“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” – Mark 1:15

For us to understand what it means for the kingdom of God to come, we need to ask what the situation was before this big announcement. How does the Bible describe authority on the planet before Jesus came?

Here’s a view from Psalm 82. I took out the quotes around “gods” that the NIV translators inserted, because they’re not in the original Hebrew text:

¹ God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the gods:

² “How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?
³ Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
⁴ Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

⁵ “The gods know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

⁶ “I said, ‘You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High.’
⁷ But you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler.”

⁸ Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance.

Who are these sons of God and where did they come from? Here’s what Deuteronomy 32:8 says. (Again, I replaced the NIV’s “sons of Israel” with “sons of God” because in this case the NIV translators made the unusual choice to ignore the Hebrew text we have from Jesus’s day, and rather used a translation from almost 1,000 years later.)

⁸ When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of God

It sounds like God delegated legitimate authority to some sort of spiritual beings. So in the Old Testament each of the nations had their own gods.

Now, it’s easy to find verses that say Yahweh is the only true god, and in comparison, everyone else is nothing. But then there are also all these verses that acknowledge other gods. We can ignore them, explain them away, or be curious about who was in charge before Jesus.

• On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. – Ex 12:12
• for the Lord had brought judgment on their gods – Nu 33:4
• they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Molek the god of the Ammonites – 1 Ki 11:33
• But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. – Dan 10:13
• Soon I will return to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I go, the prince of Greece will come; but first I will tell you what is written in the Book of Truth. (No one supports me against them except Michael, your prince. And in the first year of Darius the Mede, I took my stand to support and protect him.) – Dan 10:20-11:1
• Tell them this: ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’ – Ps 96:11
• In that day the Lord will punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below. – Is 24:21
• Will you not take what your god Chemosh gives you? Likewise, whatever the Lord our God has given us, we will possess. – Judges 11:24
• your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord – 2 Ki 5:17
• They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought. – 2 Ki 17:33
• For who in the heavens can be compared to Yahweh? Who can be likened to Yahweh among the sons of the Almighty? – Ps 89:6, but the NIV was so different I just used the Hebrew
• One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. – Job 1:6 (replacing where the NIV decided to translate the Hebrew “sons of God” as “angels”)
• On another day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. – Job 2:1, again using the Hebrew “sons of God” instead of the NIV “angels”
• The Lord will be awesome to them when he destroys all the gods of the earth. Distant nations will bow down to him, all of them in their own lands. – Zeph 2:11
• They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. They sacrificed to false gods, which are not God—gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your ancestors did not fear. – Dt 32:16-17
• All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever. – Micah 4:5
• The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “I am about to bring punishment on Amon god of Thebes, on Pharaoh, on Egypt and her gods and her kings, and on those who rely on Pharaoh.  – Jer 46:25
• All who worship images are put to shame, those who boast in idols–worship him, all you gods! – Ps 97:7
• What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? – Dt 4:5
• You shall have no other gods besides me. – Ex 20:3
• Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders? – Ex 15:11
• the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose…. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. – Gen 6:2,4

To be continued….