Christ's Growing Kingdom, Part 2

I would like to follow up on some loose ends from previous entries. On Dec 18, I identified four stages in the growth of David’s kingdom.

1. Authority in his father’s house
2. Authority over Volunteers
3. Authority over his own people
4. Authority over foreigners

These stages are not specifically identified in Scripture, nor is there a statement in Scripture that says that the development of Christ’s kingdom will follow the same pattern as the development of David’s kingdom. So we need to be cautious about jumping to conclusions. However, history, nature, and Scripture demonstrate that God likes patterns and he likes to repeat patterns. There are many types of Christ in the Hebrew Scriptures that help us to understand Christ Jesus Himself. David is widely acknowledged to be a type of Christ. Because of this I would like to explore the pattern of growth of authority in David’s life and see if it fits what we know of Christ’s life.

1. Authority in His father’s house – When Jesus walked the earth, He exercised authority over demons, disease, and the wind. These were all considered by Jews to be outside the authority of man and under the authority of God, Christ’s father. Except for the times he drove sellers out of the temple (Mark 11.15-17; John 2.13-16), he did not exercise authority over people. When He was in the temple, He was in His father’s house, and exercised authority there.
2. Authority over volunteers – Over the past 2000 years Christ has been building a kingdom of volunteers, who voluntarily obey him. He has had no recognized civil authority over anyone.
3. Authority over His own people – This stage has not happened yet. It is still a future event. Before we can imagine what this would be like, we have to identify who Christ’s “own people” are. Let’s look to David for clues. There were three groups who were David’s own. One group was his own tribe, Judah, which crowned him king first. The second group was the rest of the nation of Israel, who crowned him second. The third group was made of a motley collection of people who followed him and acknowledged his kingship before he was crowned. These people included his immediate family, people from his own tribe, other Israelites, and even Gentiles such as Uriah the Hittite and Ittai the Gittite. So, if Christ follows the pattern of David, “His own” would include Jews (He was born king of the Jews) and the volunteers who have followed Him for the past two thousand years—both Jews and Gentiles who have been grafted in (Rom 11.17).
4. Authority over foreigners – The foreigners would be those of all the nations (Rev 12.5) who were not included in “His own.”