Before sitting down to write this response to the final column of De Regno Christi, I pulled an old volume off a shelf. Sam Boyle gave the book to me in 1990, writing, “Please accept as my gift an old New Testament (Greek and Cantonese) which I had bound together by a Chinese printer in 1935 at Hong Kong. I carried it with me in China during my first term (1934–1941). I hope it can remind you of our pleasant year of cooperation in the [Christian Amendment Movement]. When it becomes a burden to Gretchen’s house cleaning, toss it out.”

Sam’s Bible is full of notes: Spurgeon on enunciating clearly when you preach; a short account of the life, death, and evil works of David Friedrich Strauss; Greek and Chinese vocabulary explained; sermon outlines in the Chinese text margins; questions to himself—Has Jesus yet been glorified in my life?

He copied part of a letter from his mother. “I was intensely interested in your remarks about your struggle with your ambitions and the desire for the active leadership you had while in this country….And after all it is the sacrifices we make for Him that He prizes. So ring down the curtain on old U.S. life and ask God to make you able for life where you are. To be able to work in an unseen obscure place and do it willingly really counts.”

This caught my eye: “Words and doctrine are not the message of the cross for China today; yet China’s needs must be met. The only way to do so is through a demonstration of the power of the cross in our lives and in the service to China. This only will convince the Chinese intelligentsia of the truth of our religion.” On the opposite page, he wrote, “Mark 8:34-37. My conversion passage. Read in Chinese at Cheung Chau July 26, 1936, 7th anniversary of death of Wm. Robb.”

The theology of the two kingdoms, of how the sacred and secular relate to one another, indeed of Christ’s mediatorial reign, can seem esoteric to American Christians, living as we have for long in peace and security. But we remain “a pilgrim people dwelling in the world but never at home within it” (Chellis). These matters have a way of moving suddenly from the theoretical to the urgent.’

Soon after Sam Boyle wrote the words quoted above, Jesus called His people in China to demonstrate the power of the cross. Mao’s armies swept over war-torn China, and the churches seemed to fade away before them. Sam told me that their weakness came from not understanding the rule of Christ over the nations, as well as from the enervating effect of liberal Protestantism. Nevertheless, the Chinese Christians knew their Lord, and when He said, “Follow Me,” they were ready.

The Communist Party that still rules capitalist China fears the Christian church and does not know what to do about it. All governments with a Christian church within their borders face the same problem—until the kings of the earth learn to hear and kiss the Son (Ps. 2). And, even then, there are tensions between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of God. They will remain until the seventh angel sounds, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!” (Rev. 11:15). Even so, come Lord Jesus.