How Many Kingdoms? Contributions from the NT

Clayton Milano

We have all heard the mantra by now. Week after week, in pulpit after pulpit, Christians are being called to renew the world that they live in. Called to “renew” or “redeem” everything from governmental structures to the very way we play sports. Leaving aside the fact that this call is often times very confusing from a purely pragmatic standpoint, we ought to consider how massive the theological presuppositions are behind such statements. Yes, this call sounds nice and yes, you are largely looked at as unorthodox if you disagree but I doubt that the very pages of the New Testament would concur with this now universally accepted one-kingdom dogma. As such it is my purpose in this post to survey what contributions the NT makes to the one-kingdom v. two-kingdom debate.

In Jesus death, burial and resurrection he brought about the “new covenant.” In Luke 22:20 we read, “And likewise [he took] the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’” This establishment of the new covenant, also further confirmed in Hebrews 8:13, points to an end of the Israelite theocracy, an end to the one-kingdom framework. This is because the new covenant is made with the church. It is made with those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ, not a particular ethnicity that resides in given geopolitical boundaries. It is the church that is to follow the commands of Jesus. It is the church that is to be like Christ. That is, after all, who the counterparty is in this new covenant relationship.

It is because of this new covenant reality that the one-kingdom position is so curious. No doubt, there are a number of societal realms in which both believer and non-believer alike inhabit. They are shared institutions if you will. These shared institutions find their root in the Noahic covenant, as I outlined in a previous post. But if there is a shared cultural task between believer and non-believer, why the relentless push to Christianize every sphere of society when it was God himself who created certain spheres of society to operate under a shared mandate? The establishment of the new covenant provides the church with a special spiritual mandate but that mandate almost certainly cannot include areas of shared cultural responsibility.

To trace the line of thinking more directly: The shared cultural mandate was established by the Noahic covenant, temporarily set aside by the Mosaic covenant, then reestablished in the new covenant as God covenants with a non-geopolitical entity, the church. This means that the days of mixing religion with national entities and governmental bodies is over.

What’s more is that this reality seems to be affirmed by certain NT commands. In Romans 13:1-7, Paul instructs believers to obey civil magistrates in spite of the fact that they are clearly pagan. Similar refrains are found in other places throughout both the Pauline and Petrine corpus (1 Timothy 2:1-4; 1 Peter 2:13-18). It is hard to imagine Paul being so cozy with pagan rulers if he ascribed to one-kingdom thinking. Additionally, Paul seems to suggest that Christians ought not to judge unbelievers in the same way that those inside the church are judged (1 Corinthians 5:9-11). If Christians are meant to, “strive for the consolidation of power in organizations that aim at applying Christian principles to society,” as neo-Calvinist Herman Dooeywerd once put it, it becomes increasingly difficult to imagine how it would be possible to follow Paul’s mandate in 1 Corinthians 5, for such consolidation of power similarly demands a consolidation of Christian judgment in these various institutions.

Another crucial text demands consideration in this matter. In John 18:36, Jesus answers Pilate in stating, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” If church history has shown us one thing, it is that those who do not heed Jesus’ words in this text, fall into most grievous errors. Jesus unequivocally and doubly states that his kingdom is not of this world (Read: My kingdom is not brought about by Christianizing society).

Some will surely object at this point by pointing to the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 5:10) and saying that Jesus commands us to ask that God’s heavenly kingdom be transposed on the earth. True, he does. But under close scrutiny, this objection holds little weight. When we consider how God’s will is “done” in heaven, we have to picture heavenly realities such as lack of sin, worship, the glory of God, etc. These realities only seem biblically feasible in the event that God himself brings about the kingdom. It is something of his doing, not his creatures. To even suggest that we are to be active in bringing about these heavenly kingdom realities strikes me not only as an incredible burden that is nowhere found in the NT but also as a remarkable hubris.

I would suggest that the best reading of Lord’s Prayer is to see verses 9-10 as a request to bring about something that only God himself can do at the end of the age. It is a request to bring about that final moment in history when God does meld his heavenly will with the physical earthly realm. Yet still note that it is God who brings about this reality. Verses 11-13, then supply requests that we, as his children, need in order to be sustained up to that point in time. So in effect: God, bring about the heavenly realities on earth, but in the mean time sustain us in the following ways.

As discussed in previous posts this one-kingdom v. two-kingdom discussion is a complex issue. And as we have seen today, the NT is not silent on the matter.

After all, we have all heard the mantra now. Week after week, in pulpit after pulpit, Christians are being called to renew the world that they live in.

But if we listen to the pages of the New Testament, they seem to tell us otherwise.

Clayton Milano
Clayton is a former regular contributor to The Two Cities.

Tags

, , , , , ,

You might also enjoy…

3 responses to “How Many Kingdoms? Contributions from the NT”

  1. Tanner Gish

    Hey Ryan,

    Thanks for continuing the discussion on Two Kingdom Theology. I’ve asked my buddy Markus, who is doing his dissertation at the University of Heidelberg on reformed theological primers and their influence on Western Political thought, to join the discussion.
    I realize its often theological and communal immaturity to try to draw lines and to place people into “camps,” as 1) it is almost impossible to do so with everyone, and 2) this is a practice in oversimplifying, and in doing so, essentially ending the conversation on matters of theology that need a continual discussion, but I’m curious: on where on the continuum of (One Kingdom——————–Two Kingdom) would you place a view that:

    1) Views your understanding of John 18:36, 1 Tim 2:1-4, 1 Peter 2:13-18, the Lord’s prayer, and Rom 13 in the same way as you stated above.

    But…

    2) Sees a less disjunctive picture of the covenants, especially as seeing the Mosaic Covenant as a temporary paradigm shifting insertion into history that changed the rules of God’s interaction with His people and the world for a time before the New Covenant arrives (which, in terms of covenantal disunity, starts to sound actually very Dispensational in one sense), and one that sees the new covenant as more of the declaration and beginning of the ingrafting of Gentiles by faith to the same true people of God (the remnant that has always been by means of faith), and a shift in mission to now have more of a focus on the Gentile expansion and inclusion through DIRECT invitation, versus a more EXAMPLE style invitation of the Mosaic Covenant through the testimony and example of Israel, and the “theocratic” elements of what we biblically expect to be included in the consummation of God’s Kingdom to be just that- delayed to be accomplished by God in the consummation, not primarily through the activities of the church in society- while we wait in these “last days” where we anguish in the tension of delayed judgment and renewal (which has been the pattern of things since the Noahic Covenant, which began the separation of distancing of judgment from the committal of wrongs, as a result of God’s longsuffering patience and desire to extend grace).
    LONG sentence, I know, but hopefully that actually makes the progression of thought easier to track, versus reading one sentence as some reemphasis of what was stated early, as compared to a building block.
    All in all- I see a similar orthopraxy, but a slightly different covenantal presupposition behind it (a presupposition general labeled as less historically disjunctive, and striving for covenantal harmony).

    P.S. isn’t covenantal a word? MS Office spell check isn’t telling me it is… or is it spelled covenental? Open for input here as well.

    Reply
    1. Ryan M

      Tanner, I very much appreciate your response. I am in the process of thinking about what you said and formulating a reply. Do not think I have forgotten about you.

      Reply
    2. Ryan M

      Ok Tanner, let me comment briefly on covenantal (yes this is a word) disjunction. I think that the covenantal unity is there and is in fact very strong in the two-kingdom’s framework. The key to the discussion though, is rooted in covenantal flow. A misstep here and we end up with what appears to be massive disjunction which is what I believe you are hinting at. In my article on OT Abrogation, I argue that the right understanding of the covenants is to see a narrowing affect as we move from israel to the church. The scope of God’s people narrows from bloodline to believer. Thus in a very real sense, there is no setting aside of the general Mosaic principles insofar as it applies to the church. Those principles are not meant to be disjunctive. But they have to find the correct context and if we possess a strong understanding of covenant, that leads us to conclude that the proper applicational context for those principles is in God’s new covenant people, the church, not the pagan world. Indeed, it is going in the opposite direction to state that Mosaic principles are generally applicable to all men. This is not a typological narrowing, but rather a widening of the covenant concept. Thus I don’t see the disjunction. The Mosaic covenant was intended for God’s people, not all people. And to this day, it’s principles still find a home… In God’s people, the church.

      In terms of what the New Covenant demands of us, I guess I would just pose some questions. Do you think the only affect of the New Covenant is that we see a shift in the way in which we reach out to people? That is what your comment above seems to suggest. What other affects do you see the New Covenant having? And if the New Covenant does create a this versus that type of reality that you suggested above, isn’t that not equally disjunctive as anything I myself have suggested?

      Food for thought. Miss ya brother. Get back at me and get after my unrefined thinking. Ha.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *