Sigurd Grindheim - Living in the Kingdom of God: A Biblical Theology for the Life of the Church

General and Bibliographic

Old Testament

New Testament

The Kingly Rule of God in the Old Testament

The most important words in Jesuss vocabulary are nowhere to be found in the Old Testament. The kingdom of God is not mentioned at all, and there are only two references to the kingdom of the L ORD (1 Chron. 28:5; 2 Chron. 13:8). But these statistics are deceptive. Jesuss language about the kingdom builds on the idea that God is king, a point that is made explicitly or implicitly on almost every page of the Old Testament.

The psalmist praises God as the perfect king. The King is mighty, he loves justiceyou have established equity; in Jacob you have done what is just and right (Ps. 99:4). As a ruler, God is always fair; he ensures that his society is a just one. His people live in safety, knowing that their king is able to provide for them. For the L ORD is our judge, the L ORD is our lawgiver, the L ORD is our king; it is he who will save us (Isa. 33:22).

This king eliminates the powers of evil. But God is my King from long ago; he brings salvation on the earth. It was you who split open the seas by your power; you broke the heads of the monster in the waters. It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert (Ps. 74:1214). The seas and Leviathan probably refer to the spiritual enemy of God and his people, later referred to as the devil. (The book of Revelation draws on the image of Leviathan to portray the dragon, which represents Satan; see Rev. 12:3.)

Where God rules as king, there are no evil powers. I often dream of such a society, a society without evil, a society ruled by God. I imagine what the world would be like if everyone did good all the time, if every individual always did what God wants us to do, if everyone obeyed the golden rule: Do to others what you would have them do to you (Matt. 7:12).

First of all, many people would be out of work. Take locksmiths, for example. You would never again need to lock your door. No one would ever steal anything, and people would come to visit only when you really wanted to see them.

In a society like that, all insurance companies would be unnecessary. You simply would not need insurance. If you needed anything at all, your friends and neighbors would provide it for you, free of charge. Those who had to go to the doctor would not need health insurance because the doctor would always give them all the care they needed. If your house were to burn to the ground, your neighbors would rebuild it for you while you were away on vacation, without asking for any compensation.