Last week we began looking at the Kingdom of God from a biblical-theological perspective. I remember when I was first introduced to these ideas; my entire paradigm of how I read Scripture was revolutionized. When I began to recognize the theological and literary connections which are present in the Bible, my love for its complexity and richness soared. With that in mind, I’d like to give you an example from Matthew’s Gospel.
Dr. Tim Mackie points out that Matthew presents Jesus as the new Israel and new Moses. Jesus came up out of Egypt as a child (as the nation of Israel came out of Egypt in the Exodus), passed through the waters of baptism (as Israel passed through the Red Sea), and entered into the desert for forty days (Israel wandered in the desert for forty years). After that, He went up onto a mountain to deliver His teaching (think Moses on Mt. Sinai), His “manifesto” of the Kingdom. Now why would Matthew present Jesus this way? Because he was writing to a primarily Jewish audience, and his interest was in demonstrating how Jesus fulfilled the incomplete story of Israel. As I wrote in the previous post, that is one of the functions Matthew’s genealogy serves.
Dr. Mackie goes on to explain that in the center of Matthew’s Gospel, there are five sections of Jesus’s teaching. Those five sections correspond to the five books of the Torah. In other words, Matthew is presenting Jesus as Israel’s ultimate covenant teaching authority who will fulfill the storyline of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).
Here’s the layout:
Chapters 4-7: The conquering of the enemy and the teachings of the King.
Chapters 8-10: Jesus brings the power of the Kingdom into the lives of hurting, broken people (through His healing works). Two parallel stories within this part show Jesus calling people to follow Him, meaning that one can only experience the power of the King and His Kingdom by repenting and becoming His disciple.
Chapters 11-13: Stories of the response of the people to Jesus and His teachings and His signs. Responses vary greatly. Jesus preaches parables of the Kingdom in this section, talking about the various responses of the people.
Chapters 14-20: This section deals with all of the expectations that the people had of the Messiah. In fact, Jesus feeding the multitudes closely parallels Moses’ giving bread to the people (although Jesus’ miracle flowed from His own deity). Many had incorrect expectations of the Messiah, and Jesus began to withdraw from the crowds and religious leaders, focusing on teaching His disciples about His Lordship and Messiahship.
Chapters 21-25: What Dr. Mackie calls the clash of the kingdoms, where Jesus confronts the religious leaders and rebukes them for their hardness of heart. He demonstrates His Kingdom over and against the establishment. Dr. Mackie explains that Jesus was demonstrating His royal rule over Israel as their God and King by going into the temple and overturning the tables and disrupting the temple sacrifices.
Jesus’ death was the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises; it’s just that nobody expected things to happen that way. And by saying that all authority had been given to Him, He was declaring Himself the King of the world, and commissioned His disciples to go proclaim this Good News of the Kingdom—Jesus is Lord, He is risen, and forgiveness and eternal life are available to all who will repent and place their faith in Him, becoming His disciple.
“When the soldiers dress Jesus up in a purple robe, they do so in order to mock him, but John tells us of it in order to declare that Jesus is indeed the one in purple, the one before whom the nations will bow. Pilate circles around the possibility that Jesus is in some sense ‘king of the Jews,’ but without realizing that, according to the Jews’ own ancient traditions, their king is to be king of the whole world. John knows that he is telling a story of someone dying the death of a criminal. He is determined that his readers will ‘hear’ the story also as the death of the rightful king. Jesus’s kingdom will not come by violence (18:36). It will come through his own death. When he is lifted up from the earth, he will draw all people to himself (12:32).” N.T. Wright
Dr. Michael Horton has said that the Kingdom of God is the first empire ever founded upon the shed blood of the King, who does not expect His servants to shed their blood. And N.T. Wright, picking up on the theme of God’s Kingdom in the book of Acts wrote:
“Acts, with its many tales of confrontation, persecution, and martyrdom, takes forward exactly this agenda. This is what it looks like, Luke is saying, when Jesus is enthroned as Lord of the world, and his followers go out to put his royal rule into effect, ending up in Rome announcing God’s kingdom and Jesus as Lord ‘with all boldness, and with no one stopping them’ (28:31).”
When we read the Scriptures, divorced from the Kingdom language in which God inspired them to be read, we miss SO MUCH of what God is saying to us. And that’s what this whole teaching series is all about: God is King and He’s invited us to walk with Him in relationship, with our sins forgiven, partnering with Him in the work He’s doing.
Click here for part 1 of the series
Click here for part 2 of the series
Click here for part 3 of the series
Click here for part 4 of the series