Kuyper’s Error On Church & State

“One must be born again to the see the Kingdom of God, from this it follows that this sphere and everything pertaining to it, factually lies outside the horizon of the civil government and will always have to lie outside it, even when the magistrate is born again because the office does not get born again.”

Abraham Kuyper

1.) Kuyper makes the mistake of equating the Kingdom of God to the Church so that they are entirely synonymous. This is seen by his assertion that the civil Government can never belong to the Kingdom of God.

2.) The civil government and the Church both belong to the Kingdom of God. That the Church and the civil Government are distinct even when the magistrate is born again is based not on the fact that they are alien to each other as if one belongs to the Kingdom (Church) and the other doesn’t (Civil Government) but rather because the born again civil Magistrate is responsible in God’s Kingdom for justice while the born again Minister is responsible in God’s Kingdom for grace.

3.) The office is not born again because it is not possible for an abstract idea (an office) to be born again. That is just a stupid statement on Kuyper’s part.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

One thought on “Kuyper’s Error On Church & State”

  1. The point is that Civil Government is under the same law of God as individuals, and the lordship of Christ must be recognized in civil government, family, and the university and workplace. Anything else is a 2-kingdom sacred/secular divide.

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