A Brief Summary of the Two Kingdoms
两国论教义的简要总结
A colleague highly trained in isagogics once said to me, “The more I try to get the two kingdoms doctrine in focus, the more it goes out of focus.” His remark is our cue for considering how we may express this sometimes obvious, sometimes elusive distinction that we call the two kingdoms. Our clarifications begin not with the “two kingdoms” language but with a book title.
一个在圣经注释入门（学科方面）训练有素的同事曾经告诉我：“我越想要抓住两国论教义，它越逃离中心。”他的评价提示我们该怎样论述我们称之为两国论的这个时而清晰，时而模糊的区分。我们的论述以一个书名开始，而不是“两国论”术语。
The name of Heiko Oberman’s Luther biography is Luther: Man Between God and the Devil. This title captures the larger context of creation, fall, and imprisonment out of which Christ must lead captive humanity (Eph. 4:8). And this is the context—man between God and the devil—in which Luther always thinks and writes, though any particular Luther document we’re reading such as his two kingdoms treatise, “On Secular Authority,” may not explicitly say so.
亥克.奥伯曼(Heiko Oberman)的路德传记题为《路德：上帝与魔鬼之间的人》。这个标题把握住了包含创造，堕落，以及基督将被掳的人类从其中领出来的囚笼（弗4:8所以经上说：他升上高天的时候，掳掠了仇敌，将各样的恩赐赏给人）的宏大视野。路德一直在这个视野——上帝和魔鬼之间的人——里面思考和写作，尽管我们参阅的任何路德文献中，比如他关于两国论的论文“论世俗权力，”没有直接讲说这一点。
Scripture informs us of two strategies God is using to free humanity captive to the devil: one strategy sustains the present world with opportunities for the Gospel; the other advances the Gospel in the world. These strategies work together and not independently since they are both God’s strategies for His single purpose of our salvation. All education and schools, including those that are Lutheran, are part of that first, “left-hand” strategy. (An issue for the Lutheran university is whether and how it understands itself as also part of God’s “right-hand” strategy.)
圣经告诉我们上帝用两种策略来使被魔鬼俘获的人类得以自由：一种策略是以福音得到传播的机会支撑这当下的世界；另一种是使福音在这世界中推进。两种策略一起工作，并不分开，因为他们都是上帝为了我们得救的单一目的而使用的策略。所有的教育和学校，包括那些路德宗的，都是属于第一种，“左手”的策略。（路德宗大学面临的一个难题，是它是否明白自己以及怎样理解自己也是上帝“右手”策略的一部分。）
God’s left-hand strategy is to create some temporal arrangements—Luther cited marriage, civil government, and the church as examples we can confirm from Scripture—generally to do three things: 1) keep the sinful world in check to prevent it from collapsing into chaos; 2) promote as much common good and justice as can be had under the circumstances of human sin and the devil’s grip on the world; and 3) provide opportunities by which any person, Christian or not, can contribute to promoting to that common good and justice. This strategy doesn’t defeat the devil, redeem creation, or accomplish anyone’s righteousness and salvation before God. Not even the church as an institution can do that. But this strategy does sustain the present age—the “kingdom” of this world, God’s left-hand kingdom—as the campaign zone for His right-hand work. Note also that even though these temporal arrangements are human activities, they are actually all God’s short-term good works that He does in his own hidden way. He does these things to sustain the present age so He can employ His other strategy to defeat the devil, make us righteous, and redeem creation.
上帝左手的策略是创造一些属世的秩序——路德引述了我们可以从圣经中确定的婚姻，民事政府以及教会作为例子——来做三件事情：1）使罪恶的世界在控制范围内，阻止它陷入混乱；2）在人类有罪和魔鬼掌控的处境之下，尽可能更多地促进普世的良善和公义；以及3）给任何人，无论是否是基督徒，提供机会，使他们可以藉着这些机会为促进普世的良善和公义做出贡献。这种策略不能打败魔鬼，赎回受造物，或者成就任何人在上帝面前的义和救恩。连作为一个机构的教会也不能成就此事。但这种策略却可以支撑现在的世代——这个世界的“王国，”上帝左手的王国——作为祂右手工作的战场。也请注意，即使这些属世的组织是人类的活动，然而它们实际上是上帝以祂自己隐藏的方式所做的全部短期性善工。祂做这些事情来支撑现今的世代，好使祂可以使用另一种策略来打败魔鬼，使我们称义，赎回受造物。
God’s other strategy, his right-hand strategy, is to propel some additional, peculiar news into the present age of His left-hand kingdom. The news is that, without our contribution or co-operation, a carpenter’s life, ministry, death, and triumph over death has and continues to come between us and the devil, undo his hold on the world, take us out of that captivity, return us to God, and put things right between heaven and earth. Like many powerful news stories, this news has a power to change people. Its particular power is that of promise and hope, hope boosted by God’s own pledge standing behind the promise (see Eph. 1:13-14). God delivers this curious news in His own personal way in Jesus and continues to circulate it just as personally through Jesus’ disciples using word-of-mouth plus a few ways to concretize those words (the sacraments and written Word). Even though this news flash comes through the likes of us, it is, like the first strategy, also all God’s work done in his own hidden way for accomplishing His long-term aim of restoring the world and everything in it to His good graces.
上帝的另一种策略，祂右手的策略，是要推进一些额外特别的消息进入祂左手国度的当下世代。这个消息就是，不需要我们的贡献或合作，一个木匠的生活，传道，死亡和对死亡的胜利已经并将继续来到我们和魔鬼之间，打破它对世界的操控，使我们脱离被掳的境地，使我们回转归向上帝，使天地之间的事物得以恢复。就像许多强有力的新闻故事一样，这个消息有能力改变人。它特别的能力就是应许和盼望所带来的能力，那盼望是由立定那应许背后上帝自己的誓言所推动的（看 弗1:13-14你们既听见真理的道，就是那叫你们得救的福音，也信了基督，既然信他，就受了所应许的圣灵为印记。这圣灵是我们得基业的凭据（原文作质），直等到上帝之民（民：原文作产业）被赎，使他的荣耀得著称赞）。上帝将这个不同寻常的消息以祂自己针对个人的方式在耶稣里面赐下并且继续流传着，正如祂有针对个人地，透过耶稣的门徒使用嘴说的话还有一些途径，来使那些话语变得具体有形一样（圣礼和书写的圣道）。尽管这福音好消息甚至会藉着像我们这样的人（译者注：得称为义的罪人）传播，但它与第一种策略一样，也是上帝以祂自己隐藏的方式做的全部工作，好叫祂将这个世界和其中的一切恢复到祂美善恩典里的长期性目标得以不断地成就。
So both strategies are God’s strategies. God inducts us very actively into the first, like workers given vocations, and absolutely passively into the second, like babies being born or dead men being raised. God provides us with all the needed resources for the first: food and clothing, home and family, daily work, and all I need from day to day. For the second strategy, God imparts to us His Word from which, like a small child with no initial decision or intention, we learn to speak and then grow to speak with others within God’s left-hand strategy and kingdom. And God works both these strategies together in a way that for Him is complementary and interactive, though it doesn’t always look that way to us. He does all this to bring about His aim of getting us out of the strife between Him and the devil and simply with Him. He then enlists us in His campaign to deliver others from this strife. And that’s the two kingdom doctrine.
所以两种策略都是属于上帝的策略。上帝引导我们积极地进入第一种策略，就像被赋予天职的工人一样，而绝对被动地进入第二种策略，就像出生的婴儿或从死里复活的死人一样。上帝为我们提供所有第一种策略所需要的资源：食物和衣物，房子和家庭，每日的工作，以及每天我所需要的全部。对于第二种策略，上帝赐给我们祂的话语，使我们像一个没有最初决策和意向的小孩子那样，从祂的话语学会说话并成长，并向那些在上帝左手策略和国度里的人宣讲（祂的话语）。上帝用一种对祂来说互相补充和互相交叉的方式在这两种策略上作工，尽管在我们看来并不一直都是如此。祂做这一切来成就祂的目的，就是使我们脱离祂与魔鬼之间的争战，并仅仅与祂在一起。然后祂把我们列入祂要拯救其他人脱离这个争战的运动里面。这就是两国论教义。
Quote Link文章引述链接: https://twokingdoms.cune.edu/the-lutheran-tradition
Lutheran Translation Society (public domain)
路德宗翻译社（版权开放）
杨老师，Gary Liu
主后2016.11.24