In the Old Testament world, God chose to reveal himself as a king - the High King, above all, but still drawing on a human concept. Why did God draw such a close analogy between earthly kingship and his relationship to humanity? Because it was something humans could understand, a concept that would give them a glimmer of the greatness that God wished to reveal about himself. But kingship, even then, was an inadequate concept, because God is greater than any king.
Today, kings are thought of as presidents that have somehow bypassed the normal electoral process. At worst, they are dictators such as Saddam (who may not have gone by the title king, but it’s our closest contemporary parallel). At best, they are hereditary, monied monarchs.
It’s time for a better analogy to explain God’s relationship to us. He is not simply a wealthy heir who rules by sheer virtue of his station in life.
What about God as creator? The early Celtic Christians resonated with this way of seeing God.
What other relational paradigms would be helpful and appropriate for illustrating our relationship with God?
I couldn’t help but think of 1 Samuel 8:7 when reading your post:
What other political/governmental things has God “allowed” in the centuries since this took place?
The prophets talked about God as the husband to Israel (see Hosea, for example). God was also described as a tower and a rock (see the Psalms) and a shepherd (see the prophets). Wasn’t there also something in the Psalms about God being a great bird (taking shadow under His wings)?
I did a Bible study with a group of guys taking a look at the “I Am” sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of John in the New Testament. He said that He was the light of the world, the bread of life, the resurrection and the life, the way and the truth and the life, the good shepherd, the gate for the sheep, the vine, the Messiah, the great I AM.
I think husband or wife are great metaphors.
Also father and mother.
(I know that all of these lose some meaning in our culture with these relationships not carrying as much weight or value as in some other cultures, but people can relate to what those relationships are at their best)
God loves us so much that he makes Himself and His relationship to us obvious . Why do we think He must make sense to us…we should be making sense to Him.
The nature of God and God’s relationship to us is anything but obvious. All language about God is metaphorical. The clearest revelation of God, the incarnation, is contextual.
It is only when one releases the images of God to which one is wed that one can “seek the face of God.” Since this is relational, it is therefore experiential. But not simply the experience of the individual, rather the corporate experience of the people of God with the Creator through history.
Kevin
Brookline, MA
I think the idea of God as King is still valid, in some respects, for the world in which we live. All conceptualizations/analogy of God break down at some point because God is beyond our full comprehension.
The analogy of God as king has this going for it that no other analogy that I can think of: that God is sovereign. No other “head-of-state” terminology expresses sovereignty like King does. Just don’t push the analogy too far.
I think the point of this post was to help think of metaphors that would be more accessible to contemporary society, rather than to suggest that the traditional metaphors are no longer accurate or useful. People in Twenty-First Century America don’t relate to the idea of a king, nor do they relate particularly well to the idea of a shepherd. Sure, we can teach people why these analogies are accurate and were of peculiarly effective in Jesus’ society, but (as this post suggests) we could improve our outreach if we invest some effort into meeting people where they are and explaining God in terms more readily accessible to them.
God as Bill Gates?
Dave, I agree with what you’re saying there. The idea of God as king is still a valid metaphor, but it’s one that needs some explanation since most North Americans lack the experience of a relationship with an earthly king.
One of the tricky parts of finding a new metaphor though, is trying to come up with one that communicates the ideas of the old metaphor in a new language. Husband and father might be good metaphors to describe God, but to me, they suggest something much different than the metaphor of a king. Maybe God as President? God as Prime Minister? God as dictator? None of those seem to satisfy me.
I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while, but haven’t come up with much. I’m curious to hear what people think–what aspect of our relationship with God is shown through the metaphor of God as king?