{"id":85364,"date":"2025-09-19T06:00:46","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T10:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=85364"},"modified":"2025-09-04T13:35:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T17:35:53","slug":"gods-other-kingdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2025\/09\/gods-other-kingdom\/","title":{"rendered":"God’s Other Kingdom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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[While I\u2019m in Ecuador, I\u2019m posting columns and articles that I wrote in the early 2000\u2019s for Tabletalk Magazine<\/a>, which kindly gave me permission to do this.\u00a0 When I get back, we\u2019ll go back to our format of Monday Miscellanies and Friday discussions.]<\/p>\n

This column takes on a topic that is widely misunderstood and misapplied\u2013even by Lutherans, who are confessionally obliged to believe in it:\u00a0 the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms.<\/p>\n

Here I explain it and bring out facets that you don\u2019t hear much about:\u00a0 how this teaching does not<\/em> sanctify the status quo because it brings the temporal realm under God\u2019s moral law; how this teaching frees Christians from the pressure of having to Christianize everything; and how this teaching frees Christians to embrace what is good in secular culture.<\/p>\n

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God\u2019s Other Kingdom<\/h4>\n

We often talk about how God is \u201csovereign\u201d over all things. The term has to do with God\u2019s providential control over His creation\u2014that is to say, everything that exists\u2014and, in different contexts, with His action in bringing people to salvation. But to say God is sovereign implies that He is<\/em> a sovereign. In other words, God is a King.<\/p>\n

Christian discussions of \u201cthe Kingdom of God\u201d usually focus on His spiritual kingdom, how, through the work of Christ, He reigns in the hearts of believers, in the visible Church, and in eternity.<\/p>\n

This column is about culture, so I would like to focus on a different aspect of the concept: How it is that God is also the King of the so-called \u201csecular\u201d order, which includes the material world and the social world.<\/p>\n

Though we can certainly speak about God\u2019s kingdom in an apocalyptic way, as something in the future, or in an evangelistic way, as in something we are working to usher in, I want to focus on the sense in which God is already<\/em> a King and already <\/em>rules His kingdom.<\/p>\n

Luther sorts out the different senses of these terms when he taught that God has two kingdoms, each of which He governs in different ways. He has a spiritual kingdom and He has an earthly kingdom. A Christian is a citizen of both. But even non-believers\u2014those who do not know God and who rebel against Him\u2014are citizens of God\u2019s earthly kingdom and cannot escape His rule.<\/p>\n

In Luther\u2019s day, it was not unusual for a particular monarch to occupy more than one throne. The Emperor that Luther had to contend with was, in addition to his innumerable dukedoms and the Imperial office, both the King of Spain and the King of Hungary.<\/p>\n

Luther meant that God governs two dominions: One He rules by virtue of His creation; the other by virtue of His act of redemption in Christ. His earthly realm can be known through reason; His spiritual realm must be known through His Word. God rules human societies on earth through His moral law. God rules human hearts and equips them for His eternal kingdom through the gospel.<\/p>\n

God operates in both kingdoms through means. In the spiritual kingdom, He works through His word, His sacraments, His Church. In the earthly kingdom, He works through the processes of natural laws, physical causes, and history. Just as God established the Church as the institution through which He works in His spiritual kingdom, He established the family and the state as institutions through which He works in His earthly kingdom.<\/p>\n

This is to say, God works through vocation. That is, through human beings whom He calls to different offices, tasks, and kinds of service.<\/p>\n

God brings new life into the world through the means of mothers and fathers, husbands and wives. That is, through the institution of the family. God is at work through the vocation of parents as they bring up, care for, and educate their children. Anthropologists agree that the family is the basis of all culture, so culture, in general\u2014language, customs, tools, and social organizations\u2014all have their foundation in God, who remains their sovereign.<\/p>\n

Notice that this applies to non-Christians as well as to Christians. It is possible for people who are not Christians to have babies. And yet, God is the source of those children. It is possible for people who are not Christians to work, produce, speak, and form a culture. These are signs of God\u2019s rule, even among those who do not know Him.<\/p>\n

This is why Christians cannot just \u201chave their own marriages,\u201d as some are proposing, letting the non-believers have their serial divorces, infidelities, and homosexual unions. The Reformers all agreed that marriage is not a \u201csacrament\u201d\u2014which would put it in the spiritual kingdom\u2014but is for everyone, an ordinance of God\u2019s earthly kingdom.<\/p>\n

Families and individuals in the culture also must \u201cmake a living,\u201d which further requires the entire economic order. God feeds the rest of us through the vocation of farmers; He distributes His gifts of healing through the vocation of doctors and nurses; He gives us the blessings of technology through the vocations of engineers and factory workers.<\/p>\n

Romans 13 also describes how God works through the state, through certain lawful authorities who have the right to \u201cbear the sword.\u201d Through these earthly authorities, God restrains evil and rewards those who do good.<\/p>\n

Luther\u2019s doctrine of the Two Kingdoms is widely misunderstood, both by its critics and by those who claim to follow it. It is most emphatically not<\/em> dualism; rather, it is a way of uniting different categories. God is the King of both realms.<\/p>\n

This is not to be confused with St. Augustine\u2019s doctrine of the Two Cities, which is<\/em> dualistic. Augustine said that the City of Man has to do with the love of self, while the City of God has to do with the love of God. In Augustine\u2019s scheme, the two cities are in conflict with each other. Christians must live in the City of Man, in this life, but they are being fitted for the City of God. In contrast, Luther\u2019s concept of Two Kingdoms, both under one Divine King, gives the earthly realm\u2014and thus earthly culture\u2014a positive value that it never had under monastic asceticism.<\/p>\n

But is that positive value so great that it sanctifies the status quo? If God already<\/em> rules in the earthly realm, does not that sanctify whatever secular rulers happen to be in power or whatever secular ideas are currently in vogue? This is how the Two Kingdoms has been taken by certain Germans defending Hitler, and by liberal Lutheran colleges defending their teaching of evolution in biology classes (the earthly kingdom) while saving creation for theology classes (the spiritual kingdom).<\/p>\n

These are grotesque confusions of Luther\u2019s teaching. As was said, God rules His earthly kingdom by virtue of His creation and with His moral law. Those who deny God\u2019s creation and who reject His moral law are not following the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms.<\/p>\n

Romans 13 defines legitimate government as one that punishes evildoers and rewards those who do good. Rulers who punish the good and reward the evil do not have God\u2019s sanction. Since the purpose of all vocations is to love and serve one\u2019s neighbors, a tyrant does not have a calling from God.<\/p>\n

Yes, the Devil is trying to establish his kingdom in both the earthly and the spiritual realms. But the Devil is an insurgent, a terrorist who can only kill and tear down. All order, beauty, and goodness are from the true King.<\/p>\n

In practice, this means that it is not always necessary to Christianize a cultural artifact, such as music or art or ideas. The artifact still must be evaluated according to the moral law and the created order. But it is already<\/em> part of God\u2019s kingdom.<\/p>\n

The Two Kingdoms offer a critical<\/em> model by which Christians can engage their cultures. It allows Christians to criticize their societies when necessary, but also to appreciate the good things of society\u2014its arts and sciences, its achievements and satisfactions\u2014as coming from God\u2019s hand. It brings the sacred and the secular together under one Sovereign.<\/p>\n

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Illustration via Freepik<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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