Christ Rules Over Every Nation—Here's Why

Today we want to look at a question that was raised by one of my listeners. The question is: does God treat nations today as he treated them in the Old Testament, according to his covenant? Does God bring negative sanctions — cursing a nation — and positive sanctions — building up a nation — as they obey or disobey God’s Word? Or is it what might be called covenant randomness, or maybe no covenant at all?

Before I go through the list of scriptures here, the first thing I would do is read through Deuteronomy 28 — read through verses 1 to 14, the blessings, and read through verses 15 to 68, the curses — and just read it with the situation of the nation in mind. Think of godly periods of history and the development, blessing, power, and prosperity and health that was given in those times, and think of our present circumstances. Just use that as a rule of thumb.

The Foundation: Is God’s Law Still Valid?

Prior to the question of whether God’s covenant sanctions against nations are still in effect today, the foundation upon which that question lies is: is his law still valid today? Many, many, many say that no, his law is not valid today. But that is not what Scripture says. Scripture is explicit. Christ is explicit in his master sermon:

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets.” Now, the prophets are the ones who brought the covenant lawsuits against nations as nations — both Israel and Judah and other nations outside that sphere. It is the law and the covenant. Christ says: “I am not come to destroy.” If a city is not destroyed, it is still there. If a house is not destroyed, it is still there. But fulfil — what does fulfil mean? Does it mean destroy? Well, that would make no sense: I have not come to destroy, I have come to destroy. No, the word is fulfil, meaning to put into full effect, expand to its fullest extent, to fill full. That should be enough.

But for further emphasis, Paul says in Romans 3:31: “Do we then make void the law through faith?” And he does not just say no — he says: “God forbid. Yea, we establish the law.” If it is not destroyed, it is still there. If it is established, it is there more firmly than before.

And not only that, we have various witnesses as to how the very most precise elements of the law of God are considered eternally binding. As regards marriage: 1 Corinthians 7. The support of ministers: 1 Corinthians 9:8-9 — Paul goes to a case law about muzzling an ox while he treads out the grain and says this is applicable right now, today, just as surely as when it was first written in Deuteronomy 25:4. Law in relation to civil justice: 1 Timothy 1:8-10. James, the brother of the Lord, calls it the royal law and the law of liberty. Which law? Well, how many laws were there? There was Roman law — he obviously was not talking about that. No, this meant God’s law. God’s law is the way of liberty.

The new covenant does not do away with the law — it internalises it. That is the whole point of Jeremiah 31:31-34, quoted at length in Hebrews 8:8-12 and 10:16. The law in the new covenant is written on our hearts. You cannot separate the new covenant from the law. Its defining characteristic is that the law is now written on the tablets of our hearts and that we have the power of the Holy Spirit to obey it.

There are two words for new in the Greek. There is chronos — new in terms of time, totally brand new, never seen before. And there is kainos — renewed. It was there, but it has been fixed up extensively. The new covenant is kainos — renewed, not abolished.

God Has Always Held All Nations Accountable

Now, many would object and say: in the Old Testament, the law of God was only for Israel. But that is not true. Look at Genesis 18 and 19, where Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by Christ and his angels. Were they Israel? Emphatically not.

What about Amos 1 and 2? God pronounces judgement there against Damascus, Syria, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab. These did not have the law. They did not have Jehovah as their Lord. But still God sends against them a prophet — Amos — who indicts them for breaking God’s moral law. So we see that the moral law is in effect, and you do not have to be a covenant nation to suffer from God’s sanctions against lawbreaking.

There is an entire book dedicated to God’s covenant sanction against one nation, and that is the book of Jonah, where Nineveh — the capital of Assyria — is addressed by Jonah successfully. What does he bring? A covenant lawsuit: in three days you will all be dead because you have disobeyed God. Here we find that Christ’s claim is universal, even in the Old Testament.

Again, Daniel 4:27: “Break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity.” Daniel addresses the very king of Babylon — the king of kings as he was — and he is talking about his national peace, which depends upon obedience to God’s moral standards by the king of Babylon. And what happened when he refused? Daniel 4:31-33 — the nation was judged.

Again, we have Paul speaking to a pagan audience in Athens, declaring that God has made of one blood all nations of men, to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation. So God, in the person of Jesus Christ, is Lord in the New Testament era over all nations. He sovereignly appoints the bounds of their habitation, their borders and so on. God is completely sovereign over every nation, their rise and their fall, their growth and their decline.

The Risen Christ Presently Exercises Universal Sovereignty

Who enforces the law? The law is valid. Who enforces it? The risen Christ presently exercises universal sovereignty over all nations — not as a future hope, as the Irvingites, as the Darbyites, as the Schofieldites teach falsely, but as a current reality.

Psalm 110:1: “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” This is the most frequently quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament. And Peter, through the Holy Spirit, says this was fulfilled at the Ascension: “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Acts 2:36. We cannot argue with it. God has spoken authoritatively through his Spirit: Christ is now seated at the right hand of the Father, ruling the earth.

Paul expands on this in Ephesians 1:20-22: “God raised Christ from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. And hath put all things under his feet.” That word put — hupostazo — in the Aorist tense means a completed action. He has put — past tense, done — all things under Christ’s feet. Absolutely slam-dunk case.

Psalm 2 is the charter text. God the Father says to the Son: “Ask of me and I shall give you the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Psalm 2:8-9. And then, to clarify, the Psalm addresses the nations directly: “Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way.” Verses 10-12. Here we have a covenant sanction: if you do not show obedience, you will perish. And this is a promise for the New Testament era. It is a present command to existing civil magistrates. The consequence of refusal is destruction.

Revelation 1:5 calls Jesus the prince of the kings of the earth. Who rules the world? Some people foolishly say that Satan rules the world. Scripture says: Revelation 1:5, Jesus is the prince of the kings of the earth. Revelation 19:16 identifies him as king of kings and lord of lords. Does it say he will be? No. He is. Present tense.

The Covenant Sanctions Are Operative Now

If Christ is king, then his law is the standard. A king without a law code is not really a king. And Christ’s law code is the moral law of God, which includes specific sanctions laid out in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Those are not just a historical record — they are a revelation of how God governs. Policy documents.

Does God change? “I am the Lord. I change not.” Malachi 3:6. Hebrews 13:8: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.

What do we find in the blessings of Deuteronomy 28:1-14? Comprehensive agricultural abundance, economic prosperity, demographic growth, military security, international respect, and favourable weather. You could just invert that and look at the United Kingdom today. And the curses of Deuteronomy 28:15-68: famine, economic ruin, infertility, military defeat, social confusion, and ultimately exile from the land. Again, and we find progressive cursing. What have we found over the course of the last few hundred years but a progressive unfolding of God’s negative sanctions in history to the nations?

The New Testament confirms the sanctions are active. The author of Hebrews quotes Haggai 2:6 and says: “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” Hebrews 12:26-27. God is shaking the nations, removing what is unstable, leaving standing what is built in Christ. The wheat falls down, the chaff is blown away.

Again, the book of Revelation depicts God pouring out judgements on Babylon — a symbolic name for any civilisation, any nation, any empire that sets itself up as a rival to God’s order. The plagues of Revelation 6-19: famine, war, pestilence, economic collapse. Is that arbitrary? Is that the first time we see that in Scripture? No. We find it in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26. It is not a coincidence — it is a covenant sanction.

And we find it with Jesus and his earthly ministry: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” Matthew 23:37-38. A negative covenant sanction — the curse — and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 was the final outworking of Deuteronomy 28 in the new covenant.

The Great Commission Is National Discipleship

Perhaps the most powerful argument is in that very familiar scripture — the command of Matthew 28:19: to disciple all the nations. Matheteusate panta ta ethne. Nations — ethne — are the direct object of the verb. It does not say take disciples from the nations as individuals and disciple them. No, the discipling is directed toward the nations as nations. And he says this as Lord having all authority. This is his command.

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. Is that just the New Testament? Is that just the red-letter bits of your Bible? No. Did Christ exist only when he was born in the stable? No. It is all things Christ has commanded us in the Old Testament and the New Testament. National discipleship means national conformity to God’s law.

Can we look forward to national conversion? Is it a reasonable hope? Isaiah 2:2-4 looks at a time when all nations shall flow to the Lord’s house. Isaiah 42:4 promises that the isles shall wait for his law. Psalm 86:9: “All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify thy name.” Are you going to say the Holy Spirit has made an error here? God forbid. We are to repent of all past unbelief and take that into our hearts as the very truth of God.

How does God bring the nations to this point? We see it in Judges 6 — God brings sanctions, invasions, economic poverty, and then his people begin to cry out to him. The progressive nature of the sanctions is God’s means. They are designed to break national rebellion. And the promised blessings are designed to reward national obedience and make it attractive. History itself becomes the classroom in which God teaches the nations the consequences of obedience on the one hand and disobedience on the other.

Acts 3:21 speaks of the restitution of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. And what is the engine of that restitution? God’s sanctions grinding down the pride of man through time, until all flow up to Zion. All the isles are waiting, panting, desperate for God’s law in the midst of the dust they have heaped upon themselves by their disobedience to the rightful God of the world.

Summary

So, in summary: God’s moral law has not been abrogated — it has been established. Matthew 5:17. It has been internalised. Jeremiah 31:33. God has always held all nations accountable to his moral law — Amos with Damascus and Tyre, Jonah 3 with Nineveh, Daniel 4:27 with Nebuchadnezzar, Acts 17:26 with all the nations of the earth without exception.

The risen Christ presently exercises universal sovereignty over all nations as king of kings — Psalm 2, Psalm 110:1, Ephesians 1:20-22, Revelation 19:16. The king governs by his law, and Christ’s law is the moral law of God, which includes specific sanctions in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. The New Testament confirms these sanctions are actively operative in the present age — Hebrews 12, Revelation 6-19, Matthew 23:37-38.

And the very ground of the gospel, the Great Commission, is the discipleship of nations as nations. The prophets tell us — Isaiah 2:2-4, Psalm 86:9 — that all nations will submit to God’s law in time. The mechanism by which these nations are brought to submit is God’s mighty covenant sanctions, progressive and purposeful, designed to break national rebellion and draw every people to King Jesus.

Therefore the nations today remain under the covenant sanctions of God. They are being blessed or cursed in direct proportion to their corporate obedience or disobedience to his revealed law. And this process will continue until the Great Commission achieves its stated goal: the discipleship of all nations.

Thank you very much.