The New Testament Foundation for Luther’s Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms

Since Jesus began preaching in Galilee, His followers have been struggling to conceptualize the proper relationship between worldly authority and spiritual authority. This has been a universal topic of discussion among Christians for the last 2,000 years.

Martin Luther made a major contribution to this discussion when he formulated his doctrine of the two kingdoms. There are historical antecedents to Luther’s articulation: “render unto Caesar” (Luke 20, Mark 12, Matthew 22), Augustine’s two cities, and the medieval concept of two swords (Luke 22).

Luther did not systematically or clearly express this doctrine, but rather mentions it in passing when it is relevant to his discussion of some other topic. It remains an exegetical challenge for scholars to gather from various writings Luther’s incidental remarks on this topic, and assemble them into a precise set of theses. In this way, Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms is a construct that Luther himself might not have recognized, and competing formulations exist.

The reader may be tempted to quickly place Luther’s teaching about the “two kingdoms” into a pigeonhole labeled “church and state,” but that would do a disservice to Luther’s thought. The modern framing of the question began with the American Revolution, around 250 years after Luther’s time. The modern “church and state” question, no matter which answers may be proposed, is not the same as Luther’s question. To be sure, there are some similarities between the two, but Luther’s context was markedly different than Thomas Jefferson’s.

Not only was Luther’s context different, his method was different. Luther began with Scripture.

Erwin Mülhaupt explains that Luther’s method included a habit of examining what Scripture says, and comparing this to what many readers think it says. Mülhaupt describes Luther’s understanding of John 18:36 and the kingdom of God:

Luther hebt auf diese Stelle oft ab, bei vielen modernen Theologen scheint dies Bibelwort fast vergessen. Man kann auf den Verdacht kommen, es wäre ihnen eigentlich lieber, in Joh. 18,36 stünde: mein Reich ist vor allem für diese Welt, denn ich erhebe den Herrschaftsanpruch über Pilatus und Herodes und den römischen Kaiser und alle Bereiche des menschlichen und politischen Lebens! Aber statt dessen findet Luther, daß Christus im Neuen Testament anerkennende Worte für das Reich des Kaisers, die Macht des Pilatus und Herodes und mancherlei Obrigkeit findet: das Reich des Kaisers hat auch seine Berechtigung Matth. 22,21ff, die Macht des Pilatus ist ihm auch von oben gegeben Joh. 19,11 und mancherlei Obrigkeiten sind auch nicht vom Teufel, sondern »von Gott verordnet« Röm. 13,1. Die Zwei-Reiche-Lehre war also für Luther biblisch begründet. Die biblische Begründung war für ihn sehr wichtig.

For those who’ve already been exposed to Luther’s texts, it’s possible that there’s little new or surprising in what Erwin Mülhaupt states about Luther’s relation to Scripture. Luther’s insistence on seeing Scripture as the foundation and starting-point for theology was a departure from the usual theological methodology of the time. Luther was so successful in propagating his method that it hardly seems controversial now to assert that Scripture is axiomatic. Even those who disagree with Luther often use Scripture in their argumentation, and thereby follow Luther’s example.

Luther defines two domains, each with its own purpose, and each with its own governance. These two realms need to be properly distinguished from each other. Luther summarizes his explanation of the nature and function of the two kingdoms:

Darum hat Gott die zwei Regimente verordnet, das geistliche, das die Menschen zu Christen und zu frommen Leuten macht durch den heiligen Geist unter Christus, und das weltliche, das den Unchristen und Bösen wehrt, so daß sie äußerlich Frieden halten und still sein müssen, ob sie wollen oder nicht.

The German word Reich can be rendered as ‘realm, domain, or kingdom’ in this context. It can possibly be translated with still other English words. Researchers refer to Luther’s idea as the Zweireichelehre or Zwei-Reiche-Lehre.

Luther’s schema here is simple yet profound: God established two governances; the spiritual governance, which makes people into Christians and into pious persons by means of the Holy Spirit and under the authority of Christ; the worldly governance, which restrains the non-Christians and evil people, so that external peace is maintained and so that they will be civil whether they want to or not.

In this articulation, the worldly government is expressly authorized to maintain peace against the will of the individual. The questions pose themselves: Does the spiritual government refrain from overriding the will of the individual? Does God ever override the will of the individual? The answers to these questions, and many related questions, will be left as an exercise for the reader.

Although working out the details of Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms will get complicated, the basic framework is simple enough, as is his method of working from Scripture. Again, it shows how successful he was, that what seems simple to the twenty-first century reader was new to the sixteenth-century reader.

Theses on Ministry and Theology

Students who are preparing to do ministry, whether as ordained pastors or in some other role, are almost always required to study a certain amount of theology. Why? Some observers criticize such requirements as needlessly abstract and theoretical, an academic distraction from practical hands-on ministry. Other observers argue that ministers, ordained or non-ordained, need more theological training in order to provide guidance and foundations for practical ministry.

(1) Ministry and theology are two distinct and different things. Both are valuable.

(2) Ministry is to theology as the practice of medicine is to biology.

(3) Ecclesiology can be either useful or hindersome to both theology and ministry.

(4) Theology is the pursuit of knowledge. Ministry is the taking of action.

(5) Theology values precision over time. Ministry values time over precision.

(6) Theology informs ministry. Ministry applies theology.

These theses can be seen in a concrete example. A pastor might need to decide whether to invite a specific person to receive the sacrament. This is a well-known topic; scholars write books about it and debate about it. These discussions and publications can stretch out over years.

But in the moment, the pastor must make a decision, and in some cases must make the decision quickly. In a minute, he must take action regarding a topic which the scholars have dissected for years.

This is not to say that the pastor should despise theology; on the contrary, it is for this moment that he has studied theology. Nor should the theologian despise the pastor; the theologian’s task is to provide a toolbox of concepts which are available to the pastor as he does ministry.

These theses are starting points, not conclusions.

Theses on Doctrine and Emotion

(1) It is an error to base doctrine on emotion.

(2) It is an error to fail to base emotion on doctrine.

(3) Doctrine indicates that the emotions of the other must inform the action of the agent.

The error of basing doctrine and belief on emotions has been so well discussed and documented that no further examination of this thesis is needed.

An understanding and internalization of the doctrine of salvation by grace, of the doctrine of God’s omnibenevolence, of God’s unconditional positive regard and affection for every human being, of God’s forgiveness and mercy, and of God’s bestowal of unearned and unmerited favor on every human being is so powerful that it necessarily affects human emotion, and human emotion cannot help but be affected by such understanding.

Any rational ethic must factor the emotions of the other into its calculus of utility. It is a sin to needlessly inflict a negative emotion onto another — sadness, grief, etc. It is a sin to needlessly fail to empower a positive emotion in another — happiness, relief, etc. In a multifactorial calculation of utility, emotion must be considered and weighed against other types of utility.

Repentance: To Change Direction

The word ‘repent’ plays a central role both in the Scriptures and in systematic Christian theology. The word appears early, and is therefore foundational, in the three synoptic gospels.

In Matthew, it is the first recorded word from the mouth of John the Baptist, and is the first spoken word of Christ’s public ministry. In Mark, the first mention of John includes the fact that he preached “a baptism of repentance,” and the first words of Christ’s proclamation include the imperative to repent. Likewise, Luke’s presentation of John the Baptist is nearly verbatim the same as Mark's, and Jesus describes His ministry as calling people “to repentance” (cf. Matthew 3:2, 4:17; Mark 1:4, 1:15; Luke 3:3, 5:32).

Oddly, the word does not appear in John’s gospel at all.

In the synoptics, the word seems to act as a trigger which ignites Christ’s ministry and the power of the Gospel.

The New Testament’s use of the word carries forward the important role which it had also in the Old Testament. Behind the English word “repent” lie several Hebrew vocabulary items. One of them is nacham, which refers to an emotional or psychological process of being sorry or regretting. Hebrew words tend to have large semantic fields, and nacham is no exception. It can also refer to sighing, pitying, or comforting. This requires not only that the translator be sensitive to context, but rather also that the reader reflect on what is shared in all of these divergent meanings. If nacham is “repent” and yet is also “sigh, pity, comfort,” then what is the common thread? “Pitying” and “comforting” are both transitive verbs which take direct objects; to “repent” may be to “pity” or “comfort” one’s self, the reflexive pronoun becoming the direct object. It may be useful to posit that there is more than one type of repentance, and that nacham may refer to one type rather than to all types. The notion of “sighing” may coincide with pivotal moments, of which repentance can sometimes be one.

So nacham might be a moment, a turning point, in which one sighs, considering one’s own sins, pitying one’s self, and yet also comforting one’s self, inasmuch as this insight into one’s nature, though painful, is also however a step toward clarity, toward confessing one’s sins, receiving forgiveness, and receiving from the Holy Spirit an impetus to amend one’s patterns of living.

There is another Hebrew word which is used more often in the Scriptures, and which has an even broader semantic field. The word shuv denotes “turning” and in its root is a literal and physical word: it refers to a change in direction. It can be used to give directions (II Kings 20:5, 9:18; Ruth 1:11, 1:12, Exodus 14:2), telling someone where to go and how to get there: to turn, to turn back, to turn around. In daily life in ancient times, shuv was used primarily as a physical verb of motion.

In the Scriptures, however, shuv is also, and more often, in a spiritual sense: a “turning” of the heart or mind which leads to a physical turning, or more pointedly, which is a physical turning. A repentance, ideally, does not remain a psychological or emotional event, but rather is also a physical change. If one repents of eating too much, then one takes the action of eating less — admittedly imperfectly, because humans of necessity relapse again into those sins of which they repent; yet a detectable physical action was still part of an authentic and sincere repentance.

Ancient Hebrew anthropology did not sharply distinguish between the physical and spiritual aspects of human beings. A Platonic distinction between the material body and the metaphysical soul was foreign Semitic thought. While the Greeks might have reasoned that a human being is composed of a body and a soul, the Hebrew would have argued that a human being is a body and a human being is a soul, inseparably intertwined. Indeed, a Hebrew might not have argued for this view, because this Semitic notion was so foundational to a Hebraic worldview that a Hebrew might not even have considered it as something for which one must construct arguments.

The use of the verb shuv to refer to repentance, then, a “turning” on both a physical and a spiritual level.

Shuv is broader in meaning than “repent” because it can mean a good turning — to turn toward God and away from evil — or a bad turning — away from God and toward evil. This word can also denote God’s turning: He can turn his favor toward people, or His wrath. All of these turnings will manifest themselves both on a spiritual level and on a physical level — and to the Hebrew, those would have been one unitary manifestation, not two linked manifestations.

So it is, then, that Moses asks God to “turn” from His wrath toward the Israelites (Exodus 32:12), warns the people about the consequences of “turning” away from God, and encourages them to “turn” toward God (Deuteronomy 4:30, 30:10). In one event, some Israelites twice use the verb to accuse their fellow Israelites of “turning” away from following the Lord, and the accused use the verb twice in defending themselves (Joshua 22: 16, 18, 23, 29). Solomon speaks of the people “turning to” God and “turning away” from their sins (I Kings 8:33, 35).

Malachi concludes his prophecies by foretelling a great day when God “will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers” (Malachi 4:6). Nebuchadnezzar, however, prevented his “heart from turning” toward the Lord (II Chronicles 36:13).

A noun form of shuv is teshuvah which is used rarely in Scripture, but frequently in post-Biblical rabbinic Hebrew, to indicate repentance.

In the New Testament, the Greek word metanoia and associated verbal and noun forms refers to repentance. This word refers to a change of mind, or a new mind, or a higher-level mind.

All of this is packed into a single utterance: “Repent!” in the mouths of Jesus and of John the Baptist. This semantic richness requires a great deal of unpacking, but is all compressed into a single word.

So it was that Martin Luther made the very first of his famous 95 Theses: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Luther was reflecting on pride of place given to this word in the three synoptics.

Luther points to repentance not as a one-time action, nor as a repeated action, but rather as a way of being. This can be quite foreign to many modern Christians, who have been taught that repentance is a pivotal action. But the “turning” of repentance is a continuous process.

When driving a car, one continuously makes very small adjustments with the steering wheel, to the right or two the left, even when traveling on a straight road. Many sophisticated aircraft are continuously adjusting their control surfaces in order to maintain a correct course.

One’s spiritual life is one of constant adjustment — constant repentance — seeking God’s guidance and surrendering to it, day by day, even moment to moment.

This type of repentance is not the image of a cataclysmic heart-rending moment of a tearful sinner on her or his knees. That type of repentance is meaningful and has its proper place. But there is a different type of repentance, which is living-in-the presence-of and a being-led-by, which has been called “joyful” by theologians like Basilea Schlink.

The words “joyful” and “repentance” are not often conjoined. But there is a type of repentance which is indeed joyful: to go through life, turning again and again away from one’s self, turning again and again to God — turning in a way which is both an adjustment of the heart and a tangible redirection of one’s physical life, the daily actions which one takes.

Repentance is neither an emotion, nor is it a human decision to act differently, although repentance can be accompanied by either or both of those. Repentance is an initial phase in the process of regeneration, and that process is started, powered, and performed by the Holy Spirit.