All Saints Day

Today is All Saints Day also known as All Hallow’s day (hallow meaning holy and in this instance it means a holy person or saint). It happens every November 1st. Halloween is known as All Hallow’s eve. It is the day before All Saints Day and also Reformation Day marking October 31, 1517 the day Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of Castle Church.

What is a saint?

I think this is an important question to answer. Some would say that a saint is only someone who has achieved an exceptional degree of holiness. Someone who has been declared to be a Saint by the Catholic church.

In his book Saint of the Day, editor Leonard Foley says this: the "[Saints'] surrender to God's love was so generous an approach to the total surrender of Jesus that the Church recognizes them as heroes and heroines worthy to be held up for our inspiration. They remind us that the Church is holy, can never stop being holy and is called to show the holiness of God by living the life of Christ."[15]

What does the Bible say about saints?

This word is one used several times throughout the New Testament, especially in the writings of Paul. The word for saint is Hagios. It is a word that means set apart, made holy, or consecrated. It is not a title bestowed on people by the church (although the Catholic church claims that it is) instead it is something Christ makes all believers into by grace through faith in Christ alone. This idea is reinforced by Paul in 1 Corinthians when he calls one of the most toxic an unhealthy churches we see in Scripture saints. Not because of anything they had done but because of Christ’s sanctifying work. We are justified and made new by Christ’s work on the cross, and so for all people for all time, all who call on the name of the Lord and are saved are saints in the eyes of God and Paul. This All Saints Day isn’t a celebration of people seen as super Christians but really is a celebration of the church and all that Christ has done for us. I love church history not because the church is the hero but because Jesus is. There are so many disappointing decisions made, people abused, and mistakes done by the church throughout history, but Christ has been faithful to His bride. The church is a collection of broken people forgiven by God, and as we look at some of the major moments in history it is important why we study history in the first place. We look at the story of the church and at its flaws so that we can grow and avoid the mistakes made by generations before us. That being said, there have been a lot of wins for the church, a lot of lives changed, a lot of healing done, a lot of good things. It is important to remember in whom our faith is built. Our faith is not in institutions or man but our faith is in Christ alone. A house built on anything other than Christ is one built on sinking sand.

Tonight I want to take a look at the history of the church and work our way to present day. From the cross to Clovis, what are the major events that have influenced the faith and made the Gospel available to us in the present day. That being said it will primarily be western civilizations that we look at. This isn’t anything close to a comprehensive look at church history. A lot of what we will look at is the history of the Bible.

Early Church

After Jesus died and rose again He spent some time with His disciples before ascending into heaven. Before He ascended He gave His 120 followers the great commission and encouraged them that He would send the Holy Spirit to empower them to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. 50 days after the Jesus rose from the grave the Holy Spirit would be poured out on the disciples at what is know known as Pentecost. The Holy Spirit worked through Peter and added 5,000 people to the church in one day. From there the Gospel began to spread and Christ’s church began to explode and multiply. We see in Acts 15 that Jerusalem became the primary location for the church. As the church continued to grow in Jerusalem, persecution against them by the hands of the Jewish authorities and religious leaders would begin to escalate. Saul of Tarsus would lead a campaign against the Christian faith and would seek to destroy all who followed Jesus. Saul’s attack led him to Damascus where Jesus would confront and blind Saul. Saul’s life was transformed on the road to Damascus and his name was changed to Paul. This man was called by God to be a missionary to the Gentiles. The faith that had mainly been reserved for Jews was now expanding to include all nations. Paul took numerous missionary journeys planting churches in Asia Minor and in Greece. The church quickly expanded throughout all of the Mediterranean region and throughout the Roman empire. This was made necessary by the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 AD.

How was the early church perceived by outsiders in the first century?

The early church was seen by outsiders as atheists and sexually immoral cannibals. Why? Christians had no engraven images or idols that they prayed to. The pagan world around them looked at that and thought, they have no temple no statues they must have no gods. They also heard everyone call each other brothers and sisters. Even married couples. This led people to think that Christians were immoral in that they married their brothers and sisters. Christians also talked about eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus which scared some of the people who heard and misunderstood. This misunderstanding along with the rapid expansion of the church made the church an easy scapegoat for problems and an easy target for persecutions. Despite the heavy opposition, the Holy Spirit continued to work in the church, inspiring the writing of the New Testament.

Where did the New Testament come from?

Every book of the New Testament we have was written within about 60 years of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. That is equivalent for us to events like the moon landing, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the grand opening of Taco Box. Every book of the New Testament we have was written by an Apostle or someone closely associated with an Apostle. It was also seen as Scripture by the early church during the time it was being written. There are instances in the New Testament when the NT writers understood that what they were writing was Scripture and equal in authority to the Old Testament.

2 Peter 3:15–16 NASB95

and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

1 Corinthians 14:37–38 NASB95

If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord’s commandment. But if anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.

The New Testament we have wasn’t created hundreds of years after the fact by a bunch of guys wanting power. It was written and confirmed by the church in real time as they were giving their lives for the faith under severe persecution. The church recieved the letters and Gospel accounts written and would copy them and pass them around for other churches to have. They would be studied and read aloud at every meeting. As the church grew into the second century there arose a need for people to defend the faith against heresies. The New Testament writers would defend against heresy in their writings and addressed several early heresies such as gnosticism, the judaizers, and the nicolatians. But as the early church began to die, new men and women rose up to defend the faith. Some of the earliest church apologists (or defenders of the faith) defended against false doctrines creeping their way into the church. Some of these 2nd century saints we know through history were Polycarp who was a disciple of John, Ignatius who we talked about at CSM Go, Perpetua and Felicitas, Tertullian, Origen, Clement. As more false doctrines sought to corrupt the faith these apologists used Scripture to create creeds helpful in defending against claims by false teachers. A man named Marcion was critical of the New Testament Cannon which led to a conversation over the next hundred years of what was to be considered cannon. This along with the writing of gnostic gospels were cause for an official canon to be established. Gnostic gospels are writings that use a popular name to get credibility but were written hundreds of years after those people died and are inconsistent with the teachings of Scripture. For example, the gospel of Thomas, that was written over a hundred years after Thomas’ death and said women aren’t worthy of life and that Jesus would make Mary Magdalene male so she could enter heaven, but because it was claimed to be written by someone who walked with Jesus it began to gain traction amongst some churches. So over time the church became more official about what they believed in order to defend against false teachings. One way they did that was they filtered what was considered official. It had to be inspired by God, it needed to be written by an Apostle or someone closely associated with an Apostle, it needed to be in alignment doctrinally with what Jesus and the apostles taught, and was it recognized by the churches as canon. All 27 books of the Bible we have fit that mold.

Imperial Church

As the church endured severe persecution under Nero, Domitian, and Diocletian. And although the church was hated by the empire it continued to grow and expand. In the end of the second century and beginning of the third century, Rome would be ruled by the four tetrarchs. The Roman empire had gotten so big they needed a Caesar in charge of the West with an Augusti under him and a Caesar in charge of the East with an Augusti under him. So four rulers to be in charge of the Empire. The man who created this idea was Diocletian and when he retired it caused the power dynamic to break down. There was a battle for superiority which found Constantine the sole Emperor of all of Rome. Constantine is credited with uniting the Empire and legalizing Christianity with the Edict of Milan in AD 313. This ushered in a new era of the church from Early Church to Imperial Church. With Christianity being backed by the emperor it was afforded opportunity to not only be practiced freely but also to add structure to the faith. In order to establish a sense of orthodoxy the church had a series of Church Counsels to debate and extinguish false teachings through a series of creeds.

The most popular council was the council of Nicea. The church had been divided because of a man named Arius. Arius taught that Jesus was just a regular man and that the Father created Jesus and that Jesus wasn’t of the same substance as God. On the other hand you had men like Athanasius who taught that Jesus was fully God and fully man. He was not created by God but existed with God as God since the beginning (see John 1:1). He taught that Jesus was of the same substance as God because He is God. The debate had over this topic wasn’t always pretty. St. Nicholas, the guy we get Santa from, slapped Arius across the face for being a heretic. Eventually the Council of Nicea produced a creed that has been pretty important to us for a long time. There were several councils in Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. All these counsels were in response to divisions that would come up over theology.

With the legalization of Christianity came a decrease in persecution. This allowed Christianity to shift into a new era called the monastic period. Here we got monks and people who lived in monasteries. It was a public era of the church where the church could lay down roots and establish itself. During this time Rome and Constantinople became two of the most important cities. This is where we get men like Augustine and Jerome who wrote the first translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate. It was the first time the Bible was translated from Greek and Hebrew into Latin which was the common language of that time. It is also a moving forward towards an elevation of manmade tradition in the church.

Catholic Church

In AD 1054 we have what is known as the Great Schism. It was a divide between the church in the west and the church in the east. There were a lot of reasons why this happened and all seem very silly. There was disagreement on whether priests were allowed to marry and there were disagreements as to what kind of bread to use for communion. The main struggle was between the bishop in Rome who called himself pope and the bishop in Constantinople. The Roman church thought it had authority over the east and as a result of the tension the church split into the Roman Catholic church under the pope in the west and the Greek Orthodox church with the Byzantine Empire in the east.

Very quickly after this the church got involved in the Crusades which were a series of wars against a growing Islamic influence. It was done in an effort to reclaim Jerusalem in the name of Christianity. This was the first usage of what is known as an indulgence. The Pope would offer forgiveness to anyone who fought in the “holy wars” and would offer forgiveness to people who paid to support the war through indulgences. We have moved from the first century church in Rome whom Paul is telling them in a letter that salvation and forgiveness are a free gift of grace recieved by faith in Christ to a pope a thousand years later saying if you pay money to the church you can be forgiven. This medieval period where the pope had so much power was in many ways made possible by illiteracy. Not many people knew how to read. On top of that the only languages the Bible had been written in were the original Hebrew and Greek and the Latin Vulgate. More than that, every copy of Scripture was hand written. They were only available to people in positions of authority in the church. William Tyndale attempted to translate the Vulgate into English in what is known as the Wycliffe Bible. He was accused of being a heretic and suffered persecution for trying to make Scripture accessible to ordinary people. John Purvey would take up the task of revising the Wycliffe Bible into a better version used over the next 200 years in English speaking countries. These translations were a threat to the authority of the Catholic church. Everyone was dependent on what the pope told them was true about God as opposed to reading the Bible and having the Holy Spirit speak through His Word. Rather than making Scripture available and accessible to all people it’s scarcity was used to obtain power and control the general population. Eventually the crusades were fought and over and the Medieval period made way for the Renaissance. There was an explosion of art, poetry, new ideas, new ways of thinking and the catholic church continued to sell grace, not to pay for a war, but to pay for cathedrals.

Reformed Church

Another great divide happened during the Renaissance. On October 31, 1517 a monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle church in Wittenberg, Germany marking the official beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther is excommunicated from the Catholic church and forced to stand trial at the Diet of Worms. His 95 Theses spoke out directly against the use of indulgences and was a call for reform in the Catholic church’s theology and operations. What was intended to be a discussion became a widespread accusation due to the invention of the Gutenberg Printing Press. Luther’s Theses led to him being marked a heretic by the Catholic church. Here at the Diet of Worms Luther held firm to his beliefs.

“My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound. Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me.” -Martin Luther

Luther was compelled by what Scripture taught and it led him to stand against the pope and the Catholic church. This new division was known as Protestantism and was rooted on the five solas of the reformation. Grace Alone. Faith Alone. Christ Alone. According to Scripture Alone. To the Glory of God Alone. It was in many ways a restoration back to the original doctrines taught by the apostles that had gotten lost in the Medieval age. Martin Luther would live the rest of his life on the run but Protestantism would grow like wildfire. William Tyndale would write another English translation of the Bible, not based on the Vulgate but based on the original languages. This, along with the Gutenberg Printing Press put the Bible into the hands of ordinary people for the first time.

Today’s Church

Alright it’s time to speed up a little bit.

Henry the VIII who was King of England wanted to divorce his wife which was forbidden in the Catholic church so he started a new church called the church of England. He broke away from the Catholic church and made England protestant. England would go back and forth and the protestant church would experience extreme persecution under Mary I. At the same time the Spanish Inquisition was burning at the stake any Jews, Muslims, or Protestants that wouldn’t convert to Catholicism. The uncertainty led to many people leaving for the new world in pursuit of religious freedom. In 1611 King James commissioned a new English translation of the Bible. This would be known as the King James Version. During this time we would see the formation of the Lutheran Church, the Church of England, the Anabaptists, Calvinism and puritans. The church in America goes through something called the “Great Awakening”. This was a series of four religious revivals. The first preluded the Revolutionary war and included men like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, along with the founders of the Methodist church John and Charles Wesley (Charles Wesley the writer of over 6,500 hymns). The second was post Revolutionary war and led up to the Civil War. The third was post revolutionary war and included men like D.L. Moody, Hudson Taylor, and the expansion of Christianity back into Eastern nations like China with the China inland mission. And the Fourth leading up to the 1980’s which included Billy Graham and the charismatic Jesus movement which created contemporary worship music.

Since 1611 the process of translating Scripture has improved. In 1946 we discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls which gave us older and more accurate copies of Scripture. It also proved that the copies of Scripture we had were in almost every instance the same as the older documents. Typically in ancient documents newer versions meant less accurate than older versions because over time things get lost or mistranslated. But the Dead Sea Scrolls showed us that the process of copying Scripture was extremely accurate. This, along with new developments in textual criticism mean that the Bible translations we have now are extremely reliable. Today with new technology the world is a lot smaller than it has ever been. The Gospel continues to spread and Bibles are translated into 736 different languages.

What is the point of all this?

Seeing the example of believers who came before us helps us learn from their mistakes or be encouraged by their example of faithfulness.

It helps us see how we fit into God’s redemptive story and how His faithfulness to broken people has endured through generations.

It reminds us the importance of His Word to how we live our life.

It reminds us that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves, that because someone was faithful to us in sharing the Gospel we can follow our history back to Jesus who is the head of the Church.

1 Peter 1:24–25 NASB95

For, “All flesh is like grass, And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, And the flower falls off, But the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word which was preached to you.