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Theocracy in Redemptive History By Sam Waldron

 And now we'll come to Roman numeral three, the theological crux of theonomic ethics.
The theocracy in redemptive history.
The theocracy in redemptive history.
Now this assessment has focused attention repeatedly on the subject of the theocracy
as critical in the debate over theonomy.
My subject must now be addressed biblically.
Now, A under this is the nature of the theocracy, A, the nature of theocracy.
Any treatment of the theocratic kingdom confronts itself, first of all, with the task of defining
the term theocracy.
Although this term is a venerable member of theological vocabulary, exactly defining it
is beset with difficulties.
Not that its meaning etymologically or superficially is in doubt.
Etymologically, it simply is God rule.
Webster recognizes that recognizing its native civil context properly defines it as the rule
of a state by God or a God.
When one attempts a theological or biblical definition, however, problems arise.
Theocracy is not a biblical word.
Josephus seems to have been the one who coined it.
Worse yet, theocracy is a loaded word with a long history of theological controversy.
Webster's definition, while accurate, lacks clarity.
The Bible's most basic teaching regarding civil government is that it owes its origin
to God and is accountable to him, Psalm 82, Romans 13, 1 Peter 2.
Thus, Webster's definition might permit us to regard every state as, at least ideally,
a theocracy.
Yet, if anything is clear, it is that something more distinctive, more unique, is meant by
the term.
This brings us to the first and controlling aspect of the definition of theocracy, number
one.
I have four.
There ought to be nothing startling in God's claim to be king.
As creator, he is sovereign of all, Psalm 74, Psalm 93, Psalm 103.
It is not merely this dominion that God claims when he proclaims himself king of Israel.
Thus, it is not merely this general dominion that the term theocracy designates.
For it is specifically God's kingship in Israel that is the proper starting point of both
Josephus' use of the word and its precise theological use.
Oler's words need qualification, but as a starting point for the definition of theocracy,
they are accurate.
The Old Testament idea of the divine kingship expresses not God's general revelation of
power toward the world as being its creator and supporter, but the special revelation
of his government toward his elect people.
This meaning of God's kingship pervades the Old Testament and is a prominent characterization
of its peculiar relation to Israel, Psalm 44, Psalm 68, Isaiah 41.
This becomes most pointed when Yahweh is viewed as the commander of Israel's army, Exodus
12, Exodus 17, Numbers 10, Numbers 21, Numbers 23.
Yahweh's assumption of kingship over Israel is related to the Exodus period in Israel's
history, and most specifically to the covenant making at Sinai.
Deuteronomy 33, one through five is probably the locus classicus here.
Why don't, uh, uh, Jimmy, oh, who's got the Old Testament, Jim?
Deuteronomy 33, one through five.
Now this is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the sons of Israel
before his death.
And he said, the Lord came from Sinai and dawned on them from Seder, he shone forth
from Mount Coran and he came from the midst of 10,000 holy ones, at his right hand there
was flashing lightning for them.
Indeed, he loves the people.
All thy holy ones are in thy hand and they followed in thy steps.
Everyone received with thy words.
Moses charged us with a law, a possession for the assembly of Jacob.
He was king in Jethro, when the heads of the people were gathered, the tribes of Israel
together.
Now I hope that your Bibles capitalize the pronoun he in verse five because it is a reference
not to Moses but to God himself.
Now this text identifies the timing of Yahweh's kingship with the Sinai covenant making.
Note in particular a reference to the covenant meal with Israel's leaders in verse five,
which is a reference back to Exodus 24, one through 12.
Also compare Exodus 19, five and six.
Isaiah, in his discussion of the new Exodus, refers frequently to the original Exodus as
the period of Israel's national creation.
Isaiah 43, 15 thus identifies Yahweh's kingship with this period.
I am Yahweh your holy one, the creator of Israel, your king.
When was Israel created?
Oh, it's Sinai, most especially.
In similar manner, Yahweh's kingship over Israel is closely related to his being Israel's
Redeemer, a designation which clearly recalls the Exodus period.
Such references give a broader and more dynamic view of Yahweh's kingship over Israel and
its origin, but one that nonetheless corroborates the idea that Yahweh's kingship over Israel
and the Sinai covenant are inextricably related.
Compare also Psalm 10, 16.
Oler comments, the patriarchs called him Lord and Shepherd, and it is not until he has formed
for himself a people by bringing Israel up out of Egypt that he has called, Exodus 15,
18, he who is king forever and ever.
Now, this makes sense, what Oler says, is obviously only over a nation which one may
be king and not merely a family or a clan.
You're not king of a family, you may be shepherd and lord of a family, you're not king of a
family, you're king over a nation.
The natural conclusion that one might draw from all of this is that God would occupy
the place human kings occupied in other nations.
Some might think such a conclusion simplistic.
They might also wonder how this relates to the Davidic kingship later instituted and
previously prophesied.
Nonetheless, this is apparently precisely the conclusion that the pervasive teaching
of the Old Testament demands that we draw.
Yahweh occupied just the place human kings did in other commonwealths.
Compare Judges 8, 23, 1 Samuel 8, 1 Samuel 12, 2 Chronicles 13, 8.
This is also implied by the defect, humanly speaking, of the Mosaic civil order in that
no definite office of executive power is appointed at the Exodus period.
Oler comments, the Mosaic theocracy presents the peculiar phenomenon of being originally
unprovided with a definite office for executing the power of the state.
We may conclude with the words of McPheeters, if the foregoing be a correct account of the
idea expressed by the word theocracy, and particularly if the foregoing be a correct
account of the Old Testament representation of God's relation to and rule in and over
Israel.
It follows as a matter, of course, that the realization of such an idea was only possible
within the sphere of what is known as special revelation.
Indeed, special revelation of the divine will through divinely chosen organs to divinely
appointed executive agents is itself the very essence of the idea of theocracy.
So the first thing we've done is relate theocracy to God's special kingship over Israel and
that special kingship over Israel to the Sinai period, into the Sinai covenant.
Two, second aspect of theocracy is the direct promulgation by special revelation of a specific
and detailed civil order.
The direct promulgation by special revelation of a specific and detailed civil order.
As a matter of fact, it is precisely this divinely revealed civil order that is often
in mind when the term theocracy is used.
It is both interesting and appropriate in light of what has just been said about the
formal assumption of kingship over Israel by Yahweh at Sinai, that the giving of this
civil law order occupies a prominent place in the Sinaitic covenant.
This becomes clear in all sorts of ways.
Deuteronomy 33, one through five, specifically mentions as part and parcel of Yahweh's kingship
the law that Moses gave us, the possession of the assembly.
There is a civil, at least a formal, possibly an ecclesiastical word, the assembly of Jacob.
Moses charged us for the law of possession for the assembly of Jacob and God was king
in Jeshurun.
You see the relationship?
The contextual reference makes it impossible in the light of that historical record to
exclude a reference here to the book of the covenant, Exodus 21 through 23, the epitome
of the civil law order of Israel.
Also interesting is the reference to the law as the possession of the assembly of Jacob,
a reference to Israel as a formal civil as well as religious entity.
All this already implies the prominence of the civil law order in the Exodus account.
Immediately after the speaking of the 10 words by God himself in Exodus 20, but before the
ratification of the covenant by blood and the covenant meal in chapter 24, between those
two things, compare Hebrews 9 18, there intervenes the promulgation of the divine civil law order
of the theocratic kingdom in chapters 21 through 23.
These chapters epitomize this order.
Note Hebrews 9 19, when Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people,
he took the blood.
Now the reference there is to Exodus 24 and to the events of Exodus 24 as coming after
Moses has commanded every commandment of the law.
Now it's hard to exclude a reference therefore to the book of the covenant, the civil order
in verse in chapters 21 through 23, which immediately preceded his taking the blood.
Now this is not to say that this civil law order is not later expanded.
It is to say that Exodus 21 through 23 are the epitome of this order.
The civil character of the laws of 21 1 through 23 13 of Exodus is evident from a cursory
reading.
Now this brief exposition of the prominence of a divinely revealed civil or national order
in the theocracy may be concluded by a reference to Deuteronomy 4 5 to 8.
See I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the Lord my God commanded me that
you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it.
So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the
peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise
and understanding people.
For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God whenever
we call upon him?
Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law
which I am setting before you today?
Now in that statement is preeminently, the very context proves it, the civil order that
is in view.
What nation has such wise statutes?
This is clear first of all from the fact that it is Israel as a nation, a civil order,
contrast with the other nations which is in view.
Further the terms statutes and judgments are contrasted in Deuteronomy with the ten words
of the covenant itself.
What I'm saying is that the phraseology statutes and judgments is used over against and in
contrast with and distinction from the ten words of the covenant itself.
Deuteronomy 4, 12-14, Deuteronomy 5, 1-3, and Deuteronomy 5, 30-63.
So here there seems to be a specific reference to the civil order in contrast to the covenant
itself, to the ten commandments.
This civil order was one of the glories of theocratic Israel.
Note Isaiah 33, 22, the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our
king, he will save us.
So that's the second aspect of theocracy that's integral to a definition of it biblically.
A third characteristic of the theocracy, one which is often at the heart of its theological
usage is what we would call the union of church and state in the theocratic kingdom.
Ola remarks, church and state, if we may speak thus, are here joined in immediate union.
Fairbairn marks this idea out as the key idea of the theocracy.
He says, first then, in respect to the true idea of the theocracy, wherein stood its distinctive
nature.
It stood in the formal exhibition of God as king or supreme head of the commonwealth,
so that all authority and law emanated from him.
And by necessary consequence, there were not two societies in the ordinary sense, civil
and religious, but a fusion of the two into one body, or as we might express it from a
modern point of view, a merging together of church and state.
And this is simply the idea embodied in the Jewish theocracy.
It is the fact of Jehovah condescending to occupy in Israel such a center of power and
authority.
He proclaimed himself king in Jeshurun.
Israel became the commonwealth with which he more peculiarly associated his presence
and his glory.
Not only the seat of his worship, but his throne also was in Zion, both his sanctuary
and his dominion.
So because God is king, Israel becomes at one and the same time a church and a state.
And those things cannot ultimately be separated because God is the king of Israel.
Many aspects of the civil law of Israel corroborate this observation.
There were civil penalties for religious defection to idolatry, and on the other hand, the frequent
involvement of the priests and Levites in civil matters.
Compare Numbers 5, Deuteronomy 19, Deuteronomy 21, 5.
Deuteronomy 23, 1 through 8 contains ceremonial and national restrictions with strong religious
overtones for entrance into the assembly of Israel.
Girdlesone comments, the being cut off from the congregation of Israel and the being forbidden
to enter it, Numbers 19, 20, Deuteronomy 23, 1, seem to have implied severance from the
privileges, religious and social, which the nation as such enjoyed.
What most insistently demands the observation under discussion is, however, the fact that
the seat, center, and focus of both civil power and religious worship in Israel was
identical, or were identical.
The ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies, first in the tabernacle and later in the temple,
was the throne of Jehovah.
1 Samuel 4, 4, 2 Samuel 6, 2, 2 Kings 19, 15, 1 Chronicles 13, 6, Psalm 80, verse 1,
Psalm 99, verse 1, Isaiah 37, 16.
This is not surprising.
It was in the tabernacle and later in the temple that Yahweh dwelt with his people Israel.
If Yahweh was the king of Israel, it follows that these places must have been his throne.
This temple-throne equation meets us everywhere in the scriptures.
Verse 10, Psalm 11, Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 43, Jeremiah 3, many other places.
Even the identity of Israel is at one and the same time a kingdom of priests, Exodus
19, 6, points to the identity of the civil and ecclesiastical establishments since it
attributes both royal and priestly status to the holy nation.
One may point finally to how Jerusalem under the Davidic covenant becomes the center of
temple worship and thus the geographical locale of the throne of God.
The future location of the temple is chosen by Yahweh himself, 2 Samuel 24, 1 Chronicles
21.
At the same time, Jerusalem becomes the seat of the line of Davidic kings with whom the
theocratic kingdom is identified.
Compare 2 Samuel 5, 6, 1 Kings 2, 8, and 9.
Thus, the civil and ecclesiastical are again connected.
Now before taking up the fourth aspect of the theocracy, a note of qualification is
in order.
For notwithstanding all that has been said of the union of church and state, an element
of separation remains.
It is the strict separation of the royal and priestly offices.
The king and the priest, the son of David and the son of Aaron, were never to be the
same in the theocratic kingdom, 1 Samuel 13, 8-14.
This points to the ultimate inadequacy of these institutions to fulfill the theocratic
ideal.
I say, that separation points to the ultimate inadequacy of the Old Testament theocracy.
It leaves the uniting point of the theocratic kingdom even in its fullest Old Testament
development in the person of Yahweh.
The prophets indicated that all such inadequacy and imperfection will be removed in the eschaton
of the one who perfectly united the divine and Davidic kingships.
It is written, Behold, a man whose name is Branch, for he will build the temple of the
Lord.
Yes, it is he who will build the temple of the Lord, and he will bear the honor and sit
and rule on his throne, thus he will be a priest on his throne, and the council of peace
will be between the two offices, Zachariah 6, 12, and 13.
So only in the eschaton is the perfect unification of the royal and priestly dimensions of life
in Israel perfectly united.
So there is a measure of separation, but for the most part the character of Israel is stated
in the union of church and state.
4.
The fourth and concluding perspective in our definition of theocracy is the Davidic fulfillment
and mediation of the theocratic kingdom.
So in the first place we connected it with the Sinai covenant, then with the especially
revealed law order.
Then that as well with the union of church and state, so to speak.
And now we come to connect the theocracy with the Davidic covenant.
The fourth and concluding perspective in our definition of theocracy is the Davidic fulfillment
and mediation of the theocratic kingdom.
The difficulty that confronts us at the outset is the reconciliation of a human king in Israel
with the theocratic ideal.
How may those two things be reconciled?
The evidence presented earlier for Yahweh's being in a realistic sense the king of Israel
might seem to preclude the rise of a human dynasty.
This problem becomes acute in 1 Samuel 8, 10, and 12.
The request for a king is regarded by both Samuel and Yahweh as a rejection of Yahweh's
rule.
They have not rejected you, they have rejected me.
Nonetheless, it would be wrong to find in such passages the absolute prohibition of
all human monarchy.
The Mosaic law itself in Deuteronomy 17, 14 through 20 clearly and without condemnation
contemplates this occurrence.
Two remarks alleviate the seeming difficulty raised by such passages as 1 Samuel 8, 10,
and 12.
One, the condemnation of the request for a king in 1 Samuel 8, 6, and 8, 19, rests not
on the fact of the request itself.
This is already contemplated in Deuteronomy 17, 14.
It is rather the spirit in which the request is made, which in all probability is the objectionable
thing.
I believe Kyle and Delich corroborate that observation.
Two, Deuteronomy 17, 15 requires that Yahweh choose the human king of Israel.
The spirit in which the king was requested in 1 Samuel 8 militated against the sovereign
prerogative of Yahweh in this matter.
This fact also explains Gideon's rejection of kingship when it was offered him, Judges
8, 23.
Yahweh, you see, had not chosen him for this.
The Hebrew verb bakar used in Deuteronomy 17 plays a highly significant role in the
development of human kingship in Israel.
Samuel's use of bakar in reference to Saul is ambivalent.
Twice, with a condemnatory emphasis, he states that Saul is the king which Israel chose.
1 Samuel 8, 18, 12, 13.
Once he proclaims Saul the king whom Yahweh had chosen, 1 Kings 10, 24.
It is not wrong to see in this ambivalence the idea that Yahweh's choice of Saul was
ultimately intended as a judgment upon Israel for the spirit in which they sought a king
from Samuel, the spirit of rebellion and distrust.
Compare Hosea 8, 4, Hosea 9, 9, and especially, I believe it's Hosea 13, 10.
verses 9 through 11 reflect on Saul.
It is your destruction, O Israel, that you are against me, against your help.
Where now is your king that he may save you in all your cities and your judges of whom
you requested?
Give me a king and princes.
I gave you a king in my anger and took him away in my wrath.
And the reference there is, of course, not to David.
It is a reference clearly to Saul.
In contrast with the use of Bachar with reference to Saul, the use of Bachar with reference
to Yahweh's choice of David is frequent and unqualified.
Compare 1 Kings 11, 1 Chronicles 28, Psalm 78, 1 Kings 8, 1 Samuel 16, 2 Chronicles 6,
Psalm 89.
All those places it is said without qualification that Yahweh chose David.
This fact in itself establishes that no ultimate conflict existed between a human king and
the theocratic ideal.
The God himself was the one who chose David.
So there's no ultimate conflict between the theocratic ideal and the human king.
We're going to see why in a few minutes.
The evidence for a Davidic mediation of the theocratic kingdom now to be examined further
corroborates this assertion.
Now here's the first line of evidence.
The direct statements of the Davidic mediation of the theocratic kingdom.
The chronicler has for one of his themes the idea that Yahweh's kingship is now exercised
through the Davidic dynasty.
First Chronicles 17, 14 lays the foundation for this idea.
But I will settle him in my house and in my kingdom forever and his throne shall be established
forever.
See God is settling David in God's house and in God's kingdom.
God's kingdom and he's settling David in it.
He's king and he's making David his vice regent.
His will all become more even intimate than that.
First Chronicles 17, 14 lays the foundation for the development of this theme and its
record of the Davidic covenant itself.
Through Nathan, Yahweh says of David's son, but I will settle him in my house and my kingdom
forever and his throne shall be established forever.
First Chronicles 28, 5 records David's proclamation of the Solomonic succession.
He, Yahweh, has chosen my son Solomon to sit on the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over
Israel.
First Chronicles 29, 23 records the second inauguration of Solomon as king.
Then Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord as king.
Second Chronicles 13, 8 records Abijah's speech to Jehoram and all Israel.
Now while Abijah's historical account may be slanted, the theology of verse 8 is unimpeachable.
So now you intend to resist the kingdom of the Lord through, literally, in the hands
of the sons of David.
You see the kingdom of the Lord is in the hands of the sons of David.
So first of all there's the direct statements and B, there's the symbolic identification
of the divine throne with the Davidic throne.
The Ark of the Covenant is already remarked was the throne of Yahweh.
It is of intense interest then when both 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 15 and 16 record
the bringing of the Ark of God to Jerusalem immediately prior to the divine establishment
of the Davidic dynasty.
2 Samuel 6, 2 emphasizes the royal significance of the Ark.
The Ark of God which is called by the name, the very name of the Lord of hosts who is
enthroned above the charioteer beam.
Given the specific provisions of the Davidic covenant, the clear though figurative meaning
of this event is then identification of the divine throne with the Davidic throne.
There is the symbolic identification of the divine throne with the Davidic throne in 2
Samuel 6 just as there is the covenantal identification in 2 Samuel 7.
O.
Palmer Robertson remarks, David brought the Ark of God to Jerusalem, 2 Samuel 6.
In so doing, he publicly displayed his desire to see his own rule in Israel related immediately
to the throne of God.
In this manner, the concept of the theocracy found its fullest expression.
Third line of evidence, the organic relation of the Sinaitic and the Davidic covenant.
The very context of the Davidic covenant contains indication of this.
2 Samuel 7.1 states of David that the Lord had given him rest on every side from all
his enemies.
Rest.
It ought to need no proof that the whole point of the Sinaitic covenant was to give Israel
rest in the promised land.
Compare the use of nuach, the verb in 2 Samuel 7.1 in both Exodus 28-11 and Deuteronomy 5.14
as well as in Deuteronomy 3.20 and 25.19.
Of particular interest is Deuteronomy 12.10 because of its parallels with 2 Samuel 7.1 and following.
The message of this notation in 2 Samuel 1 is that in David and the Davidic covenant,
the Sinaitic covenant finds both its full continuation and culmination.
God's purpose in the Sinaitic covenant was to give Israel rest, and in raising David
to be king, he gives Israel rest.
You see the connection?
The Davidic covenant is tied to the Sinaitic covenant not only in terms of its blessings
but also in terms of its laws.
Clearly, as chief executive officer of the state, the king would be responsible for the
implementation of the theocratic civil law.
Deuteronomy 17.14-20 specifically mentions in verses 18-20 the requirement that the king
write and study and observe the law.
The civil law of Israel would undoubtedly be included in such a manuscript, and it is
at least possible, that the book of the covenant, Exodus 21-23, is specifically in view.
This responsibility to keep the law of Moses is spelled out in two crucial passages regarding
Solomon and first kings.
First in David's dying charge to Solomon, and then in Yahweh's second appearance to
Solomon after the dedication of the temple.
In both those places he's charged to make sure the law is kept.
Obviously, the theocratic civil law, of course, is based upon God's moral law.
Compare also the example of Josiah in 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34 and 35.
Such data as this requires the rejection of all divorcing of the Davidic covenant and
Mosaic covenant, whether it is exegetically or theologically motivated.
Their organic relation must be maintained.
But a fourth line of proof for the identification of the Davidic and divine throne is the specific
provisions of the Davidic covenant.
The high point of the evidence for the Davidic mediation of the theocratic kingdom is found
in the provisions of the Davidic covenant itself.
Number one here, we deal with the relation of David's son, God's son.
Perhaps the clearest indication of the unification of the divine and Davidic thrones is Yahweh's
adoption of David's son and heir.
2 Samuel 7 14, I will sell him in my house and in my kingdom forever and his throne shall
be established forever.
How is it that another can sit on God's throne?
Only by being God's son.
Oler remarks, the theocratic king is the son of God, the firstborn among the kings of the
earth.
By sonship is expressed chiefly the relation of love and faithfulness in which God stands
to the rule of his people.
The significance of sonship must not be limited to this, but the term further implies that
the king is in this capacity begotten of God.
Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.
Psalm 2.
The Davidic son is the divine son.
That his dignity is of divine origin, his sovereignty a reflection of the divine glory.
The fulfillment of all this and the one who is both David's son and David's lord is too
clear to miss.
But now we've seen the equivocation between David's son, God's son, and also note there
the 89th Psalm, 2nd Psalm, and 1 Chronicles 17, 14.
Then now God's house, David's house.
Robertson comments on the interrelationships here must be quoted at length.
One of the most striking aspects structurally of 2 Samuel 7 is the inversion of phrases
as a mode of emphasis.
This particular manner of expression brings into closest relationship the concept of dynasty
and dwelling place, the two different meanings of the term house.
First, God responds with emphasis to David's proposal.
Shall you build a house for me?
Shall you, a mortal man, determine the permanent dwelling place for the almighty?
Then God inverts the pattern of thought.
Yahweh makes known to you that he, the Lord himself, will make for you a house.
Obviously the house which the Lord shall build for David is not a royal palace since David
already lived in the house of cedar.
David understands God's reference to the house to be to his posterity.
You have spoken concerning your servant's house for a great while to come, verse 19.
David shall not build God's house, but God shall build David's house.
The inversion of phrases interchanges dwelling place with dynasty.
In both cases, perpetuity is the point of emphasis.
David wishes to establish for God a permanent dwelling place in Israel.
God declares that he shall establish the perpetual dynasty of David.
In his gracious words to David, God indicates that these two permanencies shall be linked
together.
He shall establish David's dynasty, and David's dynasty shall establish his permanent dwelling
place.
Solomon builds God's house, not David himself.
But the order of grace must be maintained.
First the Lord sovereignly establishes David's dynasty, then the dynasty of David shall establish
the Lord's dwelling place.
The net effect of this close interchange on the basis of the house figure is to bind
David's rule to God's rule, and vice versa.
God shall maintain his permanent dwelling place as king in Israel through the kingship
of the Davidic line.
This connection between God's house and David's house leads to the two most pivotal promises
of the Davidic covenant.
According to Robinson, they are as follows.
One promise concerns the line of David, and one promise concerns the locality of Jerusalem,
David's line and Jerusalem's throne.
All of this reconfirms the mediatorial capacity of the Davidic kings in the theocratic kingdom
of Yahweh.
David's royal house will build God's royal house.
God's throne and David's throne are geographically identified in Jerusalem, including both this
treatment of the Davidic mediation of the theocratic kingdom and the larger subject
of the identity of the theocracy.
One must note how by God's sovereign choice, the theocratic kingdom has been united to
the line of David in the city of Jerusalem, Psalm 78, 67 through 72.
The theocracy has been concentrated into God's choice of David and Zion.
It is for their sakes that Judah is spared time and again.
There are 1 Kings 11, 14, 15, 2 Kings 8, 19, 20.
It is in David and Zion that God's unique kingship over Israel is exercised, that God's
specially revealed order is maintained, and that the union of the civil and ecclesiastical,
the royal and the priestly institutions are epitomized.
Because ultimately it will be in David's son that the all distinction between the royal
and the priestly institutions is eliminated.
So we've seen the Old Testament clearly identifies and defines theocracy, if it has any biblical
definition of all, any biblical usefulness as a term at all, theocracy is a term that
intimately ties the Sinaitic covenant as fulfilled through the Davidic covenant.
Theocracy, if it has any pertinence at all, it's a reference not to God's general kingship
over all men, but to a special kingship over Israel established in the Sinaitic covenant
mediated through the Davidic.
All right?
That brings us to B, the destruction of the theocracy.
The destruction of the theocracy.
The data so far presented permits the following definition of the theocracy.
The theocracy is the nation of Israel as constituted by the institutions and blessings
of the Sinaitic and Davidic covenants made with them by Yahweh their king.
The destruction of the theocracy implies therefore nothing less than the destruction of the nation
of Israel.
It implies the reversal of the Sinaitic covenant and the Davidic covenant, the removal of the
peculiar institutions and blessings granted to Israel under these covenants.
The land, the laws, the temple, the Davidic dynasty, Zion itself, all go in the destruction
of the theocracy.
Such terminology as the reversal of the Davidic and Sinaitic covenants ought in itself to
remind us that the destruction of the theocracy is neither absolute nor unqualified nor permanent.
How could it be?
The covenants are the historical administration of the purpose of him who said, my purpose
shall stand and I will accomplish all my good pleasure.
If the old covenant is broken, a new and better covenant will be made.
If the Davidic crown is now profaned, David will yet reign in Jerusalem, Ezekiel 34.
With these qualifications, however, one may yet speak of the reversal of the theocratic
blessings.
The land, the great blessing secured by the old covenant, vomits out Israel and Judah.
The Davidic line of kings after reigning for 400 years in Jerusalem is disrupted.
The reversal of the Sinaitic and then the Davidic covenants may now be briefly surveyed.
First of all, the reversal of the Sinaitic covenant.
Here I'll just summarize.
The covenant is broken and the curses upon the breaking of the covenant are fulfilled.
And again and again there's a direct relationship between the curses that are threatened and
the curses as they're fulfilled in the exile and the destruction of the nation.
So there's the reversal of the Sinaitic covenant.
I'll just read this part of it.
So there's the reversal of the Sinaitic covenant, but there's also the reversal of the Davidic
covenant.
The pivotal promises or blessings conferred on the nation by the Davidic covenant were
the Davidic dynasty, the Solomonic temple, and the unification of David's throne with
God's throne in the locality of Jerusalem.
Though perhaps no covenant contains such strong notes of certainty, stability, security, and
what one may even call unconditionality, the Davidic covenant itself contains the intimation
that all would not be continuous and undeviating progress and blessing.
If your son sins against me, I will punish him with his stripes and mitts.
Solm 89, second century 7.
The literature lays the demise of Judah squarely at the feet of the house of David.
The general denunciations of Judah's shepherds have already been noted.
Jeremiah specifically denounces the abuses of the Davidic king.
The striking thing about these denunciations is the way in which the contact of the king
determines the future of Judah.
Jeremiah 21, 11, and 12 urges the king to further civil righteousness in order to avoid
the wrath of God upon the nation.
Let's write back to the fact that he mediates the theocratic law.
Jeremiah 22, 1 through 5 makes the execution of civil justice and the protection of the
poor from oppression by the king, the determining factor whether Judah will experience the blessing
or the curse.
Compare also Jeremiah 22.
Second Kings 23 relates the ultimate destruction of the city and the temple immediately to
the abuses of Manasseh the king.
The account of Manasseh's reign in Second Kings 21 shows that it was both his idolatry,
religious, and his violence, civil, that provoked Yahweh.
The house of David reached the pinnacle of its power, glory, and extent in the reign
of Solomon.
Solomon's sins were already in the latter part of his reign laying the foundation for
the decline of the fortunes of the Davidic kings.
Psalm 89, written during the reign of Rehoboam, attests that believing Israel was shocked
by the swift, sudden, and severe character of the divine chastening which fell on the
Davidic line.
Rehoboam's folly, the consequent loss of the ten northern tribes, the invasion of Shishak,
the plundering of Judah, and the temple all foreshadow the ultimate demise of Judah.
Even the reason given by Yahweh for Shishak's success reminds one of the final destruction
of the theocracy and the exile, but they will become Shishak's slaves so that they may learn
the difference between my service and the service of the kingdoms of the countries.
Now that's said with reference to Shishak and not the ultimate exile, but it anticipates
it.
The remaining history of Judah is the story of continued political and religious decline.
New low points are reached first in the royal alliance with the house of Ahab and then in
the shattering abuses of Manasseh.
Occasional glimmers of the original Davidic glory are seen in the preservation of Joash,
the deliverance of Hezekiah, and the renewal under Josiah before the light of David vanishes
in the exile.
The count of the last four Davidic kings reverberates with the reversal of the Davidic blessings.
Each king does evil in the sight of Yahweh.
Each is taken from Jerusalem to the humiliation of exile.
The temple is plundered twice before its ultimate destruction.
At least three deportations depopulate the land in the city of Jerusalem.
Finally and climatically, the city and temple are leveled and the last king of the 400 year
Davidic dynasty led blind and childless to Babylon.
So there is the destruction of the theocracy.
Very significant then, is that the Bible knows of a theocracy, a special kingship of
God in Israel, knows of its continuance, knows of its disruption, but what of the future?
Is there a restoration of the theocracy?
That's what we come to now.
The nature, the destruction, the restoration of the theocracy.
Introduction.
Taking up the subject of the restoration of the theocracy, one confronts one of the most
crucial and yet most complex of Old Testament issues.
An illustration of this complexity may be seen in the contrasting notes on which the
accounts of the destruction of the theocracy conclude.
There are two accounts, kings and chronicles, right?
And they end on contrasting notes, interestingly.
Both conclude on notes of hope for the future.
Both allude to the promises of the Davidic Covenant, yet what a difference there is.
Second Kings 25 records the lifting up of Jehoiachin's head by Evel Merodach.
The implication is certainly clear.
It is, as several commentators see, that God has yet mercy and exaltation in store for
David's house.
Second Chronicles 36 is distinctly different.
The allusion is still to the Davidic Covenant, but now, however, it is not a son of David,
but Cyrus, king of Persia, who gains a quasi-Davidic status.
He fulfills the function of the son of David, whom God appoints to build this house.
And now Cyrus is going to build the house.
Second Samuel 7, First Chronicles 17, 22, 28, 29, Second Chronicles 6, the Second Chronicles
36, 23, and Ezra 1-2.
This unusual status of Cyrus will be enlarged upon later.
The point is that these differing perspectives alert us to the complexity of the subject
about to be addressed.
Now, we're going to deal with the restoration of deoxy, and let's deal first of all with
the Medo-Persian restoration.
Number one here is the Medo-Persian restoration.
The mixed reaction to the laying of the foundation of the temple after the exile, remember how
some people wept for joy and other people wept for discouragement, both reacting to
the rebuilding of the temple?
That mixed reaction epitomizes the dual perspective with which the Old Testament presents the
Medo-Persian restoration.
It may be presented both as the restoration of the theocracy in a limited sense, but it
also may be presented as the continuation of the exilic bondage in the deepest sense.
Some laughed, some wept for joy.
It was the restoration of the theocracy, the laying of the foundation of the temple.
Some wept for grief because they saw how unlike their situation was to that before.
They saw that they were still under the thumb of the Persian kings, you see?
So it was the restoration of the theocracy in a limited sense, but it was the continuation
of the exilic bondage which harks back to the Egyptian bondage in the deepest sense.
Now a superficial reading of Jeremiah might lead one to the opinion that the seventy-year
exile would issue in the full restoration of the theocratic kingdom.
The prophecy of the seventy years occurs in the general context of messianic prophecies.
There are other reasons for seeing a theocratic restoration motif in the Medo-Persian restoration.
The restoration of the land, the temple with its precious articles, Ezra 1, 5, Nehemiah
12, the civil order enforced by civil penalties, Ezra 7, 25, and 26, and all of this under
the reign of God's anointed, Cyrus, the quasi-dividic Cyrus, and the actual leadership of Zerubbabel
who was the son of David, all point to this motif of a limited restoration of the theocracy
in the Medo-Persian restoration.
But whatever degree of theocratic restoration took place, it was a far cry from even the
last and lowest days of pre-exilic Judah, not to mention the golden age of Solomon.
However, Cyrus and Zerubbabel typified the Davidic Messiah.
Cyrus was not a son of David and Zerubbabel not a king.
The prophetic vision demanded David and the person of his greater son reigning with irresistible
power in Jerusalem, and this was not happening in the Medo-Persian restoration.
And this brings us directly then to the second motif.
The Medo-Persian restoration as the continuation of the exilic bondage.
This is in the end the deepest insight of the Old Testament presentation.
No Davidic king reigned in Jerusalem.
With this fact, one may directly connect the explicit statements of Ezra and Nehemiah.
In his prayer of confession over the mixed marriages, Ezra mentions the captivity of
Judah's kings as well as the rest of Judah.
He then says, but now for a brief moment, grace has been shown from the Lord our God
to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in his holy place that our God may
enlighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our bondage.
For we are slaves, yet in our bondage our God is not forsaking us but has extended loving
kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia to give us reviving to raise up the
house of our God to restore its ruins and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem.
You see his perspective?
They're revived, but they're still in bondage.
See God is not reigning over them, a pagan king is reigning over them.
The theocracy is not restored.
Nehemiah 9, 36, and 37 contain similar sentiments.
Behold, we are slaves today, and as to the land which thou didst give to our fathers
to eat of its fruit and its bounty, behold we are slaves on it, and its abundant produce
is for the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins.
They, these pagan kings, not God, not God through the house of David, these pagan kings
rule over our bodies and over our cattle as they please, so we are in great distress.
The thought, Deuteronomy 28, in the very language, distress, slaves, bondage, both of those latter
words derived from the word eved, gaved, servant, characterize the situation of the returned
remnant as a continuation of the exilic situation.
More than that, the repeated use of heved, or its derivatives, characterize the situation
as like that of the bondage preceding the exodus before the theocracy, you see?
So what's happened is, even after the 70 years, you're still in a situation like that
which preceded the theocracy.
The language harks back to the Egyptian bondage, not just to the exilic bondage, but to the
Egyptian bondage itself.
The mention of the heathen kings implies that slavery and bondage are their lot because
not a son of David, but Persian kings ruled them.
Other elements of Ezra and Nehemiah underscore this motif, the repeated emphasis on the sin
of the returned remnant, Ezra 9, Nehemiah 5, Nehemiah 13, discouragement in building
the temple, fierce and sometimes effective opposition which delays the construction of
the temple and the wall, and the failure of many Jews even to desire to return.
All of that emphasized the continuation of the exilic bondage after the 70 years.
That brings us, having looked at the Medo-Persian restoration, to consider then the eschatological
restoration.
These conditions then fell far short of the conditions prophesied by Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
They foretold the triumphant reign of a Davidic king over a purified, multiplied, secure,
and obedient people in a restored theocratic civil order in the land.
Compare Jeremiah 23, Jeremiah 31, Jeremiah 32, Jeremiah 33, Ezekiel 11, Ezekiel 28, Ezekiel
34, Ezekiel 36, Ezekiel 37.
These are the most common features.
Other features which transcend the Medo-Persian restoration include Ezekiel's wondrous temple,
the reunion of Israel and Judah, pointing to the reversal of the first historical act
of judgment on the Davidic dynasty, the sundering of Israel.
The reunion of Israel and Judah points to the restoration of the ideal theocracy, you see.
The universalizing of the theocracy in a way which transcends the old order also points
to something that transcends the Medo-Persian restoration, where Gentiles are joined to
the people of God.
So that the response of faith to the Medo-Persian restoration is not to question such promises.
Rather, it sees in this restoration the typical and germinate fulfillment of promises that
receive their ultimate fulfillment in the eschaton.
Indications were not lacking, however, before the Medo-Persian restoration that these promises
would not be its immediate issue.
Cyrus the restorer was not to be a Davidic king, Isaiah 45, 46, Jeremiah 25, when he
was prophesied.
It is, however, in the prophecies of Daniel that it is clearly taught that the end of
the seventy years would not see the restoration of the theocratic kingdom.
Indeed, seven seventies would pass in the circumstances of partial restoration before
the appearance of Messiah the Prince, Daniel 9.25.
It is the subject of the theocratic kingdom, now everything is going to be coming home
to roost and I hope you catch this now.
It is the subject of the theocratic kingdom, along with its disruption which forms the
controlling exegetical backdrop for the prophecies of Daniel, Daniel 1, 1-7, 9, 1-27 are pertinent
there.
So it's that backdrop against which you must interpret Daniel, the disruption of the theocratic
kingdom.
This is well known, but its pervasive significance is not properly appreciated.
This is particularly true of the foundational visions of Daniel 2 and Daniel 7.
Why are just these four kingdoms chosen?
If we're right, the kingdoms of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, assuming that exegetical
frame.
Why are those four kingdoms chosen to be the subject of special prophecy?
What is so special about them?
Why are not the earlier Egyptian and Assyrian empires the subject of like prophecy?
Is it their extent which controls the selection of just these four kingdoms?
What is the theocratic disruption which provides the rationale for these prophecies?
They begin with Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon and span Medo, Persia, Greece, and Rome because
these empires were those to bear rule over the people of God during the theocratic disruptions.
That's why Egypt was before the theocratic disruption.
These gentile kingdoms retain this authority till the restoration of the theocracy.
Turn to Daniel chapter 2.
See, it is the restoration of the theocracy which Daniel 2 prophesies.
The restoration of the kingdom.
What kingdom?
The theocratic kingdom, which had just been destroyed.
Daniel 2, 35, 34 and 35, first of all.
You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands and it struck the statue
on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them.
Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed all at the same
time, became like shaft from the summer threshing floors and the wind carried them away so that
not a trace of them was found, but the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain
and filled the whole earth.
And then verse 44.
And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never
be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people, it will crush and
put an end to all these kingdoms, but will itself endure forever.
That prophecy is the prophecy of the restoration of the theocratic kingdom.
There is the disruption.
It is not merely 70 years, it is seven times 70 at least, and then there will be the restoration
of the theocracy.
Thus he said, the fourth beast will be a fourth kingdom on the earth, which will be different
from all the other kingdoms, and it will devour the whole earth and tread it down and crush
it.
As for the ten horns out of this kingdom, ten kings will rise, and another will rise
after them, and he will be different from the previous ones and will subdue three kings,
and he will speak out against the most high and wear down the saints of the highest one,
and he will intend to make alterations in times and in law, and they will be given into
his hand for time, times, and half a time, but the court will sit for judgment, and his
dominion will be taken away, annihilated and destroyed forever.
Then the sovereignty, the dominion, and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole
heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the highest one.
His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey
him.
One of the main purposes of these visions was to warn the people of God that not merely
the Babylonians but three additional Gentile kingdoms would bear rule over them before
the restoration of the theocratic kingdom.
Their message is thus analogous to that of Daniel 9.24, that not merely seventy years
but seven seventies must transpire before the Davidic reign returns.
Fairbairn sees this relation.
Not only so, but when the kingdom had fallen to its very foundations, and to the eye of
sins lay smitten by the rod of Babylon as with an irrecoverable doom, that precisely
was the time, and Babylon itself, the place chosen by God to reveal through a servant
Daniel the certain resurrection of the kingdom, and its ultimate triumph over all rival powers
and adverse influences, in contradistinction to the Chaldean and other worldly kingdoms
which were all destined to pass away and become as the dust of the summer threshing floor,
he announced the setting up of a kingdom by the God of heaven which should never be destroyed,
a kingdom which in principle should be the same with the Jewish theocracy, and in history
should form but a renewal and prolongation in happier circumstances of its existence.
For it was to be, as of old, a kingdom of priests to God, or of the people of the saints
of the Most High, and as such an everlasting kingdom which all the dominions were to serve
and obey.
The period of the Gentile kingdoms is then the period of the theocratic disruption.
So during the disruption the people of God are ruled by the Gentile kingdoms.
The special thing about these kingdoms is not their extent necessarily, but the fact
that they bear rule over the people of God in the interim between the disruption and
restoration of the theocratic kingdom.
They replace the theocratic government during this interim.
All of this raises the question of the character and timing of the restoration of the theocratic
kingdom.
This is all the more necessary if we are to assess the significance of all this for the
Church.
If the theocratic disruption continues, the Church's relationship to civil government
will be governed by the principles which govern Israel subsequent to the exile.
If one holds that the theocratic kingdom has now been restored, then the relation of postexilic
Israel to civil authority has very little to do with the Church in the present era of
redemptive history.
A dispensational approach to the theocratic kingdom which severs the Church in Israel
will have approximately the same result.
Now among evangelical and conservative interpreters of Daniel a sharp cleavage exists on the timing
of the coming of the kingdom prophesied in Daniel 2 and 7.
In general it is fair to say that dispensational pre-millennial commentators hold to a future
restoration associated with the second advent of Christ.
The idea of a revived Roman Empire is normally associated with this view.
Antikiliast and also some pre-millennials have held that the kingdom promised in chapter
2 and 7 came in the events associated with Christ's first advent.
A growing number, however, of evangelical scholars are committed to a synthesis of these
views, at least insofar as their general perspective regarding the coming of the kingdom.
These scholars recognize a tension in the New Testament regarding the coming of the
kingdom, an already and a notch yet in the coming of the kingdom.
The belief the kingdom prophesied in the Old Testament unfolds itself in two successive
stages.
The kingdom foretold by the prophets without self-conscious distinction between two phases
Peter 1, 10, and 11, comes indeed the first in an inaugural and only then in a consummate
form.
This is perhaps the unique feature of New Testament eschatology and pervades its thought
structures compared particularly to 1 Corinthians 15.
It is, however, in Matthew, the Jewish gospel, the gospel of the son of David, in which basileia
occurs 55 times and basileus 23 times, that this doctrine of the coming of the kingdom
gets its clearest exhibition.
It is further, precisely from Matthew, that one would expect the clearest teaching on
the restoration of the theocratic kingdom.
The redemptive historical situation of the parables of Matthew 13 and their specific
teaching as to a two-stage coming of the kingdom, two-stage coming of the theocratic kingdom,
has already been elaborated, and so I'm not going to elaborate it again here.
The point is that this provides us our key for the interpretation and for our understanding
of the return of the theocratic kingdom.
Applying this framework to the interpretation of Daniel and the restoration of the theocratic
kingdom, one obtains the result that a tension exists between the already and the not yet
aspects of the restoration of the theocratic kingdom.
It is possible to construct an impressive argument for the present restoration of the
theocratic kingdom.
The motifs of the Davidic covenant find affirmation in many different ways in the New Testament.
David's son has now been exalted and now exercises all authority in heaven and on earth.
He reigns in Jerusalem, compare Galatians 4, 26 and Hebrews 12, 22 to 24.
There he occupies David's throne, Acts 2, 30 and 31.
There is the full unification of the throne of God and the throne of David.
He occupies the throne of God himself in the temple of God.
Yet all this finds its focal point in heaven.
Compare Philippians 3, 20, Galatians 4, 26, Hebrews 12, 22 and following.
The New Testament insists that we do not yet see all things subjected to him.
Hebrews 2, 8, 1 Corinthians 15, 20 to 28.
Premillennialists have been right to insist upon an earthly reign.
The meek will inherit and reign upon the earth, Matthew 5, 5, Revelation 5, 9 and 10.
The restoration of the theocratic kingdom means security under the Davidic king for
the people of God, Jeremiah 23, Jeremiah 33, Ezekiel 34, Ezekiel 37.
This is by no means the lot of the people of God in the present evil age, 2 Timothy
23, Acts 14.
Thus it is that we may speak of the heavenly and spiritual inauguration of the theocratic
kingdom, but one must never forget that its earthly manifestation is crucial to it and
is yet to come.
This the older anti-chiliast writers tended to miss or neglect.
When one is speaking, however, of civil authority, one is speaking of a very earthly and external
issue.
It is then the perspective of the not yet that is regulative in relation to the subject
of whether our civil allegiance belongs to the Gentile kingdoms.
As to earthly civil authority, the theocratic kingdom is not yet.
The eschatological regathering of new Israel still awaits, Matthew 8, Matthew 24, Luke 13.
The times of the Gentiles, which by the way is a reference from Luke 21 and is a specific
reference to Daniel and the times of the Gentile kingdoms.
The times of the Gentiles, according to Luke 21, continue till the end of the age Jerusalem
shall be led captive into the nations until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
When's that happen?
Second coming of Christ.
Clear interpretive statement with reference to how Jesus interpreted the parables of the
prophecies of Daniel.
The times of the Gentiles continue till the end of the age, a reference to the period
of the supremacy of the Gentile powers of Daniel.
The new Jerusalem and its earthly manifestation is not yet, Revelation 21, 1-7.
Jesus, Paul, and Peter all command submission to Daniel's fourth kingdom.
Compare Matthew 22, Romans 13, and 1 Peter 2.
Jesus refuses the author of civil authority in the days of his flesh, Luke 12, 13, and
14, John 6, 15.
We are now in a position to assess the significance for the church of post-exilic Israel's relation
to the Gentile civil authorities.
The conclusion must be that the church finds itself in a continuation of the times of the
Gentiles and that for this reason the Christian's duty to the Gentile kingdoms is similar and
even identical to that of post-exilic Israel.
A study of the authority of the Gentile kingdoms over the people of God is therefore relevant
for and applicable to the Christian.
A discussion of other elements of the application of the coming of the kingdom to this interpretation
is given in a footnote.
And now I'm going to summarize.
I come after that point to deal with the subject of the authority of the Gentile kingdoms,
and I argue that not simply in a decorative will fashion, but according to God's perceptive
will, Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon were handed not simply the power over, but the legal authority
over Israel.
And that's why you have that unique feature in Jeremiah calling upon the people of God
as a matter of moral duty to fall away to the king of Babylon.
And again and again and again the emphases are clear in the literature of the Old Testament
that is relevant here, that God has transferred the legitimate civil authority over his people
during this interim, which he himself brought to pass by his own covenant curses.
He has transferred the civil authority over his people to the Gentile kingdoms, and the
New Testament is clear that that transfer of authority continues, and the elongation
of the two ages to the coming of the kingdom.
Other aspects that you'll get this and I'll just mention to you, I also argue that Daniel
2 and Daniel 7 present two different perspectives with reference to the Gentile kingdoms.
Daniel 2 views them as human and divine in their authority, but Daniel 7 views them as
bestial and demonic in their ultimate actual condition.
There's a contrast there in the symbolism and in the intention of those two prophecies.
So that the Gentile kingdoms have both divine authority, they have both a divine identity,
and they also have a demonic identity in the scriptures.
That's why they can sometimes be spoken of as they are in Romans 13 and other times spoken
of as they are in Revelation 13.
You see, these kingdoms, while given authority by God, are given authority under the times
of the curse.
It's not permanent authority, it's not authority given as necessarily a blessing in every sense
to the people of God.
It was a curse to the people of Israel to be under the authority of the Gentile kingdoms.
I've got to skip a lot of that, but I hope that you'll read the notes at that point where
I argue for all of this.
I think it's absolutely crucial for the interpretation of Daniel.
One of the interesting things is that both Daniel 7 and Daniel 8 tend to teach that towards
the conclusion of the period of the Gentile kingdoms, the Gentile kingdoms become increasingly
demonic in their character.
The last kingdoms are the worst.
That's the general thesis.
And the whole book of Daniel is dealing with the subject of the relation of the people
of God to this Gentile civil authority.
And every one of these stories in the book of Daniel have that as their primary reference.
Well, all of that I'm skipping over to try to get in the next few minutes just to give
you general conclusions.
General conclusion number one is the commonality of post-exilic Israel and the church in terms
of their relation to civil authority.
With post-exilic Israel, we do not exist under a theocratic kingdom.
The data brought forward in this paper supports the conclusion that substantial unity and
continuity exists between post-exilic Israel and the church on the matter of their relation
to the Gentile kingdoms.
The church as the new Israel inherits Israel's relation to Gentile authorities and feels
their power both in its human and bestial dimensions.
The recognition of the development of a new continuity between Israel and the church at
this point in redemptive history must not disguise the remaining discontinuity.
Here we must remember the restoration motif noticed in our treatment of the Medo-Persian
restoration.
There was a typical and partial restoration of the theocracy at that time.
While Judah was no longer a kingdom, it was still a civil entity, a province of the Persian
Empire and thus a civil entity.
Within these limitations, the theocratic civil order continued to be enforced with civil
penalties and the union of church and state remained.
The New Testament makes clear that the church is not in continuity with this partially restored
theocracy, Matthew 21, Acts 7, with Acts 6, 8-15.
This partially restored theocracy dies under divine judgment shortly after the church's
establishment.
The non-theocratic character of civil authority to the return of Christ.
Here we come at things that are precisely to the point for our discussion.
The non-theocratic character of civil authority to the return of Christ.
The first conclusion reminds us that with the expiration of the partially restored theocratic
order, all civil authority ceased to be theocratic as we have defined it in this paper.
God is no longer the unique king of any civil entity.
No nation is now mandated to adhere to a divinely revealed civil order.
While the moral principles enshrined in the laws of the old covenant remain authoritative,
no nation is bound to the detailed civil order of Old Testament Israel.
Add to all of this the destruction of the temple as the earthly throne of Yahweh and
one must also conclude that no longer are church and state a united entity.
The redeemed community no longer has a civil structure.
Thus the divine establishment of the Gentile civil authorities means that the separation
of the civil and ecclesiastical institutions in human society is now God's perceptive will.
The alteration of this order will be signaled only by the return of Jesus Christ, the theocratic
king.
Thirdly, the divine establishment of the Gentile civil authorities.
The assertion that no civil authority is now theocratic definitely does not mean biblically
that civil authority now stands in no relation, only a negative relation to God.
The biblical data clearly establishes the fact that the present Gentile civil authorities
are divinely constituted, the powers that be are ordained of God.
Not merely in the barren theological sense but in a redemptive historical sense as we
see.
It was clear that this fact implies the idea that Gentile authorities are responsible to
God and owe him obedience as civil authorities.
More stress is placed in the literature, however, on the duty of the people of God to subject
themselves to the government of these rulers.
To resist Nebuchadnezzar was to resist God.
The biblical mandate to render obedience to the Gentile kings sheds light on the extent
and character of the duty owed to civil authorities.
Of course, no obedience was to be rendered to demands that violated the explicit law
of God.
On the other hand, service and obedience was to be rendered to uncovenanted, autocratic,
proud, idolatrous, abusive, and often bestial rulers.
No fact could speak more eloquently the truth that our subjection to civil authority is
not conditioned on our estimate of the way it is being exercised.
Both demands and behavior may call for disobedience or flight, but they never provide the grounds
for violent resistance or rebellion.
If Nebuchadnezzar's self-deifying idolatry and Ahasuerus' tyranny did not give the right
of rebellion, then it is hard to imagine any conditions under which the abuse of civil
power would warrant rebellion against the powers that be.
Worth mentioning here is the fact that examples of rebellions led by Jews against foreign
kings during the time of the theocracy are not relevant to the issue now being addressed.
Shamgar, Samson, and the other saviors sent to deliver Israel from foreign domination
lived before the divine transfer of civil authority to the Gentile kings and before
the divine destruction of the theocracy.
There is a qualitative, redemptive historical difference between Eglon and Nebuchadnezzar.
4.
The cursed character of life under the Gentile kingdoms.
The authority of the Gentile kingdoms originated in covenantal curses and life under them continues
and will continue to be a curse to the people of God.
The clear prophetic outlook of the word of God is that the bestial character of these
kingdoms will continue to characterize them and will finally completely dominate the eschatological
manifestation of Gentile authority.
This is not to be read as permission to ignore or be indifferent to civil righteousness insofar
as it is within our ability to enhance it.
Such a conclusion would fly in the face of the totalitarian claims of God and his word.
This conclusion does mean, however, that civil authority is not to be made the object of
misdirected hope or consuming attention by the people of God.
The mark of the perversion of the biblical perspective is the refocusing of hope upon
social change.
This there pervades modern theologies of social change.
The true hope of the people of God is the re-establishment of the theocratic kingdom.
This as the scripture declares will be the achievement not of civil reformation but of
cataclysmic and supernatural divine intervention.
So our hope is not in social change, it is in the return of the theocratic king, and
the center of our endeavors then is focused in the present center of the theocratic powers,
which is where?
The present manifestation of the theocracy is not a civil entity but the church.
The church is the theocratic kingdom in the world, but the church is not a civil entity
at this present point.
Five, the central importance of the church for the work of the kingdom.
The entire theological perspective enunciated in this study warrants the conclusion that
the energies and responsibilities of the kingdom center in the church in this present age.
The theocratic kingdom is present only in the redemptive task of the church, not in
the conservative task of the state.
Therefore labor for the kingdom must not place an equal importance on ecclesiastical and
civil matters.
The dominion mandate must not be set alongside the great commission as its equal or as its
real content.
The church in its task is the exclusive focus of kingdom endeavor in this age.
The theocratic kingdom is now present not in visible or political form, but in spiritual
and ecclesiastical form.
That covers everything but the appendix I was going to give you on religious liberty,
and I can't take the time to do that.
Do you have any questions?
You'll get that in your notes.
And I would have given you an appendix on religious liberty, let me just say read John
Murray's thing on the relation of church and state, probably the most helpful thing you
can read, and then I can't give you a reformed alternative to the theonomic ethics.
But I think you see that whatever we do we cannot make the theocratic conditions normative
for the modern state or the church.
In both cases there are profound aspects of discontinuity, and so whatever may be to take
the fact that cannot be used as a paradigm or model for the gentile states, and if we
are going to take seriously to all the redemptive historical teaching of the Bible.
All right?
Questions?
Go ahead, David.
So you're saying that, going back to the distinction between the already and the not yet, is actually
no matter part of the seven times seventy.
Yeah.
However you interpret specifically the seven times seventy of Daniel 9, you have the overriding
importance of the New Testament teaching on the two-stage coming of the kingdom.
I'm sorry, that's not what I want to say at all.
The already and the not yet are out here.
Okay, that's what I thought first, and then I was getting confused there.
The already is here with Christ's first advent.
The theocratic kingdom comes in one sense, but then it comes in the other with the not
yet of Christ's second advent, okay?
Yeah.
Let's see, does that...
Yeah, look at the chart I handed out to you there.
I think that'll help you.
I tried to present the biblical picture, the theocratic and gentile kingdoms in three different
ways.
There's a simple presentation in which you simply see that the gentile kingdoms are an
interim or hiatus between the original theocracy and the glorified theocracy, and there the
references are Daniel 2 and 7.
Then I tried to elaborate that a bit more in an expanded presentation where you see
the theocracy ends, there's the Babylonian exile of 70 years, then there's a partial
restoration of 70 weeks, which at least that partial restoration ends in AD 70, whether
the 70 weeks end exactly there, I'm not saying, and after that there's the desolations.
Jerusalem is led captive into all the nations until the times of the gentiles, Luke 21.
And the desolations are ended by the second advent of Christ, which ushers in the theocracy.
So that's an expanded presentation.
And if you want the theological presentation, you ought to be familiar with that chart,
you have the theocracy ending with the time of the gentile kingdoms, and you have the
heavenly inauguration of the theocracy of Christ's exaltation, its earthly consummation
at Christ's return.
Okay?
Does that kind of lay the thing out for you, David?
Well, another hour we can deal with somebody, mop up some of the details.
But I hope that at least what I tried to give you, more than anything else, is theological
and revved up historical structures to deal with the claims of theonomy.
And I haven't mopped up to the details about a reformed alternative to theonomic ethics,
and in terms of the Old Testament, I haven't talked specifically about some of the problems
in terms of religious liberty, and whether our limits to religious liberty and all of
that, but at least I think you've got a base to resist the fundamental thesis of theonomy,
and that is that the theocracy is the paradigm for modern state and modern church.
Okay?
You can see how fundamentally wrong-headed that is to simply erase the differences between
theocracy and the church and the theocracy and the gentile state.
Okay?
Fundamentally wrong-headed.
I was thinking, to what extent are we justified, or justified at all, to bring influence in
our civil governments?
Yeah, well, I think that goes back to the fact that gentile kings are given their authority
by God, and therefore by implication are bound to utilize it in a way that is in subjection
to the moral law of God.
And while we don't use the specific revealed law order of Israel as any kind of specific
model for their conduct, we may find there, and we certainly will find in other dimensions
of the word of God and the law of God, principles of righteousness which they are bound to live
by, and which if we have influence, and if it's within our own priorities which have
got to center in our own souls and in the church, if we are given a special influence
in the world, or if we have, because of some unusual, our own priorities, opportunity to
influence in some way, that's not wrong. It's simply, I think the thing that has to
be said, it's not the center of the Christian's effort or hope. And that's where we'd have
to differ from the theonomist.
We can't deny that God's word is sovereign over the kings of the earth, and that they
must obey him. If we do that to deny theonomy, we've thrown out the baby with the bathwater.
But what we must deny is there's a relative priority, and our relative priority must be
in the specific locale of where the kingdom energies are at work in this age, and that
is in the church and its redemptive task, and not in the state and its conservative
task. So there's a distinction between church and state here, and the church is the center
of God's redemptive power, and that's why, by the way, there can be the parallel growth
of good and evil. The growth of the kingdom is in the church. If you erase the boundaries
between church and state, then you would have post-millennialism, but you see, the Bible
doesn't erase the boundaries. It predicates growth and optimism for the church, but it
predicates increasing demonic optimism in Revelation 13 and others.
So I think it's not a question of whether it's right to do it. It's a matter not of
rightness or wrongness. It's a matter of priority. What is priority? What is secondary? You see
what I'm saying? What is supreme? What's subordinate in our perspectives in terms of
our ethical outlooks and responsibilities?
It is, though, however, very frustrating to discern as to what kinds of things we ought
to be bringing before the civil authorities, because they're not subject to the law of
God.
You mean by not subject to the law of God. They're not in fact, or they're not supposed
to be?
Well, this is it. That's the frustration. I mean, one should expect an unregenerate
man to abide by the teaching of the Word of God. I mean, why should that be?
No, the only common grace or the influence of people motivated by special grace can produce
that kind of action. And yet, we are called in the Word of God, and here some of the most
important data is probably in the book of Proverbs. The universal principles of the
book of Proverbs, with its keen emphasis, and also the commands given to Israel as to
how they were to conduct themselves in the exile. They were told to seek, and I think
this passage has direct relevance to the church because our situations remain the same. They
were to seek the good of the city where they went. That meant that they were to pray, but
you can't limit seeking the good of the city where you live to praying. It may mean if
you have an innocent within your life priorities…