Chapter 3: Theocracy
What is theocracy? Theos is the Greek word meaning “god.” We know what democracy is: government ruled by the people. Theocracy is a government ruled by God. When we’re expressing the Kingdom of God, we’re expressing the rule of God. Jesus has Himself called the Gospel “the Gospel of the Kingdom.”{xviii} This is very possibly the central theme of all of Scripture. We aren’t talking about some sort of ethereal utopia when discussing the Kingdom of God. Instead, we’re speaking of a reality.
Paul said that the Jerusalem from above is our mother.{xix} Even before the New Heaven and New Earth there is apparently a ‘New Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem is the symbol and statement of God’s ultimate intention. When you read Psalms or prophetic Scriptures that say something like, “Come, let us go up to Jerusalem,” it is because Jerusalem has become the fulfillment of God’s ultimate intention. Though it is a literal city, and many Scriptures are to be translated as a people going up to that literal city, it is also a symbol. We are to be the Jerusalem of God according to Revelation 21{xx}. The Bride of Christ is called the New Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven.
It is that Bride that comes down that is being expressed when Hebrews 12:22 says, “But ye have come unto Zion…” It is not saying that we have somehow achieved a super-spiritual place, but instead have achieved a reality. By being in Christ, we are no longer strangers and pilgrims without home. We have come unto our home, and our home is Zion. Our home is not here upon this earth. It is heavenly. That heavenly reality has a certain character and quality about it.
We read in Colossians 3:17, “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” This is our mandate. We are of a different kingdom. Our life should be lived through a different society. The homes we buy for ourselves, the type of clothing we wear, the occupations or careers that we are employed by, what we do with our money, and how we spend our time should all be considered in light of the Kingdom. God’s people have a certain culture about them. We need to know what that culture is.
To be in the Kingdom of God, we must yield ourselves fully to that Kingdom. Nothing is our own. Everything is unto Jesus. To be Kingdom minded is to be heavenly minded. There is no difference in terms. The Kingdom of God is heaven. Theocracy is the government of God. God rules from Zion. Currently, Zion is a heavenly reality, but it will soon be married to the earthly Zion. When Christ returns, He shall rule and reign from that locality over all of the families of the earth. We will be united with Him to rule and reign for 1000 years. The only thing necessary to achieve that calling is to come unto Zion. We put away all hindrances and the sin that so easily entangles us, and run the race with full passion.{xxi}
The New Heaven and New Earth are barely described at all in Scripture. The reason for this is twofold: it is something so holy that God does not reveal its majesty to those that have not also endured great struggle, and we only see through a glass darkly. John was not able to describe the New Jerusalem coming out of heaven with language that we would understand. He looked for symbols and metaphors in order to explain what he saw. The glory that Saint John beheld was more than language can express.{xxii} It is that glorious City that we are currently seated in. {xxiii}
Who of us truly believes that? It is that belief, that we have come unto Zion, that actually keeps us and saves us from deception. It keeps us from falling away, and it saves us from anything less than that glory. Anything less than the glory of God is apostasy, because the glory of God is in you{xxiv}. It is the love of that reality, the glory of God, which is the love of truth.{xxv} God’s glory is Truth. It is ultimate reality, which is to say ultimate truth. When I say that anything less than the glory of God is apostasy, what I am communicating is that any settling for something less than truth and reality is a false ground to live our lives from.
We actually pay a much higher price than we could know for such settling. It is a difficult thing to follow God. The Sermon on the Mount displays the impossibility of following Christ in our own ability. It actually takes the Spirit of God to walk in obedience to God. It is obedience to that Spirit, which is always obedience to the Scripture, that will keep us in the days to come. How do we make it through these hard times that are about to come upon us? We live like Jesus told us to.
If we were to only take the Sermon on the Mount and live according to those words, our lives would be completely other than what we have ever subjected ourselves to. That alone is enough to constitute that we are of a different kingdom. But if we don’t live like that now, why should we believe that we would live like that then? At what time do you think that somehow the Holy Ghost will fall and “all of a sudden” you will be able to endure until the end? This is deception, dear children. We deceive ourselves if we think that we can currently live in luxury and comfort without there being severe repercussions in the soon coming future.
Adopted as Children of God
In the question of what it means to be a part of the Kingdom of God, one of the most often quoted verses in found in Luke 17, “…the kingdom of God is within you.”{xxvi} There is something that chafes me about this flippant quotation. It preaches ‘good’, but it simply is not true. The context that we use in saying that the Kingdom of God is within you is incorrect. Jesus was making a point here. He was saying that currently, at that time, the Kingdom of God was among them. It was within in the sense of among, or in the middle. The Kingdom of God is fully come when Christ Jesus rules and reigns from Zion over Israel, and Israel over all of the nations of the world. The statement is being made that the Kingdom has come, because Christ is here.
There is a conflict that is being expressed throughout the Scripture. The Kingdom of God is expressed from the beginning to the end. There are literal kingdoms. There is the Kingdom of Light, and the Kingdom of Darkness. Those two kingdoms are at enmity with one another. Our adoption into the Kingdom of Light is a salvation from the one kingdom and into the other. While we were once given over to the sinful habits of the flesh, and were bound under the power of the devil, which is death, we are liberated and made free from both death and sin by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Each kingdom symbolizes a wisdom. By wisdom, I mean value system. The one kingdom, the kingdom of darkness, promotes self. We were at one time governed by that selfish wisdom. Now, because we are children of Light, our chains of selfishness have been broken off. The Kingdom of God is governed by selflessness. We have the two wisdoms symbolized in the two trees within the Garden of Eden. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a symbol of this world’s wisdom, handed over to the kingdom of darkness, and ruled over by the same serpent, the devil, that deceived Adam and Eve into taking that fruit. The tree of life symbolizes the heart and character of God – humility and sacrifice.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is about coming to our own conclusions. While Jesus said that no one is good but God alone, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil tells us that humanity is sufficient. That tree tempts us to use our own intelligence to discover the things of God. Yet, it is the tree of life that says our intelligence can’t comprehend the things of God. To take of the tree of life is to take up our crosses and follow Christ. Even in our understanding and knowledge, we forfeit our own opinions to take up what it might be that God would reveal. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and His ways are higher than our ways, but we have the mind of Christ.{xxvii} To be ruled by the Kingdom of God, we must come out from our old mindsets and habits to be ruled by a different mindset and government.
It always amazes me to find people that claim they are ambassadors of heaven, and yet their lifestyle is completely contrary to my own. In a sense, I don’t believe that God truly cares all that much about what cereals we buy, what kind of clothes we wear, what kind of music we listen to, and those sorts of things. Yet, there is a sense in which what makes up our lifestyle – the home we live in, how many clothes and shoes we own, whether we go out to eat regularly or cook at home, how we spend our money, what we lend our time and devotion to, etc – should be governed by a different culture than the one we’ve been taught.
Discussing with speakers who travel, it doesn’t take long before you realize that staying at people’s homes is quite revealing as to whether or not they have truly been given to the Kingdom of God. Some homes have a closet so full of jackets and coats that are never even worn that the speaker can’t find room for his own coat. Some provide a massive meal for the speaker, and others will set the plate with the allotted portions and don’t you dare ask for seconds. Some people live in homes that are barely big enough for their families, because they want to be conservative and use their money in better ways. Others live in homes that have many more bedrooms than they have people living there. How is it that there is such a massive difference?
From what tree are we gaining our opinions? What kingdom is telling us how to live? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a selfish tree. It symbolizes self-preservation. The branches go out and develop into self-promotion. The fruit is self-gratification, which, when we eat it, we find that the seeds bring forth death. The tree of life is a cross. It symbolizes sacrifice. The branches go out and develop into humility. The fruit itself is death, but the seeds bring forth eternal life. When we attempt to take of the fruit of that tree in selfish motive, we find that we are all the more practicing the values of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In order to obtain life we must lose life. It seems absolutely absurd.
Everything in the world tells us that we gain life by preserving and maintaining life. Why do you think such practices as botox and other forms of plastic surgery are popular? To the world, and in the natural, we assume that life is actually about doing things and having toys and taking adventure. Enjoying life means vacation. It means retirement. It means playing games. It means having fast moving vehicles. We eat, drink, and are merry, for tomorrow we die.{xxviii} Yet, the tree of life expresses to us that we are not truly living until we have truly died.
Adoption into this kingdom means passing from death to life. We were once dead in transgression and sin.{xxix} We were once enslaved by our lusts and greed. God has brought freedom to the captive,{xxx} and life to the dead.{xxxi} No longer are our lives lived under the bondage of sin and depravity.{xxxii} Instead, we are now given ultimate hope. We are children of God.{xxxiii} Our inheritance awaits us.{xxxiv} With the new birth, we have been brought into a kingdom that is not like the kingdom we’ve lived in up to this point. Everything about it is contrary. But we know that even though we live contrary to the way of the world, and indeed at enmity with the world,{xxxv} we have a better inheritance that will endure.{xxxvi}
Adoption is about coming into the Kingdom of God. It is about discovering the Father that has so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.{xxxvii} It is about coming to the light so that the darkness might be exposed,{xxxviii} and we might have sublime freedom. To be adopted is the first stage of discovery. We’re now exposed to a new and different reality. This reality is invisible, and yet more tangible than the false reality that the culture around us lives in and promotes. Our adoption pushes back the kingdom of darkness, and it fixes us to be brought into the Holy City where there is no night, and no darkness.{xxxix} It might be the first step, but that first step is a doozy.
A clash between light and darkness
The Kingdom of God is a Kingdom of Light.{xl} The opposite is the kingdom of darkness. We don’t need to point fingers or play the “blame game” to figure out what nations and peoples are in what kingdoms. The truth is that there are only these two. Neither are a physical reality (yet), and both are also spiritual conditions. It is a condition to be in the Kingdom of God. You cannot do anything to get yourself in or out of that by your own strength and ability. It is of grace that you are saved, and not of works.{xli} Likewise, “we were born dead in our sins and transgressions, in which we used to live when we followed the ruler of the kingdom of the air.”{xlii}
Some have argued that to walk according to the light, as written in 1 John, is a statement of walking in purity. This is not true. When we look at the gospel of John we find a conversation with Jesus and Nicodemus. In this conversation, Jesus makes a remarkable statement: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”{xliii} Walking according to the light is not about purity, but about transparency. We are open and honest. We don’t hide ourselves. We can see, because we are willing for others to see us.{xliv}
Those that are righteous will discern the times. They will know whether what is written in this book is true or not.{xlv} It takes righteousness to know truth, not intelligence. If we are of the light, then we will be discerning. It doesn’t take any kind of wand waving or cultivation of the Spirit. Yes, it is a gift, but ultimately we are all called to “discern the spirits.”{xlvi} If we cannot practice discernment in our own lives now, then how shall we discern at the end when everything will be done to fool even the elect?{xlvii}
This battle between light and dark has been going on from the beginning. What God had originally allowed to remain upon the earth and called it ‘very good,’ Satan has now manipulated darkness into something abominable. What was intended to cloak God so that He might have fellowship with humanity has been perverted in order to blind and deceive humanity. But now God has brought into the world the Light, and so we are all without excuse.{xlviii} Those that reject the Light do so because they love darkness. It has nothing to do with ‘not knowing.’
Jesus is the Light, which is also the light of men.{xlix} He came into this dark world to set free the blind, the captive, and the enslaved. He is our Moses that went to the Pharaoh, which is the devil, and proclaimed, “Let my people go!” Our exodus from darkness into His marvelous light{l} is characterized by our new identities. He has given us all new names in Heaven,{li} so that we might walk according to the righteousness that He has given us instead of the old sinful habits. We are new creations, and therefore we are no longer objects of darkness.{lii}
His sheep hear His voice,{liii} and anyone that is still in darkness without understanding has only himself or herself to blame. Jesus told us that He would give us the Holy Spirit to “tell us what is yet to come”.{liv} He also told His disciples that He does not consider us servants, but friends.{lv} You tell your friends even the secret things, and so we ought to be able to discern the times. As we have faith to believe for it, to that extent God can reveal His plans and purposes.
In the end, only light remains. Light prevails over the darkness. It doesn’t matter how bad it gets, we can remind ourselves of this and rejoice. Good always defeats evil. It is inherent in the wisdom of God. We can go to our own deaths and martyrdoms with joy knowing that what is to come will surpass anything that we can think, feel, or imagine in this life. Even in martyrdom we show light in the darkness. Our lives are lived in a way that display the Kingdom of Light to a world that is in darkness. Likewise, our deaths shall also display God’s Kingdom and His power.
We do not fear, because fear comes from a lack of faith. Perfect love casts out fear.{lvi} But why does perfect love cast out fear? It casts out fear because we know in whom we have believed. God is our judge, and we know how He shall judge us. Because we know that there is no judgment or destruction coming upon us (also known as the second death), we shall not fear. Love has been perfected in us, because we know that Christ has loved us. He has loved us, and we have loved Him. If we remain in that love and do His commandments, then we shall never fear. His command is to love one another. In perfect love, fear is driven out.{lvii} This is the wisdom of God. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.{lviii} Our testimony is not our own, but Christ’s. It is the testimony of His redemption. “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”{lix} When the enemy tries to overcome us, we have victory even in our death, because light overcomes the darkness, and darkness cannot overcome the light.
Who will rule over this cosmos?
This is at the heart of the Gospel. Many times we think that the Gospel is somehow a formula to get saved. We think that the Gospel is a magic genie lamp that if we pray a prayer, and ‘believe the gospel,’ that God is then bound by His word to save us. The Gospel in the first century was about how Jesus overcame the devil.{lx} The question wasn’t about how do we get to be saved, and therefore enjoy heaven when we die. The question was, “Who will rule over this cosmos?”
During the time of Jesus, Caesar Augustus ruled.{lxi} The Roman Empire stretched from Britain to India. It was the known world. If there were a people that were known, Rome took them over by force. This is a physical depiction of a spiritual reality. The devil has taken this world by force, and has challenged God. Satan has proclaimed that he desires the Throne of heaven, but that Throne cannot be occupied by anyone other than God.{lxii} So the whole of the Bible is speaking of this drama. Who will rule over this cosmos: God or Satan?
It isn’t enough to explain that God will defeat Satan. Eschatology explains how and why God is now able to dwell on the earth. There is a coming Kingdom where Heaven and Earth shall marry. How does that take place? Why does that take place? These are the questions of eschatology. It searches to understand the Bible as a whole instead of isolating individual passages. We aren’t so caught up in asking when the end will come, who will be the Antichrist, whether the Pope will be the false prophet or the Antichrist, or whether all of this fits into past history. We aren’t trying to figure out how much of the Book of Revelations has been completed and how much of it is future. Instead, our primary purpose and intention is to seek to understand the heart of God.
There is a coming Kingdom. Either Satan will rule over the whole world, or God will rule over the whole world. If Satan is able to foil the plans of God, then Christ Jesus does not return. God has both established that a very peculiar and specific plan should unfold, and also stacked the cards against Him. He has made sure that when everyone sees that He will defeat Satan that there will be no excuse or question. God is real, and He has come to dwell among us. He establishes His Kingdom, and any nation that rejects that Kingdom will be cut off from the face of the earth.{lxiii} To understand the purposes of God is to understand His heart. That is the foundation of all of our studies.
To reject Christ and His Kingdom upon this earth is to reject God Himself. Nothing else can play out before you to convince you to repent. It is at that moment that the only thing that awaits you is judgment. Your condemnation is already present, because to reject the light is to beg God for hellfire. Everything revolves around His Kingdom. “And this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come”.{lxiv}
The Patterns of God
We find in Genesis 1:1-5 a small account of the first day of creation. We find that darkness was upon the face of the deep. But God was not willing to allow His creation to remain in darkness. He spoke, “Let there be light,” and there was light, and God saw that the light was good. He separated the light from the darkness, and the light He called, “Day;” the darkness He called, “Night.” Think about your salvation. Think about how when you were without Christ you were walking in darkness. There was little hope. Despair was a daily reality. Darkness was indeed upon “the face of the deep.” Those depths of our heart yearned and cried out because of that darkness, and God was not content to allow us to remain in that darkness.
We can find parallel with this first passage of Scripture and our testimonies of salvation. Each of us has come out of darkness and into His marvelous light. But, there is still a further application. Just like mentioned in the first chapter of this book, where the stories seem to indicate to many our personal testimony and salvation, and what Christ has done for us, there is a deeper understanding of the fathers. This is an eschatological story of a clash between darkness and light. The whole world will be steeped in darkness during the reign of the Antichrist, and even in the midst of this, God will “hover” over the darkness. He will hover through a people that bear His name.
The Hebrew verb used for “hover” is rachaph, and is in the piel participle. Rachaph means “to relax.” The piel conjugation is an intensifying conjugation. The participle means that we use the verb as an adjective. Thus, we should read, “The intensely relaxed Spirit of God…” Now, we do find this verb in one other place in the Bible: Deuteronomy 32:11. The verb is being paralleled with an eagle that stirs up the young. What the verb means precisely, I would like to suggest: from God’s state of rest and relaxation over the waters, the creation began to stir into greater degrees of order and form. In the end times, there will be a people that are in the midst of the darkness, and yet they are able to rest because they have the Spirit of Christ in them. That rest will stir the creation around them, because anxiety reacts to rest. Fear reacts to peace. Darkness reacts to light.
We move forward in the Bible to Abraham. What is so significant about Genesis 12? It comes directly after Genesis 11. There doesn’t even seem to be much of a break from the Tower of Babel to the call of Abram. At Babel, the nations of the earth formed together to create a tower that would reach unto the heavens. This was such an urgent desire of their hearts, and antichrist in origin, that they baked the bricks thoroughly instead of allowing them to sit in the sun and dry. Not only does this describe technology, to go from building with stones to building with bricks, but also a technology that is given over to instantaneousness.
It is about this kind of unholy unity that God says, “Nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” Therefore, God confuses their language. We then see the call of Abram, “Leave your country, your people, and your father’s household and go to the land that I will show you.” In response to the nations coming together in opposition to God, “so that they might not be scattered,” God calls one man out of all nations to make of him a nation. Likewise, we see the call in Revelation 18:4 to those that are God’s people still living in the midst of Babylon, a symbol synonymous with the Tower of Babel and Abraham, “Come out from her, my people!”
Moses stands in opposition to Pharaoh.{lxv} Pharaoh is a symbol of the devil that oppresses the people of God. In Daniel 7:21, 25, and Revelation 13:7, we read of how the Antichrist will overpower the saints, wear out the saints, and overcome the saints. The Antichrist is given his throne and authority by Satan.{lxvi} Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that just as much as Pharaoh is a symbol of a spiritual Egypt ruled by Satan, it is also a symbol of the Antichrist kingdom that oppresses and seeks to kill the people of God. But God sends a deliverer, Moses, to rescue the people of God out from Egypt. That deliverer is Christ’s Body, the Church, and the people are still the children of Israel.{lxvii}
Saul pursues David. That which is of the spirit of David, or Davidic, is the same as the spirit of Jesus. Just as Saul had a seeming righteousness that lasted for a short while, so too is there a church that calls itself by the name of Jesus that has a seeming righteousness.{lxviii} Their lamp will go out, having a legitimate oil to ignite, but not enough oil to last until midnight.{lxix} Midnight is a symbol of the return of Christ. Their lamp goes out, because they settled for artificial oil instead of the true oil, which is the Holy Sprit. That religious church will continue to go through the Tribulation not even knowing the hour that it lives in, and I am convinced that the deeper the religiosity, the more brutal the persecution that will come from them. It is possible that even some of the children of Israel will rise up in indignation against Christians, but not out of fervor for the Lord.
The reality is that there is a pattern given in the Scripture of a righteous Abel people that are oppressed and murdered by the Cain people.{lxx} We see it through and through. This pattern is something that we can begin to use to make predictions from. The kingdom of darkness is the kingdom of oppression, superiority, and exaltation. It is the kingdom of light that embodies submission, humility, and “being content in all things.”{lxxi} Theocracy is the embodiment of the Kingdom of Light living, breathing, manifesting, and moving here on the earth. There is a literal fulfillment coming when the whole world will be a part of that Kingdom, but for now we are the ambassadors.