Theocracy

Government with God as king. Ancient Israel, upon her constitution as a nation at Mount Sinai, had always recognized that Yahweh was her king. Eventually human kings, beginning with Saul, ruled the nations but they were always seen only as Yahweh's viceroy, ruling on His behalf and upon His authority and authorization. This explains why the prophets could always raise their voices against the king, especially when the kings took too much into their heads that they held all powers in their hands and could abuse them as they wished. What this means for biblical theology is that, therefore, the story of the Old Testament has always been about the Kingdom of God.

In the history of the Christian Church we read of many attempts to establish theocracies as a means of government. Many attempts have been made too to set up the local church as a theocracy with a leader claiming to rule on the authorization and on behalf of God. The stories about them, unfortunately, have never made happy reading. Theocracy requires a mindset and culture in which the place of prophets and the means of authenticating the signs from God and the prophets' oracles are recognized and universally accepted. Even in ancient Israel where this was much so, theocracy under the kings never fared well.