Review of The Greatness of the Kingdom: An Inductive Study of the Kingdom of God [2001] by Alva J. McClain (1888-1968) who was the founding president of Grace Theological Seminary and Grace College from 1937-1962.
Part One---Introductory Considerations
I. The Greatness of the Kingdom
McClain contends that “The Kingdom of God is, in a certain and important sense, the grand central theme of all Holy Scripture.”[1] He adds that “the Kingdom as set forth in Biblical revelation, with its rich variety and magnificence of design, may actually blur the vision of good men to other matters of high theological importance to Christian faith.”[2] Michael Vlach agrees: “When you study the kingdom you are examining the grand theme of Scripture and the solution for all that’s wrong.”[3]
II. Various Interpretative Ideas about the Kingdom
McClain explains briefly eight different views on the Kingdom. The seventh, The Liberal Social-Kingdom Idea is the view that Walter Rauschenbusch and other Social Gospel advocate held to. McClain notes that according to this view “the Kingdom of God is the progressive social organization and improvement of mankind, in which society rather than the individual is given first place. The main task of the church is, therefore, to establish a Christian Social Order which in turn will actually make (next McClain quotes Rauschenbusch) ‘bad men do good things.’”[4]
III. Definitions and Distinctions
McClain writes that “A general survey of the Biblical material indicates that the concept of a ‘kingdom’ envisages a total situation containing at least three essential elements: first, a ruler with adequate authority and power; second, a realm of subjects to be ruled; and third, the actual exercise of the function of rulership.”[5]
McClain reveals his theological method as starting with an examination of all passages from the OT to the NT following the method of Biblical Theology.[6] So exegesis and Biblical theology are the starting points of his theological method. The result of his inductive study is the Kingdom of God with “two aspects or phases of one rule of our sovereign God.” The two aspects are “universal” and “mediatorial.... The first referring to the extent of rule, the latter to the method of rule.”[7]
IV. The Universal Kingdom of God
McClain elaborates on the first aspect of the Kingdom of God which has to do with the extent of the rule. McClain provides seven important characteristics of the Universal Kingdom of God.
First, “this universal kingdom of God exists without interruption throughout all time.”[8] Psalm 145:13 states that “your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.” Psalm 29:10 also declares: “The Lord sits upon the flood, yes, the Lord sits King forever.”
Second, “the universal kingdom includes all that exists in space and time.”[9] Satan is not king of Hell as some have supposed, argues McClain. “God is the king of hell, just as He is the King of everything else in time and space. And because this is so, that everlasting prison-house of the lost will not be the noisy and disorderly that is sometimes imagined by the popular mind. There is no more orderly place than a well-disciplined prison, even under imperfect human government. There will be no riots in hell.”[10] David referred to this reality in Psalm 139:7-10.
Third, “the divine control in the universal kingdom is generally providential” as Psalm 148:8 and Proverbs 16:33 reveal.[11]
Fourth, “the divine control in the universal kingdom may be exercised at times by supernatural means.” Psalm 135:6-9 highlights both the providential and the miraculous.[12]
Fifth, “the universal kingdom always exists efficaciously regardless of the attitude of its subjects.”[13] Peter in Acts 10 said to God, “Not so Lord” which is a contradiction.
Sixth, “the rule of the universal kingdom is administered through the eternal Son.” McClain said, “Even during the time of His deepest humiliation and suffering, He was ‘upholding all things by the word of his power’ (Heb. 1:3).’”[14]
Seventh, “this universal kingdom is not exactly identical with that kingdom for which our Lord taught His disciples to pray.”[15] The kingdom, Jesus taught His disciple to pray is the future Messianic kingdom.
Part Two--The Mediatorial Kingdom in Old Testament History
V. The Historical Background of the Mediatorial Idea
McClain defines the mediatorial kingdom:
1. The rule of God through a divinely chosen representative who not only speaks and acts for God but also represents the people before God.
2. A rule which has especial reference to the earth.
3. Having as its mediatorial ruler one who is always a member of the human race.[16]
McClain asks, “Where and when did this idea of mediatorial divine rule originate?”[17] The beginning of the mediatorial rule began with
1. Man’s original dominion by creation as declared in Genesis 1:26. But with the fall of Adam, he “lost his immediate contact with God, invalidated his mediatorial position, and brought down a whole train of disasters.”[18]
2. From Eden to the Flood
Because Adam lost the “external divinely mediated controls” God ruled through man’s conscience (Romans 2:14-15).[19] There were only two divine interventions until the flood. Cain was shut out from the presence of the Lord in Genesis 4:14-16 and Enoch was translated to heaven in Genesis 5:24.
3. From the Flood to Babel
After the flood, God promised never to judge and destroy the earth by flood. Therefore, it was necessary to set up some control upon sinful man. God established human government as the means of ruling mediatorially through man.
4. The Confusion of Tongues
This resulted in many nations coming into existence as a judgment on man’s attempt to organize a one-world government without God.
5. From Abraham to the Exodus
As a result, God chose man through whom He would mediatorialy rule and that man was Abraham. In Abraham’s hands was the authority of life and death as seen in Hagar and her child and also Abraham moving forward to slay his own son Isaac in Genesis 22.
VI. The Establishment of the Mediatorial Kingdom in History
“For this theocratic kingdom began with Moses, continued under Joshua and the Judges, developed and reached its highest degree of extension and prosperity under the first three kings, declined after Solomon and the division of the tribes, and came to a melancholy end with the departure of the Visible Presence at the Captivity.”[20]
“The 19th chapter of Exodus, therefore, in the words of Lange, ‘records the establishment of the theocracy or the typical Kingdom of God.”[21]
VII. The Constitution and Laws of the Kingdom in History
McClain called the Mosaic Code “a code which is to govern men in the Kingdom of God upon the earth” and also the “legal constitution of the historic kingdom.”[22]
1. This Historical Kingdom is Basically the Spiritual Kingdom
“The consciousness that Jehovah was Israel’s King was deeply rooted, was a national feeling, and the inspiration of a true patriotism.” God commanded Israel to love their King with “all your heart....” (Dt. 6:5-6).[23]
2. The Political Aspect of the Historical Kingdom
“Moses...was neither a dictator nor a constitutional monarch. He was strictly limited to executive and judicial functions...to be decided on the basis of an objective, written, divine law.”[24] Internationally, Israel was to be separate from the immoral nations and to utterly destroy them as a means of capital punishment for their sins.[25]
3. The Ecclesiastical Aspect of the Historical Kingdom
“The tie between the civil and religious aspects of the government was so vital that neither could exist without the other...The religion thus established in the historical kingdom received the support of the state.”[26]
4. The Economic Aspect of the Historical Kingdom
“From a theological standpoint, the Mosaic economy furnishes ample proof that within the historical Kingdom of God on earth a very large place was given to the matter of private possessions and the material well-being of all concerned. This fact should keep us from any theological prejudice against the idea of a similar but more perfect Kingdom of God on earth in the future.”[27]
5. The Physical Aspect of the Historical Kingdom
God had promised, “I will put none of these diseases upon you” (Ex. 15:26).
6. The Moral Aspect of the Historical Kingdom
The reason God allowed diseases to afflict the Israelites is because of disobedience as in Numbers 11:1, 33.
VIII. The Mediatorial Rulers from Moses to Saul
Although Joshua and Saul were incomparably greater than the twelve judges, all alike served in the capacity of leader-judges in Israel between Moses and the establishment of the monarchial form of the historical kingdom (Judges 2:16).[28] “Here again it must be emphasized that throughout this period there was the established Kingdom of God” which Gideon confessed, “The Lord shall rule over you” (Judges 8:23).[29]
IX. The Monarchial Form of the Mediatorial Kingdom in History
McClain quotes Keil and Delitzsch, in their Commentary on the Pentateuch: “The earthly kingdom was not opposed to the theocracy, i.e., to the rule of Jehovah as King over the people of His possession, provided no one was made king but the person whom Jehovah should choose.”[30] McClain closes this chapter with this affirmation: “Viewed from the Biblical standpoint, the one divine kingdom of Old Testament history began with Moses, not with Saul.”[31]
X. The Decline of the Mediatorial Kingdom in Old Testament History
Solomon’s sin divided the nation. “The catastrophic division of the tribes, however, did not bring an end to the mediatorial kingdom in Old Testament history... The dying patriarch Jacob had said prophetically, ‘The scepter shall not part from Judah.”[32] In “this period of human failure in the historical kingdom is also the period when divine prophecy reaches its greatest volume and highest brilliance.”[33] The prophets predicted the seventy years of captivity in Babylon but Judah did not respond.
XI. The End of the Mediatorial Kingdom in Old Testament History
The Mediatorial Kingdom started when the Shekinah-Glory descended on Mount Sinai in Exodus 19:18; 24:15-16 and ended 800 years later when the Shekinah-Glory departed from the temple in Ezekiel 11:23. During the interval, the Universal Kingdom of God is operative until the Mediatorial Kingdom will be established again in the Millennial Kingdom when the Glory returns (Ezekiel 43:1-7).[34]
Part Three—The Mediatorial Kingdom in Old Testament Prophecy
XII. Introduction
The question before us is, therefore: What do the Old Testament prophets say about the future Kingdom? McClain insists that “the Mediatorial Kingdom of the prophets is one Kingdom, not two kingdoms. This one Kingdom has various aspects.”[35]
Chapter XIII. The Prophetic Kingdom as Related to History
The coming King will sit on the historic throne of David as promised in 2 Samuel 7 in the historic city of Jerusalem (Isa. 24:23).[36]
Chapter XIV. The Mediatorial Ruler in the Prophetic Kingdom
“What the world needs as the prophets saw clearly, is not primarily a better philosophy of government or a more perfect system of legislation, but a Person who has the character, wisdom, and power needed to rule for God among men.”[37]
Chapter XV. The Coming of the Prophetic Kingdom[38]
“There is a current and popular idea that the coming of the Kingdom of God to earth is a process, long and gradual...In the book of Daniel, the Kingdom of God comes down from heaven to earth in the manner of a stone falling from a mountain to crush the political world systems (2:45).[39]
Chapter XVI. The Establishment of The Prophetic Kingdom
The Day of Jehovah, a period which is always associated with the Kingdom of Old Testament prophecy....is somewhat parallel to the ordinary day in the Jewish calendars...consisting of a period of darkness followed by a period of light (Isaiah 60:2)....add a third category, namely, those events which take place ‘before’ that great Day (Mal. 4:5). Finally, there are a few important events which seem to belong to the dawning period.”[40] McClain puts these events in an outline:
1. Preparatory Events---Before the Day of the Lord
2. Penal Events---During the Darkness of the Day of the Lord
3. Transitional Events---at the Dawn of the Day of the Lord
4. Constitutive Events---During the Light of the Day of the Lord.[41]
Chapter XVII. The Government in the Kingdom of Old Testament Prophecy
The Mediatorial Kingdom of Old Testament prophecy is monarchial in form. Its ruler is a King, who will sit upon a ‘throne’; and the government will be ‘upon his shoulder’ (Isa. 9:6-7).[42] All three branches of government will reside in Christ (Isa. 33:17, 22). The founding fathers had a deep suspicion of human nature, and created a check and balance system.
Chapter XVIII. The Blessings of the Prophetic Kingdom
“The establishment of the Mediatorial Kingdom on earth will bring about sweeping and radical changes in every department of human activity; so far-reaching that Isaiah speaks of its arena as ‘a new earth’ (65:17).[43]
Part Four—The Mediatorial Kingdom in the Four Gospels
Chapter XIX. Introduction: The Interpretative Relation Between the Two Testaments
Anti-millennialists interpret the first coming prophecies literally but then flip flop and interpret second coming and kingdom prophecies allegorically.[44]
Chapter XX. The Announcement of the Kingdom
McClain has in mind here “primarily the teaching and deeds of our Lord during the historical period covered by the gospel records.”[45]
XXI. The Identity of This Announced Kingdom
McClain presents five different views of the kingdom offered by Jesus: The Liberal-Social View; the Critical-Eschatological View; the Spiritualizing-Anti-millennial View; the Dual-Kingdom View, and the Biblical view or the One-Kingdom Millennial View which states that the Kingdom Jesus offered was the same as the Mediatorial Kingdom of the Old Testament. The Liberal-Social view of the Kingdom, McClain associates with Walter Rauschenbusch’s social gospel.[46]
XXII. The Rejection of the King and His Kingdom
There is a “Universal Kingdom of God which has always existed unconditionally regardless of the attitudes of angels, devils, or men. But the existence of God’s Mediatorial Kingdom on earth has always been conditioned.”[47]
XXIII. Christ’s Ministry in a Preparation for the Interregnum
“The chief purpose of the new phase of teaching will be to prepare the disciples for His rejection and also for the interregnum which will intervene between His death and His return from heaven in glory to establish the Kingdom on earth in accordance with Old Testament prophecy.”[48]
Part Five—The Mediatorial Kingdom in the Acts, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse
Chapter XXIV. The Mediatorial Kingdom in the Book of Acts
McClain quotes James Orr with approval: “In passing from the Gospels, and especially the Synoptics, to the remaining writing of the NT, we are sensible at once of a great difference in the use made of this conception of the Kingdom of God (in two ways I distinguish with numerals).
1) It is no longer the central and all-comprehending notion that it was in the popular teaching of Jesus, but sinks comparatively into the background, where it does not altogether disappear,
2) and it is employed so far as retained, in an almost exclusively eschatological sense.[49]
McClain describes “the Theocratic Kingdom of Old Testament history, the Kingdom set up at Sinai and which ended at the Babylonian Captivity, an organized government on earth in which the nation of Israel held the central and sovereign place under God.”[50] “Moses occupied an absolute unique position. He was the first mediatorial ruler in the historical Kingdom of God on earth. Through Moses, that Kingdom was established at Sinai, and its laws were given.[51] McClain equates the Theocratic Kingdom with the Mediatorial Kingdom: “In Scripture, great public exhibitions of miraculous divine power are invariably connected with the Mediatorial Kingdom of God. They are seen in that Kingdom when established at Sinai in OT history and did not wholly cease until it ended with the departure of the Shekinah-glory (Isa. 37:36; 38:5-9). Such miracles also are recorded in the Old Testament of a future re-establishment of the Kingdom under the reign of the Messiah.[52]
In Acts “The term ‘kingdom’ (Grk. basileia) occurs eight times....the teaching deals with the Kingdom in its more universal aspect, i.e., including the Mediatorial Kingdom and the Church, both of which must be regarded as with the Kingdom of God...In the Book of Acts, the ‘kingdom of God’ appears as something future...The people to whom the text (14:22) was addressed were ‘disciples’ and therefore already within the ‘kingdom of God’ in the broad sense of John 3:5. Such an entrance is by the new birth, not by ‘tribulation.’[53]
Chapter XXV. The Mediatorial Kingdom in the Epistles
ekklesia appears sixty-seven times in the epistles but “there is no epistle of the NT addressed to the saints in ‘the kingdom of heaven.’”[54]
The basileia is used eighteen times in the epistles as the divine rule. McClain believes all the references refer to the future Messianic Kingdom on earth. Some are clearly future (2 Timothy 4:1, 18; 2 Peter 1:11). Other passages refer to believers inheriting the kingdom in the future (1 Cor. 6:9, 10; 15:50; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5; Jas. 2:5). Believers inherit this kingdom after the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:50) which harmonizes with Jesus’ teaching in His end time sermon (Matt. 25:31, 34). Paul in 2 Tim. 2:12 again makes another future reference to believers reigning. The rest of the references contain a “reasonable possibility of an interpretation in harmony with the idea of a future kingdom.”[55] These references include Rom. 14:17; 1 Cor. 4:20; 15:24; Col. 1:13; 4:11; 1 Thess. 2:12; 1:5; and Heb. 12:28.[56]
Regarding the Colossians 1:13 passage, McClain later writes: “It might be said that the Mediatorial Kingdom does have a present de jure [De facto means a state of affairs that is true in fact, but that is not officially sanctioned. In contrast, de jure means a state of affairs that is in accordance with law, i.e. that is officially sanctioned] existence, even prior to its establishment. This is true, first, in the sense that God is today saving and preparing in the ekklesia the members of the royal family who are destined to rule with Christ in the future established Kingdom; and, second, in the sense that, as those born into the royal family, we enter judicially into the Kingdom before its establishment, a divine action so remarkable that Paul speaks of it as a translation (Col. 1:13).[57] He adds that “it must be admitted also that the Church of the present age is enjoying many of the spiritual blessings which in the OT were predicted in connection with the Messianic Kingdom of the future; e.g., pardon for sin (Isa. 55:4-7) .… Furthermore, the presence of blessings which belong to one aspect of the kingdom does not mean that the Kingdom is already on earth.”[58] This is getting close to Ryrie’s view of a salvific aspect of the kingdom today based on Colossians 1:13. I am sure the distinction McClain is making is between the Mediatorial Kingdom and the Universal Kingdom of God.
Chapter XXVI. The Mediatorial Kingdom in the Apocalypse
“The last book of the Bible is pre-eminently the Book of the Kingdom of God in conflict with, and victory over, the kingdoms of this world.”[59] McClain notes that the Mediatorial Kingdom of God ends at start of Revelation 21 and merges into the Universal Kingdom.[60]
Chapter XXVII The “Spirituality” of the Kingdom
McClain refutes the claim that the premillennial view of the 1000 reign of Christ is carnal because it is literally on earth with Christ in his glorified body and Church saints as well mingling with believers in their natural bodies. He cites Berkhof as an example: “With Brown we too would call out, ‘What a mongrel state of things is this! What an abhorred mixture of things totally inconsistent with each other.’”[61] McClain refutes this Platonic dualism with many examples including Christ dwelling among his disciples for forty days in his resurrected body.[62]
Chapter XXVIII A Premillennial Philosophy of History
McClain refutes the negative view of history espoused by Barth and Brunner called the “Theology of Crisis” and also called “Christian Realism” by Reinhold Niebuhr. They believed that good and evil would develop side by side until the catastrophe and the crisis of divine judgment. The Biblical view is that each age is better than the prior and ultimately there is the millennium which Christ brings in. McClain closes by stating that “help is on the way, help from above, supernatural help---“Give the king thy judgments, O God...In his days shall the righteous flourish....all nations shall call him blessed” (Ps. 72:1, 7, 17).[63]
[1] Alva J. McClain. The Greatness of the Kingdom (Winona Lake: BMH Books) 1959, 4-5.
[2] Ibid., 6.
[3] Michael Vlach. He Will Reign Forever: A Biblical Theology of the Kingdom of God [Lampion House Publishing, LLC.] Kindle Edition 2017 (location 65).
[4] McClain on page 11 quotes Rauschenbusch from Christianizing the Social Order (New York: Macmillian Co.) 1912, 127.
[5] Ibid., 17.
[6] Ibid., 17.
[7] Ibid., 21.
[8] Ibid., 23.
[9] Ibid., 24.
[10] Ibid., 25.
[11] Ibid., 25.
[12] Ibid., 29.
[13] Ibid., 30.
[14] Ibid., 33.
[15] Ibid., 34.
[16] Ibid., 41.
[17] Ibid., 42.
[18] Ibid., 43.
[19] Ibid., 44-45.
[20] Ibid., 52.
[21] Ibid., 64.
[22] Ibid., 65-66.
[23] Ibid., 67.
[24] Ibid., 68.
[25] Ibid., 70-72.
[26] Ibid., 73-74.
[27] Ibid., 81.
[28] Ibid., 91.
[29] Ibid., 94.
[30] Ibid., 96.
[31] Ibid., 103.
[32] Ibid., 107-108.
[33] Ibid., 115.
[34] Ibid., 121, 125, 127.
[35] Ibid., 146.
[36] Ibid., 147-148.
[37] Ibid., 161.
[38] Ibid., 170.
[39] Ibid., 174-175.
[40] Ibid., 178.
[41] Ibid., 179.
[42] Ibid., 207.
[43] Ibid., 217.
[44] Ibid., 259.
[45] Ibid., 267.
[46] Ibid., 274-275.
[47] Ibid., 304.
[48] Ibid., 321.
[49] Ibid., 386.
[50] Ibid., 393.
[51] Ibid., 405.
[52] Ibid., 411.
[53] Ibid., 425.
[54] Ibid., 431.
[55] Ibid., 433-434.
[56] Ibid., 434-436.
[57] Ibid., 439-440.
[58] Ibid., 440.
[59] Ibid., 442.
[60] Ibid., 513.
[61] Ibid., 522.
[62] Ibid., 522-523.
[63] Ibid., 531.