Chapter 10: The Two Kingdoms. With her back turned to me, shuffling through some paperwork, the staff psychologist said with an obvious touch of challenge in her voice, "Come on in, but I really don't think you will be in here long enough to even need to sit down." Standing there a bit awkwardly, I probed, "What do you mean? I don't understand." This was supposed to be a very routine interview.
Every person who submits a request for conscientious objector discharge status in the military has to go through several prearranged hurdles. All applicants must submit the request to their commander, have an interview with the base chaplain, be interviewed by a psychologist, prepare a lengthy report answering the military's standard questions, and survive a court hearing in which just about any questions can be asked.
Once this is completed, a portfolio of the resulting information is sent to the Pentagon for approval. Of all of these interviews, from my understanding, the one with the psychologist was merely supposed to assess whether the disturbed applicant was mentally able to stand trial. I didn't think this interview was going to be antagonistic at all, but I was wrong. From her very first words, I could tell that this was going to be a challenge.
After I asked her what she meant by her stark introduction, she finally looked at me and said, "I've got you." "What do you mean you've got me?" I asked as I slowly grabbed my chair and sat down. "I've got you figured out." Looking upset, she stared me right in the eye and said, "You're inconsistent." "I'm inconsistent? What do you mean?" "All of you conscientious objectors are inconsistent. There was a group of you in here last week, and I saw right through your arguments. You're inconsistent.
You all are inconsistent." Trembling a bit, I tried to act brave and said, "Okay, so how are we inconsistent?" "It's easy," she said, putting her chair squarely in my direction behind her desk. Then she said condescendingly, "Okay, you say you want out of the army because you feel that you cannot conscientiously support the army. Is that correct?" "Yes, ma'am." "Okay, I'll ask you another question." "All right.
Do you believe in paying your taxes?" "Well, yes, ma'am, I do." Throwing herself back in her chair, she said with a slight condescending laugh, "You see, I've got you. You're inconsistent." After she spoke, she sat back in her chair as if this would end the discussion. I wasn't completely sure how to answer her in a way she would understand. Instead of using human reasoning, my desire was to point her to God's word.
I leaned forward in my chair, took a deep breath, and said, "Ma'am, you may not understand this, but, you see, I live by the standards of a book, and that book is the Bible. This Bible tells me to love my enemies and to pay my taxes. I don't have to understand it; I just have to obey it." Things quickly went downhill from there. The psychologist became very upset and a bit irrational with several arguments that followed.
When I told her I wanted to be like Jesus, she snipped, "Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we are to be like Jesus." When I began to offer her a scripture about walking in His steps and having the mind of Christ, she abruptly cut me off and said, "Listen, you don't need to preach to me. I know the Bible." At this point, she was looking very severe. She continued, "I know the Bible very well.
Do you realize what I've done?" She then listed off a long list of charities, volunteer activities, Bible study groups that she had led, and the like. Then she capped it all off with a rather strange statement, "And besides all of that, I'll have you know I'm a card-carrying Methodist." What was I to say? I began to feel a bit sorry for her. She had lost her professional composure. I now admit that what I said next probably was a bit contentious.
I looked at her and replied, waving my hand, "Could you please just repeat all of that?" "All of what?" "All of those accomplishments." She continued her monologue and then dismissed me after asking me if I was hard of hearing. The Two Kingdoms. Thinking about the interview, I realized that the psychologist had unwittingly hit on a very fundamental dividing line in the understanding of Christian non-resistance. That dividing line is the understanding that there are two kingdoms.
The teaching of the two kingdoms presents the spiritual reality that the children of God, while still living here on earth, are governed by a heavenly kingdom ruled and dictated by God. It proclaims that when Jesus came to earth, He established this kingdom. Furthermore, this kingdom transcends all nations, tribes, languages, geography, and time. And although this kingdom is spiritually discerned, it is lived out practically in the real world.
However, unlike God's kingdom in the Old Testament, with one geographic area representing God's kingdom, the kingdom of God described in the New Testament has been dispersed throughout all nations. As salt and light to the world, the people of God are led by a different law and a different constitution. Ultimately, as citizens, they take their orders from a different king. Caesar or God?
Perhaps the most well-known and often misquoted passage concerning the idea of the two kingdoms and our relationship with earthly kings is the passage from Matthew 22. The Pharisees in this account tried to tempt Jesus in the matter of paying taxes to Caesar. It is here that Jesus replied, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Most Christians believe in a two kingdom concept in some form.
The differences come in deciding which things belong to Caesar and which belong to God. As I continued to study the Bible and the early church, I noticed that the early Christians drew that line with a decisive stroke. The Apostle Peter spoke to Christians as if they did not belong to the earthly kingdoms in which they lived. He referred to these early believers as sojourners, as aliens, or as pilgrims.
"And if you call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear." 1 Peter 1:17. God's heart throughout the whole Bible is for His people to be satiated with His presence. The book of Acts is a living example of God's people governed, led, taught, and directed by His presence. The New Testament Christians respected the governments under which they lived. However, they paid their foremost allegiance to God.
As Peter and John said before their judges in Acts 4:19, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge." This was a bold stance, but it was this stance that turned the world upside down. When I considered the condition of the church when these lines began to fade, it became obvious to me that both the church and the world became the losers. The world lost its salt and light; the church lost its purpose. My kingdom is not of this world.
The line between the two kingdoms is geographically demonstrated shortly before the crucifixion when Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate. Pilate had heard that people were calling Jesus a king, so he challenged Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus took these words seriously and answered back, "Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning me?" Pilate snapped back, "Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me.
What have you done?" At this statement, Jesus made a decisive announcement. Looking past all time, place, philosophies, and nations, Jesus replied, "My kingdom is not of this world." Immediately following this proclamation, Jesus described the marching orders of His people. "If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews.
But now my kingdom is not from here." Pilate then answered Jesus like so many of us today by interpreting Jesus' words as merely figurative, mystical jargon, or spiritual talk. He asked, "Are you a king then?" "That's just the way I used to look at God's kingdom." I knew that Jesus spoke of a kingdom, but I didn't really think that His kingdom was to be lived out in practical ways. However, Jesus' answer is corrective and astounding.
With no hint of confusion, weakness, or compromise, Jesus replied, "You say rightly that I am a king; for this cause I was born." That last statement still makes me stop and think. Apparently, the idea of being a king was no minor point to Jesus. Jesus said that He was born for this very reason: to be a king. Jesus finished His declaration, saying, "And for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.
Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." I saw that this showdown between Jesus and Pilate was a decided pronouncement of the priority, reality, and importance of the kingdom of God. No fraternization with the enemy. Paul cautioned the young minister Timothy to keep a clear understanding of our place among the nations. He told Timothy that the Christian should see himself as a loyal, determined soldier in the army of God, not distracted by concerns outside his domain.
He reminded Timothy that such a soldier does not have the time or even the right to involve himself in the affairs of countries he was providentially intended to occupy. "You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please Him who enlisted him as a soldier." A man in uniform. As an American soldier in a foreign country, this analogy came alive to me.
At that time, Tanya and I were American citizens living in Germany on a military assignment. We lived in a German-owned apartment, had German utilities, and paid for them both with German currency. We might have known who the German president was at that time, but if we did, it was only by chance. We certainly were not allowed to vote in their elections, nor would we have even desired to do so. We wore the American uniform, spoke American English, and paid American income taxes.
At that time, we even watched American television and voted in American elections. It simply would not have been acceptable for me to run for office as the local burgomaster or hope for a seat in the German parliament. We had no place in their armies or their politics. We were American soldiers, and we knew we had a job to do. Likewise, in the kingdom of God, clarity in our vocation provides distinction in our behavior.
When the line between the two kingdoms became clearer to me, I recognized many things in my life as blatant fraternization with the occupied country. The more my wife and I made decisions based on scriptural doctrine and precedent, the more we found ourselves as aliens and sojourners, even among our own countrymen. I found that the more distinctly the line between the two kingdoms was drawn, the clearer all the teachings of Christ became.
To confuse these contrasting kingdoms made nonsense out of the teachings of Christ. It is notable that even a man like Adolf Hitler understood that a true Christian's loyalty could not be intimately entrusted to the state. He commented that loyalty would be compromised if a man's allegiance was divided. One is either a good German or a good Christian. It is impossible to be both at the same time. Caesar or God? This dichotomy of living in the world but not of the world, however, poses a continual tension.
If we have our own laws that rule and govern our lives (Luke 6:46; Matthew 7:21-27; 1 John 5:3; 2 John 6), if we have our own king that demands absolute loyalty (Zechariah 9:9; John 19:14; Revelation 17:14), if we are to refuse to obey laws that contradict the laws of God (Matthew 5:28; Acts 5:29), if we are to love, feed, warm, and care even for the enemies of the countries in which we live (Matthew 5:44; Romans 12:20), if we are charged with the impractical marching orders of going forth as lambs before wolves or
sheep before the slaughter (Luke 10:3; Romans 8:36), if our weapons are not made of earthly things (Ephesians 6:12), if we do not war in the flesh (2 Corinthians 10:3-7), if we understand that, in contrast to the Old Testament marching orders to destroy men's lives, we now instead have orders to save them (Luke 9:51-56), if dying actually is gain for us and the cross our example (Philippians 1:21; 1 Corinthians 1:18), if our kingdom is not of this world (John 18:3), if in the end we defeat even the Antichrist only
by the blood of the Lamb, the word of our testimony, and not loving our lives even unto death (Revelation 12:11), then how must we respond to all of these earthly kings and rulers?
What do we do with the hundreds of laws and ordinances that affect so much of our life? What allegiance do we owe to the kings and empires that have spread around the world and throughout time? Embracing a two kingdom worldview places new challenges for us concerning what we should do with the worldly kingdom. The temptation to ignore their bothersome rules and ridiculous bureaucracies is strong. I was tempted to ask the question, "Should I even bother with their laws and government?"