Theological term
Two Kingdoms
7 sermons · All terms
The Appearance of Christ to the Disciples
John 20:19–23 presents two interlocking realities: the presence of the risen Christ among His fearful disciples on the first day of the week, and the commission He gives them to carry His gospel into the world. The peace Christ pronounces is not a generic greeting but the fruit of His atoning wounds — the satisfaction of divine justice that reconciles guilty sinners to God. From this the sermon argues that the church's entire mission is delimited by Christ's own sending: not entertainment, social uplift, or political activism, but the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins through the crucified and risen Lord, empowered by the promised Holy Spirit.
Ask FGBC #19: Should Christians engage in politics?
Should Christians engage in politics? This Q&A addresses the Christian's dual citizenship — as a member of both the church and the civil body politic — and argues that while political engagement is neither commanded nor forbidden by Scripture, it is entirely lawful. The discussion distinguishes the church's spiritual sword (the gospel and the keys of the kingdom) from the civil state's coercive sword, drawing on the Noahic covenant in Genesis 9 as the foundational charter for justice, family, and enterprise in society. The threefold use of the law is applied to show why preaching against abortion or civil injustice is ethics and theology, not partisan politics.
2LCF Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate, Part 2
The institution of monarchy in Israel, recorded in 1 Samuel 8, exposes the perennial danger of substituting a new form of government for trust in God—a sin Israel had already committed in 1 Samuel 4 and against which God had vindicated himself in chapter 7. The passage illustrates that total depravity applies not only to individuals but to corporate institutions, and that governments possessing legitimate divine sanction can nonetheless exploit those they govern. The sermon concludes with a survey of four historic approaches to the church-state relationship—Erastianism, Roman Catholic theocracy, theonomy, and the two-kingdoms framework—arguing that the two-kingdoms distinction, wherein Christ rules the church by his Word and the civil order by natural law, provides the most scripturally defensible framework for Christian citizenship.
The Lord's Assessment of John the Baptist - Matthew 11:2-15
Matthew 11:2-15 presents Christ's own assessment of John the Baptist, and this exposition works through two movements: the question John sends from prison concerning the Messiah's identity, and the Lord's threefold commendation of John as no mere reed, no court prophet, but the greatest born of women and the anti-typical Elijah. The sermon argues that John's struggle was not with who Jesus was but with the implications of the messianic reign — why the herald of judgment should languish in prison while the Messiah's full justice remained deferred — a tension the church in every age must learn to hold without abandoning confidence in God's sovereign timetable. Listeners are called to pray for and expect ministers who combine the light of sound exegesis with the heat of genuine conviction, men who, like John, neither fear nor flatter any flesh.
The Christian's Duty toward Non-Christians
Titus 3:1–3 sets out the Christian's duty toward both civil government and all people outside the church. The sermon traces the divine origin of civil government from Genesis 9 through Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2, arguing from Francis Turretin's two-kingdom framework that Christ rules both the civil and spiritual spheres, and that the civil state therefore has no authority to command the church as church. Verse 3's catalogue of pre-conversion vices — foolishness, disobedience, malice, hatred — is read as a theological reason for patient, peaceable, and humble conduct toward non-Christians: believers were once exactly what they now struggle to bear in others, and those others may yet become objects of the same sovereign grace.
The Question Concerning Taxes
Matthew 22:15–22 records a trap laid by an unlikely coalition of Pharisees and Herodians who sought to impale Jesus on the horns of a political dilemma: endorse the Roman poll tax and alienate the Jewish populace, or reject it and face a capital charge of sedition. Jesus exposes their hypocrisy, turns their own coin against them, and delivers one of the most compressed and consequential ethical statements in all of Scripture: 'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' The sermon works through the parties, the plan, and the particulars of the question before drawing out the doctrine of two distinct but overlapping spheres of authority — civil and divine — showing that Caesar's jurisdiction is real but bounded, while God's claim on his image-bearers is total and is met only through faith in Christ.
The Conquering Power of the Davidic Son
Matthew 12:22–30 presents the healing of a demon-possessed, blind, and mute man as the occasion for a decisive confrontation over the identity of Jesus as the Davidic Son. The multitudes ask whether this could be the Son of David; the Pharisees respond by attributing Christ's power to Beelzebub. Jesus refutes this accusation with two arguments — a divided kingdom cannot stand, and the Jewish exorcists the Pharisees approve operate by the same power Christ claims — then draws three implications: the kingdom of God has arrived, the strong man has been bound, and there is no neutral ground. The sermon calls hearers to reckon with the absolute antithesis between the two kingdoms and to flee by faith to the conquering Davidic Son.