As I mentioned earlier this week, this is the 500th anniversary of Luther’s treatise on Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed, published in 1523. I observed that this treatment of the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms has much that ties in to today’s controversies and that we would be blogging about some of those in the weeks ahead.
Here is what Luther says:
lt is indeed true that Christians, so far as they themselves are concerned, are subject to neither law nor sword and need neither; but first take heed and fill the world with real Christians before ruling it in a Christian and evangelical manner. This you will never accomplish; for the world and the masses are and always will be unchristian, although they are all baptised and are nominally Christian. Christians, however, are few and far between, as the saying is. Therefore it is out of the question that there should be a common Christian government over the whole world, nay even over one land or company of people, since the wicked always out- number the good. (p. 237)
Temporal authority, he explains, is a matter of law. And law cannot make Christians. To be sure, temporal authority can enforce the first use of the law, to restrain evil. Indeed, this is its purpose. And Christian citizens and rulers should work towards that end. But making everyone be moral by force cannot make a Christian nation.
Christians are made such by the gospel, through which the Holy Spirit creates faith in Christ, through whose atonement we receive forgiveness of our violations of God’s law. But faith in the gospel cannot be created by political power.
“No one can be compelled to be a Christian” (248), wrote Luther. “For faith is a free work, to which no one can be forced. Nay, it is a divine work, done in the Spirit, certainly not a matter which outward authority should compel or create” (253-254).
All of this is to say that to have a Christian nation, the Christianity, from the gospel and faith, must come first. But if everyone in the country were a true, faith-filled, spirit-filled Christian, they wouldn’t even need a government. They would do what is right as the fruit of their faith, loving their neighbors with no need of legal coercion. The fact is, even Christians must still struggle against sin, so they still need to be governed by the law and by secular authorities, by whose vocation God limits the destructive power of sin.
The state, which rules by the law, cannot make anyone devout. And the church, which conveys the gospel, cannot rule politically.
For this reason these two kingdoms must be sharply distinguished, and both be permitted to remain; the one to produce piety, the other to bring about external peace and prevent evil deeds; neither is sufficient in the world without the other. For no one can become pious before God by means of the secular government, without Christ’s spiritual rule. Hence Christ’s rule does not extend over all, but Christians are always in the minority and are in the midst of non-Christians. (237)
This is not dualism. God is the King of both kingdoms.
Interestingly, contrary to the common assumptions, Luther says that morality is the business of the state, not the church, whose business is to bring forgiveness to those who have failed to be moral (that is, all of us).
So Christians are right to press for morality in the public square, for justice and righteousness. And yet the most that the state can do in this regard is to restrain external immorality, which is an important accomplishment. Though the state can never achieve this perfectly because it can never change the hearts of sinners, which bear fruit in overt evils. The church, though, can change the hearts of sinners through the gospel.
Most Christian nationalists today are thinking of morality when they think of creating a Christian nation. So they might not be completely wrong. But they would do well to work through Luther’s Temporal Authority.
Illustration via Pxfuel
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