Through the great wonders that God would pour out upon Egypt, He was declaring to both the Israelites and the Egyptians that Yahweh is God. Both peoples would come to know Him. The Israelites would know Yahweh as their God, while the Egyptians would be forced to acknowledge that He is the Most High, the only true God. Of course, some of the Egyptians would be so convinced of Yahweh’s might that they would abandon Egypt and join Israel in their exodus; most, however, would remain as hard-hearted as their king.

Last week we observed God’s second revelation of Himself to Moses, and we should note that such there is a similar repetition to all of chapters 5-6. You see, in chapters 1-4, we find this overall pattern: God’s people suffer and cry out, God hears their cry and reveals Himself to Moses, and God commissions Moses to speak to Pharaoh. After his and Aaron’s first brief encounter with Pharaoh, the pattern is then repeated: God’s people suffered even more, Moses cries out on their behalf, God hears and further reveals Himself to Moses, and now in our present passage, God sends Moses again to Pharaoh’s court.
We will break up our passage into three scenes. First, we find Moses again declaring his fear and inability to serve on God’s behalf. Second, God sends Moses and Aaron to their second encounter with Pharaoh. Third, the two men prelude the oncoming plagues with the sign of their staff becoming a serpent in Pharaoh’s court.
These are Moses and Aaron //  Verses 10-30
After God’s repeated and emphatic self-revelation to Moses, we read:
So the LORD said to Moses, “Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the people of Israel go out of his land.” But Moses said to the LORD, “Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?” But the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh king of Egypt: to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
Just as at Horeb, these verse record Moses pleading his inability and fear before God’s recommissioning. Chapter 5 proved his previous fear that the Israelites would not listen to him, and he has no reason to expect that Pharaoh would listen either. His mouth is simply not sufficient to accomplish the task that God has given him. Nevertheless, the LORD gave Moses and Aaron authority to do the work that He called them to do.
You may have noticed that a genealogy of Moses appears to be randomly inserted after these verses. Douglas Stuart, however, informs us that the genealogy’s placement is not as random as it may first appear:
In the style of ancient Near Eastern writing and according to the concerns of ancient Near Eastern culture, a genealogy here is neither out of place nor stylistically intrusive but welcome and perfectly placed. At the end of 6:12, the ongoing narrative stops for a moment: right at the point where Moses said, in effect, “I can’t do it.” This would be the ideal point for a commercial in a modern TV dramatic presentation, the point just before the resolution of the suspense, since the viewer’s interest level is held by the emotional interest in story resolution. Most ancient narratives had no concern for preservation of suspense per se. But neither did it hurt to place a review and retrospective, which is that 6:13-27 functions as in Exodus, at a location just prior to a major story resolution, the final, great divine reassurance of Moses’ call, commission, and challenge (6:28-7:7) equipping him for the launching of the plagues (7:8 and following).[1]
Indeed, the importance of this genealogy is emphasized by verses 26-30 essentially restating verses 10-13, although with the repetition of these are the Moses and Aaron… this Moses and Aaron. All genealogies in Scripture give us a chance to pause and marvel at God’s providential care of His people throughout seemingly unimportant generations. While it is easy for our eyes to gloss over while trying to read these foreign and difficult names, we should remind ourselves that each name belonged to a flesh and blood fellow image-bearer with hopes, fears, joys, and sorrows that were just as real as yours or mine.
This particular genealogy, however, takes that providential point and applies it squarely upon Moses and even more pointedly upon Aaron (notice that Moses’ wife and descendants are not listed, while Aaron’s are). Ryken explains that this genealogy establishes Moses and Aaron “as full-blooded Hebrews.” He goes on:
The same Moses and Aaron who led Israel out of Egypt were true sons of Israel. But the genealogy is especially interested in the status of Aaron. Its purpose is to show that he is a legitimate leader in his own right, and thus a worthy partner for Moses.  Up until now the focus has been on Moses, who as everyone knew was called to be Israel’s prophet. But as the story resumes in Exodus 7, we are prepared for his older brother Aaron to take an increasingly prominent role.[2]
That prominent role will later be seen as Aaron becomes the first high priest of Israel. Furthermore, is it not an interesting parallel that God answered Moses’ original concern over his inadequacies of speech by promising to send Aaron with him, and now God’s providential hand in Aaron’s lineage and descendants is particularly highlighted?
The listing of family of Aaron and Moses displays that God did not randomly or arbitrarily select these men to lead Israel; instead, the LORD’s hand was upon the lives of each of their ancestors, as it would also be over their descendants. God always intended to use Moses and Aaron for this task, even while their patriarch Levi still lived. The words that Mordecai spoke of Esther were equally true of Moses and Aaron: they were born for such a time as this, born to lead God’s people out of their bondage in Egypt.
This divine orchestration of God is most clearly seen in the genealogy of Christ, which gives us an opportunity to reflect over God’s sovereign preserving of Abraham’s promised offspring until the fullness of time for God’s Son to take on flesh had come. Indeed, two persons from Jesus’ genealogy are also found here: Amminadab and Nahshon, who were the father and brother of Aaron’s wife. Thus, the LORD has even worked history so that Israel’s first high priest married into the family of the eternal High Priest of God’s people.
Returning to Pharaoh // Verses 1-7
In these verses, we arrive at our second scene. While the first scene addressed Moses’ fears by displaying God’s sovereign plan of raising up Moses and Aaron, this scene gives us the LORD’s message to Moses as he readies himself to appear before Pharaoh a second time.
And the LORD said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.” Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the LORD commanded them. Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.
While there are numerous points that we could draw from and remark upon these verses, let us address four.
First, despite Moses’ fears and inability, the LORD began by saying that He has made Moses like God to Pharaoh with Aaron acting as his prophet. We should note, however, that the word like is not in the Hebrew text. A literal reading is, therefore: See, I have made you God to Pharaoh. While we might rightfully squirm at that language being used, we can, of course, relax that God is in no way calling Moses a deity. Indeed, Moses has clearly shown us all of his fears and failures in the writing of this book, by no means hiding God’s marvelous grace in using him to deliver God’s people.
Yet neither is the LORD speaking a falsehood. He was not deifying Moses in actuality, but in Pharaoh’s eyes, Moses was God, for he was the LORD’s ambassador and representative. Pharaoh certainly knew enough of foreign diplomacy to know that an ambassador was to be treated as if he was the king or nation that he represented. Indeed, Pharaoh would have regularly sent out ambassadors of his own with the expectation that they would be treated as though they were Pharaoh himself.
Furthermore, remember that Pharaoh called himself a son of the gods, believing that he was their physical representation on earth. Since he viewed himself as divine, he spoke to people through messengers, most notably a servant who bore the title of the mouth of Pharaoh. Thus, the LORD was very purposely making his servant Moses into what Pharaoh viewed himself as being.
What is even more amazing is that God has placed us in a similar role. 2 Corinthians 5:20 tells us, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.” Through the indwelling Spirit, we are the body of Christ, His hands, feet, and mouth in the world. Therefore, as Paul prayed, we ought to speak the gospel boldly, for we are no less under the command and authority of God than Moses and Aaron were as they appeared before Pharaoh.
Second, in verses 3-4, God told Moses again that He would harden Pharaoh’s heart and that the king of Egypt would not listen to Moses. Recall from verse 12 of chapter 6 that this was precisely Moses’ fear, and now the LORD was confirming it. He was being sent to proclaim God’s Word, even though Pharaoh will not hear it.
Here again is a wonderful time to bring remind ourselves of a point that we have already noted several times before: God does not operate according to our wisdom. In fact, if we were consultants brought in to help Moses have a more effective ministry, we would certainly counsel him not to waste his time preaching to someone like Pharaoh who was never going to believe anyway. After all, there were surely better uses of Moses’ time and giftings, right? It turns out that God often called His prophets to declare His Word to those with deaf ears, blind eyes, and hard hearts, just look at Isaiah 6. Most significantly, most of those who heard Jesus throughout His ministry did not believe, and even after His resurrection, we are told that some who saw Him still doubted. How disheartening!
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Our righteous, suffering King came to be crushed and made a grief offering in order to count sinful people like us righteous (v. 10–11). Jesus was numbered with the transgressors and bore the sins of many in order to intercede for us before God (v.12). Our mighty King will indeed make kings shut their mouths (Isa. 52:15). Yet, he also came to quiet the hearts of those who are longing for mercy, justice, and peace. God has heard our sighs and groans that are too deep for Words. We have a Savior who entered into our sinful world in order to free us from the guilt and pain of sin.

The words “Christmas” and “Advent” hearken many memories. In one moment, we picture solemn evening worship services with candles, hymns, and Scripture reading. In another moment, we envision Christmas dinner parties, gifts, and cozy treats. We may also imagine a sweet little baby in a manger being cuddled by his mother as the shepherds come to pay homage. As grandparents travel cross-country or across county lines to see their grandchildren, memories are made during the Advent season. For many, these are the reasons Christmas is considered to be the most wonderful time of the year.
Focusing on the spiritual meaning of Advent, another common image is that of a coming King. We sing, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her King!” And rightfully so. The Scriptures teach that God would send a great King to lead his people. We rejoice in the majesty and glory King Jesus brought with him as he entered the darkness to shine as a beacon for the nations. We celebrate his grandeur and mighty power as we should. Yet, we would be equally blessed to celebrate his humility.
Our King came in rags.
The King and His Coming
“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” is a beloved song that reminds us to bring “glory to the newborn King.” The newborn in that manger is the King of whom God said, “I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill” (Ps. 2:6). Though the kings and rulers of the nations rage and take counsel together against God and his people, God laughs. He laughs because, like the stereotypical school bully, these kings and rulers don’t realize there’s someone bigger and stronger around the corner. They haven’t eaten their spinach, but they think they’re Popeye. God has a terrifying word to speak: “I have set my King in Zion.”
This King—the one and only eternal Son of God—has the whole creation as his inheritance, and he perfectly reigns as God’s King (John 3:31–36). Jesus will break and dash to pieces all the kings, rulers, and nations who oppose him (Ps. 2:9). Yet, God has not left them without an opportunity to repent. He has given us all the opportunity to serve him with fear, rejoice with trembling, kiss the Son, and take refuge in Him. Blessed are all who take refuge in him (Ps. 2:12).
The promise of refuge in Christ is a joyous gift from God. We need refuge from the injustices around us. We need refuge from the corruption in a world that is groaning and decaying. Most importantly, we need refuge from God’s wrath toward the sin inside us. That’s when such a promise can seem so distant from us. Sure, God can save others, but not me. My life is too messy. I fail too often. My sin runs too deep. We are often well-acquainted with our sin, so we wonder if such a majestic King would ever stoop low enough to reach someone like us.
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Written by William B. Evans |
Monday, May 15, 2023
First, the kingdom of God and the institutional church are wrongly equated by 2K advocates.  There is a rough consensus among New Testament scholars that the kingdom of God is a much more comprehensive reality than the institutional church, and this misidentification of the church and the kingdom has all sorts of unfortunate results, such as confusion over the nature of “kingdom work” and the silencing of Christians from speaking to societal issues.

These are perplexing times for evangelical Christians who seek to be faithful to Christ in the midst of a contrary culture. The conventional view in American evangelical circles has been what we may term “transformational,” in that it was shaped by the Puritan goal of society as a Christian covenanted community, the Awakening impulse that spawned many efforts to redeem the broader culture, and the neo-Calvinist perspective of Abraham Kuyper (and successors such as Cornelius Van Til and Francis Schaeffer) emphasizing a Christian world-and-life view as foundational to the transformation of culture.  While these influences were not overtly theocratic, they did see a positive role for Christians as Christians in society.
More recently, an outspoken group has rejected all of this, contending that Christians should view themselves as citizens of two distinct kingdoms (the church and the world), and that efforts to transform society on the basis of Christian principles are wrongheaded.  This perspective has been labeled “2K” (Two Kingdoms) “R2K” (“Reformed” or “Radical Two Kingdoms”), “NL2K” (Natural Law Two Kingdoms) theology, and the “common-kingdom model,” and it is particularly associated with present and former faculty members at Westminster Seminary in Escondido, California—ethicist David VanDrunen, theologian Michael Horton, historian Darryl Hart, and their students.[1]  Not surprisingly, it has recently been dubbed by theologian John Frame the “Escondido Theology.”[2]  While the major participants are affiliated with conservative Reformed denominations, their influence goes well beyond those confessional groups, and so this is a phenomenon well worth exploring in more detail.
That something like 2K theology would be attractive in the current context should not surprise.  American culture is increasingly secular.  Hostility to biblical Christianity increases, and the end of “Constantinianism” (the synthesis of Western culture and Christianity that began with the Roman emperor Constantine) is widely announced.  Efforts by the Religious Right to transform America are seen as a failure, and the Christian Reconstructionist or Theonomist movement has faded.  In addition, some are convinced that transformational efforts have distracted the church from its spiritual calling of preparing souls for heaven through the ministry of Word and sacrament.  Thus, 2K theology seems tailor-made for a post-Constantinian context where many are concerned for the integrity of the church and its ministry, and it also seems to provide a theological fig leaf for culture-war fatigue.
What are the basics of 2K theology?  First, there are two realms or kingdoms—the world, which is governed by creational wisdom or natural law accessible to all, and the church, which is shaped and governed by the Gospel. Christians are citizens of both realms and are answerable to the claims of both.  Second, because the world is normed by natural law, there is no distinctively “Christian” worldview that can be applied to all of life. There is no Christian-world-and-life perspective on politics, or economics, or psychology, etc.  Finally, Christian efforts to transform or redeem society are wrongheaded and involve a confusion of the two kingdoms.  Thus, the ministry of the church is exclusively spiritual in nature.
According to 2K advocates, such thinking is firmly rooted in the Christian tradition, and four key sources are often cited.  St. Augustine of Hippo’s magnum opus, The City of God, was written in the wake of the fall of Rome in AD 410 to the barbarians.  In it, Augustine assures Christians that their hopes rest not in earthly society or empire but in heaven, and he schematizes human history in terms of two cities—the city of the world shaped by love of self and made up of those who “live by human standards” and are predestined to hell, and the city of God shaped by love for God and made up of those “who live according to God’s will” and are predestined for heaven.  Thus Christians are simultaneously citizens of heaven and pilgrims on earth.[3]  Here Augustine sought to express the biblical distinction between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil.  But Augustine was no Manichaean dualist—he recognized that the inhabitants of the earthly city can accomplish relative goods, and he also believed that the efforts of Christians to better society can achieve real, if limited, results.  Moreover, Augustine encouraged a public role for distinctively Christian virtues, even arguing that temporal rulers should suppress idolatry.[4]  Thus, Augustine’s two cities are not the same thing as the recent Two Kingdoms.
More promising for recent 2K advocates is the distinction between two kingdoms found in the writings of Martin Luther.   Luther modified the Augustinian framework by means of programmatic distinctions between Law and Gospel, the spiritual and the temporal, the inner and outer man, and so on.  Thus there is a twofold rule of God—the kingdom of the world is governed by God through Law, while the church is governed by the Gospel.  The implications of this move are profound.  With Luther, the kingdom of the world achieves what Bernhard Lohse has termed a new “independence” over against Christianity, and a more positive view of the kingdom of the world emerges (in this sense, I would even argue that the Lutheran Two-Kingdoms doctrine was a factor in the emergence of the modern notion of the secular).  In addition, the state, as an expression of the kingdom of the world, has its own integrity apart from Christianity, and Christians as citizens of both kingdoms must submit to the state.  Thus there is in Luther little room for rebellion against civil government.  Finally, the church has an exclusively spiritual role and is not to try to improve society.[5]
Reformed Two-Kingdoms advocates have spent a good deal of time trying to portray Calvin as a keen disciple on Luther on this issue.  But while Calvin deployed two-kingdoms language, he generally did so with somewhat different aims and his practical stance was more activistic.  He sought to protect the church from the encroachments of the state, and to emphasize that Christians have a spiritual obligation to the state, but the temporal realm does not have the independence that it has in Luther.[6]  Despite similarities in language, this difference helps to account for the profound contrast between the passivity of the Lutheran tradition toward the state and the historic pattern of social and political activism evident among Reformed Christians.  Calvin’s role in Geneva underscores his conviction that distinctively Christian concerns have an important role in the public square, and that magistrates are obligated to further Christian virtues.
These differing conceptions of the Two Kingdoms are rooted to some degree in different understandings of Law and Gospel.  For Lutherans, the law always condemns, while the gospel is understood primarily as freedom from condemnation.  The Reformed understanding of both differs.  Here the notion of Law is conditioned by the doctrine of the covenant, and the Gospel is understood as both freedom from condemnation of sin and the power of sin.  Thus, in the Westminster Confession of Faith the condemning aspects of the law are assigned to the covenant of works, while the law as a “rule of life” does “sweetly comply” with the “grace of the Gospel” (WCF 19.6-7).  For these reasons, Lutherans are able to “distinguish Law and Gospel” in ways that the Reformed generally do not, and simply citing formal similarities in Lutheran and Reformed language on the Two Kingdoms and Law/Gospel will not do.  One must dig deeper to discern what is really meant and what is entailed.
Given that the Reformed tradition has historically been decidedly more activistic and transformational than Lutheranism with its two-kingdoms focus, where are contemporary Reformed 2K advocates to find antecedents for their position?  The answer lies in Southern Presbyterianism and its doctrine of the “spirituality of the church” that emerged with vigor in the post-Civil War period. As historian Jack Maddex argued in a seminal 1976 article, southern Presbyterians shifted from an activistic and even theocratic stance to a rigid separation of the sacred and the secular: “Smarting under northern accusations that they had formed a ‘political alliance’ with slavery, Southern Presbyterians assumed an apolitical stance.  Turning from social and political concerns, they concentrated on personal piety and church organization.”[7]
Enough has been said to demonstrate that 2K claims are revisionist, particularly their Lutheranized version of the Reformed tradition.  But are there theological and pastoral problems here?  I think there are.  First, the kingdom of God and the institutional church are wrongly equated by 2K advocates.  There is a rough consensus among New Testament scholars that the kingdom of God is a much more comprehensive reality than the institutional church, and this misidentification of the church and the kingdom has all sorts of unfortunate results, such as confusion over the nature of “kingdom work” and the silencing of Christians from speaking to societal issues.[8]
Second, this 2K theology evinces a radical creation-redemption dualism that distorts the Scriptural witness at certain key points.  It denies the continuity of the old creation with the new,[9] and this brings with it a suspicion of real transformation (whether personal or social) in this life.  In other words, according to 2K our efforts to apply creational wisdom or natural law are not bad things, but our experience of salvation today is entirely a spiritual matter, and efforts to change this world have no lasting or eternal significance for the world to come.  Moreover, this present world will be destroyed and replaced by a new creation.  But while there are passages in Scripture that speak of the relationship between the old and new in terms of discontinuity (e.g., 2 Peter 3:11-13), others depict restoration rather than annihilation.  Perhaps most telling is Paul’s argument in Romans 8:18-25, in which the Apostle speaks of creation as currently “subject to futility” that “will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glory of the children of God” (ESV).  At very least, this suggests that 2K advocates have missed the careful dialectic of eschatological continuity and discontinuity in Scripture.
We will cheerfully admit that 2K advocates have some legitimate concerns, particularly that the mission and witness of the church not be hijacked by political and cultural agendas.  But in this instance the cure is worse than the disease.  While 2K theology may well scratch the itch of Christians who need a theological excuse to remain silent in current cultural conflicts, it is both less than biblical and less than faithful to the decided weight of the Reformed tradition.
William B. ‘Bill’ Evans is the Younts Professor of Bible and Religion and Department Chair at Erskine College.  He holds degrees from Taylor University (BA) Westminster Seminary (MAR, ThM), and Vanderbilt (PhD). This article first appeared on his blog The Ecclesial Calvinist and is used with permission.

[1] See, e.g., David VanDrunen, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms (2010); Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought (2010); D. G. Hart, A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State (2006).
[2] See John Frame, The Escondido Theology: A Reformed Response to Two Kingdom Theology (2011); Other critiques include Ryan C. McIlhenny, ed.,Kingdoms Apart: Engaging the Two Kingdoms Perspective (2012); William D. Dennison, “Review of VanDrunen’s Natural Law,” Westminster Theological Journal 75 (2013): 349-370; and  Dan Strange, “Not Ashamed! The Sufficiency of Scripture for Public Theology,” Themelios 36/2 (2011).
[3] Augustine, City of God (Bettenson trans., 1984), 593-596 (XIV.28—XV.1).
[4] For a subtle analysis of this, see Eugene TeSelle, Augustine the Theologian (1970), 268-278.
[5] On these issues, see Bernhard Lohse, Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Work (1986), 186-193.  See also Paul Althaus, The Ethics of Martin Luther (1972), 43-82; Heinrich Bornkamm, Luther’s Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms in the Context of His Theology, trans. James W. Leitsch (1963).
[6] See Calvin, Institutes, IIII.19.15; IV.20.1-32.
[7] Jack P. Maddex, “From Theocracy to Spirituality: The Southern Presbyterian Reversal on Church and State,” Journal of Presbyterian History54/4 (1976): 448.  Maddex points to Stuart Robinson as the crucial figure in this development, and Robinson’s ideas have recently been championed by VanDrunen.
[8] See, e.g., Herman Ridderbos, The Coming of the Kingdom (1962), 354; G. E. Ladd, Theology of the New Testament (1974), 111-119.
[9] See, e.g., VanDrunen, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms, 66-67.
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