When I was a toddler, my parents read me bedtime stories from a vividly illustrated Bible storybook called "Great Bible Stories for Children" (Regency Publishing House 1974). For some reason, my favorite, most requested Bible story was the one I referred to as "Bad Dream"- a nightmare of King Nebuchadnezer of Babylon recorded in the book of Daniel chapter 2.
Daniel delivers the interpretation of the dream to the king: "In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.
“The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.”
Even though Daniel is a captive slave and his life is in jeopardy every time he talks to the ruler of the known world, he speaks from the perspective of a man who is in constant contact with YaHWeH, the God of his youth and home culture. Daniel was able to spread the message of his God to the most powerful man on earth, and the message was this:human empires will come and go built on force and violence, coercion and oppression, but the Kingdom of Peace that God creates will destroy all the empires that came before it, and once it is established, it will last forever.
There are a few passages that are repeatedly used to defend tyranny and oppression in all cases and blame God for it, but if one looks at the overarching narrative of scripture, there is a distinct anti-empire message to the whole thing.
The prophets of Israel spoke of a future liberator that God would send to free humanity from all forms of oppression, both spiritual and material. The Messiah, or Christ was a promise that all Hebrews took literally and awaited with fervent expectation- the initiator of a new world order of peace. Isaiah writes of the Christ:
"There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea."
Isaiah 11:1-9
When Mary is told that she has been chosen to give birth to the messiah, she is so excited she praises God for the liberation that she is being allowed to participate in. She prays,
My soul magnifies the Lord
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
Because He has regarded the lowliness of His handmaid;
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed;
Because He who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is His name;
And His mercy is from generation to generation
on those who fear Him.
He has shown might with His arm,
He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and has exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich He has sent away empty.
He has given help to Israel, his servant, mindful of His mercy
Even as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever.
Luke 1:46-55
The hope that she had placed in the God of her forefathers involved the end of oppression and tyranny on planet earth- a freedom that includes liberation from sin, death, hell, satan, and the empires of humankind. She read the prophets as a little girl and made their visions a part of her mind and heart. Maybe this love for the promise of liberation and the Messiah is the reason God chose her to be Christ's mother?
(Morgan Weistling - Kissing the Face of God)
When Jesus was 30 years old, he spent 40 days in the wilderness on a water fast. at the end of it, the Devil appears to him and tries to recruit Jesus into joining Satan's side in rebellion against Jehovah. Satan takes Jesus to a high place where he can see all the kingdoms of the world, and makes this offer: "All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only." (Mark 4:9-10)
Satan's offer of all the riches and power in the world could only mean that they belonged to him. In other places in scripture it calls him "the God of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4) and that "the whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (1 John 5:19). this makes the promise of a savior so much more appealing- if we are all born as serfs to an evil lord who wants to see us suffer and lies to us constantly, filling his domain with pain and violence, destruction and rot, chaos and confusion, who wouldn't want to be liberated? Jesus knew that he had come to bring the Eternal Kingdom to this situation of slavery and misery, and that He would one day rule over the whole Earth and all her people, but not by idolatry of political power and devil-worship.
When he was on trial to be crucified, Jesus told the Roman Governor of Jerusalem "You say rightly that I am a King. For this reason I came into the world.... My Kingdom is not of this World. If it were, my servants would fight". To a Roman soldier/politician, getting crucified was the furthest thing from victory. Jesus saw what was going on in the bigger picture- a spiritual reality that could not be defeated by death, nor could it be brought to reality through violent political and military force.
The Apostles state throughout their writings that God has exalted Jesus Christ above everyone and everything and given him the title of "King of Kings and Lord of Lords", and that every living thing will recognize it and declare it. In Ephesians 1, Hebrews 2, and 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that God has subjected everything under (Christ's) feet. in the Corinthians passage he points to the time prophesied by Daniel and Isaiah and others;
"Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.”
For those of you who still think of God as "Sovereign" (by which you mean everything is his fault), or for those of you who are angry at God for the pain and injustice in the world, I'm not sure you're paying attention to the power of the gospel. All of our wars and illnesses and slavery and addiction and death itself are due to the rebellion of Satan against God's plan, and his deception campaign to bring humanity down with him. This will continue until destruction of all life on earth is a real possibility, and then God will intervene and put a stop to it. in 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul describes that point of intervention: "And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming". Human beings and their politcal leaders will choose deception, destruction, and death instead of peace and life, but God will still be working to save them, redeem them, free them, reconcile them to Himself, and restore humanity and all creation to what He intended for them to be.
People from every tribe and nation and speaking every language will worship the One True God together. The current situation where other races and nations and languages are to be hated, feared, fought, and subjugated will not exist. This is a result of man's rebellion against God's plan. It is a rejection of Christ's Kingdom.
(From "A Bad Case of Stripes" by David Shannon. Sholastic Inc.)
If we identify ourselves by nation-state or race or political party, pledging our allegiance to a nation and its flag, holding its military in worshipful regard, etc., we are telling Jesus that His Kingdom of Peace is not what we want. We do not want to be his family, the sheep of his pasture, his loyal servants. We want war and oppression and for our little tribe to be top of the heap.
Nowhere does Jesus say "I will establish a nation that will exceed all the other nations, they will be my people and I will make them powerful. they will crush all their enemies and get all the riches and I will bless them because they are the superior form of government". He says he will destroy ALL human government and establish his own. If that is not exciting to you, do you know my Lord? If your god is the god of political empires, who is your god? Which side are you on?
"here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come" Hebrews 13:14