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Misconceptions about the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms

Misconceptions about the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms

Last updated on: July 20, 2026 at 6:00 am by Gene Veith

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Misconceptions about the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms 2026-07-18T12:11:08-04:00 Gene Veith

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This week, class, we’re going to do something different at this blog. I just got back from the Consortium for Classical Lutheran Education (CCLE) conference–where I met some of you in the flesh, which I appreciated!–the theme of which was the Foundations of Faith & Freedom, marking the 250th anniversary of American independence. Amidst many workshops on many classical education topics–including some groundbreaking research from Lutheran educators who are excavating the Lutheran educational heritage and discovering genuine treasures for education today (such as Melanchthon’s logic curriculum, which teaches young people not just how to argue but how to develop good judgment and sound thinking)–I gave a paper entitled “Misconceptions about the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms.”

I’ve written a lot about vocation, but the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms is Luther’s other major contribution to a theology of culture, so I’ve been studying it lately. I thought I’d share my paper with all of you, since you subscribers to my blog are my sounding-board for things I’m trying to think through. I’ve been blogging so much, the paper falls neatly into five blog-post-sized sections.

(Anyone researching the Two Kingdoms today must attend closely to the work of Joel Biermann, the contemporary Lutheran theologian who has written two books on the subject–The Two Realms and the Separation of Church and State and Wholly Citizens: God’s Two Realms and Christian Engagement with the World–and is our major expert on the subject. He has become somewhat controversial, due to his running for LCMS president against the incumbent Matthew Harrison, losing to him in a very close election. I am taking no position on synodical politics just because I sometimes quote Biermann’s research, which I do sometimes disagree with. As I’ve mentioned, both candidates in this contentious election are my pastors, with Rev. Harrison serving as our long-time Assistant Pastor and Rev. Biermann serving as our Vacancy Pastor, though we have just installed a new full-time pastor, Rev. Stephen Preus, whom I am very excited about leading our church.)

Anyway, we’ll get back to our usual format and subject matter next week. Today, for Part I, I’ll introduce our topic with an overview of what the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms consists of, then we’ll start plunging into it tomorrow. . . .

In 1821, a Lutheran pastor named Frederick Schaeffer preached a sermon and sent a copy to former president James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution” and the author of the Bill of Rights. Here is Madison’s reply:

Reverend Sir, I have received with your letter of November 19 the copy of your address at the ceremonial of laying the Corner Stone of St. Mathews Church in New York.

It is a pleasing & persuasive example of pious zeal, united with pure benevolence; and of cordial attachment to a particular creed, untinctured with Sectarian illiberality. It illustrates the excellence of a system which, by a due distinction to which the genius & courage of Luther led the way, between what is due to Cæsar & what is due to God, best promotes the discharge of both obligations. The experience of the U.S. is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting Usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious & civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, & to political prosperity. In return for your kind sentiments I tender assurances of my esteem & my best wishes.[1]

Pastor Schaeffer was preaching about the Lutheran doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, which Madison here credits as playing a formative role in the American constitutional principle of the separation of church and state. “The genius and courage of Luther,” he said, “led the way” to a system that “best promotes” our obligation to the church and our obligation to the state. And despite what some “well-meaning Christians” assume, keeping the “mutual independence” of these realms, as opposed to establishing a state church, actually is the “most friendly” position towards religion, as well as building up “social harmony” and “political prosperity.”

Indeed, the Lutheran doctrine of the Two Kingdoms is enormously helpful in showing Christians how they can carry out their vocation of citizenship without compromising their faith. And yet, this teaching has often been misunderstood, distorted, and misapplied, even by Lutherans.

The Two Kingdoms are not church and state. Luther called them the “Temporal” kingdom and the “Spiritual” kingdom. That is, the kingdom in time, our physical life in this world. That would include the estates that God established for human life, including the state and also the family. It includes the estate of the church as an earthly institution, though the work of the church is that of the Spiritual Kingdom, the universal Kingdom of Heaven that is not temporal but eternal.

The Temporal Kingdom is under God’s Law, the Ten Commandments. The state, the family, and the institutional church should follow God’s Law. That is to say, the first use of the Law, which restrains external evil and which makes any kind of human relationships possible.

The Spiritual Kingdom, on the other hand, is under the Gospel. Our failures to keep God’s Law in our everyday temporal lives–except, perhaps for a merely external compliance, which does not make us righteous before God, who judges the heart–can, in the second use of the Law, drive us to the Gospel of Christ crucified for sinners as conveyed through Word and Sacrament, through which the Holy Spirit brings the gift of faith. We live out that faith in our everyday lives, carrying out our vocations in the various estates as we are motivated to love and serve our neighbors (the third use of the Law).

The Temporal Kingdom is governed by the Sword, by the state’s coercive power, which is necessary to restrain and punish evil and to protect citizens from evildoers. The Spiritual Kingdom, on the other hand, is governed by the Word, which St. Paul calls “the sword of the spirit” (Ephesians 6:17), with its “two edges” of Law and Gospel that can cut through to the heart (Hebrews 4:12).

Just as the Law and Gospel work together, the Temporal Kingdom and the Spiritual Kingdom work together. There is no “wall” of separation between them. God is the King of both realms. But He works through them in different ways and for different purposes. We might speak not of the separation of church and state, but their distinction.

Keeping in mind that the Two Kingdoms refer to much more than church and state, which we will explore later, we will first consider how those two estates should relate to each other, since that is the contentious issue Christians struggle with today. And since the historical track record of church-state issues shows what can happen when the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms is neglected or misinterpreted.

Next Up: Protecting the State from the Church

[1] “James Madison to Frederick C. Schaeffer, 3 December 1821,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/04-02-02-0357. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, Retirement Series, vol. 2, 1 February 1820 – 26 February 1823, ed. David B. Mattern, J. C. A. Stagg, Mary Parke Johnson, and Anne Mandeville Colony (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013), p. 433.]

Illustration: James Madison (1816( by John Vanderlyn – Ths White House Historical Association. the painting is in the White House collection[1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1761716

Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms

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Misconceptions about the Two Kingdoms

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