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“The Biblical Storyline”
Session 11: The King and His Kingdom, Part 3
Introduction/Review
 The theme of kingdom is one along which all of Biblical Theology can be organized
 There are some issues with the theme of kingdom due to our preconceived notions
o Americans don’t like kings or the idea of a king
o We think statically (defined nation, defined borders), where the Bible speaks of it more
dynamically as “the rule of God” and also uses the term in different ways
o We think of it as purely ethics
o We think of it as simply “the church”
 Being a king involves
o Authority/Power
o A Realm
o Exercise of your rule
 It’s possible to be in the kingdom and not know it, and to act in accordance with the ruler or
against the ruler without knowing it
 God’s kingdom is everywhere, at all times, to the full extent, except in limited places and times
where his creatures are allowed to act contrary to His rule for a time.
 God calls humans to rule under Him, on this earth
o Our ‘kingdom’ is the range of our effective will
o This begins by ruling ourselves
o Adam and Eve were called to extend the will of God on earth by using their authority
to align the world with His plans
 After the Fall, there are lots of little kingdoms set up against God’s—where God’s rule is not
complete
 Abraham is the start of re-alignment, in Gen. 12
 When Israel is brought out of Egypt, God calls them a kingdom of priests—the rule of God is
coming to the entire nation
 In Deut. 17 it becomes clear that Israel’s earthly king is appointed in order to align human will
up with God’s will
 The Judges period highlights the need for a godly king
 Saul fails because he is not aligned with God’s will
 The promise to David in 2 Sam. 7 is not met by any of his sons, and Solomon ends up looking
just like the kings of other nations (perhaps worse?)
Kings and their Influences
 Read 1 Kings 11:9-13
o Why did God say he would take the kingdom away from Solomon?
o Is God’s effective reign shrinking or increasing in Israel now?
 It becomes more and more obvious as you read through the books of 1-2 Kings and 1-2
Chronicles that the earthly kings of Israel are never going to align the kingdom of Israel with
the Kingdom of God.
 Read 1 Kings 14:21-24, 15:32-34, 16:25-26; 2 Kings 17:6-8
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o What do you notice about how these kings influenced Israel? What was the eventual
result of their leadership?
Read 2 Kings 18:1-8
o What is it possible for a good king to accomplish?
o What does this tell us about the importance of having a king after God’s own heart?
o If a king were to arise with the ability to fully do the will of God, what potential impact
could that have on his subjects?
Question: If you had to give a brief summary of the theology (view of God) given in the book
of Kings, what would it be?
o God is free, He is sovereign, He is just, but he sometimes shows mercy as well. He will
not be manipulated, and it is foolish to rebel against Him. Yet note that despite all that
Israel has done, they are not destroyed.
The bad rule (that is, rule that did not support the worship of YHWH) of the kings in Israel and
Judah will eventually result in their dispersion/exportation—the ‘kingdom of priests’ which
Israel was supposed to be is now not even a kingdom at all. But they are not completely wiped
out either
A better rule is coming—prophecies
Read Ezekiel 34:1-16
 What was wrong with the shepherds (Kings) of Israel/Judah?
 Who does God say is going to rule them now?
 Read Ezek. 34:23-24
 Who is going to shepherd Israel? Is it God, or David? And if it is David—how is that since he
is dead?
Read Isaiah 9:1-7
 Talks about the Davidic dynasty, but also talks about the Kingdom
 What can we expect when this ruler comes?
Read Micah 5:2-4
 How old is this king who is to come?
 Who will give this king the strength (power) to rule?
 How far will this kingdom extend?
The fully realized kingdom is coming
 Read Daniel 7:13-14, 27
 What do you notice about these prophecies? How ‘big’ will the kingdom of the Son of Man
be? Who else will reign with Him?
 The time is coming when there will no longer be any to oppose the rule of God—when one
like a Son of Man reigns.
 For a time God has given authority, a place to rule, and allowed people to act out their own
rule in opposition to His. But there will be a time when this is no longer allowed—when God’s
rule will be over all, in all, with none to oppose it.
 The question is: when will this rule be set up? And will it be effected immediately, or in some
kind of stages?
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Intertestamental period
 After the return from Exile, the Jewish nation begins to really buckle down on obeying the
law. No longer is worshipping various gods tolerated
 But for all their piety, there is a major flaw in the system:
o The “Law and the Prophets had been twisted around to authorize an oppressive, though
religious, social order that put glittering humans—the rich, the educated, the “wellborn,” the popular, the powerful, and so on—in possession of God.”
o They ‘got’ something—the kingdom rule of God requires obedience, but they totally
missed another element: the need for God to reach in and transform hearts
o The reign of God must extend beyond simply bringing people’s actions into alignment
with the Law—it must extend to our hearts.
 And for us, the same thing can happen. We can reduce the kingdom of God to ‘doing and not
doing.’ If that is all it is, we are no better than before the good news came.
o The good news must be much more than this—it must be good news! Actual good
news! That the presence of God is absolutely present in our lives, in the here and now.
And that His love, his power, his presence, his forgiveness, is here right now despite
our sin. And that He is able to totally transform us from the inside out: That is good
news!
 Good News requires that the Kingdom of God not just be among us, not just be supported by
our actions…but that the kingdom of God be in us. That His rule be effective over all of us.
Otherwise it is not good news.
The Kingdom of Heaven is Here: In Jesus (NDBT 619)
 The book of Matthew starts right away with the clear indication that Jesus is the royal king in
the line of David that Israel was expecting
 Turn to Matthew 1-3
o Right off the bat, Jesus is connected with David. So you already are tied to 2 Samuel 7,
Psalm 2, Isaiah 9, Micah 5:2, etc.
o Then in the genealogy it’s divided into three sets of 14. The first set of 14 takes you
from Abraham to the onset of the Davidic kingdom. The second one is the years of the
Davidic monarchy. The third set of 14 takes you from the end of the Davidic
monarchy to the time of Jesus. It’s slightly artificial because we know of at least three
names left out in the third set. That’s not a problem in Hebrew though—the sonship
thing can extend across generations.
o If the 14 are slightly artificial, they have to be symbol laden in some sense. The reason
is almost certainly one of gematria. We have two symbol systems—letters and
numbers. In the ancient world letters functioned as numbers. At the end of the
alphabet, you got to the end of the numbers. And every word has a numerical
equivalent.
o David’s name is 14 in Hebrew
o Verse 17—harking back to the Mighty God, everlasting Father.
o In chapter 3 and in Jesus’s first preaching, the first message is to repent for the
kingdom of Heaven is here.
 Clearly you’re not just saying that the sovereign reign of God is near—it’s
already here—it’s inescapable. It’s not usefully spoken of as being near.
Inevitably this is talking about the rising expectation for the coming messianic
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king, the coming anointed, the time of the Davidic reign.
 The kingdom of God is available now in a way it was not available before.
Why does Jesus say in Matt. 4:23 that there is ‘good news’ (gospel) about the kingdom of
God? What is this good news?
o The Good News is first and foremost this: The Kingdom of God is here, now, in Jesus.
He fully represents the effective rule of God
o He is the king whose rule lines up perfectly with the rule of God.
o When Jesus acted, God acted, and thus the governance/rule of God was at hand. God
was acting through Him
o And just as good kings in the OT blessed the nation by their rule, so also this king will
bless the nations by His rule which brings the will of God to bear on all people who
come under his influence
o Thus, it’s not surprising that Jesus goes around restoring people, setting wrongs right,
ruling over nature, etc. That is what we would expect the King to do when He comes
The Kingdom is Here, in Us!
 But Jesus does more than just bring the effective rule of God to earth in His actions. He goes
beyond that, and opens up the door for the effective will of God to work in us so that we begin
to act along with God.
 In the presence of Jesus, we now have the option of living within the surrounding movements
of God’s eternal purposes, of taking our life into his life (Willard 16)
 In other words, we now have the option of actually acting as the sub-regents within the
kingdom of God that we were always meant to be—our rule lined up with God’s rule.
 And this rule is available to all, regardless of our qualifications
 Jesus begins to explain how the Kingdom of God has come to earth by describing those who
now have access to the blessings of the kingdom:
 Read Matt. 5:1-12. Who does the kingdom of heaven belong to? What makes you ‘blessed’?
o The question, obviously, is how does the coming of this man from Nazareth open up
the door to the effective rule of God in our lives in a way that all the prophets, all the
kings, all the laws, all the traditions of the Jews could not?
o The only answer must be that In Christ, the law of God has finally been written on our
hearts
 Read Jer. 31:31-34.
o In other words, in Christ, our hearts have become so adjusted that to do the will of the
Father becomes, as Jesus says, our very ‘food.’
o This is exactly what Jesus describes in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount—people
whose lives have become so devoted to the King that His will seeps out of their pores
 Only by completely transforming our hearts can God turn us from people setting up our own
will, our own imposed rules, into people who voluntarily live according to the will of the
Father. This can only happen through his initiating grace in our lives. He changes us.
 Read Mark 4:26-32
o Does the kingdom of God come all at once? Is it very obvious right away?
o What does that indicate about the will of God seeping into our own lives? Does it
happen all at once, so that we automatically are totally aligned with His will right
away?
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o What about in the Church—should we expect that the church is completely aligned
with the will of God all the time?
In Jesus, the Kingdom of God became available in a way that it was not available before—the
reign of God in us became a real possibility, deep in our souls, in a way that it wasn’t before.
But there is a definite sense of ‘already, but not yet.’
God’s universal rule of Daniel 7 is not complete—in our own lives or in the world.
We are living in the time between times still.
And part of the continuing, advancing kingdom of God is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the
church, which we will talk more about next week as we head toward the final consummation
of the reign of God over all things, on earth as it is in Heaven.