God's administration on this earth is very much related to the church's administration. If we are going to see God's administration on this earth, we have to see the administration of the church. To study this matter, we must go back to the very beginning of God's move among man in the Old Testament.
In the book of Genesis after the fall of Adam, God moved on this earth among His chosen people. Through His move in the book of Genesis, God gained some important persons and eventually He gained the house of Israel. The crucial persons that He gained were Adam, Abel, Enosh, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with Joseph. Through Jacob with Joseph, God gained the house of Israel as a small group of people, but in that house we cannot see much of God's administration. We cannot see much of God's administration until we come to the time of Moses recorded in Exodus.
In Exodus 19 at Mount Sinai the Lord told the children of Israel that He wanted them to be a "kingdom of priests" and a "holy nation" (v. 6). The nation of Israel probably had over two million people by that time. The children of Israel were not saved from Egypt individually. They were saved corporately as an entire race of people. They did not come out of Egypt one by one as individuals, but they came out as a corporate people, even as a nation and a kingdom. When they came to Sinai, God called them a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. In this kingdom at Mount Sinai, God's administration among His people on this earth began.
God's administration was neither an autocracy by a dictator nor a democracy of the people. God's administration among the children of Israel was a theocracy, indicating that God Himself came to govern, to rule, to administrate, the people of God directly yet through some agents. Among the children of Israel, these agents were the priests and the elders working together for God's theocracy. The priests were the ones who received God's word, God's speaking, God's instructions. God's speaking, His constant and instant speaking, was the living constitution of the children of Israel. Until the law was given, there was no constant speaking of God, but there was always His instant speaking. The law was the constant speaking of God. The law, like the United States Constitution, may be considered the first written constitution of God's people written by God Himself. The Old Testament, however, shows us that the written constitution of God by itself was not adequate. There was still the need of God's instant constitution, His instant speaking. God's instant speaking always goes along with His written Word. The theocracy among the nation of Israel was a government according to God's constant speaking as written in the law or God's instant speaking as revealed through the breastplate of the high priest by means of the Urim and the Thummim (Exo. 28:30; Lev. 8:8; Num. 27:21; Deut. 33:8; 1 Sam. 28:6; Ezra 2:63; Neh. 7:65).
The very crucial part in God's government was God's instant speaking through the Urim and the Thummim on the breastplate of the high priest. Among the people of Israel, there were the elders on the one hand and the priests on the other hand. Although the Scripture does not clearly indicate how the elders were produced, it does tell us how the priests were produced. God chose the entire nation of Israel to be a kingdom of priests. He intended that every male Israelite would be a priest. But the children of Israel fell and failed to arrive at God's purpose. Thus, God turned His choosing of the entire nation of Israel as priests to a family, the house of Aaron. The house of Aaron became a house of priests to replace the nation of priests. Aaron as the father was appointed by God to be the high priest, and all his sons became the priests (Exo. 28:1). This was the way the priests were produced in the Old Testament.