objection: “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? All along I’ve been living in this tabernacle. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’” (see 2 Sam. 7:5–7). It is not that the temple will not be built. In fact, it is going to be built in the next generation. The task is going to be assigned to David’s son, King Solomon. But God will take the initiative.
2. God makes his servants great—not the other way around (see 2 Sam. 7:8–11). God said,
8Now then, tell my servant David, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 9I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth.”
2 Samuel 7:8–9, emphasis added
Deep down, perhaps David is beginning to think that he is going to do God a favor. If he can build a bigger temple than the neighboring pagans build for their gods, then isn’t he showing that the true God is more magnificent than their gods? David is going to magnify God’s name and do God a favor. But God says, in effect, “It doesn’t work like that. I’m the one who makes your name great.”
In certain contexts it is wonderful for believers to try to magnify God’s name, but not ever because they succumb to the illusion that they are thereby doing God a favor. Worshiping God, magnifying his name, ought to be the response of gratitude and adoration—not somehow saying, “The pagans worship their gods. We can out-worship them because in a competition we can make your name greater than they can make their gods’ names great.” God says, “You’ve got this entirely wrong. I make your name great, not the other way around. You were a shepherd boy. Not only have I made you a king, I’m about to make your name resound down the ages.”
Today there are millions of Christians all over the world who know the name of David. Many of them have never heard of Alexander the Great. They do not know much about King Tut. But David’s name has come down to us across three thousand years.
The chapter begins, as we have seen, with a king with religious initiatives restrained, and it is in this context that God next gives an amazing promise.
2. A Dynasty with an Unending Promise Disclosed (2 Sam. 7:11–17)
“The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you” (2 Sam. 7:11). There is a pun here, of course. David wanted to build a “house,” that is, a temple for God. God’s going to build a “house,” that is, a household, a dynasty for David. “You want to build a house for me?” You can almost see God smiling. “I’m going to build a house for you. Let me tell you how I will do it.”
12When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name [i.e., Solomon would build the temple], and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.14 I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by human beings, with floggings inflicted by human hands. 15But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.
2 Samuel 7:12–16
Two or three observations clarify what the passage is saying:
1. David is aware that his predecessor, Saul, started well and ended badly, and in consequence, Saul’s son Jonathan never got to the throne. No dynasty was ever established. It was a one-generation dynasty (if you can speak of a dynasty in one generation). There was so much wickedness by the end that God said, “This is not going to continue.” Even if David remains faithful all his life (and in point of fact, he had his own pretty horrible lapses), who guarantees what happens in the next generation and in the generation after that? If you are royalty, you are concerned with preserving the family line, the dynasty, the house—whether the house of Windsor (for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II) or, in this case, the house of David. Reassuringly, God says, “I’m going to build a house for you such that even if your son does something wrong—even if he is really wicked—I will not remove him from the throne the way I removed Saul, leaving him without a successor to establish the family dynasty. I will not do that. I will preserve your house, your household.”
So there may be some temporal infliction of punishment. There may be some temporary chastening. There may be nations that rise up against your nation. There may be things of that sort. But God will not impose the final sanction that wipes out the line. That is what God promises to David.
2. What does God mean when he says, “I will be his father, and he will be my son” (7:14)?
For us sonship has to do with DNA. How many television shows, not least the various CSI series on television, use DNA to discover who the real father is, which person is the real son? Bound up with this science are paternity suits. Sonship is first of all a matter of genetic descent. But the ancient world saw things a bit differently. Physical descent told only part of the story; there was also the descent of work and identity.
How many men today are working in the same vocation as their fathers did at the same age? How many women are doing vocationally today what their mothers did? I have asked this question in many Western contexts, and I have never found that more than five or six percent could answer affirmatively, and often fewer. By contrast, in the ancient world if your father is a baker, you become a baker; if your father is a farmer, you become a farmer; if your father’s name is Stradivari, then you make violins. In other words, in an agricultural, tradecraft, preindustrial society, in the overwhelming majority of cases the son ends up doing what his father did, and the daughter ends up doing what her mother did. Today’s notions of freedom are such that we go away from home to university or to a technical college and get a job somewhere else and pursue some vocation entirely removed from family tradition. Such freedom was frankly unthinkable a mere three or four hundred years ago, except in rare instances. So as a result you became identified not only by the family name but by the family’s profession. That is why Jesus came to be called “the son of the carpenter”: Joseph, recognized as his father, was a carpenter. Indeed, in one place Jesus himself is called “the carpenter.” Apparently his father, Joseph, has died, and Jesus himself has taken over the family business. Joseph was a carpenter. What do you expect Jesus to be? He’s a carpenter.
This vocational pattern meant that in the normal course of events the father taught the boy his trade. Certainly there was no higher education. In later Judaism, local synagogues might teach the sons basic reading and writing. Well-to-do families might hire people to teach basic educational skills, or even more advanced book learning, to a handful of children. But your trade, what you learned to make a living, that sort of training you received from your father. If he was a farmer, he taught you when to plant the seed, when to irrigate, how to read the weather, how to build a decent fence, and that sort of thing. Because of the son’s identification with the father’s vocation, the notion of sonship took on a broader set of associations than it has on CSI.
Out of this social matrix come a lot of biblical metaphors. For example, here and there in the Bible someone is called a “son of Belial,” which means a “son of worthlessness.” This is not saying that the father is Mr. Worthless. What it is saying is that this person’s character is so worthless that he must belong to the worthless family; that is the only adequate explanation. Jesus gives us a saying that illustrates these kinds of metaphors: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9 ESV). The idea is that God himself is the supreme peacemaker, so if you make peace, then in that respect at least you are acting like God; you show yourself to be a son of God. Jesus’s saying is not telling you how to become a Christian. It is saying that in this one respect, you are doing what God does, so you are acting like God and show yourself to be his “son.”
Elsewhere, when Jesus is debating with some Jewish opponents (see John 8), he claims that his teaching will set them free, and they respond, in effect, “How can this be? We are ourselves the true sons of Abraham. We are the true heritage here, and this heritage sets us free.” Jesus replies, “If you sin, you are a slave to sin, and only I can set you free. I know that physically you are Abraham’s descendants, but you are not responding to revelation the way Abraham did. You are responding the way your father does.” They up the ante and say, “We’re not only sons of Abraham. We’re sons of God. God himself is our real Father.” Jesus replies, in effect, “Can’t be. I come from God. God knows me, and I know God. If you do not recognize me, then you cannot be sons of God. Let me tell you who your real daddy is. You are of your father the devil. He was a murderer from the beginning, and you are trying to murder me. He was a liar from the beginning, and you are not telling the truth about me.”
Obviously Jesus is not denying that his opponents really are sons of Abraham, genetically speaking. They are. Nor is he suggesting that somehow demons copulated with women to produce some sort of bastard crew. He is saying that at the level of behavior, they are acting like the devil. That makes them sons of the devil.
That is the use of “son” terminology going on here in 2 Samuel 7. It is used to refer to kings. If God is the supreme king over this people, then when the human person comes to the throne in the line of David, he becomes God’s “son.” This does not mean he literally takes on divine nature or anything of that sort. It simply means that he is now acting as God’s son in God’s place in the king-family, as it were. God rules over his covenantal people; he is concerned to administer justice and preserve faithfulness to the covenant. If a king in David’s line does that, he is acting as God’s son. That is the nature of the promise that is given here. “He [i.e., the heir of David] is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son” (7:13–14, emphasis added).
But sons can go astray. What then? “When he does wrong,” God adds, “I will punish him with a rod wielded by human beings, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you” (7:14–15).
3. There is one more thing to understand from this passage: “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever” (7:16). In other words, God is not only promising that the Davidic line will endure to the next generation, the generation of Solomon when the temple will be built, even if Solomon turns out to be quite wicked. Rather, God is saying that this dynasty will go on and on; it will be established forever.
Such a promise could be fulfilled in only two ways. One is for every generation to produce a new Davidic heir so that the throne is passed to the next heir and the next heir and the next heir and the next heir, world without end. That’s one way this promise could be fulfilled. The only other possible way is not even mentioned here. In theory, however, if you could eventually have an heir in the Davidic line who himself lives forever, the promise could be fulfilled that way.
This promise is given around 1000 BC. It is the precursor to a number of other promises to Davidic kings across the centuries. Most of us, I’m sure, have listened to Handel’s Messiah, which cites Isaiah 9, which was written late in the eighth century BC, more than two hundred years after the promise to David. Isaiah envisions a coming king: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. . . . He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom” (Isa. 9:6–7, emphasis added). In other words, he will be a Davidic son who is thus also a “son of God,” standing in under God as God’s vice-regent. “Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end” (Isa. 9:7). “He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6).
The language is extraordinary: a son of David who is to be called “Mighty God” and “Everlasting Father”? I do not imagine that Isaiah himself entirely understood the full extent of his own prophecy, but on the face of it, it seems to be promising that somehow there would be a Davidic descendant, someone in the line and heritage of David, who himself would rightly be addressed as none less than God himself. (We shall shortly see that there are other prophets who make similar promises.) Here is the anticipation of a Davidic descendant who would vastly surpass his esteemed ancestor.
3. A King with Spectacular Privileges Humbled (2 Sam. 7:18–27)
David is hushed and crushed by what has been promised him, and basically his plea now is not, “Let me build a temple for you and do something for you.” Now it is all gratitude: “I do not deserve this. This is wonderful. All I ask, dear God, sovereign Lord, is that you keep your promise.”
From King David to King Jesus
All this takes place, as I’ve said, about 1000 BC. There are a lot of intervening developments before Jesus appears. After several centuries, the Davidic kingdom itself has become corrupt. A mere two generations later, the kingdom splits into a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom, and David’s line rules over only the south. Two and a half more centuries go by, and the northern kingdom never has established a dynasty. Kings come and kings go; the new usurper comes and slaughters all the children of the previous one. It is a brutal mess replete with many forms of idolatry. Eventually the leaders are carted off into captivity under the Assyrian Empire. Another century and a half goes by and the Davidic dynasty itself is so corroded and corrupted, despite occasional times of revival and renewal, that at the beginning of the sixth century (about 587 BC), it is destroyed. The Babylonians have taken over. Many of the leaders are taken into exile, this time under the Babylonian Empire, which has replaced the Assyrian.
In due course God brings some of them back: initially, only about fifty thousand or so. They rebuild the temple that had been burned down, but by comparison with the great temple built in the time of David’s son Solomon, this structure is a pathetic little affair. There is still no king. By this time they are living under Persian rule, which gives way to Greek authority and then to the Roman Empire. So we travel all the way down to the turning of the ages from BC to AD, and still there is no restored Davidic king on the throne. The Israelites always find themselves under one authority or another. Now the regional superpower is Rome, and the local monarchs are ruthless petty kings like the Herods.
Then you open up the pages of the New Testament, the part of the Bible that begins by telling us what happens in the time of Jesus. What is the very first line of the very first book of the New Testament? “This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1). Here is the fulfillment of the promise of the Davidic king. (The word “Messiah” is the Hebrew equivalent of “Christ” and refers to someone who is “anointed” or set aside for a particular task.)
When Jesus begins his public ministry, he announces the dawning of the kingdom, and he uses the word “kingdom” in a variety of ways. For example, he says something like this: “The kingdom is like a man who plants wheat in a field, good seed in a field, and then at night some hooligans come by and they plant a lot of weeds. The wheat and the weeds grow up together. The servants of the man say, ‘Should we go out and try to pull out the weeds now?’ ‘No, no, let both grow until the end, and there will be a final separation at the end.’ That is what the kingdom is like.” In other words, here you have a picture of the kingdom that is embracing this world with both good seed growing and bad seed growing. It includes Billy Graham and Adolf Hitler. There is good seed and there are weeds, and they are both to grow until the end when there will be a final division. That is one perspective on the kingdom.
But elsewhere, in John 3 (in a passage we’ll look at later), Jesus says, “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5). Now according to this notion of the kingdom, not everyone is in it. Everybody is in the other one; you are either wheat or weeds. But in this notion of the kingdom, you now have a subset of God’s reign, of God’s rule, of God’s kingdom, under which there is life. Only those who are born again can enter or see this kingdom.
To mention further variations: sometimes Jesus speaks of the kingdom as already having dawned. It is already here, operating secretly, as it were. It is like yeast that is put into dough; it is already quietly working and having its effect. Yet elsewhere Jesus speaks of the kingdom as what comes at the end when there is a final consummation and tremendous transformation. So the kingdom is already; seen another way, it has not yet come. All these notions of kingdom center on Jesus the king.
After World War II a Swiss theologian named Oscar Cullmann used one of the turning points in the war to explain some of these notions. He drew attention to what happened on D-day, June 6, 1944. By this time the Western allies had already cleaned out North Africa and had started pushing up the boot of Italy. The Russians were coming in from the steppes; they had already defended Stalingrad, and they were pushing their way to and through Poland and other Eastern European countries. And now on D-day the Western allies landed on the beaches of Normandy, and in three days they dumped 1.1 million men and tons and tons of war materiel. There was a second Western front. Anybody with half a brain in his head could see that the war was over. After all, in terms of energy, war materiel, the numbers of soldiers, and the way all of these lines and trajectories were converging, the war was over. Does that mean that Hitler said, “Oops, I miscalculated” and pleaded for peace? No. What came next was the Battle of the Bulge where he almost made it right through to the coast of France again, except that he ran out of fuel. There followed the battle for Berlin, which was one of the bloodiest of the entire war. So the war was not over yet. A year later the war finally ended in Europe, after the combatants had navigated this massive gap between D-day and VE-day (Victory in Europe).
Cullmann says that the experience of Christians is like that. The promised king came. That is our D-day: the coming of Jesus and his cross and resurrection. After rising from the dead, Jesus declares, according to the last verses of Matthew’s Gospel, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18). He is the king. But does that mean that the devil says, “Oops, I miscalculated. I think I had better plead for peace”? Does it mean that human beings will say, “Okay, okay, you’ve risen from the dead. You’ve won. We’d better bow the knee”? No, what it means is that you have some of the fiercest fighting left because Jesus has not yet defeated all of his enemies. He reigns. All of God’s sovereignty is mediated through king Jesus. The kingdom has dawned. It is here. And you are either in this kingdom in the new-birth sense or you are not. Alternatively, if you conceive of Jesus’s total reign (all authority is already his), you are in this kingdom whether you like it or not. The question is whether you bow the knee now, cheerfully in repentance and faith and thanksgiving, or wait until the end to bend the knee in holy terror. The end is coming; the Christian VE-day is coming, and there is no doubt who will be seen to be king on the last day.
When Paul writes to Christians in the city of Corinth in about the middle of the first century, he describes Jesus as the king with all of God’s sovereignty mediated through him: “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:25–26). Death will die. This, of course, picks up exactly what happened in Genesis 1, 2, and 3. Over against this massive rebellion that tried to de-god God, a rebellion that brought only death and decay, stands Jesus Christ. King Jesus has already beaten death, and he continues as God’s own king in David’s line. Yet though he is a man in David’s line, he is the one who is called “Mighty God, Everlasting Father” (Isa. 9:6). And he will reign until he has destroyed the last enemy: death itself. This is why the church stands up and sings, again and again, “Hail, King Jesus.” We need a king—one who is perfectly righteous, who cannot be corrupted, who is entirely good, in whom there is never any taint of evil. He powerfully saves and transforms his people, who come to him and gladly acknowledge his Lordship.
Hail, King Jesus.