Thy Kingdom Come: The Throne Part 1 of 3

There is a courtroom in heaven that most Christians have never visited.

Not because it is hidden. Rather we have been reading our Bibles through a two-tier lens. The one that has God up there, us down here, and occasionally the two intersect through miracles or answered prayer.

However, that is not the biblical grid. The biblical grid has a third tier. A divine council with heavenly court of supernatural beings who participate in the governance of creation. And the God of Israel (YHWH) presiding over all of it as the supreme authority. He is "The Most High".

Psalm 82 opens the door to that courtroom.

“God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.”

The gods here are not idols or human juages as some traditions have suggested. They are the elohim, supernatural beings, the sons of God assigned to govern the Gentile nations at Babel when YHWH divided the peoples.

Deuteronomy 32:8, in the oldest manuscripts, says God set boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.

The nations were parceled out to divine administrators. Israel remained YHWH's direct portion. And the other administrators failed catastrophically.

How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. (Psalm 82: 2-3)

Their assignment was justice. Protection of the vulnerable, care for the fatherless, and deliverance of the weak from the hand of the wicked. This is what a legitimate governing authority exists to do. Or should exist to do.

They did none of it.

They judged unjustly. They protected the powerful. They walked in darkness. And the foundations of the earth (the moral architecture of creation) shook because the beings given responsibility for maintaining them had become agents of its destruction.

This is the supernatural backstory of human history. Behind every empire of oppression. Behind every system that crushed the vulnerable. Behind every moment in history that made people ask where God was, there was a spiritual dimension to the disorder. The gods of the nations were not neutral. They were corrupt administrators abusing the authority they had been given.

The verdict came.

“I said, you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall (die) like any prince.” (Psalm 82: 6-7)

Immortal beings sentenced to mortality. Divine council members stripped of their authority. And the Psalm ends with a cry and a prayer that has been waiting centuries for its answer:

"Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations." (Psalm 82:8)

Jump forward a thousand years on a hill outside Jerusalem, thre is a cross. And by every visible measure the powers have won. The one who threatened their authority is dead. The movement is over and the disciples have scattered.

But Paul says something in Colossians 2 that repurposes this moment:

"He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him by the cross." (Col. 2:15)

The cross was not the victory of the powers. It was their absolute defeat. The gods of the nations who presided over human suffering and injustice found out at Golgotha that the one they thought they were destroying was the one the verdict of the divine court had been building toward all along.

And then forty days after the resurrection, again a hill outside Jerusalem, a cloud, an ascension and Paul describes what happened next:

"God raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come." (Ephesians 1:20-21)

Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.

Every name, every power, and every divine being who was given authority over a nation and abused it. Every spiritual force that has operated in the darkness behind human history.

All of them under His feet.

The judgment of Psalm 82 was executed at the cross and His enthronement happened at the ascension. Arise O God judge the earth, the psalm prayed it. The ascension answered it.

Christ is on the throne; right now. While the news is catastrophic and the systems are corrupt and the darkness seems to be advancing.

He is on the throne.

The gods of the nations were judged. The verdict has been rendered. The sentence is being carried out. And the question is not one of whether He is reigning (because He is).

The question is whether we are living like He is.

Part 2: The Invasion... next week

"The Ascension (1828-1830) by Domingos Sequeira"