LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1998, Page 328

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328

THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS

of Thomas Aquinas and the medieval church. Its strength is the way that
both Christ and culture are made to serve one unified divine purpose. Its
weakness is the extent to which this unity often must be imposed forceful-
ly ona resistant culture, with the Gospel of Christ as prime casualty.

Niebuhr's fourth model, “Christ and Culture in Paradox,” is the model
that best preserves and safeguards the Biblical tension. This model
acknowledges that humans do not encounter in God a simple unity, that
the God of grace and mercy is also a God of judgment and wrath (Is. 45:7).
This seemingly paradoxical bonding of wrath and mercy is a major theme
in the letters of Paul and in the writings of Martin Luther. The strength of
this view is its realistic portrayal of the Christian’s actual struggles to “ren-
der therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things
that are God's.” Its most pronounced weakness, as we shall see, has been
a persistent passivity toward government, since government is acknow]l-
edged in its own right as God’s servant and is not expected to perform any
Gospel-based church functions.

Niebuhr's fifth model, “Christ the Transformer of Culture,” also has a
hopeful attitude toward the potential of human culture to serve Christ.
Where Christ and culture in paradox tend to maintain a largely negative
view of the role of civil goverment, the “conversionists” see potential that
can be developed only under the redeeming Lordship of Christ and the
sanctifying work of the Spirit. In this view, there is an emphasis on over-
coming and overturning the consequences of the fall into sin and judgment.
This model draws from themes in the gospel of John and is found in the
work of Augustine and Calvin who, more than Luther, look for “the pre-
sent permeation of all life by the gospel.”’* Its strength is the unity of God’s
purpose and its weakness, again, is that this unity must often be imposed.

Niebuhr acknowledged that his five models are “partly artificial,”
since “a type is always something of a construct,” but he also believed that
they have “the advantage of calling to attention the continuity and signifi-
cance of the great motifs that appear and reappear in the long wrestling of
Christians with their enduring problem.”™ Their value in this study is pri-
marily the way they highlight for us the different interpretations of church
and state that Christians have utilized over the centuries, as well as the
strengths and weaknesses of each model.

It may be tempting to think that one can synthesize these models,
culling only the best from each and leaving the flaws behind. But the fact
remains that there are some choices that need to be made when interpreting
church and state, and there are some profoundly different implications that
result from the different choices. We proceed now to a closer examination
of the model, with its implications, that has been utilized by Lutherans.

“Did. 217
“Wid. 444

Luther recognized that there were two kinds of human righteousness.
Christian, or spiritual, righteousness was rooted in faith created by the
Holy Spirit. Civil righteousness, on the other hand, was rooted in a moral-
ity of which all are capable, including non-Christians.” Thus, human
beings are righteous in relation to God only by faith, while they may be
righteous in relation to one another through law-abiding social justice
Christian righteousness is grounded in the Gospel, through which the
Holy Spirit works to create faith, while civil righteousness is based on the
Law, which always accuses evildoers (whoever and wherever they may
be) and rewards those who serve the needs of their neighbor and commu-
nity.“ In this way, Luther preserved a tension between resistance and non-
resistance to evil. Either response, motivated by love, may be justified,
depending upon whether civil or spiritual righteousness is at issue:

In this way, then, things are well-balanced, and you satisfy at the same

time God’s kingdom inwardly and the kingdom of the world outwardly,

at the same time suffer evil and injustice and yet punish evil and injustice;

at the same time do not resist evil and yet resist it. Far in the case you con-

sider yourself and what is yours, in the other you consider your neighbor

and what is his.“

For Luther, the normative principles of the church are faith and love,
while the normative principles of the civil order are reason and justice.
With regard to spiritual righteousness, Luther had a well-known contempt
for human reason. When it came to civil righteousness, “Luther was quite
confident that human rationality could and often would find a good set of
positive laws and upright customs to serve a society—no matter how
many or few Christians lived in it.”* Luther was confident that natural law

“For a helpful discussion of avil righteousness, see Hoisten Fagerberg, A New Look at
the Lutheran Confessions (1529-1537), trans. Gene J. Lund (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 1972), 102-11.

“ Lazareth, Luther on the Christian Home, 113: “Chnstians are voluntarily to submit
themselves to the authority and demands of civil officers and rulers for the sake of the gen-
eral welfare of the community. Believers and non-believers alike are all children of God
whom Christians are to look upon as ‘neighbors’ in need of personal love and social justice.
The question of bearing arms on behalf of the civil community—in the light of the non-resis-
tance demands of the Sermon on the Mount—is thereby settled in terms of the two king-
doms. Personally, no man may take up the sword on his own behalf as one Christian acting
among other Christians (under the gospel). But socially, he may bear arms as a Christian cit
izen acting on behalf of others in the larger community of non-Christians (under the law). In
a fallen and sinful world, Christian love will often have to do some strange and dirty work
(opus alienum) in order to protect the good and punish the wicked.”

* Works of Martin Luther (Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Co., 1915-32) 3:241-42 Quoted in
Lazareth, Luther on the Christian Home, 114.

Robert Kolb, “Christian Civic Responsibility in an Age of Judgment.” Concordia Jour-
nal 19, no. 1 January 1993): 20.

35

B. Luther and the Lutheran Confessions

What is here called a “Lutheran Two-Kingdom Perspective” was
labeled “Christ and Culture in Paradox” by Niebuhr. The so-called “doc-
trine of the two kingdoms” is one of the treasures of our confessional
Lutheran heritage, a framework for understanding God’s total activity in
the world that has its origin in the distinction of the Law from the Gospel.
Even so, we should note that the shorthand expression “doctrine of the two
kingdoms” is of relatively recent vintage, having arisen in the Luther
scholarship of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Luther himself sometimes spoke of God’s rule in the “three orders”
(the home, the state, and the church), and at other times of His rule in the
“two kingdoms” or “two governments.” Unless we are aware of the con-
text in which Luther employs his fluid terminology, we will find it all too
easy to misrepresent his intentions. A major point to bear in mind is that
the phrase “two kingdoms” has two completely different meanings in
Luther’s usage. On the one hand, the “two kingdoms” can refer to the war-
ring kingdoms of God and Satan respectively. On the other hand, the “two
kingdoms” can refer to the two governments (of spiritual and temporal
authority) that God established precisely to thwart Satan’s purposes.”

Luther’s interest in this subject was not philosophical but practical. The
Lutheran Reformation was running afoul of emperor as well as pope. At
the same time, some lesser magistrates of the empire wanted to support the
Reformation. In response to this pressing concern, Luther in 1523 wrote
Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed.*' In it, Luther sought
to define the purpose of secular authority, its proper limits, and the appro-
priate Christian response to it. Luther began by noting that secular author-
ity is grounded in its creation by God. Civil government was established to
enhance our life in a fallen world. This, for Luther, is not a negative func-
tion but a very positive one, for it reflects God's gracious concern for His
creation. Thus, Luther argued that God remained the Lord of both secular
and spiritual authorities, although ruling by different means in each (Law
or Gospel). Luther also taught that all Christians live in both kingdoms
simultaneously, so that both kingdoms must be clearly distinguished with-
out being separated.”

"See John R. Stephenson, “The Two Governments and the Two Kingdoms in Luther's
Thought,” Scottish Journal of Theology 34, no. 4 (August 1981): 321-37.
"LW 45:75-129

“See William H. Lazareth, Luther on the Christian Home: An Application of the Social Ethics
of the Reformation (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1960), 102-31

34

would provide human reason all that it required for social justice. Social
justice, therefore, must be grounded in the Law and human reason rather
than in the Gospel and faith.°”

Luther also recognized that tempora} authority, with its coercive powers,
was fundamentally ill-suited for preserving and protecting the Gospel: “For
[Christ] is a king over Christians and nules by his Holy Spirit alone, without
law ... all for this reason, that Christ, without constraint and force, without
law and sword, was to have a people who would serve him willingly.”
Thus, Luther clearly distinguished between the exercise of power that was
appropriate to the church and that which was appropriate to the state:

We want to make this so clear that everyone will grasp it, and that our fine
gentlemen, the princes and bishops, will see what fools they are when they
seek to coerce the people with their laws and commandments into believ-
ing this or that. ...

Again you say, “The temporal power is not forcing men to believe; it is
simply seeing to it externally that no one deceives the people by false doc-
trine; how could heretics otherwise be restrained?” Answer: This the bish-
ops should do; it is a function entrusted to them and not to the princes.
Heresy can never be restrained by force. One will have to tackle the prob-
lem in some other way, for heresy must be opposed and dealt with other-
wise than with the sword. Here God’s word must do the fighting. If it does
not succeed, certainly the temporal power will not succeed either, even if
it were to drench the world in blood. Heresy is a spiritual matter which
you cannot hack to pieces with iron.“

It has already been indicated that Luther, nevertheless, permitted the
princes to assume control over the church in Germany. It is understand-
able, then, why C. F. W. Walther might think that Luther's two-kingdom
theology was most fruitful in America’s climate of religious freedom.
This Lutheran understanding of the priority of the Gospel and its rad-
ical distinction from the Law is very different from the Puritan-Reformed
model of Christ transforming culture. The Reformed stress the equality of
justification and sanctification, faith and obedience. It is as important for
the Reformed that all of life be obediently submitted to the Lordship of
Christ as that people come to a justifying faith in Christ. The distinction

© “If, then, we are to do justice to the complexity of Luther’s thought, we must careful-
ly distinguish: (1) natural reason, ruling within its proper domain (the Earthly Kingdom); (2)
arrogant reason, trespassing upon the domain of faith (the Heavenly Kingdom); (3) regen-
erate reason, serving humbly in the household of faith, but aways subject to the Word of
God. Within the first context, reason is an excellent gift of God; within the second, it is Frau
Hulda, the Devil's Whore; within the third, it is the handmaiden of faith.” B. A. Gerrish,
Grace anu Reason: A Study in the Thevlogy of Luther (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1962), 26

“Temporal Authority,” LW 45:93.
“Thid., 105; 114.