KINGDOM - OLOGY 25

The continuation of contingency in relation to the Mediatorial Kingdom

            Inasmuch as Christ leveled His diagnosis set forth in Matthew 23:37 at the nation of Israel, it must be recognized that repeatedly in the history of Israel, from its very inception, this people resisted the will of God. When Stephen was arraigned before the council, he in turn arraigned the council:

            And all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. And he said: “Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it” (Acts 6:15; 7:1, 51-53).

The descent of the Gentile nations to the lowest level of moral decadence, and the departure of mankind from the worship of the true God, led the Lord to introduce a new arrangement into His program for the kingdom. He chose a nation to accomplish His purpose in the earth. This was initiated in the call of Abraham out of the Ur of the Chaldees (Gen. 12:1-3). To this man He made an unconditional promise, a promise which was renewed to Isaac and Jacob (Gen. 12:1-3, 7; 13:14-18; 15:1-21; 17:1-9, 19-22; 22:15-18; 26:1-5; 28:10-15; 48:3-4). An integral part of this covenant involved the land where this people was to take up an everlasting dwelling (Gen. 12:1, 7; 13:14-17; 15:18; 17:8; 48:4; Deut. 30:1-10). There was partial obedience to the promise on the part of the patriarchs. Abraham did not separate immediately from his kindred nor go directly to the land of Canaan (Gen. 11:31). When famine threatened, he left the land and took refuge in Egypt (Gen. 12:10-20). Isaac did not resort to Egypt in time of famine; but he did move into the area of the Philistines, and to safeguard himself, he mishandled the truth, in spite of the fact that God had given him clear assurance of protection (Gen. 26:1-5). Disaster struck Jacob and his family. In the face of famine they fled into Egypt and took up their dwelling there for more than four hundred years (Gen. 15:13-16). At last a monarch rose up who knew not Joseph and subjected them to bondage for nearly a hundred years.

            A mighty redemption rescued the program of God initiated with the patriarchs. These people had drifted far from the faith of their fathers and national bondage threatened to bring them to an untimely end. To them, Moses, in his final address on the plains of Moab, reminded them of divine deliverance: “Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? Or hath God assayed to go and take, him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your God? Unto thee it was shewed that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God; there is none else beside him” (Deut. 4:33-35).

            So a new thing is now inaugurated in Israel. God establishes with His people a theocratic kingdom. Midst the thundering's and lightning’s of Sinai, God spoke to Moses and through Moses to the people encamped at the foot of the mountain. “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now, therefore, If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him. And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do” (Exod. 19:4-8).

            A theocracy is born, a conditional covenant is confirmed, and a nation of people have voluntarily placed themselves under the Kingship of God, with Moses as the first Mediatorial ruler (Acts 7:25, 27, 35).

            In almost unceasing demonstration of human insubordination, from this point on and for a thousand years, Israel refused to keep the covenant so solemnly agreed upon at Mount Sinai. While Moses was yet in the mount, the people broke the first stipulation by turning to idolatry (Exod. 32:1-35). Rebellion broke out under the leadership of Korah that threatened to engulf all the people, but devouring fire from the Lord put a swift end to the rebellion (Num. 16). In the early years of wilderness wanderings the nation came to the borders of the promised land, but because of unbelief, they did not enter and thus were sentenced to forty more years of wandering (Num. 32:8-13).

            Human contingency expressed itself repeatedly after the entrance into the land. There was the sin of Achan (Josh. 7:1) with its awful consequence (Josh. 7:5). During the period of the Judges there was one cycle after another in which the people did evil in the sight of the Lord, and God delivered them into the hands of their enemies, and then raised up Judges to rescue them (Jud. 2:11, 14, 16). There came a day when the people besought Samuel to make them a king like all the nations (1 Sam. 8:5). Deeply disturbed by this request, Samuel prayed and God answered him: "Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not, reign over them" (1 Sam. 8:7). The result was the selection of a man who had those qualities that would attract the people. He stood head and shoulders above all the people. He was a man attractive in outward appearance, and he was a mighty man of war. This one God permitted to be anointed king over Israel. But after many years, this man utterly rejected the word of the Lord and was in turn rejected by the Lord from being king over Israel (1 Sam. 15:18-23). Even David, a man after God's own heart, sinned in the course of his administration. But it was with Solomon that serious spiritual decline began in the kingdom.

            The seeds of political and spiritual decline broke out in dreadful proportions with the accession of Rehoboam. At first, there came political division in the kingdom. This opened the way for descent into moral and spiritual decline. Idolatry took its course swiftly in the Northern Kingdom, and led finally to the destruction of that kingdom under the invasions of the Assyrians in 722 B.C. The Southern Kingdom had already lapsed into dreadful apostasy which grew ever deeper as the years moved on. At last the end came in the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the temple, and the deportations to Babylon under the siege of Nebuchadnezzar.

            It is the vision given to the prophet Ezekiel, after he had been dragged away to Babylon that tells the story of the abysmal depths into which God's people had fallen. This describes the spirit of rebellion that provided the human contingency for the divine withdrawal of the historical kingdom in Israel. The Shekinah glory, the visible evidence of God's presence among His people, takes its departure. Now Ichabod can be written over the temple, the city, and the nation. The glory of God has departed, (1 Sam. 4:21). Listen to these solemn words of the prophet: “And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head: and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy. And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there . . . Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz . . . O son of man? Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the sun toward the east” (Ezek. 8:3-4, 14-16).

            “And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house . . . Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the Lord's glory . . . Then the glory of the Lord departed from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubins. And the cherubims lifted up their wings, and mounted up from the earth in my sight . . . And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city” (Ezek. 9:3; 10:4, 18-19; 11:23).