Category Archives: The Reformation
Timeline of the Protestant Reformation
Transcript (slightly edited) of an excerpt from a message by Dr. Steve Lawson entitled “William Tyndale and the English Reformation” November, 2017 – original source – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWtWdAGjj4s – from the 7 minute 40 second mark)
If I could take a brief moment and help you just trace the flow of the Reformation. In its most simplest terms, the Reformation went from the German Reformation, to the English Reformation, to the Swiss Reformation, to the Scottish Reformation.
That is the flow of the stream of the Reformation. And there was one man in each of those four Reformations who became the point man, who became the chief influencer.
And in Germany it was Martin Luther.
In England it was William Tyndale.
In the Swiss Republics it was John Calvin.
And in Scotland it was John Knox.
In its simplest form, that is the flow of the Reformation.
Let me give you some dates.
Martin Luther was born in 1483. John Knox died in 1572. That is the tightest little brackets to put around the Reformation.
In reality, the Reformation continued in England under the Elizabeth reign, Elizabeth I, in England, which eventually became the birth of the Puritan era. But to understand the Reformation, you just simply need to walk from Luther to Tyndale, to Calvin, to Knox. And one man influenced the next, influenced the next, influenced the next. Let me try to create this for you in simplest terms before we look at Tyndale.
Martin Luther was born in 1483. He nailed his 95 theses in 1517. By his own admission, he was converted in 1519.
At that very same time, the greatest small group bible study in the history of Christendom was meeting across the English channel at Cambridge in the White Horse Inn. And in that small group Bible study was William Tyndale. And while Martin Luther was being converted and being summoned to the Diet of Worms, and while he was saying, ‘here I stand, I can do no other, God help me,’ God was raising up William Tyndale, who was reading Martin Luther.
The small group Bible study at Cambridge were reading the works of Martin Luther. In fact, that small group Bible study became known as ‘Little Germany’ and they would rock the English world.
In that small group Bible study were 9 martyrs, two of whom were burned at the same stake together. Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, in which Hugh Latimer gave that all time famous line as they were being burned together at the same stake, ‘play the man, Mr. Ridley. We shall light a candle this day in England that shall never be extinguished.’
So they’re meeting in England at exactly the same time Luther is being converted and Luther is being summoned to the Diet of Worms. The flame is spreading to England and William Tyndale is coming to faith in Christ. And William Tyndale comes to the realization that the entirety of England is lost, with a few exceptions of Lollards and those who had been under the influence of the Lollards, who were the preachers sent out by John Wycliffe.
William Tyndale sets out on a mission, that is the most extraordinary mission – to translate the Bible into the English language. He would have to go underground for 12 years and live basically in a backroom closet and translate under candlelight the Bible into the English language. He would never marry. It would take him 12 years. He was burned, hung, and blown up in 1536. That is the very same year John Calvin went to Geneva.
One man steps off the scene, God has next man up.
And the very time that Tyndale is being martyred, Calvin is providentially being led to Geneva having no intention to go to Geneva. There was a roadblock in the middle of the night. He was forced to go to Geneva and he ended up staying and being the force of the Swiss Reformation.
Calvin went there in 1536. He was run out of town in 1538, he was run out of town in 1538. He was gone for three and a half years. He comes back in 1541. He remains for the next 23 years until 1564 when Calvin dies.
In 1553, there comes to the throne of England, Mary I, Mary Tudor, who became well known as Bloody Mary, for good reason. She put to death 288 Protestants – burned them at the stake. And the very first one she burned at the stake, I carry his picture in my preaching Bible. That’s 1553.
And because of the reign of terror that Bloody Mary unleashed upon England, English Reformers and people who were members of English Reformed Churches had to make a difficult decision. Do we stay and face being burned at the stake or do we flee for our life out of England? Many chose to stay, others chose to flee.
One of those who fled was a royal chaplain under Edward VI, the teenage Protestant King. His name was John Knox.
John Knox fled England for his life and he went to, of all places on planet Earth, he went to Geneva. And he sat at the feet of Calvin and was personally under the preaching – verse by verse – of John Calvin.
He was across the street at Calvin’s auditorium, which became in essence Calvin’s seminary in which men were being trained for ministry and were being sent out by waves to the nations. John Knox is now being personally trained and discipled through the pulpit ministry of John Calvin.
And when Bloody Mary mercifully dies in 1538, John Knox is now free to go from the feet of Calvin to his native homeland in Scotland and he hits Scotland like a category 5 hurricane. He hit Scotland like a tsunami would hit the beach. And he established within one year the Church of Scotland and the Reformation in Scotland went further than the Reformation in England.
But the point I want to make with you is there is an unbroken succession from Martin Luther to William Tyndale reading Martin Luther, and William Tyndale launching the English Reformation, to the year that he is martyred, John Calvin steps out of nowhere onto the pages of history and becomes the pastor of Geneva. And while Calvin is there through the persecution of Bloody Mary, it flushes John Knox out of England into the congregation of John Calvin, who (Knox) will then take the gospel and the message and the word of God to Scotland and give birth to the Scottish Reformation. It will be from there that it will be taken across the Atlantic to the colonies of my home country, America. And it will spread eventually around the world.
So just understand the domino effect. Understand the sequence.
Germany, England, Switzerland, Scotland. Luther, Tyndale, Calvin, Knox.
That is the simplest overview of the Reformation from 1517 to 1572, that little window of time.
A Call For A New Reformation
Sola Fide & Sola Gratia
Dr. R. C. Sproul, from the book, ‘Willing to Believe’, pages 24-26:
“Evangelicals are so called because of their commitment to the biblical and historical doctrine of justification by faith alone. Because the Reformers saw SOLA FIDE as central and essential to the biblical gospel, the term evangelical was applied to them. Modern evangelicals in great numbers embrace the SOLA FIDE of the Reformation, but have jettisoned the SOLA GRATIA that undergirded it. Packer and Johnston assert:
‘Justification by faith only’ is a truth that needs interpretation. The principle of SOLA FIDE is not rightly understood till it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of SOLA GRATIA. What is the source and status of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received, or is it a condition of justification which is left to man to fulfill? Is it a part of God’s gift of salvation, or is it man’s own contribution to salvation? Is our salvation wholly of God, or does it ultimately depend on something that we do for ourselves? Those who say the latter (as the Arminians later did) thereby deny man’s utter helplessness in sin, and affirm that a form of semi-Pelagianism is true after all. It is no wonder, then, that later Reformed theology condemned Arminianism as being in principle a return to Rome (because in effect it turned faith into a meritorious work) and a betrayal of the Reformation (because it denied the sovereignty of God in saving sinners, which was the deepest religious and theological principle of the Reformers’ thought). Arminianism was, indeed, in Reformed eyes a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favour of New Testament Judaism; for to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle from relying on oneself for works, and the one is as un-Christian and anti-Christian as the other. In the light of what Luther says to Erasmus, there is no doubt that he would have endorsed this judgment.
I must confess that the first time I read this paragraph, I blinked. On the surface it seems to be a severe indictment of Arminianism. Indeed it could hardly be more severe than to speak of it as ‘un-Christian’ or ‘anti-Christian.’
Does this mean that Packer and Johnston believe Arminians are not Christians?
Not necessarily. Every Christian has errors of some sort in his thinking. Our theological views are fallible. Any distortion in our thought, any deviation from pure, biblical categories may be loosely deemed ‘un-Christian’ or ‘anti-Christian.’ The fact that our thought contains un-Christian elements does not demand the inference that we are therefore not Christians at all. I agree with Packer and Johnston that Arminianism contains un-Christian elements in it and that their view of the relationship between faith and regeneration is fundamentally un-Christian.
Is this error so egregious that it is fatal to salvation? People often ask if I believe Arminians are Christians? I usually answer, ‘Yes, barely.’ They are Christians by what we call A FELICITOUS INCONSISTENCY. What is this inconsistency? Arminians affirm the doctrine of justification by faith alone. They agree that we have no meritorious work that counts toward our justification, that our justification rests solely on the righteousness and merit of Christ, that sola fide means justification is by Christ alone, and that we must trust not in our own works, but in Christ’s work for our salvation. In all this they differ from Rome on crucial points. Packer and Johnston note that later Reformed theology, however, condemned Arminianism as a betrayal of the Reformation and in principle as a return to Rome. They point out that Arminianism ‘in effect turned faith into a meritorious work.’ We notice that this charge is qualified by the words ‘in effect.’
Usually Arminians deny that their faith is a meritorious work. If they were to insist that faith is a meritorious work, they would be explicitly denying justification by faith alone. The Arminian acknowledges that faith is something a person does. It is a work, though not a meritorious one. Is it a good work? Certainly it is not a bad work. It is good for a person to trust in Christ and in Christ alone for his or her salvation. Since God commands us to trust in Christ, when we do so we are obeying this command.
But all Christians agree that faith is something we do. God does not do the believing for us. We also agree that our justification is by faith insofar as faith is the instrumental cause of our justification. All the Arminian wants and intends to assert is that man has the ability to exercise the instrumental cause of faith without first being regenerated. This position clearly negates SOLA GRATIA, but not necessarily SOLA FIDE.
Then why say that Arminianism ‘in effect’ makes faith a meritorious work? Because the good response people make to the gospel becomes the ultimate determining factor in salvation. I often ask my Arminian friends why they are Christians and other people are not. They say it is because they believe in Christ while others do not. Then I inquire why they believe and others do not? ‘Is it because you are more righteous than the person who abides in unbelief?’
They are quick to say no.
‘Is it because you are more intelligent?’
Again the reply is negative.
They say that God is gracious enough to offer salvation to all who believe and that one cannot be saved without that grace. But this grace is cooperative grace. Man in his fallen state must reach out and grasp this grace by an act of the will, which is free to accept or reject this grace. Some exercise the will rightly (or righteously), while others do not. When pressed on this point, the Arminian finds it difficult to escape the conclusion that ultimately his salvation rests on some righteous act of the will he has performed. He has ‘in effect’ merited the merit of Christ, which differs only slightly from the view of Rome.”
The Biggest Church Split In History
The Protestant Reformation resulted in the biggest Church split in history, at least for the Western sector of the Church. Was it all necessary? Was it all worth it?
Reformation & Revival
Reply
“Often men have acted as though one has to choose between reformation and revival. Some call for reformation, others for revival, and they tend to look at each other with suspicion. But reformation and revival do not stand in contrast to one another; in fact, both words are related to the concept of restoration. Reformation speaks of a restoration to pure doctrine, revival of a restoration in the Christian’s life. Reformation speaks of a return to the teachings of Scripture, revival of a life brought into proper relationship to the Holy Spirit. The great moments in church history have come when these two restorations have occurred simultaneously. There cannot be true revival unless there has been reformation, and reformation is not complete without revival. May we be those who know the reality of both reformation and revival, so that this poor dark world in which we live may have an exhibition of a portion of the church returned to both pure doctrine and a Spirit-filled life.” – Francis Schaeffer, ‘No Little People’ p. 74
What Do You Do With Your Guilt?
Can we talk about that word ‘catholic’?
The word ‘catholic’ simply means universal. It is actually a good word rather than a bad word. The Reformers did not see themselves as separate from the catholic (universal) faith. In fact, they saw themselves as the true proclaimers of the historic faith of the Bible, embraced by all orthodox Christians throughout the ages of the Church. They were more than happy to align themselves with the ancient creeds of the Church and recited them in the Reformed worship services. These creeds affirmed the great essential doctrines of Christianity, including the Bible as the word of God, the Holy Trinity, the full deity and humanity of Christ, His sinless life and atoning, substitutionary death, as well as His physical resurrection from the dead. Though vehemently opposed to Rome’s aberrant doctrines they would describe themselves as truly catholic, though not of the Roman variety.
When Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformers opposed the Roman Catholic Church, what was being proclaimed was not some new doctrine never seen before. Instead, justification by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone was something the Bible proclaimed in both the Old and the New Testaments, and affirmed by many in the early Church fathers, even to men like Augustine (who was often quoted in the Reformers’ writings). The Reformation was a back to the Bible movement and marked a return to, and a recovery of, the one true biblical gospel embraced by all true believers in Christ. There was nothing new; nothing novel at all! This was the universal faith once for all delivered to the saints.
– John Samson
Is the Reformation Over?
Dr. Leonardo de Chirico has spoken at a number of Ligonier Conferences in recent years. Italian himself, and pastoring a Protestant Church in the heart of Rome, Italy, he has a strong desire to reach those entrapped in Roman Catholic doctrine. Leonardo recently traveled to Munich, Germany (September 25-27, 2020), and while there, taught two public lectures on the theme “Is the Reformation Over?” The talks were captured on video and include a German translation.
Lecture1:
Lecture 2:
Is the Reformation Over?
Dr. Michael Reeves:
Transcript:
The Reformation is not over and cannot be over. The first reason it’s not over is because the Roman Catholic Church has not been reformed. Rome, by her own catechism and statements, still repudiates justification by faith alone, and therefore the matter of the Reformation has not been resolved.
Furthermore, those churches that would not call themselves Roman Catholic needed to be ongoingly reformed because reformation is not something that can be settled. Reformation is about the church purifying herself by the Word of God continually. There is never some acceptably pure level.
So, reformation is an ongoing thing. And that means that reformation cannot be over until Christ returns, because reformation is about chasing that purity that Christ wants for His church. And we have not reached that and we will not reach that until He returns.