By Dr. Scott Hahn

Recently, I headed off to England to deliver a lecture at Oxford University.

England is like a home away from home for me. The English and I speak the same language (although with different accents!). Cardinal Newman and hundreds of our ancestors in the faith studied at Oxford. Every time I return, too, I'm pleased to find more students and faculty have converted to the Catholic faith.

But one difference between us and our British cousins always stands out for me - the monarchy. It's such an alien idea for Americans - we can't believe kings and queens still exist, let alone that they might rule by "divine right."

This intrigues me, because the more I study Scripture, the more I'm conviced that the notion of divine monarchy, of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven, is the key to unlocking the meaning and promises of the Gospel.

The Kingdom of God is at the heart of our Lord's preaching and mission - He said it was "at hand" and "in our midst." He gave Peter the "keys to the Kingdom" and sent His Apostles to proclaim the Kingdom to the ends of the earth.

But what happened to the Kingdom - where did it go? Modernist wags used to say: "Christ preached the Kingdom, but all we got is the Church."

The wags had it exactly right - for all the wrong reasons. They were mocking the Church and implying that Jesus hadn't made good on His promise. But a close reading of Scripture shows that He truly did - that the Church is the restored Kingdom of David that all the prophets looked forward to.

The Catechism repeatedly associates the Church with the Kingdom (see nos. 541,551,567, among many). 

What I've discovered in more than a year's worth of intensive study, is that this ancient understanding of the Church reflects the literal and historical meaning of the New and Old Testaments.

Christ is the royal Son of David and the Church is the Davidic Kingdom restored. No other interpretation has such explanatory power. Scholars have spent much more time studying the Sinai covenant that made Moses and Israel a nation. But we need to understand the covenant God makes with David - which makes Israel an international kingdom that unites all nations under God the Father and the Davidic king who is also God's Son (see 2 Samuel 7; Psalms 2; 72).

Explaining this has become one of my driving passions. It's the subject of the new on-line class I'm writing for advanced students. And it will be the theme of the second annual West Coast Biblical Studies Conference next January.

And this "Davidic Christology" and "Kingdom Ecclesiology" is the subject of the paper I delivered at Oxford. It will be published next year, and I'll let you know then how you can get a hold of it. But for now, I hope you'll look into our new class and join us in sunny southern California in January! 

December 2004