How God Became King: The Story of the Gospels

by N. T. Wright 

The gospels tell the story of Jesus of Nazareth as the story of how God became king. They all announce the launch of a ‘theocracy’…

Theocracy—God as King

The word ‘theocracy’ sends shivers down many spines today. In our current climate the idea of ‘theocracy’ sounds like a return to the situation of the Middle Ages, with popes, bishops and priests ordering everyone about – or, indeed, to the forms of theocracy implemented in other religions today. Most modern westerners react to this very strongly, upholding freedom both of action and thought. We thought we’d got rid of Theocracy...

But ‘theocracy’ is what is meant by ‘the kingdom of God’, which the gospels highlight at the central motif of Jesus’ public announcements… ‘God’s kingdom’ denoted the long-awaited rule of Israel’s God on earth as in heaven. When Jesus spoke about God’s kingdom, and taught his followers to pray that it would arrive ‘on earth as in heaven’, he echoed 1st-century Jewish aspirations.

The gospels tell Jesus’ story as the story of ‘how God became king.’ We can see this in 3 narrative strands which work together in all 4 gospels…These 3 interlocking strands explain what God’s kingdom is all about.

Jesus’ Story as the Climax of Israel’s Story

The first of these missing dimensions is that the 4 gospels tell the story of Jesus as the continuation and climax of the ancient story of Israel. This is more than to say that the gospels portray Jesus as the fulfillment of ancient prophecy… What matters is the idea of narrative continuity. Not just ‘narrative’ as such; but it points beyond itself to the belief in a larger sequence that was going somewhere. History might be cyclical, but the cycles contribute to a forward, linear movement…

Forward Movement in Israel’s Story

Daniel 9 in particular is seminal. In Daniel 9 the prophet asks how long the Babylon exile is going to be: will it not, as Jeremiah prophesied, last for 70 years? Back comes the answer: not 70 years, but 70 times seven. This predicted 490 years haunted devout Jews in the centuries immediately before and after the time of Jesus. There’s plenty of evidence that people were calculating, as best they could, when that time would be up, and when the long-awaited deliverance from pagan domination would occur. Their answers varied wildly. All of this points to the widespread phenomenon that Israel’s history, under divine providence, had not come to a standstill, but was moving forward towards its appointed goal. The story has many twists and turns...But it is a single storyline, still awaiting its proper and fitting fulfillment.

Jesus Fulfills Israel’s God becoming King

My first point is that all 4 gospels, in different ways, are written to say that the story of Jesus of Nazareth provides that fulfillment. Jesus is not simply the antitype of the various types such as Moses, or David, or the Passover lamb. He is the point at which Israel’s millennia-long narrative has reached its goal. Matthew makes the point, graphically, with his introductory genealogy. Mark does it with his opening quotations from Malachi and Isaiah; Luke, by telling the story of John the Baptist as a reprise of the story of Samuel. John goes right back to the beginning, to the opening of Genesis, and structures his gospel to say that in Jesus the story of all creation is reaching its decisive goal. In all 4 gospels there are clear echoes and references back to the various prophecies of Daniel, including those of Daniel chapter 9. It is in Daniel that we find the strongest statement of what the climax will be: it will be the arrival of God’s own kingdom, his sovereign rule, trumping the rule of all pagan powers. And it is to Daniel that we should look to find the text which, according to Josephus most incited Jews to rebel against Rome: the text according to which a world ruler would, at that time, arise from Judaea (Jewish War 6.312-3; cf. Antiquities 10.267). The 4 gospels, clearly, have a candidate in mind--Jesus, with a different sort of kingdom from that of Rome.

Israel’s God returns in Glory to the Temple

The second point is that the gospels tell this story as the story of Israel’s God. In the world of 2nd-Temple Judaism there was a strong sense, not just that Israel’s fortunes needed to change, but that Israel’s God needed to come back to his people, to the temple. Ezekiel described the divine glory leaving Jerusalem, and prophesied that it would return to a rebuilt temple, but nobody had ever seen it happen. There is no repeat of Exodus 40, where the divine glory fills the newly constructed tabernacle, or 1 Kings 8, where the same thing happens to Solomon’s Temple. There is no sudden appearance, as was granted to the prophet Isaiah. Plenty of Old Testament texts say that it will happen (Isaiah 40 & 52, Zechariah & Malachi), but none indicate that God’s glory returned to a rebuilt temple. Here the 4 gospels are quite explicit. John is perhaps the most obvious: ‘the word became flesh,’ he says, ‘and tabernacled, pitched his tent, in our midst; and we beheld his glory.’ [John 1:14] In case we missed the point, John rubs it in again & again. Mark hits the same note with opening quotations from Isaiah & Malachi. Both passages concern the return of the divine glory, and the messenger who will prepare for it. Mark leaves us in no doubt that he thinks it has now happened, in and through Jesus. Matthew & Luke in their own ways get at the same point, Matthew with the Emmanuel promise and Luke through the event in chapter 19 where Jesus, arriving in Jerusalem, tells the story about the king who comes back at last, and then announces Jerusalem’s imminent destruction because ‘you did not know the moment when God was visiting you.’ …

Israel’s God becomes King of the World

Israel’s stories normally confronted the might of pagan empires. If the gospels bring this story to a climax– this is my third main point – that they are all written to tell the story of Jesus as the story of Israel, and of Israel’s God, reaching their proper climax, so as to tell the story of how Israel’s God becomes king of the whole world. This is the narrative theme of the 4 gospels… 

Edited extracts from:

‘Imagining the Kingdom: Mission and Theology in Early Christianity’ an Inaugural Lecture by N. T. Wright,Prof. of New Testament & Early Christianity, Univ. of St Andrews, Scotland, UK, Oct. 26 2011

Read More at: http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_StAndrews_Inaugural.htm