So we begin our next Sunday School class here on the topic of the Bible and civil government. How does the Bible instruct us in this important aspect of our lives? And we've been talking about the grand story of politics. Yes, there is such a grand story. The grand story of politics in particular, how does the Bible tell us a story that helps us understand the role of politics in God's great plan for the earth. When we see the way in which the state fits into God's big picture of what He's doing in redemption, a lot of things click in place in terms of those practical matters that we all wonder about, about how we should think about our voting, how we should think about the issues before us, what we should be striving for as we think about reforming the state, what's even the goal. All those things come into greater clarity when we see it in the light of this big picture. And so, don't think that I'm not interested in practical matters by the fact that I take some time to sketch this story because I think if we can understand the story well, a lot of those practical things will fall in place later. I want to start though by trying once more, I'm not sure how successful I've been in the past on this, I want to try once more to give a slightly more clear definition of the state and politics since that's been something that's been a recurring question So, I want to try to be clearer here when we talk about the state, in particular the aspects of our human life that are in view in this class. When we're talking about the state, we're talking about the authoritative body that has control over a given region for the purpose, at the very least for the purpose of justice, order, and peace. There can be additional roles entrusted to the state, but that's sort of the core idea. It has to do with authority. Authority, as we'll see, that's given by God. These are people who have rightful authority. And it's connected to a place. So a state has boundaries delimiting it. It has control over a region, obviously not just the land, but the people in it primarily. And it has control for this purpose, for the purpose of justice, order, and peace. So this enables us to distinguish it from other institutions that may have control for different purposes, as we'll talk about. For example, the church has control over a people but the purpose is explicitly one for worship, for the purpose of building up the knowledge of Christ. So, hopefully this helps a little bit in terms of what we're after when we're talking about the state and governmental roles. And then when we talk about politics, One person pointed out to me that politics, we use that actually pretty broadly. You could have the politics in an academic department, all the politics that go on there. You could have the politics at a business, whatever, that kind of thing. But what we're talking about here is, when we talk about politics for the purpose of this class, is we're talking about the human relationships and interactions that surround this state. Politics in this case would include things like lobbying, people doing journalism for the purpose of giving a particular slant on what's going on around us. This is sort of stuff that even if you're not technically a member of the ruling party of the state, you're still trying to influence it. And so that's what we mean when we talk about politics. So hopefully that gives a little more clarity what we're talking about. I hope to use these terms consistently now. Okay, not seeing any debate on this, I'm going to now just move to continue our grand story. I want to start by just rehashing briefly the story that we have thus far. Kind of stopped right in the middle last time. I'm going to draw a diagram that I hope is helpful. I'm going to give the story a title, which is a charged title. It's The Tale of Two Cities. And there is what we could call the old creation city. which we heard about last time, where we have this full-orbed rule that was established by God in the old creation, which we can call Adam's Theocracy. And this rule we talked about last time has this arrangement that God made in the garden in Genesis 1 is all dedicated to His glory. That's what it means when it says that Adam is in the image of God. He's meant to reflect God's excellence in all of life. We saw how it has yet to develop, but at least initially, that these different realms, realms that we're going to define more in future classes, but these different realms of the family, the state, and then what I'll call the church, which is simply the the worshiping aspects, the directly God-related aspects of human existence, that all these things are integrated together for this explicit purpose, the furtherance of God's glory. here. And when we considered those state functions that were given to Adam, there were several of them, and it's important for us to know that there were things that the state did before there was evil. The idea of a state is something that precedes the fall. God says, let them rule. So they are ruling on God's behalf over the animals. They are caring for the earth and ordering the earth, just as we see God exercising rule. He gives us a picture of that when he separates the waters and when he fills and causes those realms that he makes to be well-ordered. That's what humanity is supposed to do. We're supposed to continue the purpose that God had started and we see this authority that Adam has over the animals in his naming of them. It's part of his exercising of the subduing of creation. One of the things he's doing is giving words for all of them. All of these things, pictures of what Adam is to do in his kingly wisdom. One of the things we notice as we turn to books of wisdom, like Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, is that they're very creational. They're in keeping with what God has created, understanding how we can then bring order like God brought order for His honor. We could call this right here, this theocracy, where all these different spheres are integrated together. All that Adam is doing as king is explicitly for the glory of God. We can call this the original kingdom of God. It's the original kingdom of God because God is explicitly at the top of it all, and we had this arrangement. I'm going to be doing a big diagram here, so I'm trying to conserve space. Sorry, this is a little dense right here. We have God over humanity, over man, over everything. this arrangement that is so core to God's purposes in history that He would rule the world through humanity. That's what the purpose was of the Garden, of the original creation of mankind. This is the original Kingdom of God. Any questions on this as we're just reviewing here before we get to some newer stuff? You're talking about just before Cain, right? And being before the fall, my guess is that there's a kind of a hypothetical embedded in this that if Adam and Eve did not sin, we wouldn't propagate to the earth. There would be some kind of state. genuine rule and authority. Part of where we get that, it's not just pure theory or speculation, is by considering where it's all headed at the end. Part of what Jesus does is he accomplishes God's original purpose, except he even goes beyond that, as we'll see. And what do we see there? Well, the climax of history is Jesus with all things under his feet, ruling as king. And we see a government. I'm giving away the end of the story here, but oh well. You knew the end of the story anyway. But that's part of where we understand when God's talking about ruling and subduing and he's creating these authoritative relationships and we see all these things in the garden that remind us of Adam, remind us of kingly things later on, things that kings do. We say to ourselves, wow, Adam does a lot of things that kings later will do both in Israel and then what Jesus will do. We understand that it's not wrong to call this a kingly arrangement. In addition to all the other things we talked about last time, it is also a priestly arrangement and so on. The interesting thing about that is that when we think of government, when we think of a state, we think primarily in terms of Yes. Yeah. Not at all here. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of hard to see that. Yeah, I mean, I think there's at least one thing we can say. I've been reflecting on this too. That Part of what goes on with this whole idea of ordering and subduing the earth is there's a specificity to that. When you're doing a constructive endeavor of, say, city planning, There's going to be one person in the end, or maybe it'll be like a committee or something, that's going to call the shots and say, we're going to have it go east, west, north, south. We're not going to have it go on a diagonal. According to our wisdom, because of the lay of the land here, we're going to have this be the area for shipping and everything like that. There's a kind of masterminding of the ordering process and an intelligence that governs all of that, that kingly wisdom is at least part of what we see Jesus exercising. I would also want to say this for this part here. There is also lurking behind all this the knowledge that there is evil present here, especially when God says, guard and keep the garden. That's a priestly role, but it's also a kingly role. When Satan shows up, there was a kingly task, as well as a priestly task, of destroying the presence of evil in this holy realm. Remember, a state is connected to a place. The theocracy initially is the garden. That's where man's rule is established initially, and God is calling him to gardenize the earth. That needs to happen, and that holy realm needs to be preserved. by his kingly efforts to defend against Satan's intrusions. Yes, Paul? Right. There is a direct accountability. Yeah, I mean, I get what you're saying that it seems like there would be no need for man to be over man in this arrangement. I don't see human authority over other humans as an intrinsic evil. And in fact, this is something that we see again and again as Scripture emphasizing that actually human authority over others is part of what we're all heading towards. As Jesus, as a man, exerting his good authority over us, And that's something I think we do see in the garden time with, as I mentioned last time, Adam ruling in love over his wife, and that's a good arrangement. Let me press on because we don't have much time for the review. I want to talk about how the fall happened and we have this downward collapse of this theocracy. The holy realm has been violated, not just by Satan, but now by Adam and Eve joining with Satan in their uprising against God. They align themselves politically with Satan. And that's part of the curse. We didn't talk about this, but the curse on the serpent is, guess what? This political alliance that Adam and Eve have made against me with you, O serpent, God says, is now going to come to an end. I'm going to put enmity, he says, between the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent. In other words, these two who are currently in alliance, I am now going to separate them and that once again the seed of the woman will be on God's side, crushing the serpent's head. So there's that promise lingering there of a renewal of the kingdom of God, just very tentatively. But before we get to that promise, I want to talk a little bit more about the covenant that began with Noah after the fall. And here's where we start to take a look at the long view. The long view of history, where the question now is, okay, so this is what God has in mind. God ruling over mankind, who then rule over everything. That's where this is all headed. And we're wondering, where is this going to appear? When will we see God renewing this purpose, if in fact this theocracy will ever be regained, this original purpose? And so when we're coming to the time after the flood, after this judgment of God, we're wondering, where is this going to appear? And we look at Noah's covenant and we see here certain things that are taking place. One is this. as I tried to say before, that Noah's covenant is limited in time. There will come an end to Noah's covenant, as God explicitly says at the end of chapter 8 of Genesis, when He says, While the earth remains, A22, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. In other words, I'm going to continue here, while the earth remains, to cause those regular seasons to take place. I am never again, he says, going to flood the earth with water. So we have this temporary quality where God is saying, for an indefinite period of time, I am going to restrain my judgment. It's not going to be a constant downward spiral to sin, cataclysm, and then start over again, and all these different arcs being made. No, this is a one-time thing to show us where history is heading towards judgment. And he's saying, look, this judgment, the final judgment, that is lingering over this world because Adam sinned, and brought judgment not only on himself but on everything he represented, all the old creation, this coming judgment is now held in abeyance for an indefinite period of time while the earth remains. So it's a temporary arrangement and it is an arrangement that has certain key purposes, certain gracious purposes on God's part. It is intended for preservation. And we get that from the parts about whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood will be shed. There's this important calling of the state to restrain evil. We would consider this a stately task of administering justice and proportionate justice too. Not like, okay, look, It's an eye for an eye. It's not something like where if you do some crime you receive this extraordinary punishment above and beyond what would be equitable. So the state is doing that. We see the family being commanded in Noah's Covenant to continue to propagate, to fill the earth. But one of the things that we don't see here, and someone was asking about this after class, a very good question, How do we know for sure that what God is doing here in Noah's covenant isn't actually the reinstatement of this theocracy? How do we know for sure that these explicitly religious tasks of filling the earth with God's worshippers isn't actually still in command right here, something that Noah is commanded to do? Well, what we see here is there's an absence of a holy realm. There's no... command here, priestly command, to guard and to keep some certain area. There's no sense in which we can call this a theocracy, because even if God is at the top of all of it, He's not ordained this, remember our definition of theocracy, He's not ordained this for the purpose of furthering His worship explicitly. It is instead for the preservation of humanity. In other words, preservation, but not the glory of humanity. So it's a stripping back of some of the really amazing commands that are given to Adam. Some of those are reiterated, some of those are not. The fact that those aren't reiterated, like for example, the command to rule and subdue the earth, those aren't committed to Noah. implies, I think, especially because we don't have this holy realm, that we're not looking at the full-orbed realization of the kingdom of God that we saw here with Adam. Instead, Noah's covenant is a preserving covenant. And in the midst of all this, there is, as opposed to unity right here, all of these, they're all integrated with Adam. Instead, we see fragmentation. And you need only look to the following chapter, and you don't have to look that far, of humanity. Even at the end of chapter 9, we see Noah cursing Canaan, the son of Ham, and blessing Shem and Japheth. There's a fragmentation of humanity, and chapter 10 of Genesis is the table of nations. these 70 nations that are divided from the original family of Noah, all of them forming different nations. And so, within this covenant, we have the rise and fall of many nations, none of them deserving the title Kingdom of God. They are human institutions that are within this larger covenant that God makes with all of Noah's descendants, but they don't have that holy theocracy aspect to them. Any questions on this? This is pretty key stuff. Yeah, go ahead Betty. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It says, "...bring out with you every living thing." Genesis 8, 17. "...of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals, that they may breed abundantly and be fruitful and multiply." Of course, that reminds us, doesn't it, of Genesis 1. Of God commanding the beasts to multiply and also humanity to multiply, which is something I put up here. The humanity and really all the creatures are to fill the earth. He's very much portrayed as a new Adam and a new creation. Even the story of how the waters recede and the dry land appears in chapter 8 of Genesis. We're thinking, wow, it's just like in Genesis chapter 1. He's making a new world here. The plants are coming forth and all of that. Noah is definitely a new Adam figure, but my case is that he's diminished in his role. You can't call this a theocracy. unless there is a command to further God's worship, and in particular to not only preserve that holy realm that was the garden, but then to propagate that realm, to gardenize the earth, to make all the earth a temple of the presence of God Most High. There's no sense of God coming to dwell here as he dwelt in the garden. God is kindly allowing this preservation to take place. We could call this common grace that's showered on everybody, that they would not be living in anarchy. We can't call it redemptive grace in the sense that we're not seeing the restoration of humanity's relationship to God. There's no reconciliation between God and man in the covenant of Noah. I don't think I'm arguing from silence to say that. I think as we tell the rest of the story, we'll start to realize, yeah, it's not going to be really through Noah that God will make that new beginning, that redemptive new beginning. It will be through the seed of Abraham. So, I think we're right to call this a non-redemptive covenant. A covenant that's not intended to restore God's relationship with humanity, but instead to preserve it. Do you want to follow up on that? Sure. Okay, probably not. Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah, I appreciate what you're saying. Well look, there's a huge space of time here between Adam and Noah. What about then? I guess my point would be that we see these same principles at work in admittedly limited ways. in that time between the end of Genesis 3 and the beginning of Genesis 6, where, as I tried to argue, God is graciously, in the curse on the ground, Genesis 3, He is graciously allowing that there will be bread and there will be children, but it will be through suffering, there will be attenuation to all those things. So, there's a continuance that God is permitting He's not immediately, after the fall, bringing the final judgment that must now come. He's pronounced death on all those who defile His holy place and defile the relationship with Him. That death has yet to enter history in the ultimate sense. That final judgment is still coming. for all Adam's sin and the sin of his children. I think that's certainly something that's in the air as we consider Genesis 3.15 and the first proclamation of the gospel that God was going to put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. He will bite the seed of the woman's heel, but that seed of the woman will crush the serpent's head. That's a redemptive promise right there that all humanity in this time could have clung to. It's all just very amorphous in these three chapters of Genesis. I think what's happening as we continue to read on, as we're starting to get more definition in the picture. Yeah, Mike? Yeah, again. What's going on with him? Yep, I agree with you. And that's part of the nature of the Bible, actually, is that God's purposes become clear over time. And we get more clarity on what God is intending as we move along. And so part of what we're wrestling with is the lack of definition in some of these intermediate periods. I'm not sure that it's God's purpose to get any clearer with us on those things. I think we kind of have to roll with that. and keep pressing on with the story. Maybe I'm being a little obvious in that we need to move on to the new parts of the story. But go ahead, Paul. It's a good question though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yes, and we have hints of this when Lamech says, I have slain a man for wounding me. That's injustice. That's not eye for an eye. That's not proportionate justice, and this guy's boasting about this. I think that's an excellent point that the effects of the fall are at work throughout this whole time period. Even Noah himself is a fallen ruler. and is not a good steward of the land and his drunkenness that he falls into in the vineyard that he plants. So the question is, if this is not the kingdom of God, if what is given to Noah is a temporary, preserving kind of covenant that holds the final justice of God that's someday going to come in abeyance and give some structure for humanity for that time period, where will we find this new kingdom of God? And that's where we now have to move beyond the tale of the old creation city to now tell the story of the new creation city that God begins to show to us. Where will we find God establishing a new theocracy which is to guard His holy realm? Where do we find this? Where do we find God instituting a state which has as its explicit purpose the furtherance of the worship of God and the honoring of his name? Well, we find it with Abraham. Actually, I just realized, looking at my notes, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm going to put Abraham up here for a second, but I'm going to take a step back and just point out that we have these different qualities of Noah's covenant, and with Babel we have the first experience about how humanity is going to rebel against these limitations on Noah's covenant. What happens at Babel? All these people who are instructed by God to scatter throughout the earth, fill it, Well, they are actually gathering together in one place, Genesis chapter 11, to establish what we could call a counterfeit unity. You have the fragmentation of humanity. Now we have a counterfeit unity where their explicit purpose is, let us make a name for ourselves. In other words, this is an entirely humanistic unity. This is not a unity around the throne of God. This is a unity around people and them building the city and boasting in what they're doing. And so Babel is a counterfeit unity that is a rejection of what is actually divinely established, now fragmenting of humanity, so that they wouldn't all rally together in unity against God. Here, their unity is against God, and God explicitly judges them by scattering them and confusing their tongues. Just a little side note, but we will see another instance of this counterfeit unity later in our story. But look at these other things, like for example, the preservation. The purpose is for the restraining of evil, preserving. Well, what do we see as another distortion of the state, but injustice? Over and over again, people use their authority to afflict the weak. And so we have Lamech, I just mentioned him. Sodom we're about to see is an instance of people doing injustice to the innocent. Egypt, where Pharaoh uses his power to totally oppress the people of God. So there's a tendency, as they are called to restrain evil, there's a tendency to propagate evil in the fallenness of people rejecting Noah's covenant. Same thing with the temporariness. If this is supposed to be a temporary thing, we're not supposed to put our ultimate hopes in this. What's the fallenness here? Well, it's the delusion of grandeur. The delusion of this is everything. And we see this in an especially poignant way in Daniel 4 with Nebuchadnezzar boasting. This is a common kingly boast in the ancient world. Nebuchadnezzar boasting and says, is this not Babylon the great? By the way, interesting that in Hebrew the word Babylon and Babel is exactly the same. Is this not Babel the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty? This is a guy who has fundamentally misconstrued the purpose of his government. He's rebelling against God's purpose. He's got these delusions of grandeur. So, in all these ways in which God has established the state to be a good thing, people reject that. We need to move beyond this temporary arrangement to what God is now doing redemptively through Abraham. And I'm going to try to just lay this out briefly, but do you realize that the promise to Abraham is a political promise? Genesis 12, verse 2. God says, among the other things He promises to Abraham, I will make you a great nation. Babel was trying to do this on their own, making their name great. God says, I will make your name great, Abraham. I'm going to make you into a great nation. And then a little bit further along, we start to realize God is giving to Abraham a holy realm. He is giving to them the land where God will dwell with his people, and in particular we look at verse 7 of chapter 17 of Genesis, there's an extraordinary statement, which I'll just read to you, which is clearly redemptive. Here we are in a place where the fellowship with God has been lost, humanity is broken in the relationship with God, humanity is in stated rebellion against God's kingship. What does God say? to Abraham, verse 7 of Genesis 17, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your descendants. And that's an echo of what we'll later hear of God saying, you will be my people, I will be your God. There is reconciliation to God as a core part of God's covenant to Abraham. In other words, we can call this a redemptive covenant. This is a place where God is not just holding judgment and abeyance, but He's actually establishing Abraham for the glory of God. It's particularly a national glory. It will be a state that we will see. Of course, as time goes on and Abraham's family grows, By the way, there's a reason why I'm doing this in dotted lines. You'll understand it a little bit here. And actually, I'm gonna need more space. Okay. All right. What happens? Well, here is the kingdom of God promised in Abraham. What do we see as time moves on, as we're moving, sort of zipping forward in our story with Israel, we have the kingdom of God pictured. And what do we have here with Israel if not a theocracy? It is the kingdom of God pictured. Israel is distinct from all these other nations that are operating just under the Noahic covenant. Abraham the Kingdom of Israel, what is given here is, remember the definition of a theocracy, a holy government with God as the recognized king, which he directly commissions to extend his worship. Take a look at this. What do we have here in Israel? I'm just going to summarize these texts, but they're well worth looking at. Exodus 19, 5 through 6, God says to Israel, He says, you are a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. A holy nation. So there's priest and nation joined together. What do we see as we keep going? they have a holy realm that they are to keep holy, just like in Adam's theocracy." What is this state ruling over? Exodus 25 verse 8, "...let them construct a sanctuary for me, that I may dwell among them." Construct a sanctuary, that is, in English, obscures the fact that it's It's the word for holiness. It's like, let them construct a holy place for me that I may dwell among them. Sorry, you don't see that in Noah's covenant. What is going on here? God is dwelling in this nation. He is restoring fellowship. with them. Keep on going. Take a look at some of the state functions that are entrusted to Israel. They have this holy realm. Well now, what is their calling? Just like with Adam, he is to preserve the theocracy, so also here, preserve this holy realm. How do they do that? Well, it's through those extremely offensive commands. Deuteronomy 7, one and following, the command to remove the Canaanites. Why? Because it's God's holy land. He will not allow idolaters any more than he will allow Satan in the garden. He's not going to allow idolaters in his holy place. And that goes for Israel too. Not just removing idolaters who were already in the land, In Deuteronomy 13, the whole chapter is about what happens if you have an Israelite who counsels rebellion against God. Interesting that the word is rebellion. You could see it as a fomenting revolt against God the King. Remove him. He is to be put to death. Why this strict command for death to all who counsel rebellion against God? It's because this is a holy realm in which there can be no defiling idolatry. Even as we look at the king, now as we move to this particular picture of the king, here's another reason why I think that we can say that that human rule over other humans is a good part of God's plan. If we look at God, and now we have the structure of everything under humanity's feet, what's the exact arrangement in Israel for humanity? Well, it sort of looks like this. We're at the very top of all Israel is the king. And the king is exercising on behalf of all Israel his authority to further the theocracy, to further that. And we see that especially in Deuteronomy chapter 17 verses 14 through 20, where actually 19 through 20 is the key part there, where the king is studying the law of the Lord. He has to actually copy the whole thing out for himself. Why? Because he is charged with preserving the holiness of Israel. And what do we see in some of the kingly tasks? What are some of the things that the king does? Well, 2 Samuel 7 verse 13, he is a temple builder. David's son is commissioned to do a religious task, to build the temple. What do we see also? He is called to be God's agent of judgment against his enemies. Psalm 18 especially celebrates this aspect of David the destroyer of the enemies of God. He's also the judge and all these other things we expect from good rulers who rule on God's behalf. As we think about this, we call this a theocracy because this is a holy realm that is entrusted to Israel where God is ruling through His new humanity, Israel, with the king at their head over, it's not quite everything yet, although as we start to move on we start to see actually God has entrusted all things under David's feet and the idea was supposed to be that David's realm would grow, that he would one day have all kings honoring him as king, Psalm 110 and other texts like that. So, that's what God is after here, a re-institution of the kingdom of God, this holy theocracy where family the children of Abraham, overlaps with and is basically one with nation or state, which is basically one with church. All these different spheres that are distinct nevertheless are completely overlapping. Where do you find the people of God? the nation of Israel. Who is allowed to be in the nation of Israel? Only those who have an obedient faith relationship to God. What constitutes the people of Israel? Well, it's the children of Jacob, basically. That's why they get the name Israel, Jacob's other name, and anybody else who's adopted into that family. You see how it's all interrelated, all overlapping? So what's going on here with Israel is a picture of the kingdom of God. Any thoughts on that? How Israel is special? Yeah, go ahead, Linda. I have a question. It seems like the institution of the family, the state, and the church are really all separate. They are separate institutions. When you say they're overlapping, I'm just confused. Is it that God's law Yeah, great question. I would say, it's an excellent question, and you do want to, even as I put the equal sign between here, it can be a little misleading. I'm not trying to say that you can't distinguish these things. Even in Israel, you look at, I was going to talk about this and then decided to cut it, but now I'll bring it in anyway. Second Chronicles 26, what happens there? Uzziah gets arrogant in his kingship, and what does he decide he's going to do? He says, I'm going to go offer an offering to God. And the priests are like, that's not for you to do. the exercise of priesthood is entrusted to us. And what happens, Uzziah is struck with leprosy for crossing over that sphere that was not entrusted to him. So there is distinctions within Israel as to who exercises these different familial, state, and church authorities. What I'm trying to say by saying these are all one, is that the people in each of those groups is identical, is meant to be identical. where everybody who is in the true faith, those who believe in the one true God, are simultaneously in the same state, the state of Israel. And they are also considered one of the family of Israel, and therefore one of the twelve tribes. They are in one of those families. There is a familial structure to all that too. All these different realms together are all unified in who's in it and also in the purpose, that it's explicitly for the glory of God. I don't know if that clears it up a little bit there for you Linda, maybe makes it more complicated. I'm going to press on and just do the next part because I want to save as much time as I can for next time for talking about Jesus. But take a look at this. What happens as time goes on in this kingdom of God picture as we move through the story? Well, basically, Israel degenerates into a new Babel, a new Canaan, a new Egypt. They become Canaanized. They become Egyptized. they become Babilized. How so? They reject their king. The same insubordination we see with Adam and Eve, and they're rejecting God's kingly authority, we see that on an epic scale with Israel. It's a replay of the fall And we see, for example, the Holy Realm polluted with false gods. We see the blood of the innocent poor. Jeremiah 2 and other places keep on talking about how much innocent blood is being shed. Exact rejection of even these normal states, what they're supposed to be doing. And then the kings, worst of all, the kings are supposed to be enforcing covenant law and propagating the rule of God, are actually at the forefront of the idolatry. And they're heading up the charge into Baal worship and everything. So what does God do? He does the same thing He does with Adam and Eve. He judges them. And the whole thing comes crashing down. And that's what happens in the exile. God tears down every single pillar of this state. He tears down the kings off the throne into exile. He tears down the temple, reduced to rubble. the family and reduces them to a tiny remnant. It's all done away. And they go into exile. And they are scattered. They're no longer even recognizable as a state anymore. The state of Israel ceased to exist. And what happens in the meantime will really perhaps surprise us. I'm sorry I only have one minute to describe it, but maybe I'll get a chance to say a little bit more next time. It is what we could call the time of the stewards, where we don't have a theocracy, but we do have certain kings being given the authority and some of the tasks of the sons of David that they had previously. It blows our mind to read Isaiah 45. where he says, thus you should say to Cyrus, who's a Persian king, thus you shall say to Cyrus, my Messiah, my Christ. And we're like, wait a second, you're not supposed to say that about a pagan king, right? But God says it. Cyrus is his anointed one. Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah 27.6, now I have given, God says in judgment against Israel, I've given all these lands, all the lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant. My servant, Nebuchadnezzar, this king of Babylon, is God's servant. I've given him also the beast of the field to serve him, which is kind of a throwback to Adam's theocracy there. Pretty cool. So that's also, by the way, in Jeremiah 28, 14. So Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, these kings who rule these great empires from here, this direction, towards Christ. And there's a series of these that Daniel describes in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7. These are the stewards, and pardon my allusion there to Lord of the Rings and Denethor and all that good stuff, who hold the crown, the title of King of Kings, legitimately by God's authority until such a time should come when the one to whom it belongs shall come. So, we have this time of the stewards. These stewards even, look at Ezra 1, Cyrus rebuilds a temple, decidedly David task, and he even claims that God has given all the realms into his hand and charged him to do this temple building. Special time, but really what we can call this, in terms of the big redemptive picture, this is a period of an interlude, a time of waiting. while we wait for the coming of the end times Kingdom of God promised to us in Isaiah 11 and other texts that speak of the coming King who will establish justice and righteousness, who will finally rule on God's behalf like they're supposed to do, and it will be a time where it will be the true theocracy where all of life will be taken up for the worship of God. How that all plays out, we'll see next time, but that's thus far in the story of the grand story of politics. Any final questions on this? Excellent question. Great question. The question is, before the exile, is there really any difference from after the exile with these stewards and the Kings of David? I say there is, because in the time of the stewards, there is no holy realm for them to protect. The land has been defiled. Like you said, Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar, they are divinely appointed kings. And at times, little hints of it come about in Daniel 4 and other places, Daniel 6, where they actually acknowledge Yahweh, the one true God, the Lord, to be their king. But for the most part, they reject his kingship flagrantly. So if a theocracy is one where God is the recognized head, we can't call it a theocracy, nor can we call it a theocracy because there's no holy realm for them to guard and propagate. Great question. Wish we could keep talking, keep those questions going. Let me just close us with a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you for your redemptive purposes for humankind, for how you have seen fit, even after we rejected your good kingship, how you've seen fit nevertheless to reestablish the kingdom of God. That kingdom of God that was lost in the garden has now been, in this part of the story, pictured and promised to us. And Lord, we thank You for these wonderful pictures of the kingdom which we are now citizens of. We pray that You would help us to be thankful for Jesus, our good King. And Lord, we thank You that He rules over us with justice and with righteousness. Show forth Your kind rule to us now as we go to worship. In Jesus' name, Amen. This here is the club.