Martin Luther’s Two Kingdoms, Law And Gospel, And The Created Order: Was There A Time When The Two Kingdoms Were Not? -- By: Jonathon David Beeke
Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 73:2 (Fall 2011)
Article: Martin Luther’s Two Kingdoms, Law And Gospel, And The Created Order: Was There A Time When The Two Kingdoms Were Not?
Author: Jonathon David Beeke
WTJ 73:2 (Fall201 1) p. 191
Martin Luther’s Two Kingdoms, Law And Gospel, And The Created Order:
Was There A Time When The Two Kingdoms Were Not?
Historical And Theological Studies
Jonathon Beeke is a Ph.D. student at Westminster Theological Seminary.
Christ’s kingdom is spiritual, that is, it is the heart’s knowledge of God, fear of God, faith in God, and the beginning of eternal righteousness and eternal life. At the same time, it permits us to make outward use of legitimate political ordinances of whatever nation in which we live, just as it permits us to make use of medicine or architecture or food, drink, and air. Neither does the gospel introduce new laws for the civil realm. Instead, it commands us to obey the present laws, whether they have been formulated by pagans or others.
As demonstrated in the epigraph, a quotation taken from Philip Melanchthon’s Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531),1 the distinction between the spiritual and earthly kingdoms was a readily accepted teaching in the nascent Protestant churches. Already in 1525, Martin Luther was convinced he had sufficiently and clearly articulated what he meant by the existence of two kingdoms; that confusion might exist on this topic was, for Luther, incomprehensible: “There are two kingdoms, one the kingdom of God, the other the kingdom of the world. I have written this so often that I am surprised that there is anyone who does not know it or remember it.”2 Almost five hundred years later, understanding Luther’s exact meaning of the two kingdoms and two governments (Zwei Reiche und Regimente) remains a somewhat enigmatic and therefore hotly contested question.3 Indeed, any attempt to answer this historical question is a
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daunting task. Surely the staggering collection of Luther’s writings—over one hundred and twenty volumes in the Weimar edition—and the countless monographs, articles, and collected essays devoted to this reformer must give pause to the interpreter of Luther.4 As if this were not enough to scare away the neophyte, the subject of our study, Luther’s two kingdoms, sits high atop this ever-increasing mountain of literature. The present article must therefore be selective. It is the purpose of this study then to examine Luther’s two kingdoms distinction in connection with his discussion of the prelapsarian order, a relationship often overlooked in secondary scholarship. It is my intent that with the placement ...
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