Church History: 16th Century - Recovering the Gospel

Introduction

The overarching thread underpinning all four of our Church History talks is:

W”hat is the True Church: i.e. what does the Church believe

and by whose authority do we make that claim?

Each period of church history has answered answers these questions differently - but it all points to a descenebale claim

… that there is something like a True Church

and, that there have been, there are, and there will be, no doubt,

many false churches.

In the first period we looked at, we saw that

the Authority to determine what Church is

it’s purpose and its beliefs

shifted from the living apostles

to written texts

and Jesus left the task of procaliming the Gospel

to the gathered church

What they believed was soon put down as The Apostles Creed

The medieval period sees power shifting towards institutional structures.

Popes & Councils claim ultimate authority.

Today we come to The Reformation

which, I believe we will see,

was a movement, to recover the ultimate authority of the Church

in the Bible! - Sola Scriptura:

The modern era navigates the long shadow of the Reformation.Confessions & Conscience:

So, as we finished up last week, David asked whether I was going to say something about John Wycliffe:

I said I would, but that I would like to do so, this week.

Why this week?

Because John Wycliffe fits into Church History more in the Reformation Era

than in the medieval period.

John Wycliffe was one of those voices

that God sends,

at just the right time -

By God’s grace and mercy,

John Wycliffe may be considered as a pioneer of the Reformation!

That’s why I mention him this week.

The Pre-Reformation Reformers - John Wycliffe 1330-1384

What, were the “faults” in Wycliffe’s time?

Well, the answer lies in the questions

that kept Wycliffe

(and us)

busy,

… throughout History.

Whose church is it that we are talking about ( … throughout all of history, it turns out)?

and, who gets to say how we are to BE! the true Church?

These two questions were again front and centre in Wycliffe’s time

( … and, in some ways they still are).

For Wycliffe, the issues included, especially:

priestly confession (the Tridentine Formula)

… but, also,

clerical celibacy,

the veneration of images and relics,

transubstantiation,

(and, significantly as we make our way towards the Reformation)

the matter of Indulgences

These things, as far as John Wycliffe’s was concerned,

was, simply - and they are! -

unbiblical.

//// //// ////

The Pre-Reformation Reformers - Jan Hus (1372-1415)

A contemporary of Wycliffe (within one generation), was

Jan Hus (1372-1415)

Hus was equally a man for the hour in Church History!

Hus was an ordained Priest

and a celebrated preacher

at Prague’s Bethlehem Chapel

Hus, as a young man,

was drawn to Wycliffe’s political doctrines

particularly his rejection of clerical property ownership

and the hierarchical church structures being debated at the time.

Like Wycliffe,

Hus grounded Church authority - in Scripture!

And, so, when Pope John XXIII issued indulgences

to fund a crusade, in 1411,

Hus denounced the practice as heresy,

… and Prague’s citizens burned the papal bull in protest (1412).

Unpopular in the Church,

in, in 1414,

Hus was summoned to the Council of Constance (1414-1418),

Hus went,

(knowing that his teaching was under accusation)

and believing he could answer it.

At the council,

Hus was soon accused of being the worst kind of Heretic!

Hus, may have underestimated the animosity towards him,

although, by then

he had already been called an Heretic

by the Archbishop of Prague,

and, he had been excommunicated, twice, in 1410, and 1412.

King Sigismund (1368–1437), who wanted the council to succeed,

gave Hus a “safe conduct” to travel to Constance and state his case.

(King Sigismund was the son of the Emperor Charles IV!)

(Some of Hus’ friends warned him against going,

and he is said to have known the danger.)

But, he went, anyway,

and found that the King’s safe conduct

did not protect him.

Hus was arrested in November 1414,

tried for heresy,

condemned by the Council,

and on the 6 July 1415, he was burned at the stake.

(Wycliffe’s bones were burned in 1428!)

By 1419, when Sigismund claimed the Crown of Bohemia,

his reign was soon publicly challenged

… by what became known as the Hussite Wars,

a direct consequence of Hus’s execution,

and, perhaps, the early sign of the Reformation battle to come.

And what was at stake, was - The Gospel!

Recovering the Gospel - a Beginning …

By the 1500’s,

conditions ideal for widespread reform, had emerged.

The Lollards, followers of John Wycliffe

championed an English Bible translation

and resisted the doctrinal and moral corruption in the papal church.

But, Wycliffe’s early would be Reformation legacy

(including the rebellion of the Lollards;

and the uprising of the Waldensians, within the Papal Church)

was soon suppressed by the Crown.

In Prague (or, Bohemia) the Hussite Wars followed Hus’ burning,

and for a while it looked like Reform was imminent.

but internal division soon all but destroyed the Rebellion.

But, the tide had started to turn!

A New Climate, the Beginning of Reformation

Starting in the early 1500’s,

many people, ordinary people,

were increasingly agitated by growing church corruption in the Church.

And, importantly, the Renaissance … was well and truly underway!

With the Renaissance, came Renaissance Humanism

becoming the cultural and educational mind shift.

( … away from “religious” thought, superstition,

and a leaning towards Humanist

(“Man is the measure of all things”), thought)

There was a surge in the study of

literature,

art,

and an understanding of Civilisation itself, as concept

as it was investigated through the study

of the development of the concept, in

Ancient Greece

and Ancient Rome.

(What we might call, the “Classics”)

And then, significantly, in 1450

the Gutenberg’s printing press appeared.

***(Take and show my framed document replica)

This period also marked rapid socio-economic change,

with the emergence of the Middle Class!

(contra Clerics and The Feudal Lords’ power was diminished)!

And from different fronts, the cry for the Reformation gained voice

until, in 1517 ( … 509 years ago! … 150 years after Wycliffe and Hus!)

Martin Luther was moved by God to take up his hammer and nails,

and say:

“Enough!”

II. The Three Main Branches of The Reformation

The sixteenth-century Reformation split in the 1520s

into two main branches:

The Lutheran churches,

The Reformed churches.

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Luther stands as the defining figure of the Reformation.

A brilliant scholar fluent in Hebrew and Greek,

he became the era’s most widely published author

writing theological treatises,

Bible translations,

sermons,

hymns,

and extensive correspondence (Erasmus).

His October 31, 1517 posting of ninety-five theses

challenged papal authority … over - indulgences!

This sparked controversy

that led to riots

and, ultimately, his excommunication in 1521.

In 1521 he was outlawed by Emperor Charles V.

Though he intended reform within Catholicism,

his condemnation became the catalyst

for permanently dividing Western Christendom

into … competing confessions!

Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531)

In Switzerland, Huldrych Zwingli led the Swiss Reformation,

from Zurich,

Zwingli was influenced by Luther’s writings

and it can be said it transferred him from Church critic

to passionate Reformer!

However, one of the thorns in Luther’s academic contemplation,

Erasmus (a Humanist!)

… whom Zwingli met personally in 1515

profoundly shaped Zwingli’s theological method (ad fontus)

and scriptural approach (Exegesis; Christ centred theology)

For our Golden Thread in this series of talks:

Zwingli prioritised Scripture over human tradition,

(the Tridentine Formula)

and, he stripped Zurich’s churches of images, organs, and vestments.

So did Luther,

but:

Zwingli differed significantly with Luther - and the Papal Church - on

the Lord’s Supper

and this lead to fractured Protestant unity.

More so than Luther,

Zwingli envisioned the church as a holy community

reshaping society according to biblical principles.

If Zwingli was the founder of the Reformed Church, John Calvin was its organiser!

John (Iohannes Calvinus) Calvin (1509-1564)

Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion,

first published in 1536 and repeatedly enlarged through 1559,

systematically articulated Reformed doctrine

with unprecedented clarity.

While Luther provided the Reformation’s theological genius,

Calvin offered its clearest expression,

extending practical academic guidance,

through commentaries and treatises

to reform Religious movements across Europe - and beyond!

His teachings on

human depravity,

divine sovereignty,

predestination,

church government,

and the sacraments

profoundly shaped Reformed theology.

Through tireless writing

Calvin’s vision of Christianity

“Reformed by the Word of God”

became the dominant Reformed perspective.

(It is interesting to see that that is ever since those days

still the battle in the Church

the battle for the supremacy of God’s Word in the Church!)

**(At the heart of the question

of Women as Elders and Ministers of the Word and Sacraments,

is the argument of the infallibility and inerrancy of The Bible)!

It was Calvin who perhaps more than others,

turned Geneva into a model Reformed city,

Reformed Christianity also soon became broadly international,

spreading into:

Scotland,

the Netherlands,

France,

and becoming influential! … in

England (especially among the Puritans)

Scotland

It was Patrick Hamilton who introduced Lutheran ideas to Scotland

after studying at Wittenberg,

but his execution in 1528 prompted Protestant intellectuals to flee.

John Knox, influenced by George Wishart’s martyrdom,

became Scotland’s Reformation’s driving force

after his release from galley slavery.

Summoned by the Lords of the Congregation,

Knox sparked iconoclasm across the nation

through fiery preaching against idolatry.

In 1560, Parliament abolished papal authority

and adopted the Scots Confession

under Knox’s influence.

**(more on the Scots Confession, soon)

The Netherlands

Luther’s and Calvin’s teachings reached Holland through Protestant merchants in Amsterdam and Antwerp, reinforced by German and Swiss troops plus French, German, and English refugees fleeing persecution.3 Reformed faith operated underground as “Churches under the Cross” until 1560, when pastor Guido de Brès authored the Belgic Confession, adopted alongside the Heidelberg Catechism at the 1566 Synod of Antwerp.4 William of Orange renounced Catholicism for the Dutch Reformed cause, leading resistance against Spanish imperialism

**(More on the Belgic Confession, soon)

France

Calvin launched the French Reformation in Paris but fled to Geneva, remaining its leader from exile and providing the Huguenots their theological framework and church structure.6 By Calvin’s death in 1564, Reformed faith claimed 20 percent of France’s population, including half the aristocracy and middle class.7 The St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre (1572) devastated Protestants, though Henry IV’s 1598 Edict of Nantes granted legal existence to approximately 760 congregations.

England

The Reformation reached England through King Henry VIII’s political crisis—his desire for divorce, which the Pope refused, resulting in the Church of England’s separation from Rome.1 Lutheranism initially influenced early English reform, but Swiss and German Reformed theology soon dominated.2 Edward VI favored Reformation, enabling leaders like Archbishop Cranmer to advance reform.2 Mary Tudor reversed course, burning hundreds of Protestants.2 After her death, English Protestants returned from Geneva with Calvinist theology, pushing further reforms under Elizabeth I.

IV. The Reformed Confessions as Living Theology

As Reformers attacked abuses and non-biblical elements,

they also endeavoured to state clearly

the essentials of Christian faith.

This was most evident

in the many confessions and catechisms produced.

Reformed churches produced at least fifty confessional documents

within their first fifty years

Major statements, include

the Zwinglian documents (1523–1531),

the first Basel Confession (1534),

and the Tetrapolitan Confession (1530).

The Gallican Confession (1559), still in force in France,

and the Belgic Confession (1561),

(acknowledged by the Reformed Church of the Netherlands),

represent key regional expressions.

The Second Helvetic Confession (1556), written by Bullinger,

was adopted in Swiss cantons,

where it remains in force.

The Heidelberg Catechism (1563)

became the most successful Reformed catechism

and remains in general use.

The Scottish Confessions of 1560 and 1580

provided strong anti-Catholic statements.

England’s Thirty-Nine Articles (1563)

modified Cranmer’s earlier formulations, and

later documents

include the Canons of Dort (1618–1619), and

the Westminster Standards.

Conclusion - Quo Vadis?

Our Church,

holds to the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647)

as it’s “subordinate” standard,

with the Bible as our Supreme Standard!

Our Church also accepts

the Apostles’ Creed,

The Nicene Creed

and, The Athanasian Creed,

as ecumenical statements of the faith.

… but, how can we find a guiding North Star for our Church, in our time?

The Five Solas!

If I may, please allow me to leave you with a question:

Can it be

— that if we keep the Five Solas front and centre

knowing how they came to be,

as we study Church History

and God’s Word!

— even as we work and play in our confusing times

with its divisions,

and ontological confusion …

— if we keep the Five Solas, as our North Star?

holding to them, as the heartbeat of our Church,

(… just as they were the heartbeat of the Reformation Struggle)

standing up for it’s truth,

and defending them,

as they point to the Confessions of the Church

accepting they shape the responsibility of the Church,

to do all things

to the glory of God!

… the Church will at last become less divided

less fractured,

and we will grow in Peace and Understanding,

more ready for the return of our Lord!

Let’s all say it together:-

The Five Solas

Sola Scriptura

Sola Gratia

Sola Fide

Solus Christus

Soli Deo Gloria

Amen!