Blurring Kingdoms

Last night I was in the middle of the two kingdoms, the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of grace, blurring. For those of you who aren't familiar with the basic concept of the two kingdoms, it is basically a piece of Christian theology that says God rules creation in two different ways.

On one hand, God rules the spiritual realm through his Church and her proclamation of grace, that is, the unearned forgiveness of sin. On the other hand, God rules the civil realm through the government and the laws that they establish. So, the job of the Church is to forgive and the job of the government is to lay the smack down.

As a side note, this is why you can't have a Christian nation ... the government would have to forgive all criminal offenses because it would have to operate from a realm of grace. Now, this doesn't mean that you can't have a government built on a Judeo-Christian ethic, but that doesn't demand that you be Christian (or even Jewish, you just have to follow natural law).

Well, last night, I was coming back from the Peace with Christ confirmation retreat when I noticed a car oddly parked on the side of the road. I thought to myself, "That's a cop and I'm in a speed trap." This was followed by, "How fast am I going?" and, "What is the limit anyway?" I knew I was in trouble when the lights started flashing before I even passed him.

He informed me that I was well over the limit and then looked at my proof of insurance for a moment before asking if I had proof that hadn't expired. It was about this time I knew that I was in some serious trouble. He took my license and registration back to his car and we sat a while.

As we waited my mind drifted back to systematics classes with Dr. Biermann telling us that even if we're forgiven before God, it's the government's job to punish us so being a Christian won't get you out of speeding tickets. As I saw the officer walk back to the car I thought, "Well, I blew it, I'll pay the fine, and get on with life."

Then the kingdom's blurred as the officer returned my license and registration along with a business card stating his name. He said that without proof of insurance I'd have to make an appearance in court and he figured that I didn't have time to come down to Colorado Springs just to show a judge a piece of paper, so he let me off with a warning on both counts.

Sometimes it can be rather nice to have the kingdoms blur.