“Who is Jesus Christ?” remains the perennial touchstone question for both the church and the world. Hence the timeliness of the theme of the recent Gospel Coalition conference: preaching Jesus Christ and the gospel from the Old Testament.
The identity of Jesus Christ lies at the heart of the church’s understanding of his cosmic sovereignty and rule today.
Over at The Sword and the Ploughshare, Brad Littlejohn has published a post entitled, ”Is Christ Divided? Christology and the Two Kingdoms,” available here
With considerably more depth and detail, Littlejohn analyzes the same issue identified in our most recent installment of an extended review of the NL2K debate. That issue is Christology. Some of Littlejohn’s concluding observations follow below. You will not want to miss his final three sentences!
Enjoy!
[As Richard Hooker {?} insisted], the second person of the Trinity, by virtue of his divinity derived from the Father, is creator and ruler of all things. However, there is an important corollary:
“As the consubstantiall word of God, he had with God before the beginning of the world that glorie which as man he requesteth to have. Father glorifie they Sonne now with that glorie which with thee I enjoyed before the world was, for there is no necessitie that all things spoken of Christ should agree unto him either as God or else as man, but some things as he is the consubstantiall word of God, some thinges as he is that word incarnate. The workes of supreme Dominion which have been since the first begining wrought by the power of the Sonne of God are now most truly and properly the workes of the Sonne of man. The word made flesh doth sitt for ever and raigne as Soveraigne Lord over all. Dominion belongeth unto the Kingly office of Christ as propitiation and mediation unto his priestly, instruction unto his pastoral or propheticall office.”
Although there may well be “no necessitie” that the two dominions should be united, the Father’s gracious glorification and exaltation of the Son ensures that they are. All that the Son worked as God he works now also as man–the two natures are united in one agency, one dominion, a dominion over not only the Church, but all creation, following 1 Cor. 15:20-28.
This is stated even more clearly back in Hooker’s Christological discussion in Bk. 5, which he is clearly drawing on at this point:
“that deitie of Christ which before our Lordes incarnation wrought all thinges without man doth now worke nothinge wherein the nature which it hath assumed is either absent from it or idle. Christ as man hath all power both in heaven and earth given him. He hath as man not as God only supreme dominion over quicke and dead. For so much his ascension into heaven and his session at the right hand of God doe importe….Session at the right hand of God is the actual exercise of that regencie and dominino wherein the manhood of Christ is joyned and matchet with the deitie of the Sonne of God….This government [over all creation] therefore he exerciseth both as God and as man, as God by essentiall presence with all thinges, as man by cooperation with that which essentiallie is present.”
And so he says again, contra [Thomas] Cartwright, “And yet the dominion wherunto he was in his humane nature lifted up is not without divine power exercised. It is by divine power that the Sonne of man, who sitteth in heaven doth work as King and Lord upon us which are on earth.”
The basis of all worldly government, then, is not merely from God the Creator, but now also through the God-man, the redeemer, who as man sits on the throne at the right hand of God, as redeemer of the world exercises his rule over creation. One therefore simply cannot say that Christ rules over creation as God and over redemption as man; or over creation as God merely and over redemption as God-man. All that the Son has and does by virtue of divinity, his humanity is made sharer in, and all that Jesus Christ has and does by virtue of his humanity, the divinity is made sharer in. This is the orthodox doctrine of the humiliation and exaltation of Christ. One cannot say then that as divine Son, the Word exercises a dominion in which the man Christ Jesus has no part, or that as redeeming man, Christ exercises an office in which the divine Son has no part. Rather, all things on heaven and earth are made subject to the Word made flesh (italics added, NDK).
But, Dr. Kloosterman, how does Christ protect me from my enemies if he is the king over unbelievers in the same way that he is king over me (a believer)? How could I even call the world and those who are part of it enemies if they are part of Christ’s kingdom? Seems to me your version of Christ’s rule runs you directly into universalism. Say hello to Rob Bell.
Thanks for the invitation to clarity. I hope the following is helpful to the discussion. Let me number the following paragraphs for ease of future reference.
1. Let’s agree that the God-Man, Jesus Christ, rules over all things in the unity of his Person, by his Word and Spirit, for the sake of the Father’s glory and the church’s redemption.
2. As Abraham Kuyper has taught us, we can distinguish between Christ’s relationship to the church and his relationship to the non-church. Whatever terms one chooses (special grace/common grace, particular grace/common beneficence, grace/providence), it seems clear from Scripture that Christ’s sovereignty sustains a different relationship toward those who are united to him by faith than toward those outside of him.
3. Both of these belong to Jesus Christ (note the redemptive titles) and are united in his person and work. They flow forth from his person and work. Integrating these relationships of Christ to the church and of Christ to the non-church constituted the essential challenge of Kuyper’s program and of his theologoumenon called “common grace.”
4. Such a dual relationship does not proceed, however, in terms of a dual ethic (ethic = what ought to be; prescriptive), though there may well be plural moralities (morality = what is; descriptive). The preceptive will of God in Christ for every dimension of human existence is one and the same for all people. Given already to Adam in Paradise, concretized for Moses and Israel at Sinai, and perfectly em-bodied in Jesus Christ, the moral relationship of human-ness belongs to the image of God (imago Dei).
5. To say that Christ rules over all is not to say that all people are subservient to Christ’s kingdom − yet. Part of the church’s mission to the world is to proclaim to all people that they must repent, believe, and thereby become citizens of Christ’s cosmic kingdom. Would the distinction between rule-de-jure and rule-de-facto be helpful? Christ rules over all people by right, while not all people acknowledge his rule in fact.
6. As far as I understand Rob Bell’s position, he seems to teach that eventually all people will come willingly to acknowledge and live under the rule of Christ. I do not believe or teach that. I do believe that eventually all people will be subservient to Christ as King, whether by the sovereign work of his Spirit through regeneration and faith, or by the hardening of their hearts in unwilling subjection and forced compliance. So, I do not think that my understanding of the nature of Christ’s cosmic rule entails Rob Bell’s universalism.
Again, thank you for the comment. I do hope these thoughts serve to advance the discussion.
Thanks, but this seems to be an overly long response to what is a pretty simple question. Christ is lord of the United States. Christ is lord of the United Reformed Churches. His lordship is different in each case. What is wrong with saying that Christ rules the nation as creator and the church as redeemer?
In what I’ve read of late, authors have not been saying that Jesus Christ rules the world as creator, but either (1) that God rules the nations as creator, or (2) that the Second Person of the Trinity rules the world. The preferred formulation seems to be that the Incarnate Jesus Christ rules the church, but the eternal Son of God rules the world. This formulation has kept his rule of the world separate from his rule of the church.
If you’re wanting to say that Christ rules the world as creator, then you have identified the exalted incarnate Savior-Messiah of Nazareth as the one who rules the world. I’m cool with that!
I have no problem saying that Jesus Christ has received all authority in heaven and on earth, and that he exercises this authority over all things by his Word and Spirit for the glory of the Father and the redemption of the church. I suppose this means, then, that because the person and work of Jesus Christ are now unified and exist only in the Incarnate Ascended One, his authority and rule over all things are likewise unified in and proceed from the Incarnate Ascended One.
Though I think I know what it means to confess, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” I’m not clear what it means to say, “Christ is lord of the United States.” If we follow the lead of the Heidelberg Catechism, LD 13, Q/A 34, we confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of those whom he has redeemed, body and soul, with his blood, for his own possession. So I can’t answer the question as you have framed it.
By contrast, if we follow the lead of Heidelberg Catechism, LD 49, Q/A 124, (“Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth”), we ask God to grant that we and all people may renounce our own will and obey his will, so that each human being may fulfill his/her calling before the face of God.
Presumably this “will of God” that we are praying for all people to obey includes worshiping and honoring the True God alone, not worshiping any visible representation of the one True God, not taking his Holy Name in vain, and observing his Sabbath day.
Hence, this petition is truly a missional prayer, since children of the Father are asking their Father to grant that all people may rightly know, worship, serve, and love him. And this is possible, we know, only along the route of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
Xristos anesti! Alleluia!
But you missed the really pertinent petition in the Lord’s Prayer, and it is the one that addresses Christ’s kingship. And lo and behold Heidelberg and Westminster Catechisms see this kingdom as spiritual, not political.
[...] of 2k theology keep coming and a major source of opposition is the distinction between Christ’s rule as redeemer in [...]
First, I doubt that I’m alone in experiencing a kind of frustration with this mode of conversation. Yes, my replies are longer than your comments/questions, in part because I don’t accept the framing of the issue they entail, and need to explain why. But when I say “A,” you persistently reply by ignoring “A” and saying “B.” Well, okay, we’ll do our best nonetheless, hoping that somebody will benefit.
Second, your comment juxtaposes the terms “spiritual” and “political” as contraries, which seems problematic.
Let’s distinguish our activity from that of Jesus Christ, and acknowledge that he is neither Republican nor Democrat, whereas you and I do vote for some political partisan or another. To say that Jesus Christ is neither Republican nor Democrat is not to say that his Word (its principles, its comprehensive teaching and perspective) is a-political. The former does not entail the latter. How we move from Scripture to political, or economic, or social principles and prescriptions is not the point at the moment. I’m trying simply to establish that the Word of God is relevant for Christian living in these arenas of human activity. If that is true, then by extension Jesus Christ exercises authority over Christ-followers living among these areas of human activity. If that is true, then Christ-followers have a positive calling to live distinctly, i.e., differently, within these areas of human activity.
So let’s agree to leave aside for now the question of how God’s Word addresses Christian living in the world, in order first to agree that God’s Word addresses all of Christian living in the world. Can we agree?
Your post raised questions about distinctions within Christ’s rule as king. The distinction that 2k relies upon is one that involves a difference between Christ’s rule over believers in his church, and those over unbelievers outside the church.
That distinction seems pretty common sensical.
And yet you keep want to say that Christ rules over all things and to overlook the difference between Christ’s rule over the URCNA and that over Walmart.
What do you say to that?
The question at issue is not whether people respond differently to the authority of Jesus Christ. We agree that they do: by grace some believe, whereas others respond with rebellious disbelief.
The question is whether this subjective difference limits, restricts, or otherwise impedes the range of this authority of Jesus Christ over all of human living.
Here is the problem, as I see it: Some who argue that Christ rules differently are mistakenly transforming the differing human responses to Christ’s rule into categories within which to define the character of Christ’s rule. Why should we permit the difference between the church’s response of faith and the non-church’s response of unbelief to determine the extent of Christ’s kingly authority over all of human living?
The problem is that you have started this by questioning a distinction — that is part of the Reformed tradition — between different ways of accounting for Christ’s rule, either by creator, or by creator and redeemer. You also seem to think that the 2k position somehow denies Christ’s authority. You do get a lot of mileage out of this at Christian Renewal. But 2k never denies Christ’s Lordship. Its proponents only assert that Christ’s rule transpires differently in different places with different people. And 2k proponents do not limit this by virtue of man’s response, but by virtue of God’s eternal decree. He has chosen to bring some to saving faith and not others. He still rules each. But he has to rule them differently, or else his and my enemies become his people and my brothers and sisters.
1. You claim the NL2K (“Natural Law and 2 Kingdom”) distinction between the rule of Christ as Creator and of Christ as Redeemer is a distinction that “is part of the Reformed tradition.” Two responses: (a) The book I have been reviewing nowhere speaks of the rule of Jesus Christ as Creator (only the rule of the Logos or the Second Person of the Trinity as Creator); you do, but not every NL2K advocate does. (b) I know of no Reformed confession that makes this distinction, although some theologians have done so; thus, to demur at this point is not to depart from “the” Reformed tradition.
2. By limiting the range of the authority of the Bible for non-ecclesiastical living in the world, NL2K necessarily limits the authority of Jesus Christ.
3. Your claim—that the NL2K distinction roots in the distinction within the divine decree—appears logical, but again it limits the historical outworking of election to the invisible church. I would argue that God’s covenant with Noah regarding the creation proceeded from his decree of election, and because it affects the entire creation, God’s decree of election, and with it, his redeeming grace, is relevant for living in all creation.
I am quite unclear why, because of his variegated eternal decree (election and reprobation), God is thereby compelled to rule people differently. I had thought that God’s claims are authoritative for all people, regardless of their subjective relationship to him, to wit: Love God above all, and your neighbor as yourself. This is the summary of the Decalogue, which Decalogue is claimed by NL2K advocates to have been written on every human heart. While it is true both that Jesus Christ fulfilled the Decalogue, and that every Christ-believer receives the Holy Spirit’s power for a small beginning in obeying the Decalogue, neither of these two realities impinge upon, or limit, the authority of the Decalogue for all of human living.
In other words, it seems confusing to claim simultaneously that:
(1) All people are subject to the Decalogue.
(2) By his perfect obedience to the Decalogue, Jesus Christ demonstrated the genuine humanity for which all people were created. And
(3) Some people are exempt from the authority of Jesus Christ pertaining to genuine human living in the world.
I don’t understand why you start with the Bible’s relevance for all of human life to establish that Christ is Lord over all things. It sure seems to me that it would be possible for Christ to be Lord over all things without the Bible speaking to all of life. In fact, I think Christ is Lord over plumbing and that the Bible says nothing about plumbing.
So it seems to me you reason backwards about the relationship between Christ and the Bible.
Quite the other way around, I must say, for I begin with the Bible’s testimony about the cosmic authority of the risen, ascended, reigning Lord Jesus Christ, from that to infer that his Word therefore possesses relevance and authority for all of human living in the world.
Your repeated insistence that “the Bible says nothing about plumbing” fails, again, to interact with the equally repeated response many have given: The Bible speaks indirectly, not directly to plumbing by supplying numerous relevant principles, though not technical details.
So before the rise of indoor plumbing the church was unfaithful to God’s word? If the Bible speaks even indirectly on a subject and believers don’t follow, aren’t they being unfaithful?
No, to the extent that the church has followed the teachings of Scripture, both its direct teachings and the indirect applications of Scripture’s relevant principles, with regard to conducting businesses like plumbing, and carpentry, and accounting, the church was faithful to God’s Word. I’m not sure of the relevance of indoor (as contrasted with outdoor?) plumbing to this discussion.
Regarding the various levels of Scripture’s speaking, there is an exceptionally helpful essay on “The Use of Scripture in Ethics” to be found as an appendix to J. Douma, The Ten Commandments: Manual for the Christian Life. Using Scripture as guide, guard, compass, or example will indicate how directly or indirectly Scripture speaks to a particular matter, and the corresponding level of obligation entailed.
My point about plumbing is that it follows much more from the revelations of the book of nature than special revelation. And to insist on finding guidance on “all things” from the pages of Scripture is to neglect both the uniqueness of what Scripture reveals (Christ and the way of salvation) and the fulsome testimony of general revelation to secular and worldly callings (available daily to all people, both elect and non).
Okay, I understand the distinction between general revelation and special revelation. But there is more to plumbing than mere technique. Let me choose one “extra” element of plumbing, not available from general revelation, namely, the notion of obligation that arises with stewardship to a God who owns all things and to whom we are accountable. If Christians have produced a civilization and culture that no other religion has produced or could have produced, the reason involves the application of faith to life, of doctrine to ethics, of special revelation to life in creation. This helps explain differences between plumbing advances in cultures influenced by Christians and the lack of these advances in cultures influenced, say, by Hinduism.
So, Dr. K., who inculcates this “notion of obligation” to the aspiring plumber? The local Christian Plumbers Association which is always requesting offerings, or the faithful preacher delivering the Word weekly? BTW, does your campaign against ethanol subsidies (which in the past did enable the financial survival of some struggling farmers) extend to higher education (seminary training) gov’t subsidies? Ethanol production equalling robbing the poor sounds too simplistic to me. Without profit, farmers won’t grow food, and they might destroy what they are currently raising. Example–1930′s milk dumping and piglet slaughter.
Dear 2866oa (hfynaardt@live.com),
I’m sorry, but I do not comprehend what you’re getting at with your questions, linking inculcating a sense of obligation with a Christian plumbers’ association or with the pulpit. Perhaps you may wish to clarify.
As to the ethanol subsidies compared to higher education subsidies, I am unaware of any seminary being subsidized by government funds. Perhaps you know of one or more?
No one opposes profit, not even profit for farmers. That’s a red herring. The issue is that US farm policy relating to government subsidies for biofuel production is directly causing the rise in grain prices, which directly affects the ability of those with less total income and fewer agricultural options to afford grain-related foods.
Cordially,
ndk