← Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung
Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung
What Are the Reigns of Christ and the Doctrine of the Spirituality of the Church?
00:15:54
Loading summary
Transcript3 lines
- [00:04]
A
Hello, I'm Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina. And you are listening to Doctrine Matters. We want this podcast to equip Christians with a better understanding of the rich theology that undergirds our faith. And hopefully along the way, we'll be looking at some that have even been misunderstood or maybe threatened in the church's history. We'll point out the biblical evidence, the arguments, and work together to reshape our thinking, be transformed by the renewal of our minds with scripture and reason as we think theologically together. Because, as the title of the podcast tells you, doctrine Matters.
- [00:45]
B
Welcome back to Doctrine Matters. We're continuing our study through ecclesiology in this part of systematic theology. And I want to look at two topics today, both of which I think can help us understand the relationship between church and culture, or you might say, the public witness of Christians, or how we should think about the influence of Christ in the public square. The first topic then is to distinguish between the essential reign and the mediatorial reign of Christ. We all know the statement from Abraham Kuyper. There is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is lord over all, does not exclaim mine. We love that. Rightfully so. I was just recently teaching, giving an hour long lecture on Abraham Kuyper here in our Sunday school class and made much of that statement. We all want to say, yes, Christ is Lord over all, everything in the whole universe. He says, this is mine. It belongs to me. Those words from Kuyper's 1880 speech opening the Free University in Amsterdam wonderfully announce that all things were created by Christ through Christ for Christ. And he does reign over every square inch. Now it's interesting, just as an aside here, the Free University, as he called it, at a twofold meaning that Kuyper wanted the university to be free from state control and free from church control. And in that speech he famously talks about sphere sovereignty, how these different areas of human inquiry and knowledge and activity in a society operate according to their own rules and sphere, so that there's sovereignty within that sphere. And Kuyper wanted to see Christians in all of those spheres, every legitimate non sinful sphere of activity. He wanted to see Christians thinking like Christians, bringing their worldview to bear on the various activities and in the nation, yes, every square inch. And at the same time, if you know Kuyper's thought, he believed that these spheres, or sometimes he talked about pillars upholding the various strata of Dutch society there at the end of the 19th century he didn't believe in any one sphere, overtaking all the others. That's the idea behind sphere sovereignty. He didn't believe in only one pillar, but in many pillars. And we can agree or disagree and there's a lot of things we can learn from Kuyper and then some things that we just have to say it's going to be really different and hard to apply everything. Exactly when he was laboring and eventually became the prime minister in a context there in the Netherlands, with a population of about 5 million people in a land that's what the Netherlands is about as big as Maryland and Delaware put together. It's not a big place. So that's just to put some historical context on what Kuyper meant, but also what he didn't mean by this idea that Christ was Lord overall. He wanted the government, for example, to give funding to various schools, not just to non sectarian as he saw it. Because his argument was, look, these public schools are becoming modernist schools. They're not non sectarian. There is no neutrality. That's one of his famous ideas picked up by many others. But yet in Kuyper's mind he wanted the government to support Catholic schools, Protestant schools, reformed Jewish schools, a variety of things. So he understood that he wanted Christ to come to bear on every activity. And yet again, just giving Kuyper's view of a kind of understanding of pluralism, that even in 19th century Netherlands, not everyone was going to be a Reformed Christian and not every aspect of society was going to be run by Reformed Christians. So one of the all of that backing into some theology here, this distinction between the essential and mediatorial reign of Christ helps us to understand how this can be so. Because it's one thing to say Christ reigns over all and then we have to say, but the way in which he may exercise that reign may look different depending upon this kind of reign. Now, it's not two reigns, there's not two kingdoms, but it's a twofold way. So on the one hand, Christ is head of all things in his capacity as universal sovereign. At the same time, he reigns uniquely over the Church as a redemptive savior. So the first half there refers to Christ's natural or his essential reign. The second half of the statement, the second statement I made refers to his economical or mediatorial reign. These two aspects of Christ's reign are somewhat similar to a place in the larger catechism that speak about Christ's kingdom of power, kingdom of grace, kingdom of glory. Same kind of idea that kingdom of glory is what we have on the other side, the kingdom of grace consummated. So Christ's twofold reign, essential and mediatorial. They can't ultimately be separated, but neither should these two senses be confused. So according to his essential reign, Christ rules over all creatures with glory and majesty as the Divine Logos. He reigns equally over all things by the decree of Providence. No creature is more or less subject to his essential reign. Everyone must give an account. Every knee must bow before Christ. This is tied to Christ in His essence. He is a divine being. At the same time, we can talk about his mediatorial reign. Christ rules over the Church not only as eternal God, but the incarnate God, man who died for the sins of his people. His reign over the Church, always guided by Providence, is founded more specifically upon the decree of election. This reign, called mediatorial or economical, because it is a dominion particular to the mediator and is his according to the economy of grace. Now, this distinction reinforces a couple of important truths. One, it reminds us that Christ's reign over the Church is not a mere subset of being sovereign over all things. This is really important, as if Christ is king over the Church because He's king over everything. We just say, well, yeah, of course Christ is lord over everything, and the Church is a part of everything. Therefore he is lord over the Church. If anything, Christ's essential reign exists for the advancement of his mediatorial reign. So we don't want to de center the Church as what God is doing in the world. It is, to put it positively, at the very center of his plan in the world and larger. Catechism 191 makes that point that God so reigns over everything. Christ's kingdom of power is toward the advancement for the advancement of the kingdom of grace, not the other way around. And that's crucially important. Christ has been made head over all things to the Church, so all things have been placed under his feet for the welfare and triumph of of the Church, which is his body. And then the other way this distinction can help is to avoid the assumption that because Christ is Lord of all, the exercise of that lordship looks the same everywhere. Earthly kingdoms are subject to Christ, but Christ's kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. We got to hold both of those things together. We should not expect that because every square inch belongs to Christ. The kingdom of this world has already become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. That's yet to happen. Revelation 11:15 Christ reigns here's Turin differently in the pious and in the wicked and in both, it is by a spiritual, not an earthly sway. So as the risen Son who conquered sin and death, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to Christ. His mediatorial reign, therefore, is also universal. But unlike the essential reign, Christ's mediatorial reign is extended by proclamation and discipleship. That's how we extend the mediatorial reign. Much more could explore there and get into finer points of political theory, but just having that basic concept, which has been very common in Reformed theology, is helpful. And then briefly, a perhaps related topic which often gets a bad name, is the doctrine of the spirituality of the church. Now, some people hear that, and you can have two bad responses in opposite directions. One is to say, now, wait a minute, isn't that just what Southern Presbyterians made up so they could continue to have their slaves and avoid the question of slavery? They said, hey, you know, that's political. We're just a spiritual institution. It is true. The doctrine of the spirituality of the church became an increasingly important issue debated in, in the 19th century. And you had Hodge in the North, Thornwell in the south, who debated how it ought to apply. And Hodge, he's a Northerner, but he was really a moderate when it came to the slavery question. Hodge defended the spirituality of the church. Now, he said there are certain things that the church is not capable or qualified to speak on relative to what tariffs should be or trade policy. He gives several examples, and we can think of similar ones in our day. It's not that there might not be better or worse answers, but he said it's not the position of the church as the church to address these things. Now, he said, however, whether people are stolen, man stealing is a sin in the Bible and are treated as chattel property, these are things that Scripture does address. So one response here is to say, don't just hear spirituality church and think, oh, that was just a. That was a weak effort to try to avoid the slavery question. On the other hand, some today may say, oh, spirituality church is what Christians use to avoid really having to deal with the hard topics. And are you saying that if something's political, we can't ever talk about it? No. I mean, things get slapped with the label political all the time. And in one sense, almost anything could be considered a political issue. It's not to say that Christians or the church, even, or ministers have to be silent on issues that are debated as political issues. So what then does the spirituality of the church teach? Well, I think the theology behind the doctrine was present in Geneva. It took shape in Scotland and it does find some basic articulation in the Westminster Confession of Faith. It 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 buy thereunto required by the civil magistrate. So notice the principle the Church should not meddle in civil affairs except in extreme situations and then perhaps if called upon by others to address these now, yes, this is not always going to be crystal clear. There'll be gray areas. Where is the extreme situation? And yet there's surely wisdom here from the Westminster divines to understand 1. The church does not have expertise in everything. 2. When the church ventures to speak in a way that is beyond its purview and its authority in the Word of God, it dilutes its authority in other areas. The spirituality of the Church certainly can be abused. People could hide behind it. And yet I think for many, many Christians and churches out there, we could use a good dose of this old Reformed doctrine. I could think of a number of good reasons why. 1. The doctrine warns ministers against forgetting their gospel charge and losing that in a flurry of civil concerns. 2. The doctrine calls churches not to transgress their God given powers and step outside their area of expertise. The church was not given power in every area. 3. It reminds denominations and institutions, not ecclesiastical institutions, not too pronounced too exactly and too confidently upon matters that demand extra biblical knowledge and prudential judgment. Now this is not a cure all and they still require wisdom and discernment. But in an era where everything is politicized, this doctrine, wisely administered, can be a helpful antidote to many of the controversies that plague the church today. And it's not a recent invention. It's been around a long time and you even find elements of it there in the Westminster Confession. There's wisdom there for the church to be the church you've been listening to.
- [15:10]
A
Doctrine Matters with me, Kevin DeYoung, your host and teacher. If you'd like to learn more about the topics we talked about today, you can check out my book Daily Doctrine. It's available in print or audio from Crossway.org and you may want to talk to your pastor or a trusted friend who can recommend other good resources. The Doctrine Matters podcast is produced by Crossway, a non profit ministry that exists solely for the purpose of proclaiming the truth of God's Word through publishing gospel centered content to learn more, visit Crossway.com until next week. I'm Kevin DeYoung, and this has been Doctrine Matters. Thanks for joining us.