“When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.”
~2 Samuel 7:12-13
From the beginning, God’s task for his son, Adam (Lk 3:38), was to build a kingdom. Wrapped in the commands to subdue the earth and have dominion in Genesis 1:28 is the reality that Adam is a king over creation who has the responsibility to be a good steward of creation, developing and arranging the world under his lordship. The goal was to glorify all creation so that it imaged the Father’s heavenly dwelling place. God’s will was to be done on earth as in heaven. The Father was the high king, and Adam, his vice-regent, was commissioned to carry out the Father’s will.
The success of this project began with Adam’s heart allegiance being given to his Father, but the mission was not limited to Adam’s heart. He was to have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Adam was to cultivate the soil, making it fruitful. He and his wife were to be fruitful and multiply, filling the earth (Gen 1:28). As the family grew and became families, and as families became larger societies, they to arrange their lives under the lordship of God’s son and have entire societies who gave their allegiance to their heavenly Father. Everything from the ground to governments was a part of this kingdom-building project. The earth was to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as waters covered the sea.
When God promises David a seed, a son, who will come from his body, whose kingdom will be established, and will build a house for Yahweh’s name, it is this original Adamic kingdom-building project to which he refers. After the fall, God came to the man and woman and restored the original mission. Sin complicated the mission, but it would not stop it. Death would be overcome by life. The mission was handed down through the centuries from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses and now to David. The serpent’s head would be crushed by a wounded heel (Gen 3:15), and the kingdom would be built. David’s seed, David’s son, will come and take up this kingdom-building project in which all the nations will come to pay him homage (Pss 2; 72).
The coming of David’s son is not about establishing a new, private spirituality in which a person only finds inner peace and an escape from this material world. As we hear in Jesus’ words in the opening chapter of Mark’s Gospel, the gospel is the gospel of the kingdom; it is the good news that the kingdom promised to David is becoming a reality. This is the kingdom that fulfills the original mandate that man was to have dominion over all the earth, establishing God’s good order in the world. This is the good news that the whole world is being developed and arranged under the lordship of God’s Son. This is the hope of Advent and the promise of Christmas.
The kingdom doesn’t “reside in our hearts” as if confined to our personal loyalties and affections (though it must have both). The kingdom is setting everything right, from ground to governments. Where there are thorns and thistles, cypress trees and myrtle trees will grow (Isa 55:17). Where nations are insubordinate, they will be brought into submission (Ps 2). God’s Son will have authority over all the earth so that all of life, from the affections of our hearts to the ethics of the nations’ governments, are governed by and in submission to the Lord’s Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of Christmas, is not that God has made a way for us to go to heaven when we die (though that certainly happens). The gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of Christmas, is that a man will rule the earth and make it into the image of heaven.
This kingdom has come, is coming, and will come.
