I’m not aware of any advocate of the Reformed Two Kingdoms analysis who disagrees with this language or sentiment. Sproul seems uncomfortable with the very idea of the spirituality of the visible church, fine, but the idea that the visible church is limited in the way she addresses the magistrate is hardly a 2K distinctive.

R. C. Sproul, Jr published a post on Thursday 26 September answering the question, “What is 2k Theology?” (HT:David Murray). It gets some things right, some of what it says is a matter of opinion and debate, and some of what it says isn’t helpful.

What It Gets Right:

• He gives a reasonably fair account of what most R2K (Reformed Two Kingdom) folk are trying to say when he recognizes that most are saying that Christ is Lord over all things. He writes, “It affirms that God’s law and His Son rule the world in two related but distinct ways.”
• He recognizes that R2K advocates are trying to distinguish the way Christ rules over his church from the more general way he rules over all things.
• He recognizes that R2K folk appeal to natural law as part of their account of how God’s rule is to be administered in the realm outside the visible church.
• He recognizes that, according to advocates for the R2K view, the visible “church is to be about the business of Word and sacrament”
• He notes that R2K theology “rightly reject[s] the common temptation among evangelicals to wrap up our theological convictions in the American flag, to confuse God’s kingdom with these United States….”

Debatable Points (With Responses)

• He writes, “The function of the state is to support and operate under “natural law.” The Bible is of little use in this context as it was given to God’s people specifically. Natural law was given for all men everywhere.”

The claim that “the Bible is of little use in this context” is exaggerated. Of course Christians are guided by Scripture in everything they do. We interpret reality through the lens provided by Scripture. There is a Christian worldview. Yet there are limits to the proper use of Scripture, as Sproul himself acknowledges in his post. He himself says that too often people have identified policy details as if they came directly or even inferentially from Scripture when, in fact, they are prudential judgments about which Christians may well disagree. There are other practical limits to the use of Scripture in public policy matters. One might read from Scripture at a city council meeting but to what end? Whether one ought to do so is a matter of wisdom.

• He characterizes the R2K view as arguing that “what the church is not to do, however, as the church, is speak into the first kingdom. The church, according to this view, is neither called, equipped, nor permitted to prophecy against the sins of those outside the kingdom.”

Even the Westminster Confession of Faith, written in a context where the magistrate was expected to enforce the first table of the law, recognizes that there are limits to what the church as a visible assembly, as an organization (as distinct from organism) can address. Thus WCF 31:4 says:

Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate

I’m not aware of any advocate of the Reformed Two Kingdoms analysis who disagrees with this language or sentiment. Sproul seems uncomfortable with the very idea of the spirituality of the visible church, fine, but the idea that the visible church is limited in the way she addresses the magistrate is hardly a 2K distinctive.

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