The God Who Reigns Forever

What do we conjure up in our minds when we hear a word like “king” or “monarch”?

God Is King Over All

God is often presented in Scripture as The King. The LORD has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all. Psalm 103:19. 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 every domain. That is built into the very creation account: He made everything, it is all His, and He continues to reign.

God Is King Over Israel

The notion of the kingdom of God and the reign of God is very flexible in Scripture. You have to pay attention to the context to make sense of what is being said in any particular passage. Israel is under His kingship in that sense only if they belong to this covenant community.

The Book of Judges

After the people finally enter the promised land, they go through depressing cycles. God then raises up a judge and the judge leads the people to repent. They sin again, and repeat the cycle. As the book progresses, you begin to hear a sad refrain: In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit. Judges 21:25

Israel’s King Saul

The Israelites cry out for a king, like the pagan nations all around. God said, ‘All right, if you really want a king, we’ll go ahead, but you will be sorry!’ Soon Saul becomes corrupt and brutal. 1 Samuel 28-31

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.

God’s King David

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.

David wants to do God a favor and build Him a temple. 2 Samuel 7:3–29

If David 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 wants to do God a favor.

It is wonderful for believers to try to magnify God’s name, but not ever because they succumb to the illusion that they are doing God a favor. Worshiping God, magnifying His name, ought to be the response of gratitude and adoration and nothing else.

God will not share His glory with anybody else. Many times throughout the Bible we see man trying
to do God a favor and God is really not open to our suggestions about how to run the universe.

God Establishes the Kingdom That Will Last

2 Samuel 7:11–17

Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.
2 Samuel 7:14-16

For us sonship has to do with DNA, but that is not the case here. The person does not takes on divine nature. It simply means that he is now acting as God’s son in God’s place in the king-family.

Such a promise could be fulfilled in only two ways.

 Every generation to produce a new Davidic heir so that the throne is passed to the next heir, and so on.
 To eventually have an heir in the Davidic line who himself lives forever. Isaiah 9:6-7

From King David to King Jesus

After several exiles, in due course God brings some back to live in the promised land. There is no restored Davidic king on the throne.

Then you open up the pages of the New Testament, and it begins with: “This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Matthew. 1:1. Here is the fulfillment of the promise of the Davidic king!

When Jesus begins His public ministry, He announces the dawning of the kingdom, and He uses the word “kingdom” in a variety of ways. He says it is like this or this, it is now, yet it will be in the future. Jesus says, “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.” John 3:5.

All these notions of kingdom center on Jesus the King.

The Kingdom of Jesus and His Reign: the promised king came, He was killed, He rose from the dead and declared, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.” Matthew 28:18

The question is whether we wait until the end of time and have to bow before Him in holy terror, or bow before Him now, cheerfully in repentance, faith and thanksgiving.