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PART TWO

At the time of Jesus, Palestine was a colony of the Roman Empire, administered by a governor named Pontius Pilate. The Roman Empire was in charge, but local religious and civil affairs were left to the (local) ruling elite.

It was this local elite, which we would today call the establishment, which sought to have Jesus murdered.

Now to the origins of this establishment.

David, son of Jesse,  had been the first king of a new dynasty of Israel, after King Saul had disqualified his own successors from ruling Israel.  David was succeeded by his son Solomon, who in turn was succeeded by his son Rehoboam.

But Rehoboam is an example of how ruling elites inevitably lose sight of their purpose.

The purpose of a ruler is to make their people's lives as secure and good as possible. But it is usual for rulers to abandon that purpose and instead rule for their own benefit.  Which is exactly what God warned would happen when His people first demanded a king.

Solomon had been an oppressive ruler, and after he died the people hoped for a better life under his son Rehoboam:

“...all the congregation of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam, saying, Your father made our yoke hard. And now lighten the hard service of your father, and the heavy yoke which he put on us, and we will serve you.” (1 Kings 12:3-4)

Rehoboam foolishly ignored the legitimate demands of the people he was to rule, and set out on the same course of oppression as his father:

“And the king answered the people roughly....and spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke. My father whipped you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.” (1 Kings 12:13-14)

Which had a predictable result:

“And all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, and the people answered the king, saying, What part do we have in David? Yea, there is no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel! Now see to your house, O David! And Israel went to its tents.” (1Kings 12:16)

When Rehoboam attempted to assert the authority which the people had already withdrawn from him, another predictable result: Rehoboam was forced into ignominious retreat:

“And King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the tribute. And all Israel stoned him with stones so that he died. And King Rehoboam made haste to go up to get into a chariot to flee to Jerusalem.” (1 Kings12:18)

The next step in this drama was the setting up of a new, separate, kingdom:

“And it happened when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had come again, they sent and called him to the company, and made him king over all Israel. There was none who followed the house of David [King Rehoboam], but the tribe of Judah only.” (1 Kings 12:20)

All this had been God's doing, and had happened because Rehoboam's father, Solomon, had spurned God:

“And Jehovah said to Solomon, Since this is done by you, and since you have not kept My covenant and My statutes which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant.  But I will not do it in your days, for David your father's sake, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son.” (1Kings 11:11-12)

One of the lessons from this rupture of the Kingdom of Israel is that kings belong to the people. Not the other way round that people belong to kings. In other words, there is no such thing as the divine right of kings. If kings do not rule in the interests of the people, they can be legitimately removed. As we saw:

“What part do we have in David? Yea, there is no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel!”

So the Kingdom of Israel was divided into two Kingdoms. Eventually, Rehoboam ended up with the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi (the priestly tribe). Jeroboam ruled all the remaining tribes of Israel.

Rehoboam's capital was Jerusalem, and Jeroboam's capital was Shechem, later to be Samaria.  The two Kingdoms were never reunited, and remained enemies.

Both Kingdoms were eventually invaded and destroyed, and the people taken captive to Assyria.  Later, some of the descendants of the captives of the kingdom of Judah were returned to Jerusalem, where they rebuilt the Temple which the invaders had earlier destroyed.

The leaders of these returned captives, and their descendants, became the ruling civil/religious establishment of the new colony.  It was this establishment which Jesus later identified as the enemy of God:

“I know that you are Abraham's seed, but you seek to kill Me because My Word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you, then, do what you have seen with your father [Satan].” John 8:37-38)

This establishment, seeking to kill Jesus because they knew He was from God, (and therefore their enemy), was a close intertwining of civil and religious power. The civil rested on the religious.

God had early given religion to the Israelites, and the Israelites, just as early, had corrupted that religion. They had completely ignored what God had told them through Moses:

“You shall not add to the Word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it, so that you may keep the commands of Jehovah your God which I command you.” (Deuteronomy 4:2)

God had given the Israelites a faultless way to approach life. He simply told them how to treat Him and how to treat each other. And, importantly, He told them not to take away from His instructions, nor to add their own instructions to His.

So of course the priestly caste immediately began to add their own instructions.  And in time they had added a mountain of un-godly nonsense.

Jesus arrived on the planet, observed the nonsense through God's eyes, and called it for what it was. And then called the creators and caretakers of the nonsense for what they were.

Which meant that Jesus had to die.  Because in all history, those who challenge the establishment must die.  Even the Son of God. Jesus, the seed of the Woman, murdered by the seed of Satan.

The lesson here is that Satan's establishment - the human rulers of the earth, Satan's tools - can never be overthrown.  Well, they can be overthrown in revolutions, but a new establishment immediately begins to grow from the roots of the old. Which means that the best, most well-intentioned revolution eventually comes to nothing.  Which means that revolutions, and attempting to overturn an establishment by human force is a waste of effort.

The only way Satan's tools can ever be permanently defeated is by righteous force from outside the Earth. As Jesus said when they were about to seize Him:

“Do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:53)

Jesus declined to use such force at the time. But that same force still exists, and is waiting only for Jesus' word to completely destroy Satan's regime and his human tools.  Because the complete destruction of Satan's collaborators is essential to keeping the new world free from the infection of evil.