Western Christianity changed forever during Martin Luther's lifetime. Profoundly gifted and profoundly flawed, Luther had an enduring desire to proclaim "Jesus Christ and him crucified." As a result of Luther's untiring efforts, Christian leaders across Europe sought to bring all of life into accordance with God's Word, often achieving very different results. Of the many expressions of Christianity that emerged during this time, the Anabaptists puzzled and distressed Catholics and Protestants alike. In this message, Dr. Godfrey discusses the enduring legacies of both Martin Luther and the Anabaptist movement.

Western Christianity changed forever during Martin Luther's lifetime. Profoundly gifted and profoundly flawed, Luther had an enduring desire to proclaim "Jesus Christ and him crucified." As a result of Luther's untiring efforts, Christian leaders across Europe sought to bring all of life into accordance with God's Word, often achieving very different results. Of the many expressions of Christianity that emerged during this time, the Anabaptists puzzled and distressed Catholics and Protestants alike. In this message, Dr. Godfrey discusses the enduring legacies of both Martin Luther and the Anabaptist movement.

The Renaissance was a reaction against the attitude of the Middle Ages. And the Reformation was the passionate, divisive argument that grew out of it. Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, Anabaptists – our present–day divisions were the front–page headlines of the Reformation. Volume three of 2,000 Years of Christ’s Power, in showing the progression of the Reformation era, and the daring bravery of its figures, presents a period of history from which there are many lessons to be learnt – not least of all, the vibrancy of people’s lives and the courage with which they faced death.

sorely misguided attempt to please God.

Only one thing resulted from Luther’s ardent work: he found himself even further away from God and mired in anxiety. Later in life, he even suffered physically from his earlier attempt to attain righteousness by these efforts. But in His grace, God reached down to Luther. We can't grasp grace naturally. That’s why grace grasps us.

One branch of the Reformation initially celebrated this glorious truth of grace and then departed from it. In Zurich, there arose the Anabaptists. In addition to their other beliefs, they advocated withdrawing from society and living in segregated communities. They would soon develop a dress code and rules for how they would live and work. They called themselves the Mennonites, as they followed the teachings of Menno Simons (1496–1561). In 1693, Jakob Ammann broke from the Mennonites over the practice of “the ban”—shunning those who transgress rules. His followers would be known as the Amish. They went beyond the gospel to regulations and traditions.

The same dynamic occurred in the twentieth century in various pockets of fundamentalism. I remember walking into a church in the 1970s and being confronted with two large diagrams showing acceptable hair and clothing guidelines for men and for women. Christianity was reduced to lists, mostly of what not to do.

As Christ confronted legalism on nearly every page of the Gospels, you can find legalism throughout the pages of church history. So, too, you can find the opposite. Antinomianism thrived during the Reformation. It also thrived and continues to thrive amid pockets of fundamentalism. Sadly, we can tell the whole story of mankind’s misguided quest for God by tracing these ever-present threads of legalism and antinomianism.

Legalism in Life

The opposite of legalism is not license. It is liberty. Luther called Galatians his “Katie.” “I am betrothed to it,” he would say. That is a compliment that goes two ways. It reflects how deeply he loved his wife, and it reflects how deeply he loved the message of Galatians. It is the “Epistle of Liberty.”

In our attempt to uncover the roots of legalism, we must look ultimately at our own lives. Incurvitas keeps us from seeing our true need. It tricks us into thinking we are basically good and only need to be better. Legalism is truly damning and rather damaging. Legalism can even catapult us to its opposite, to a life of license and a life, ultimately, of rebellion.

The reality is that we are not good. How ironic that part of the “good news” of the gospel is that we are not good at all. And because we are not good, we could never look to ourselves but must look to the One born of a woman, born under the law. He is the only righteous One. He kept the law and bore its punishment for those who trust in Him. God pours out His grace freely upon us because of what Christ has done for us. Christ has set us free (Gal. 5:1).

That is an interesting question. There has been some historical debate about that. I actually do not think the Baptists came from the Anabaptists.

The Anabaptists were a movement beginning in the sixteenth century and are best known today in terms of groups like the Mennonites and the Amish. They reacted viscerally against the wealth of the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century but saw the antidote as a simple, disciplined life. The Anabaptists were often not very strong on theology or understanding justification by faith alone.

I think the real history of the Baptists rose out of seventeenth century Calvinist circles in England who felt that practicing believer’s baptism was a better way to spiritual discipline and a properly organized church.

I love when someone brings up Zwingli. He is sometimes a forgotten Reformer. He’s at Zürich, and if you’ve seen any spy movies, Zürich is always in the storyline.

Zwingli’s career as a Reformer spans about ten years, and he’s being worked on throughout that period. He’s a student at Basel when Erasmus is putting together the Greek text, and he’s likely helping in the production of the Greek New Testament in 1516.

He takes a copy of the Greek text with him to his first parish priest job, which was a shrine. It was full of people coming to see the shrine and a Mary apparition or something along those lines. Zwingli would go do mass at ten o’clock, then have the rest of the day free because that’s all he had to do. So in 1517-1519, he spends much of his time in his study, hand-copying a printed Greek text to make his own copy. Talk about being immersed in the Word.

After this, he gets the post at Zürich. On New Year’s Day in 1520, he decides he’s going to do something novel. He’s going to start at Matthew 1:1 and preach through the New Testament.

Within two years, there is a sausage supper at Zürich, which involves a bunch of middle-aged men sitting around eating sausage. Zwingli and other priests are there, such as Conrad Grebel, who goes on to be one of the Anabaptists. Christoph Froschauer, the printer, is there. The printer is one of the most well-respected guys in the town. Zwingli does not partake. He cuts up the sausage and serves it, but he doesn’t eat it. What’s the significance of this? It’s Friday and it’s Lent.

The next Sunday, Zwingli gets up in the pulpit, and he preaches a sermon titled “On the Choice and Freedom of Foods.” First of all, it's a great sermon title. Zwingli says: “Look, Lent’s not in the text. The Roman Catholic Church has built all of these structures around us, which is just obscuring the gospel.”

It’s like when you go see some great site in Europe and they’re cleaning it, so they have scaffolding. You didn’t go to see the scaffolding. You went to see St. Peter’s Dome in London. This is what Zwingli does: he rips down the scaffolding, shows people the gospel, and the Reformation comes to Zürich. The whole city votes on it and becomes Reformed.

Ten years later, in 1530, Zwingli dies on the battlefield. There is a great statue of him at Zürich next to his church where he has a Bible in one hand and a big sword in the other. Zwingli is a colorful, fascinating figure. If anybody looks into him, they’d be glad they did.

HORTON: This is where a quote from Calvin is so helpful. The Anabaptists, the radical Protestants of Calvin’s day, believed that secular learning itself—secular culture, secular science, secular rhetoric, and logic—was sinful. We should just study the Bible and get everything out of the Bible.

And the Reformers just were completely opposed to that idea, because it was undermining this very doctrine of God’s common grace—that God has graced the world with all sorts of truth, goodness, and beauty that we cannot destroy, though we would if we could. And that the Holy Spirit is at work, restraining people from being as evil as they could be in their destructive capabilities.

So Calvin says, “You’re insulting the Holy Spirit if you don’t believe this. If you think that a non-Christian can’t contribute anything to medicine, science, the arts, and so forth, then you are discrediting the Holy Spirit. You are insulting the Holy Spirit.” It’s a pretty strong statement.

Now then the question is, Do we know enough about what the Bible says to know when it’s being contradicted?

I think there are a lot of people who try to integrate any discipline we could think of but psychology especially, these sciences that are closer to theology, closer to making normative statements about the human person. A lot of people have a Sunday School understanding of theology and a graduate school understanding of psychology. And I think it’s really important to have a conversation where you have people who are saying, “You said ‘sin,’ but what I’m hearing is ‘dysfunction,’” and, “You’ve been using the word ‘saved,’ but do you really mean ‘recovery’?” What is the language you’re using here, and how is it being transformed in ways that aren’t helpful?

But we don’t simply reject every secular term that’s out there, or we would reject physics and biology and so forth.

There are a lot of issues that I’ve seen in the lives of people around me where, if they had not had a good psychologist and psychiatrist, they would have been in great trouble. If they had had a Christian come and tell them, “You need to pray more and read your Bible more and not see a psychologist or psychiatrist”—I’m talking about one who’s not undermining their faith—that would have been a great disservice to them.

GODFREY: Just as if someone has a clear pastoral sin problem, you want to send them to the most theologically reliable pastor you can find.

I think part of the problem a lot of us feel when we’re thinking about the usefulness of a psychologist or a psychiatrist is whether we are finding—to mix terms—the “Calvinist” one or the “Pelagian” one. And I think a lot of us feel we don’t know enough about psychology always to make those distinctions, and I think that’s why we struggle.

But I think you’re absolutely right. If we can find a “Calvinist” psychologist that would be the ideal thing, someone who knows about how our minds are working in ways that go beyond

I stood at the graveside of a dear, gentle, gracious, and generous saint and looked around at the mourners. I was puzzled by the presence of a group of people who had been absent from the earlier church service.

Then I remembered--my friend had once belonged to a church that practiced “second-degree separation.” These were his former fellow pilgrims. They knew we believed and preached the gospel; but we did not practice the levels of separation they did. For them, separation from our worship was an expression of faithfulness. For me, it left only a taste of sadness.

New Testament Context

The New Testament does contain teaching on “separation.” Over the centuries, some of the greatest minds have wrestled with how to apply it—Augustine in dealing with the Donatists, Calvin in dealing with radical Anabaptists (in his dauntingly titled Brief Instruction for Arming All the Good Faithful Against the Errors of the Common Sect of the Anabaptists).

The New Testament letters refer to various kinds of separation, always in the recognition that we—and indeed the church—remain simul justus et peccator (at the same time just and sinner). The setting apart of the church (sanctification) is not glorification. Until Christ’s return, there is only a pilgrim church here on the earth, not a perfected one.

The challenges are therefore fairly obvious. Those who effect separation are themselves sinners. So the questions of when, why, and how to separate are of cardinal importance. The New Testament gives us principles; it does not provide us with a single, simple sentence that relieves us of the task of thinking through and wisely applying the Scriptures to each unique situation. Biblical teaching can sometimes be expressed only in compound-complex sentences. In the limited space of this article, we can reflect on only a few aspects of its teaching on separation.

Principles of Separation

Here, then, are several biblical principles that should govern our thinking:

First, there is a separation of the church within the world. The principle by which we live is not “how can I avoid contact with the world so as to be separate from it?” Rather, it is “how can I live in the world yet be free from its influence and by my life actually expose its contagion?” (Eph. 5:11). As the light of the world, we shine in its darkness; as the salt of the earth, we preserve only if we are present in it. Separation here means that we are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14). We must never compromise our distinctiveness for the sake of mutual activity. (Yet there is also a complex sentence here, for a Christian “unequally yoked” in marriage should not throw o” that yoke under this pretext; see 1 Corinthians 7:12.)

Paul’s teaching in this context is crystal clear, yet perhaps sufficiently surprising to require a second reading: “I wrote to you not to associate with sexually immoral people—*not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then

biblical orthodoxy and civic loyalty of reforming Christians. Not surprisingly, the author denounced “the Anabaptists, other anarchists, and in general all those who want to reject the authorities and civil officers and to subvert justice” (art. 36; cf. 18, 34). But the confession was not just a legal defense. It was a true apologetic; one first-edition printing prominently quoted 1 Peter 3:15. The writer was honoring Christ the Lord as holy by offering a defense of the reason for his hope in God. It has been compellingly argued that the Belgic Confession is an outreach document with “an original missionary nature and intent.” Its author was clearly driven by missionary zeal. “I proclaimed the Gospel,” he wrote, “and instructed the people in the knowledge of the Son of God, and if I had a hundred thousand lives I would be willing to expose them all to death for the confirmation of that doctrine.” Following the publication of his confession, de Bres again went on the run, this time to France. But the hunt was intensifying. Authorities searched de Bres’ home, confiscated his books and papers, and publicly burned his effigy.

By 1566, the situation seemed safer for Protestants in the Low Lands. Returning again from exile, his preaching drew so many listeners that no building could hold the crowds. So he preached in fields, sometimes to as many as twenty-five thousand people. As the Reformation gained sway, Protestants demanded use of existing buildings for Reformed worship services. When the request was denied, against de Bres’ instructions, mobs descended on Roman Catholic Church buildings, destroying images and furniture deemed offensive to biblical worship.

The authorities’ response was swift and firm. After a short siege, the soldiers of Phillip II finally arrested de Bres in 1567 and imprisoned him for two and a half months. While incarcerated, de Bres wrote moving letters to his mother and to his wife Catherine, whom he called his “dear and beloved wife and sister in our Savior Jesus Christ” and who had borne him five children in their eight years of marriage. As de Bres was escorted to the gallows, he encouraged his fellow prisoners: “I would never have thought that God would have given me such an honor” as to die for Him.

This article is part of the Missionary Biographies collection.

to understand that Luther was not a superhuman being. He was a man providentially placed by God in the midst of extraordinary circumstances.

The same style of writing is evident in the remaining chapters of the book. We find the Reformation initiated in Switzerland during a sausage supper in Zurich with a notable young priest named Zwingli present. We discover the origins of the Anabaptists, those Christians whose convictions concerning baptism and the separation of the church and state often resulted in their martyrdom. We encounter the young John Calvin, whose overnight stop in Geneva on his way to Strasbourg ultimately changed his life and the course of church history. We see the Reformation gain a foothold in England as a result of a king’s desire for a male heir. In all of this, we are introduced to a fascinating and diverse cast of characters, from the soul-searching Martin Luther to the soul-selling Johann Tetzel, from the non-compromising John Knox to the pragmatic Thomas Cranmer.

In his chapter on the Puritans, appropriately titled “Men in Black,” Nichols clears away centuries of misrepresentation. He describes the roots of puritanism in the ups and downs of the reformation in England, agreeing with one scholar that puritanism was the “real English Reformation.” In his concluding chapter, Nichols introduces us to some of the unsung women of the Reformation, the wives of the Reformers as well as women who made significant contributions to the Reformation on their own.

The church must not forget the lessons learned during the Reformation. We cannot forget what happens when the gospel is obscured and distorted. The Reformation does still matter. Read Stephen Nichols’ book and discover why.

of sin, being in him as a root thereof; and therefore is so vile and abominable in the sight of God that it is sufficient to condemn all mankind. Nor is it by any means abolished or done away by baptism; since sin always issues forth from this woeful source as water from a fountain; notwithstanding it is not imputed to the children of God unto condemnation, but by His grace and mercy is forgiven them. Not that they should rest securely in sin, but that a sense of this corruption should make believers often to sigh, desiring to be delivered from this body of death. Wherefore we reject the error of the Pelagians, who assert that sin proceeds only from imitation.

Article 16

Eternal Election

We believe that all the posterity of Adam, being thus fallen into perdition and ruin by the sin of our first parents, God then did manifest Himself such as He is; that is to say, merciful and just: merciful, since He delivers and preserves from this perdition all whom He, in His eternal and unchangeable counsel, of mere goodness hath elected in Christ Jesus our Lord, without any respect to their works; just, in leaving others in the fall and perdition wherein they have involved themselves.

Article 17

The Recovery of Fallen Man

We believe that our most gracious God, in His admirable wisdom and goodness, seeing that man had thus thrown himself into temporal and spiritual death, and made himself wholly miserable, was pleased to seek and comfort him when he trembling fled from His presence, promising him that He would give His Son, who should be made of a woman, to bruise the head of the serpent, and would make him happy.

Article 18

Of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ

We confess, therefore, that God did fulfull the promise which He made to the fathers by the mouth of His holy prophets when He sent into the world, at the time appointed by Him, His own only-begotten and eternal Son, who took upon Him the form of a servant, and became like unto man, really assuming the true human nature, with all its infirmities, sin excepted, being conceived in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary, by the power of the Holy Ghost, without the means of man; and did not only assume human nature as to the body, but also a true human soul, that He might be a real man. For since the soul was lost as well as the body, it was necessary that He should take both upon him, to save both. Therefore we confess (in opposition to the heresy of the Anabaptists, who deny that Christ assumed human flesh of His mother) that Christ is become a partaker of the flesh and blood of the children; that He is a fruit of the loins of David after the flesh; made of the seed of David according to the flesh; a fruit of the womb of the Virgin Mary; made of

the Holy Ghost were an idle matter.

But since we speak of such faith as is not an idle thought, but of that which liberates from death and produces a new life in hearts, [which is such a new light, life, and force in the heart as to renew our heart, mind, and spirit, makes new men of us and new creatures,] and is the work of the Holy Ghost; this does not coexist with mortal sin [for how can light and darkness coexist?], but as long as it is present, produces good fruits, as we will say after a while. For concerning the conversion of the wicked, or concerning the mode of regeneration, what can be said that is more simple and more clear? Let them, from so great an array of writers, adduce a single commentary upon the Sententiae that speaks of the mode of regeneration. When they speak of the habit of love, they imagine that men merit it through works, and they do not teach that it is received through the Word, precisely as also the Anabaptists teach at this time. But God cannot be treated with, God cannot be apprehended, except through the Word. Accordingly, justification occurs through the Word, just as Paul says, Rom. 1:16: The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Likewise Rom. 10:17: Faith cometh by hearing. And proof can be derived even from this that faith justifies, because, if justification occurs only through the Word, and the Word is apprehended only by faith, it follows that faith justifies. But there are other and more important reasons. We have said these things thus far in order that we might show the mode of regeneration, and that the nature of faith [what is, or is not, faith], concerning which we speak, might be understood.

Now we will show that faith [and nothing else] justifies. Here, in the first place, readers must be admonished of this, that just as it is necessary to maintain this sentence: Christ is Mediator, so is it necessary to defend that faith justifies, [without works]. For how will Christ be Mediator if in justification we do not use Him as Mediator; if we do not hold that for His sake we are accounted righteous? But to believe is to trust in the merits of Christ, that for His sake God certainly wishes to be reconciled with us. Likewise, just as we ought to maintain that, apart from the Law, the promise of Christ is necessary, so also is it needful to maintain that faith justifies. [For the Law does not preach the forgiveness of sin by grace.] For the Law cannot be performed unless the Holy Ghost be first received. It is, therefore, needful to maintain that the promise of Christ is necessary. But this cannot be received except by faith. Therefore, those who deny that faith justifies, teach nothing but the Law, both Christ and the Gospel being set aside.

But when it is

account for the biblical teaching about Christ's ascension, the promise of the Holy Spirit, and the consubstantiality (of the same essence) of Christ's humanity with ours.

Through the middle decades of the sixteenth century, the Genevans, the Heidelbergers, and the French, Belgic, and Dutch Reformed churches moved beyond Zurich on the supper. From the early 1540s until his death, John Calvin taught that in the supper, Christ feeds the believer on His true body and blood, through faith, by the mysterious operation of the Holy Spirit. The French Confession (1559), the Belgic Confession (1561), and the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) confess this high doctrine.

The recovery of the ancient Christian doctrine and practice of the sacraments was so essential to the Reformation that the Reformed churches in Europe and the British Isles spoke of the right use of the sacraments as "marks" of the true church. In article twenty-nine of the Belgic Confession, the French and Dutch-speaking churches confessed that there are three marks of a true church: the "pure preaching of the gospel," the "pure administration of the sacraments," and the "use of church discipline." The phrase "pure administration" of the sacraments was a shorthand way of rejecting both the Anabaptists and Rome.

During the 2017 Reformation celebration, you may hear tour guides say that the Reformers removed sacraments from the church. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Reformation was not vandalism but a recovery of a pearl of great price: the two sacraments instituted by our Savior along with the good news they signify and seal.

Catholic Counter-Reformation. Radical Reformers were a very diverse crowd; these days they are commonly divided into Anabaptists, Rationalists, and Spiritualists, while some historians add Apocalyptic Millennialists. They often started out as followers of Luther and Zwingli who then broke free and took their own course.

Amid their diversities, Radical Reformers were at one in rejecting the Protestant view of Scripture and justification by faith alone. The most enduring of the evangelical Anabaptist groups, the Mennonites, had a Roman Catholic understanding of the canon of Scripture (accepting the Apocrypha). All Radical Reformers repudiated infant baptism but were not agreed on what to put in its place (believers’ baptism? Spirit baptism?). Any connection between church and state, however tenuous, they also disowned—perhaps one area where most modern Protestants empathize.

The Counter-Reformation was the internal reform undertaken by the Roman church, partly in response to the Protestant Reformation. Some of the reform currents within Rome were (from a Protestant standpoint) very positive, notably the Catholic evangelical movement, which embraced justification by faith. However, what finally emerged was a Roman church solidified into a stance of militant anti-Protestantism. Theologically, this took place through the Council of Trent, where over a twenty-year period Roman doctrine was codified with a new anti-Protestant precision and clarity. At a more grassroots level, this militant hostility to the Protestant Reformation was championed with unbounded vigor by the new monastic order known as the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits.

By the time the dust settled, Europe found itself split down the middle along religious lines, with (roughly) a Protestant north facing a Roman Catholic south. Radicals, scattered on both sides of the divide, were persecuted wherever they lived. One hundred and fifty years of religious “cold war” lay ahead, sometimes heating up into devastating military conflicts that ravaged the soil of Europe and drenched it in blood. At least in Britain, the cause of Protestantism became allied to the cause of constitutional government, with far-reaching effects on the future of America.

A proper study of the Reformation, then, shows us that far from being an inexplicable bolt from the blue, it was at every point immersed in the history of its times. It had roots and antecedents; it had identifiable channels of influence; and it became deeply entwined with the politics and culture of its own unique day (now five hundred years distant from us). If I may, in conclusion, dare to quote something I once said: In many ways, the Protestant Reformers were profoundly people of their own times, as we are of ours. We shouldn’t expect perfection of them, any more than a future generation will discover perfection in us. We will certainly find, though, as we immerse ourselves in the Reformation era, that (as Hollywood used to claim of its lms) “all life is here.” We may also find that this life—so fresh, boisterous, and daring—has much to give us today, in our own comparative jadedness and superficiality.

finally regenerate, elect, or justified until the last day. They either redefine or mock the historic understanding of justification by divine favor alone (sola gratia) through faith alone (sola fide) as "easy believism." Like the modernists who would take us back to the Anabaptists on the doctrine of Scripture, advocates of the Federal Vision seek to take us back to the pre-Reformation church in the doctrine of salvation, and as they do so, they invoke the slogan ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda.

When Calvin and others in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries wrote of the church reformed and of the necessity of reforming the church, they were expressing their consciousness that, because of sin and its effects, the church tends toward corruption. Within just a few decades of recovering the gospel of free acceptance by God through faith alone, the Protestants nearly lost that precious truth in the 1550s. Reformation can be and has been achieved in this life, but it is not easy to retain it. By the time of late-seventeenth-century Geneva, the church had enjoyed the ministry of some of the most courageous ministers and professors in the Reformation: William Farel, John Calvin, Pierre Viret, Theodore Beza, and Francis Turretin, to name but a few. By the early eighteenth century, however, the Reformation was virtually extinct in Geneva, and has not yet been fully recovered.

There is much truth in the slogan the church reformed, always reforming, but it was never intended to become a license for corrupting the Reformed faith. We should understand and use it as a reminder of our proclivity to wander from that theology, piety, and practice taught in Scripture and confessed by the church. Certainly, our confessions are reformable. We Protestants are bound to God's Word as the charter and objective rule of Christian faith and practice. Should someone discover an error in our theology, piety, or practice, we are bound by our own confessions and church orders to hear an argument from God's Word. Should that argument prevail, we must change our understanding or our practice. But we should not, under cover of this late-seventeenth-century slogan, subvert what Scripture teaches for a continuing, never-ending Reformation that leads us away from the heart and soul of what we confess.Ÿ

common Christian view of its world-changing task and criticizes the tactics of the Christian right, the Christian left, and the neo-Anabaptists before offering an alternative proposal. Neither book will convince every reader, but both publications make important contributions to the discussion of culture among Christians.

Several significant works for students of systematic and historical theology were released this year. Christian Focus published a small book that should become required reading for every seminary student. The Trials of Theology_,_ edited by Andrew J.B. Cameron and Brian S. Rosner, contains several essays by luminaries such as Augustine, Luther, Spurgeon, and Warfield on how to navigate the dangers of theological study. It also contains several essays by contemporary authors such as Carson, Carl Trueman, and Gerald Bray focusing on specific areas of theological study.

Reformation Heritage Books published the second volume of Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation. This volume contains translations of thirty-five Reformed confessions written between 1552 and 1566. Some, such as the Belgic Confession, are well known. Others, such as the Confession of Piotrków, are not. By the time this column is published, Reformation Heritage will also have published the works of the great Reformed theologian Herman Witsius. This five-volume set will include a reprint of his classic work on covenant theology, The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man, and his commentaries on the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer.

Students of the early church and patristic theology welcomed the second edition of Frances Young’s From Nicaea to Chalcedon__, one of the most helpful introductions to the writings of the fourth and fifth centuries. Finally, InterVarsity Press has published Shapers of Christian Orthodoxy__, a collection of essays on several important early and medieval theologians, from Irenaeus to Aquinas. For Christian bibliophiles, it has been another very good year.

I remember well the student’s written response during a summer course on the church and sacraments. One of the course goals was to help students understand biblical and theological guidelines for worship. The response was both encouraging and dismaying. After acknowledging that the exercise was beneficial, he wrote, “I never thought much about biblical requirements for worship, but you Presbyterians think about them a lot!” I smiled, thinking: “If you only knew!”

Presbyterians think about worship a great deal because the Protestant Reformation was not only a recovery of sound doctrine, but also a key moment in the renewal of worship. By the late Middle Ages, the simple worship of the early church — synagogue gathering followed by Lord’s Supper — had become encrusted with much that obscured the gospel. Lutheran and Anglican reformers sought a conservative reformation of worship, embracing the idea that “what is not forbidden is allowed.” This view provided much space for adiaphora, or “things indifferent,” and resulted in modest reforms in worship. To this day, worship in these traditions is generally the most elaborate among Protestant denominations.

The reform associated with John Calvin was much more thorough. As my colleague Hughes Oliphant Old puts it, Calvin was concerned that worship be reformed “according to the Scriptures.” Over time, this principle would evolve, eventually becoming known as the “regulative principle of worship” (RPW). The RPW was the hallmark of puritan and Presbyterian worship, although some trace its roots back to Zurich and the Anabaptists. In its most rigid form, the RPW stipulates “that what is commanded is required; what is not commanded is forbidden.” This view allows little space for “things indifferent.”

The RPW first speaks of “elements” of worship. Elements are parts of worship that God Himself has instituted, for example, reading Scripture, prayer, preaching, and the sacraments. Such divinely commanded elements constitute the basis of worship. Proponents argue that the RPW is thoroughly biblical and prevents the people of God from “inventing” new elements of worship, or as some would say, engaging in “will worship.” This desire for biblically grounded worship is praiseworthy and missing in too much of our contemporary worship. But the concept of “elements” does not cover everything involved in a service of worship. In addition to elements, “there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rule of the Word, which are always to be observed” (WCF 1.6). One of the Scots commissioners to the Westminster Assembly, George Gillespie, was a key promoter of the RPW. He explained that circumstances are connected to a sacred act, but no significant part of it.

For Gillespie and others who shared his view, circumstances are adiaphora, but are limited to matters on the periphery of worship. Such circumstances might include the time of gathering for worship on the Lord’s Day, the seating arrangements (pews? folding chairs?), or the psalms

such a way that they may attain to it -- for Baptism was established to direct us toward death and through this death to life -- therefore it is necessary that we come to it in the order which has been prescribed.

To anyone familiar first-hand with the theology of Luther, this passage will appear striking for its use of the Pauline language of life and death which is so characteristic of Luther’s theology of justification. What is of central importance to note is that this was written during the very period when Luther’s theology was moving towards its mature Reformation position on justification and that the two issues are thus inextricably linked. Later historiography and mythology may have isolated the doctrine of justification from Luther’s broader theological biography but, again, that is an error of later tradition not something for which we can blame Luther. To excise Luther’s doctrine of justification from its wider situation in the doctrinal matrix that is his anti-Pelagian soteriology is not a legitimate historical or, one might add, theological move. If further evidence of this is needed, I refer interested parties to Part Four of Luther’s Small Catechism of 1529 and his classic 1520 manifesto of sacramental theology, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, where the language of promise and faith, so central to justification, is also central to his understanding of the sacrament.

The second point concerning baptism is that for Luther it was to be applied to infants. There are, broadly speaking, two dimensions to Luther’s understanding of paedobaptism, one of which remains constant throughout his mature career, and one of which shifts in a subtle fashion. As to the first, the necessity of baptising infants, Luther never wavers, rooting the immediate reason for so doing in the command of God:

We bring the child with the purpose and hope that he may believe, and we pray God to grant him faith. But we do not baptize him on that account, but solely on the command of God. [Lohse, p. 304]

As to the second reason, what we might call the secondary rationale for paedobaptism, this does change somewhat, mainly as a result of the explosive controversies between magisterial Reformers and Anabaptists in the early 1520s. Early in his reforming career, Luther had tended towards the view that children were baptised on the basis of the vicarious faith of their parents. Then, round about 1522-23, he shifted to arguing on occasion that infants themselves possessed faith. Later still, he became more cautious, no doubt concerned about making the sacrament dependent upon the precondition of the presence of faith, and saw the sacrament as anticipating future faith. What is certain is that baptism’s validity was rooted in the word and not in the individual faith of the baptised.

Given all this -- that Luther’s doctrine of justification cannot be isolated from the theological development which also gives us his theology of baptism -- where does that leave Dunn’s accusation that the former is ineradicably and unacceptably individualistic?

Well, first,

If you’ve been in Protestant circles for very long, whether conservative or liberal, you may have heard the phrase “reformed and always reforming” or sometimes just “always reforming.” I hear it a lot these days, especially from friends who want our Reformed churches to be more open to moving beyond the faith and practice that is confessed in our doctrinal standards. Even in Reformed circles of late, various movements have arisen that challenge these standards. How can confessions and catechisms written in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries guide our doctrine, life, and worship in the twenty-first? Liberal Protestants frequently invoked this phrase to justify their captivity to the spirit of the age, but some conservative Protestants also use it to encourage a broader definition of what it means to be Reformed.

But where did this phrase come from? Its first appearance was in a 1674 devotional by Jodocus van Lodenstein, who was an important figure in Dutch Reformed pietism — a movement known as the Dutch Second Reformation. According to these writers, the Reformation reformed the doctrine of the church, but the lives and practices of God’s people always need further reformation.

Van Lodenstein and his colleagues were committed to the teaching of the Reformed confession and catechism; they simply wanted to see that teaching become more thoroughly applied as well as understood. However, here is his whole phrase: “The church is reformed and always [in need of] being reformed according to the Word of God.” The verb is passive: the church is not “always reforming,” but is “always being reformed” by the Spirit of God through the Word. Although the Reformers themselves did not use this slogan, it certainly reflects what they were up to; that is, if one quotes the whole phrase!

Each clause is crucial. First, the church is Reformed, and this should be written with a capitalized “R.” If it is true that Jesus rose from the dead two millennia ago in Palestine, then it is just as true in our time and place. The ecumenical creeds confess the faith that we all share across a multitude of cultures and eras. Similarly, the Reformed standards (such as the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Confession and Catechisms) summarize what Reformed Christians believe to be the clear teaching of God’s Word. Churches will always be changing in significant ways depending on their time and place, but these communal ways of confessing Christ remain faithful summaries of “the faith once and for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

Our forebears who invoked this phrase had in mind the consolidation of catholic and evangelical Christianity embodied in the Reformed confessions and catechisms. There is a reason that this wing of the Reformation called itself “Reformed.” Unlike the Anabaptists, Reformed churches understood themselves as a continuing branch of the catholic church. At the same time, the Reformed wanted to reform everything “according to the Word of God.” Not only our doctrine but our worship and life must be determined by Scripture and

words of de Brès were written shortly before he was martyred by hanging for his faith and witness to the great suffering on the part of evangelical and Reformed believers in the Netherlands. These sturdy believers, who could speak of “joy and gladness” even in the midst of severe persecution, declared in the preface to the Confession that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags, and their whole bodies to the fire,” rather than deny the truth of the Gospel. That these words were no idle boast is attested by the fact that an estimated 100,000 Reformed believers lost their lives during the struggle for the Reformation of the church in the Netherlands.

The purpose for the preparation of the Belgic Confession and its presentation to Philip II is of particular importance. In the face of intense persecution by this Roman Catholic sovereign and his magistrates, Guido de Brès and the Reformed believers of the Netherlands were anxious to demonstrate that their faith was in accord with the teaching of Holy Scripture and the ancient consensus of the holy catholic church and her councils. Consequently, the Belgic Confession has an irenic tone throughout, especially in its careful demonstration of the Reformed faith’s commitment to the great biblical doctrines of the Trinity, as well as the person and work of Christ. Roman Catholic teaching is rejected at critical points, but the aim of the Confession is to persuade its readers that the Reformed faith is nothing other than the historic faith of the Christian church.

Another purpose of the confession, which distinguishes it from the French or Gallican Confession of 1559, with which the Belgic Confession shares many striking similarities, was to demonstrate that the Reformed faith was distinct from that of the “Anabaptists.” Among the Anabaptists, who had considerable influence in the Netherlands in the early period of the Reformation, there were those who not only rejected the practice of infant baptism but also the legitimacy of the civil magistrate as a servant of God and instrument for exercising his rule. The Anabaptists sharply distinguished Christ’s spiritual kingdom, the church, from the civil order, and advocated a strict separation from the world, which required a refusal of military service, the taking of oaths, and the paying of taxes. Some of the most distinct features of the Belgic Confession indicate that it was written to defend the Reformed faith against the assumption that it shared these features of the radical fringe of the Reformation.

Distinctive Content

The Belgic Confession is not a confessional statement like the Canons of Dordt that was written to address a particular doctrinal error. Similar to its precursors, Calvin’s Genevan Confession and the Gallican Confession (both completed in 1559), the Belgic Confession offers a comprehensive statement of the Christian and Reformed faith. Broadly speaking, the contents of the thirty-seven articles that comprise the Confession are distributed according to the three articles of the Apostles’ Creed. After several introductory articles that set forth the

readers need to realize that, although the 1662 Prayer Book is the classic Anglican form that is still used in England, it was replaced in the United States (in 1786) by a form that was closer to the 1549 book. As a result, the American Episcopalian liturgical tradition is more “catholic” and “high church” than its English counterpart.

Until the liturgical reforms of the mid-twentieth century, most Anglicans used the 1662 Prayer Book as a matter of course. Its language and its doctrines penetrated deep into the psyches of the English-speaking peoples, and its power to win souls for Christ is widely attested. Charles Simeon, the great evangelical leader of the early nineteenth century, was converted by reading it in preparing himself to receive communion. The warnings against unworthy reception that the Prayer Book contains went straight to his heart. Simeon repented as the Prayer Book urged him to do, and he gave his life to Christ. In Africa and Asia today, the strength of the Anglican churches there is partly due to the translations of the 1662 Prayer Book, which do not sound archaic in the way that the original English version now does. Tragically, it seems that the current spiritual lethargy of Anglicanism in the English-speaking world is connected to the demise of the Prayer Book since the 1960s. However, there is still a faithful remnant that keeps its witness alive, both in the traditional 1662 form and in modern-language adaptations, and there are signs that a spiritual renewal may be developing that will influence the Anglican Communion in the next generation.

The Thirty-nine Articles are usually printed with the 1662 Prayer Book, but they have a different history. There were forty-two of them in 1552, when Archbishop Cranmer gave them to the church. A revision was made in 1559–63 by some of Cranmer’s disciples, and the number was reduced to thirty-nine, though this was not achieved simply by leaving three of the older articles out. They were rearranged, expanded in some places, and abridged in others, though it must be said that Cranmer’s articles on the millennium, originally designed to counter the Anabaptists, were omitted in the 1563 version. The Articles were given official status by King Charles I in 1628; since then they have been the accepted doctrinal standards of the Church of England. Other Anglican churches have received them to a greater or lesser degree, sometimes with revisions, as happened in the United States (1801). But not all Anglican churches recognize them, and it has to be said that most Anglicans today are scarcely aware of their existence. Even the clergy have seldom studied them, and only evangelicals now take them seriously as doctrine.

The Articles are not a comprehensive systematic theology in the way that the Westminster Confession is, but they do address questions of theological controversy in a systematic way. In that sense, they are more advanced than earlier Protestant doctrinal statements. They start with the doctrine of God, go on to list the canon of

For Martin Luther, the work of Christ came to sinners outwardly in God’s institutions and inwardly by the Holy Spirit and faith. Both the outward and the inward were necessary. He wrote: “Now when God sends forth his holy gospel he deals with us in a twofold manner, first outwardly, then inwardly. Outwardly he deals with us through the oral word of the gospel and through material signs, that is, baptism and the sacrament of the altar. Inwardly he deals with us through the Holy Spirit, faith, and other gifts. But whatever their measure or order the outward factors should and must precede. The inward experience follows and is effected by the outward. For he wants to give no one the Spirit or faith outside of the outward Word and sign instituted by him, as he says in Luke 16[:29], “Let them hear Moses and the prophets.” Accordingly Paul can call baptism a “washing of regeneration” wherein God “richly pours out the Holy Spirit” [Titus 3:5]. And the oral gospel “is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith” (Rom. 1[:16]).

The Christian must give priority to the outward institutions of the Word, both in preaching and in the sacraments. As God came to us in the incarnation, so He continues to come through outward means to accomplish His purpose. They are the means that God has appointed and through which He works by His Spirit.

Luther always stressed that we find God in His institutions, His appointed means, not in our creations or our experiences. We must use God’s ways to come to Him. Luther rejected the inventions of Rome and the claims of the Spirit’s revelations among the Anabaptists. Only the institutions established in the Bible connect us to Jesus. Luther boldly declared that he would rather have Jesus present in the preaching of the Word than in person: Thus He comes to us through the gospel. Yes, it is far better that he comes through the gospel than that he would now enter in through the door; for you would not even know him even though he came in. If you believe then you have; if you do not believe then you do not have.

This excerpt is adapted from W. Robert Godfrey's contribution in The Legacy of Luther editted by W. R.C. Sproul and Stephen Nichols.

Up until the Reformation there was only one institutional church in the West. What did Protestants believe after the Reformation, when various denominations began to arise? W. Robert Godfrey answers this question in this brief clip from his teaching series A Survey of Church History. Watch this entire message for free. 

Transcript

Up until the Reformation, by and large, certainly in the West, there had been one united institutional church. It didn't mean everybody agreed about everything, but at least, theoretically, the institution of the church was united. Now, the institution of the church is divided. There's still, of course, the Roman Catholic church, and there are the Lutheran churches, and there are the Reformed churches, including the Presbyterians in Scotland, but there are also growing other groups, particularly the Anabaptists in the sixteenth century, but over time other groups, as well. What does this mean for the way in which Christians think about the church? In the sixteenth century, when Christians thought about the church, and as the church began to divide, Christians basically thought in terms of the true church and the false church; and what that meant, of course, is, mine is the true church, and yours is the false church. And when the struggle seemed just to be between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church, that two fold division seemed to make sense.

But did the Reformed really want to say the Lutherans were a false church? See, there is pressure now to begin to think, how do we process this, how do we account for this, are there different ways of understanding the unity of the church, the dividedness of the church? This will eventually lead to what today we think of as "denominational thinking." We take denominations so for granted, we hardly think about it. Particularly, for Protestants that's the way we’re sort of conditioned to think in America. I’m Dutch Reformed, you're a Presbyterian, you're a Baptist; I know my church is a little bit better than all of yours, but I don't want to say you’re part of a false church, so we begin to talk about pure and less pure churches. And we begin to say, "Well, the true church of Jesus Christ can exist in different institutional forms," and that's a revolution in thinking; it's hard for us to appreciate that, because we’re so accustomed to it, it's a revolution in thinking.