The following book review was written by Pastor Tom Wenger, Sr. and originally appeared in the PEP Talk on April 17, 2011. David Van Drunen’s book Living in God’s Two Kingdoms is published by Crossway (2010).
Van Drunen holds advanced degrees in both law and theology (JD, Northwestern University and PhD, Loyola University, Chicago). He is professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics at Westminster Theological Seminary in CA. He grapples with the concept of how the church interacts with culture and what differences there are between the church as an institution interacting with culture and the individual as a citizen.
His overview of the current situation in his introduction is worth the price of the book. He looks at the various voices calling for transformation of the culture from the neo-Calvinists (Wolters, Plantinga) to N.T. Wright, to the Emergent Church movement, and contrasts these voices with the alternative of a Two Kingdoms view.
As he argues his point, he makes a clear distinction between the “First Adam” and the “Last Adam.” This is key to building a foundation for a distinction between the common kingdom and the kingdom of God. The latter is about redemption and consummation and is entirely wrapped up in Christ’s work. God is redeeming a people to himself and will one day, at the return of Christ, the Redeemer, make all things new – fully and finally redeeming the world. The common kingdom is about loving our neighbor and living here together with unbelievers. Our calling to the common kingdom is to make life better here in whatever way we can – though we know it is only temporary. Van Drunen clearly points out that this in NOT redemption, and we ought not speak of redeeming the arts, or carpentry, or law, or marriage, etc.
Part Two of the book discusses how we ought to live – the short answer is as exiles. He does a biblical/theological study of the establishing of the two kingdoms, which is very helpful, and demonstrates that the new covenant believer’s situation is very much like that of the Jews while in exile in Babylon:
This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jer. 29:4-7 NIV)
Exile and sojourner language is used of the church in the NT. He sees a definite connection of the work of Christ and the church to the fulfilling of the Abrahamic covenant. The common kingdom is related to the covenant with Noah. The two have two distinct functions. The confusion of the two has always led to problems for the church.
The Kingdom of God / Heaven was inaugurated by Christ and is continuing to break in on this present evil age slowly and progressively until one day Christ will return in glory and the kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ!
Since we are citizens both of the Kingdom of God by grace through faith and members of the common kingdom we need to live out our dual citizenship. He spends a couple of chapters discussing what that means for the church and for things like education, vocation and politics.
We must not deny the common kingdom or consider it unimportant because it is not the Kingdom of God. God placed us here to function in both and be positive contributors to the common kingdom right along with unbelievers.
This is an excellent thought-provoking read – I whole-heartedly recommend it to
you.