The Old Preacher

Viewing the World through God's Word

Month: October 2017 (Page 3 of 5)

Reformation: Hans Gooseflesh

October 18, 2017 /
 The Lord works in unusual ways.  Sometimes the least-significant act has far-reaching results.  You can read about it  in today’s commemoration of the Reformation’s 500th anniversary, via desiringgod.org.

Here We Stand

Day 18

Hans Gooseflesh

c. 1400–1468

The Accidental Reformer

By Rick Segal

Hans Gooseflesh came of age at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when the prevailing spirit of the age was “God must be angry.” His parents and grandparents were the generation that watched the Black Death eliminate a third of the continent’s population. In some European villages as many as sixty percent of the people perished.

He was born into an upper-class family. Dad was a goldsmith — “Companion of the Mint” they called him — a maker of coins and medallions. As he roamed around his father’s shop as a boy, he no doubt marveled at and probably even assisted in the process of striking coins. Molten metal was poured into molds (imagine tiny cake pans with scripts and images already debossed in the pans). The mold was made from a die strong enough to punch a clean impression of the coin onto it. The die itself was meticulously engraved by hand into tempered steel by craftsmen using sharp jeweler-like tools capable of removing steel from steel as easily as shaving a butter pat from the stick.

Failed Start-Up

Alas, Hans was not to inherit the family business. An uprising of guildsmen against the employers, which included Hans’s father, caused the family to relocate to Eltville. So, Hans needed to seek other job opportunities.

In the wake of the plague’s devastation, Roman Catholicism fostered an extraordinary consumer market in religious goods and services. Beyond the peddling of everyday rosaries, tokens, icons, and crucifixes to supply the faithful and penitent, a booming tourist industry emerged attracting hundreds of thousands of Catholic pilgrims eager to see relics recovered from the Holy Land.

An Ox Eye was a badge with a mirror on it that you could wear when visiting displayed relics. The idea was if the mirror on the badge caught the reflection of a relic, well, how couldn’t you be blessed? The Cathedral of Aachen housed four so-called Great Relics then, and still does: Mary’s cloak, Christ’s swaddling clothes, St. John’s beheading cloth, and Christ’s loincloth.

Hans Gooseflesh formed a start-up aimed at cornering the market for Ox Eyes at the 1439 Aachen pilgrimage, projected to draw more than 100,000 pilgrims. Leveraging his expertise in coin-making, he planned to mass produce 32,000 Ox Eyes and make a 2,500-percent profit on the venture. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bad attendance year. The venture failed. Hans and his investors lost their shirts. But in the process of engineering Ox Eye production they created some significant intellectual property.

Lemons into Books

Knowledge transfer was shifting from oral transmission to inscribed manuals, directories, stories, and histories. People wanted books. Most of the demand was supplied by copyists and scribes who, when working earnestly, might be able to knock out a single — and we do mean single — volume of a Bible commentary once every five years. The innovation of woodblock printing helped the uptake of book supply, but woodblocks were unforgiving to error, easily breakable, and limited to a single use.

Hans Gooseflesh made lemonade from the lemon of his failed Ox Eye start-up. In the process of figuring out how to make souvenirs for the Aachen pilgrims, he conceived of a method of building forms into which a collection of metal characters could be racked to create, if you will, a “metalblock” rather than a woodblock that could be used to print sharp, readable words on a page, and then be un-racked, re-ordered, and reused to create new forms for entirely different projects. It was a variation of the die, mold, and punch-making of his childhood performed in miniature to muster legions of metal mercenaries perpetually ready for redeployment.

History Reset

Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (anglicized here as “Hans Gooseflesh”) was dead fifty years before Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door. He never preached a sermon. Never authored a theological treatise. Indeed, Hans Gooseflesh, apart from his eponymous Gutenberg Bible, did a banner business in printing papal indulgences. He was a Reformer only by accident — or, better, by common grace. But the printing industry’s quick standardization to Gutenberg’s system of movable type created a production and distribution capability that enabled Luther’s titles to occupy thirty percent of an unheard of seven million–book market in Germany between 1518 and 1525.

The Chinese had invented moveable type seven centuries before, but their writing system was too complex to make use of it. The Muslim world resisted the use of printing for four hundred years after the invention of moveable type. So, in one unique window of human history, God raised up a ne’er-do-well tchotchke-maker to pave the way for a spiritually tortured monk, and his successors, to reclaim the word of God and reset the history of redemption.

The Pre-Reformation Church

October 17, 2017 /

What did it look like?  Why were the reformers convinced it needed reforming?

On this 500th anniversary of the Reformation, I’ve been blogging about some of its leaders, courtesy of desiringgod.org.  If you’re unfamiliar with church history, you may be asking those questions.  Here’s a brief look at the church before the Reformation.

It’s impossible, in a brief blog, to trace all church history leading to the 16th century Reformation.  To catch a century-by-century glimpse, go to http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/centuries/2nd-century-11631961.html.

European society was hierarchical.  For centuries, church  authority was increasingly concentrated in the Rome bishop.  That process climaxed in the bishop of Rome becoming pope, with a claim to have descended from the apostle Peter and to be Christ’s representative (“vicar”) on earth.   He, not the written Word of God, was the church’s authority.

Doctrines and traditions, alien to the New Testament, crept into the church.  Church and state (king) were the ruling authorities in society.  Eventually, the Roman Empire became the “Holy Roman Empire”, ruling much of Europe.

The hierarchy of authority meant the pope had power to dispense grace, which he did by ordaining bishops and priests who “poured” that grace out to the masses by means of the Mass.

Dispensing grace was quite mechanical.  “Worshipers” were uneducated and illiterate.  Their faith wasn’t expressed, merely implied.  That is, they habitually came and systematically received “grace” through the bread of the Mass.  Since the Mass was said in Latin, the people didn’t understand a word.  Apparently, many priests didn’t either; they didn’t learn Latin, just the words of the Mass so they could repeat them.

The focal point of the church was the altar.  And at that altar an “unbloody sacrifice” was made.  Christ’s body was offered to God.  God’s anger was appeased (again and again).  Sins were forgiven.  Grace was given as the substance of the bread and wine were transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ (“transubstantiation”).

The system was based on an understanding of salvation from Augustine (354-430 A.D.).  Augustine taught that we exist to love God—something we can’t do naturally.  So God “justifies” us.  That is, through the sacraments, recipients receive the grace of love.  By each Mass, we are made a more righteous, loving person who leaves to live more righteously and lovingly.  In this way, we merit salvation.   “God will not deny grace to those who do their best” was a common slogan.

But how could you tell if you were doing your best to live a loving life?  How could you be sure you merited salvation?   That problem was solved in 1215 when a church council required all Christians to regularly confess their sins to a priest.  To neglect confession meant damnation.  In order to probe the penitent’s heart, the priest asked questions from an official list. For example, “Are your prayers, alms, and religious activities done more to hide your sins and impress others than to please God?” “Have you muttered against God because of bad weather, illness, poverty, the death of a child or a friend?”  Obviously, instead of relieving a guilty conscience, confession revealed deeper, darker sins.

The church’s official teaching recognized that no one would die righteous enough to have merited salvation.  Therefore:  purgatory.  Unless one died unrepentant of a mortal sin, he could have his sins slowly purged through punishment in order to eventually enter heaven.  The process could take literally thousands of years.  But it could be speeded up if the living said prayers for the souls in purgatory or asking for the grace of the Mass to be applied to them.

Increasingly, Christ was seen as the Doomsday Judge, terrible in holiness.  Who could approach him?  Hence, his mother (to whom he would surely listen)  became the mediator.  Although the church officially declared Mary and all others saints were to be venerated, not worshiped, the distinction was too fine for the masses.  In fact, all the saints were regarded as gods and their relics (bones, jewelry, pieces of clothing, etc.) were treated as objects with powers to avert evil and bring good fortune.

There was the danger of saints and relics becoming idols.  So the church declared relics, pictures and images “the Bible of the poor”.  This, they explained, is how the illiterate learn.

And then there were the indulgences.  After hearing a confession, the priest would prescribe various acts of penance.  Any sins for which penance was not done in this life would be dealt with in purgatory.  But there was good news.  Saints, who had sufficient merit to bypass purgatory and go directly to heaven, had merit to spare.  The church could give them to worthy recipients—for a price.  At the start, the price was participation in the First Crusade; then money was enough for spiritual bliss.

One might expect ordinary people would reject such religion.  But current historical research has shown in the 15th and 16th centuries, it was more popular than ever.  “More masses for the dead were paid for, more churches were built, more statues to saints were erected, and more pilgrimages were made than ever before.”

This, in brief-sketch-form was the church.  You couldn’t go down the street to another.  This was it  And this is why the church needed reforming.

It started sometime in the 1320’s.  A man named John Wycliffe was ordained as a priest and sent to Oxford.  There his theological views made him controversial and his connections to the royal family made him influential.  In 1378, Wycliffe publicly declared the Bible, not the pope as the supreme spiritual authority.  He organized a translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible into English.  The “morning star of the Reformation” had appeared.  In 1517 the priest Martin Luther would nail his 95 theses to the Wittenburg door.  The “morning star” became a thunderstorm.

Thank God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reformation: Ulrich Zwingli

October 17, 2017 /
 Reformers repeatedly referred to the authority of God’s Word over human authority and traditions.  Today’s reformer did the same.  And, though his life was short, God’s Word prospered through him.  (Thanks to desiringgod.org for these articles on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.)

Here We Stand

Day 17

Ulrich Zwingli

1484–1531

The Swiss Giant

By Travis Myers

Ulrich Zwingli’s career as a Reformer was relatively brief, but his energetic and multifaceted leadership was crucial in the early days of the Protestant movement.

Born to the chief local magistrate of a small alpine village named Wildhaus in 1484, Zwingli attended the universities of Vienna and Basel before serving as priest in the Swiss town of Glarus from 1506 to 1516. While priest in the town of Einsiedeln the following two years (1517–1518), Zwingli broke with traditional Roman Catholic practice by preaching in clear expository fashion in the German vernacular of his people. Such preaching earned him a post in the free city or “canton” of Zurich by 1519.

In Einsiedeln, Zwingli had been an ardent student of the Greek New Testament recently compiled by Erasmus of Rotterdam. Now in Zurich, Zwingli spent six years preaching straight through the New Testament, mingling with the people of his parish, writing against unscriptural Catholic dogma and practices, and engaging in public debates with Catholic authorities before the town leaders. During that time, the town councils of both Zurich and the nearby canton of Bern voted to adopt Protestantism.

The Sixty-Seven Articles

For his public debates with Catholic authorities in early 1523, Zwingli composed “The Sixty-Seven Articles.” The document’s brief introduction and conclusion reveal Zwingli’s deep respect for the authority of God’s word and his firm belief in the Bible’s unique status as the only revelation of the saving good news of Jesus Christ and of God’s will for Christian people. The introduction reads,

The articles and opinions below, I, Ulrich Zwingli, confess to have preached in the worthy city of Zurich as based upon the Scriptures which are called inspired of God . . . and where I have not now correctly understood said Scriptures I shall allow myself to be taught better, but only from said Scriptures.

Zwingli would expand on these articles in a book-length treatise in 1525 titled “The True and False Religion.” In 1526, he composed “Ten Theses” for Bern, which served as a succinct summary of his Reformed perspective.

Away with the Pomp

Zwingli, the Swiss giant of the Reformation, was particularly indignant about the pomp, hypocrisy, and idolatry of man-made religion. His labors for the reformation of Zurich and other Swiss cantons can be best conceived of, perhaps, as an effort to free people from the burdens imposed by a religious system invented by men that can’t deliver on its promise of eternal life.

Article 7 of “The Sixty-Seven Articles” states that Christ “is an eternal salvation and head of all believers, who are his body, but which is dead and can do nothing without him.” Attending Mass, participating in the so-called sacraments of Roman Catholicism, or even being ordained as a priest did not make someone a spiritually alive member of the true “ecclesia catholica” (universal church). That only happens by the gospel and the Spirit.

Eat a Sausage, Find a Wife

Zwingli was an activist who not only aimed to teach and apply the Bible alone, but who lobbied both church and civil authorities to realign their laws and policies with God’s word. During the Lenten season of 1522, Zwingli gave his tacit assent in the home of a parishioner, the printer Christoph Froschauer, as he and his guests ate sausage, prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church during Lent but a staple local food. Zwingli successfully lobbied the Zurich town authorities to release these men from jail, where they’d been put for breaking the Lenten fast.

Taking advantage of the town council’s leniency, Zwingli and ten other priests wrote to the Bishop of Constance requesting the right of priests to be married, since the blanket requirement of clerical celibacy was unscriptural and unwise. Zwingli himself was already living with a widow, Anna Reinhart, whom he married soon after Zurich became a Protestant canton free from the bishop’s authority.

Zwingli also held a deep respect for women and longed for them to experience authentic Christian discipleship. In 1522, he visited a convent to deliver a series of lectures titled “Of the Clarity and Certainty of the Word of God,” theological lessons on the doctrine of revelation and Bible interpretation.

Twelve Years of Reform

On October 11, 1531, at age 47, Zwingli died unarmed on a battlefield near Kappel, Switzerland, serving as a chaplain to the Protestant troops, carrying only a flag and a Bible.

At the time of his death, Zwingli was only a dozen years removed from his life as a priest in Einsiedeln — a short career compared to Luther’s and Calvin’s decades of reform. But there’s a reason Zwingli is often the third name people mention when remembering the Reformation. By God’s grace, this dynamic Reformer’s dozen years brought countless Swiss men and women away from dead ceremony, and back to Jesus Christ.

Heinrich Bullinger succeeded Zwingli as pastor of Gross Münster church and head of Zurich’s “School of the Prophets,” which trained men in biblical languages, exegesis, and preaching. In the 1560s, Bullinger was the main author of the Second Helvetic Confession, adopted soon after by Reformed churches in Switzerland, Scotland, Hungary, France, and Poland. It remains to this day one of the most influential and beloved doctrinal statements of various Reformed denominations the world over.

Defiance in His Voice

October 16, 2017 /

“May I please come with you?”  That’s a polite question.

In Romans 8:31-39, Paul asks four questions–not politely. John Stott (20th century English Evangelical leader) wrote that Paul “hurls these questions out into space, as it were, defiantly, triumphantly challenging any creature in heaven or earth or hell to answer them or deny the truth that is contained in them.”

“What then are we to say about these things?” (8:31a). ‘’

This question isn’t one of Stott’s four.  But, if Stott is right, Paul asks it with the same challenging spirit evident in the coming four.  So, having thought deeply about what Paul’s just written (especially Romans 8:1-30), what should (or, will) we say about “these things”?

Question 1: “If God is for us, who is against us?” (8:31:b).

“For” translates the Greek hupare.  Paul uses it again in 9:3—“For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people . . .”.  He uses it in the same sense here.  So we might say, “If God has so acted for our sake in Christ, who is against us?”  Or, to particularize, “If God works all things for our good to conform us to the glorious likeness of his Son, who can be against us?”

Well, a lot can be against us!  “ . . .tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter’” (8:35,36).  So, Paul doesn’t mean no one and no thing can be against us.  He means no one and no thing can beat us.  Since, God has acted for our sake in Christ (8:1-30), we can’t lose—no matter what.  God is our Protector.

Question 2:  “ . . . will he not with him also give us everything else?” (8:32b).

Here’s the whole verse: “He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?”

Paul is arguing logically, from the greatest to the least.  The greatest:  God did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for us all.  The least:  he will with him give us everything else.  Here’s John Piper’s explanation of Paul’s reasoning . . .

“The reason [God’s sparing not his own Son is] the greater thing is that God loved his Son infinitely. His Son did not deserve to be killed. His Son was worthy of worship by every creature, not spitting and whipping and scorn and torture. To hand over his beloved Son (Colossians 1:13) was the incomparably great thing. The reason for this is the immensity of God’s love for his Son. This is what made it so unlikely that God would hand him over. Yet God did it. And in doing it he showed that he most certainly would do all other things — all of which would be easy by comparison — to give all things to the people for whom he gave his Son.”

What is “everything else”?  It includes at least two glorious things both free from sin’s corruption and death’s decay:  a new, resurrected body and a new creation (8:18-23).

Question 3: “Who will bring any charge against God’s elect?” (8:33a).

Paul is not saying that no one will ever condemn us or charge us.  In fact, Satan does.  In Revelation 12:10, the apostle John hears a loud voice in heaven calling Satan “the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, [who] has been hurled down.”  This implies we are constantly accused before God, much like Satan accused Job (Job 1:9-11–“‘Does Job fear God for nothing?'” Satan replied.  ‘Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.'”

Paul is saying that no charge against God’s chosen ones will stick.  Because, “It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us” (8:33b,34).

Paul has already said that God has imputed Christ’s righteousness to us, so we are “right” before him.  Who can condemn us since God has justified us?  Not Satan.  Not our own sins.  Not an enemy.

Christ Jesus died.  He was raised.  And he’s at God’s “right hand” (metaphor for God’s place of sovereignty and dominion) interceding for us.

I heard Pastor Jack Arnold {http://www.religionnewsblog.com/10049/The-Preacher-Who-Died-With-Heaven-On-His-Lips) offer this illustration (my paraphrase) . . .

“I imagine standing before God on Judgement Day. He reviews all my sins, then asks, ‘What do you have to say for yourself?’  Jesus stands next to me and says, ‘I’ll take care of this.’  He says not another word, just holds out to the Judge his nail-scarred hands.”

Jesus paid it all.

Question 4: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” (8:35a).

Christ’s love is seen supremely in his sacrifice for us.  But will anyone or anything ever be able to sever us from his love?

“Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered’” (8:35b,36).

I understand “hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword” to be suffering that might make us presume we’re no longer in Christ’s love.  Does this hardship mean Christ no longer acts to me in love?

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (8:37-39).

“ . . . more than conquerors” is the NRS’ translation of hupernikao—“to be completely and overwhelmingly victorious.”  It’s a rout, a shut-out.  In all these things, however hard, we’re super-conquerors “through him who loved us.”  Christ Jesus is our means of conquering.

Paul makes this audacious conquer-claim because he’s convinced that . . .

  • “neither death (death brings us to Christ—Philippians 1:21-23),
  • not life (anything it throws at us),
  • nor angels, nor rulers (nothing in the spiritual realm, good or evil),
  • nor things present, nor things to come (not today’s circumstances, not tomorrow’s troubles),
  • nor powers (supernatural forces—Satan, demons),
  • nor height, nor depth (anything above the heavens or beneath the earth),
  • nor anything else in all creation (with these words Paul encompasses anything unsaid in the above list).

. . . absolutely nothing has the power (Greek, doonami) to set us apart from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord.

* * *

This Scripture deserves a 100-piece orchestra and huge choir singing its words so we could soak them into our soul as the music shakes the walls.  But here’s the best I can do for now.  I turn Paul’s questions into four defiant declarations of faith. . . .

“If God is for me, no one and no thing can succeed against me!”

“Since God gave up his Son for me, he will surely give me all things with him!”

“No one can ever condemn me, because I am one of God’s chosen, justified by Christ!”

“Absolutely nothing in all creation can ever separate me from God’s love in Christ Jesus my Lord!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reformation: Latimer & Ridley

October 16, 2017 /
The Reformers’ passion  boggles my mind.  Are we willing to die for the biblical gospel of Christ as they were?  Read about two men who were in today’s edition of the 500th Reformation commemoration from desiringgod.org.

Here We Stand

Day 16

Hugh Latimer & Nicholas Ridley

Martyred in 1555

The British Candle

By Scott Hubbard

For those familiar with the English Reformation, the name Latimer sounds incomplete on its own. It demands a Ridley.

Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley are fastened together in history primarily because they were fastened to the same stake on October 16, 1555, on the north side of Oxford. But Latimer and Ridley share more than a martyrdom. The bishops also join each other on the list of England’s most influential Reformers — men and women whose allegiance to Scripture and the glory of Christ transformed England from a Catholic kingdom to a lighthouse of Reformation.

Both Latimer and Ridley lived during the reigns of four English monarchs: Henry VII, Henry VIII (the one with all the wives), Edward VI, and Mary I (aka “Blood Mary”). Both witnessed the Reformation’s tug and pull under Henry VIII’s tentative acceptance, Edward VI’s warm embrace, and Mary I’s violent resistance to Reformed doctrine. But they were anything but casual observers.

Latimer the Preacher

Latimer, born around 1485, spent the first thirty years of his life a zealous Catholic — or, in his words, an “obstinate Papist.” “I was as obstinate a Papist as any was in England,” he wrote, “insomuch that when I should be made bachelor of divinity, my whole oration was against Philip Melanchthon [i.e., Luther’s right-hand man].”

But soon after Latimer’s anti-Reformation oration, a young Cambridge divine named Thomas Bilney approached him with a request. Would Latimer allow Bilney to privately explain his own Reformed faith? Latimer agreed, and from then on he “began to smell the Word of God, and forsook the school doctors and such fooleries.” Latimer gathered up the arrows he had been shooting at the Reformation, and he started pointing the bow in the other direction. Throughout the next couple decades, he distinguished himself as a fervent Reformed preacher, at times enjoying Henry VIII’s favor for it, and at other times fearing his persecution (depending on the king’s mood).

Perhaps the most fruitful years of Latimer’s ministry came under Edward VI’s short reign, from 1547 to 1553. Despite his age, Latimer assisted Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer in reforming the English church, and he also preached like a man who just couldn’t stop. According to J.C. Ryle, “No one of the Reformers probably sowed the seeds of Protestant doctrine so widely and effectually among the middle and lower classes as Latimer.”

Then, in 1553, Queen Mary came to power, and Latimer was sent to a cell in the Tower of London.

Ridley the Scholar

Ridley, nearly twenty years Latimer’s junior, was born around 1502 near the border of Scotland. Throughout the next five decades, he would become one of England’s sharpest intellects, even going so far as to memorize all the New Testament letters — in Greek.

After attending Cambridge’s Pembroke College in his teenage years, Ridley continued his studies in France, where he likely encountered Reformation teachings. Unlike Latimer, Ridley left no clear account of his passage from Catholic priest to Protestant preacher. But we do know that he signed the 1534 decree against the pope’s supremacy, that he accepted the post of chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer three years later, and that he renounced the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation by 1545. When he became the bishop of London in 1550, he replaced the stone altars in London’s churches with plain wooden tables. According to Ridley and the Reformers, communion was a spiritual feast, not a sacrifice.

Ridley’s scholarly abilities launched him from one prestigious post to the next, even under Henry VIII’s capricious reign. From Canterbury to Westminster to Soham to Rochester to London, Ridley studied, preached, and, once Edward VI took the throne, threw himself into Cranmer’s reforms.

But then Queen Mary came to power, and Ridley joined Latimer in the Tower.

England’s Candle

On October 16, 1555, after spending eighteen months in a tower cell, Latimer and Ridley met at an Oxford stake. With Latimer in a frock and cap, and Ridley in his bishop’s gown, the two men talked and prayed together before a smith lashed them to the wood.

Ridley was the first to strengthen his friend. “Be of good heart, brother, for God will either assuage the fury of the flame, or else strengthen us to abide it.” As the bundle of sticks caught fire beneath them, Latimer had his turn. Raising his voice so Ridley could hear, he cried, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

Three years later, Mary I died and passed the kingdom to her half-sister Elizabeth, a Protestant queen. And Latimer and Ridley’s candle burst into a torch.

It’s All Good

October 15, 2017 /

John 3:16—the best-known Bible reference, thanks to football game signs. Psalm 23– probably the most-loved passage.  But Romans 8:28 is our go-to verse in suffering. Today we’ll examine it and the following two verses.

“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (8:28, NRS).

“We know” connects us to the preceding, especially 8:26,27.  In suffering the Spirit intercedes for us according to God’s will (and God wills us to be glorified—8:1-25). So, we know God will make all things work together for good.

The words, “all things work together”, are a translation of a Greek word, “soon” (together with) “ergeo” (work).  Question is, how encompassing is “all things”.  There’s no reason not to take the Greek word pas literally—all things.

Does this mean that everything that’s happened in my life—from a loose tooth to our car breaking down on I-80 traveling home from Bible college, to marrying Lois, to parenting three children, etc., etc.—all “work together for good”?   Here, Paul is emphasizing suffering.  Thus we could rightly translate, “We know that all things—even suffering—work together for good . . . “

“ . . . good” is the Greek agathone—good in the sense of morally good and beneficial.

This mind-stretching promise is true “for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” 

In reply to the question, “Which commandment is the greatest?”, Jesus said, ”Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Matthew 22:37), affirming the Lord’s command through Moses to Israel: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might (Deuteronomy 6:4,5).

The Greek verb, agapao, refers to love as a matter of the will and action.  We are to love God as a matter of our will and demonstrate it in our actions.  That leaves us with a big problem:  our will is “bent” toward sin, toward not loving God.  Which is probably why Paul hastily added, “who are called according to his purpose.”  God’s call is a call to justification and sanctification and, ultimately, glorification. That’s God’s purpose for those he calls.   So God works for good in all things for those whom he has called and who, thereby, love him (however imperfectly).

It’s a shame that 8:29,30 don’t always follow when someone quotes 8:28.  Verses 29 and 30 explain the good God is working and the purpose for which he’s called us.

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified” (8:29,30, NRS).

Paul uses five key verbs to explain why he knows God works for good in all things for his called ones.

“foreknew”.  This means more than God knowing beforehand who would love him.  It means God knowing from before creation whom he would predestine, justify and glorify.  How could God know that?  Because he chose them before creation . . .

“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Ephesians 1:4).

“ . . . who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began . . . ” (2 Timothy 1:9).

“ . . . foreknew” means more than “had knowledge beforehand”.  It means “knew personally” even before they had been created!

“predestined”.  The Greek (proprizo) means to “determine in advance” or “decide on beforehand”.  So God “decreed in advance” that those he called would “be conformed to the image of his Son”. That’s God’s predetermined destiny for believers.

What does it mean to be conformed to the Son’s likeness?  One, we will have resurrection bodies like Christ (8:11).  Two, our indwelling sin-nature will be gone, for we will have reached the goal of the sanctification process and be glorified.  Beyond that, we can let our imaginations soar!

Our likeness to the Son has a purpose: “in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”  In other words, that Jesus might be the firstborn in a family of believers, who ultimately are together conformed to the Son’s likeness.  (Many sons and daughters like the Son!)

“called”.  Peter uses the word (kaleo)  of God inviting to salvation those he foreknew (1 Peter 2:9).  Matthew uses keleo of Jesus summoning Matthew to discipleship (Matthew 4:21).  Since this “call” comes to those who God foreknew and predestined, this call (that comes in time)  must be effectual (able to produce the desired effect).  If God calls, you won’t and can’t refuse.

“justified”.  The Greek point-in-time aorist tense of dikio-o means God “justified” the ones he calls at a point in time, like a judge declaring “not guilty”.  But beyond being declared “not guilty”, “justified” implies what theologians call “imputed righteousness”.  To “impute” means to reckon or attribute to someone the blessing of another.  In this case, it means God credits his Son’s righteousness to those who believe!  “ . . . they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (3:24).

“glorified” (doxodso).  Paul uses this word to describe the culmination of God’s saving work in those he called.  Sanctification complete:   God gives his called ones what John Piper calls “the inward beauty of holiness”.  Resurrection complete:   God gives his called ones a new body like Christ’s (see 1 Corinthians 15:42-49).

Suffering with Christ is the prerequisite for being glorified with Christ (8:17).  But suffering, Paul reckons, is “not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us” (8:18).  It’s the revelation of the children of God for which all creation waits with eager longing (8:19).

Furthermore, suffering is part of the “all things” God works together for his good purpose.  Toward that purpose, he knew his chosen people before creation, predestined them to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, called them, justified them and glorified them.

“Glorified”, like “justified”, is in the Greek point-in-time aorist tense, though “glorified” remains future in our experience.  It’s as if Paul chose the aorist tense because Christ has been glorified (and our glorification is a share in his), and because he wants his readers to know the certainty of its fulfillment.

* * *

So we come back to, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”  This knowing isn’t only intellectual; it’s knowing as in assurance.  And how do we know that all things work together for good?  Because, if we believe in Jesus, we’re caught up in God’s grand purpose.  We’re among those he foreknew, predestined to be conformed to his Son’s likeness, called, justified and glorified–all in Christ.

And because Christ suffered in order to be glorified, so must we.  But what if our suffering isn’t persecution?  What if it’s illness or the death of a child?  All Christian suffering is suffering with Christ, because it tests our faith in him and it draws us closer to him.

So whether it’s an enjoyable beach vacation or a painful hospital stay, it’s all good.  We can believe it.  Because we’re graciously caught up in God’s grand purpose–and he’s using all things toward the day of our glorification with Christ.

 

 

 

Reformation: Guillaume Farel

October 15, 2017 /
We’re discovering important men in the Reformation we never heard of (some whose names we can’t pronounce!).   Sure, they lived in a world far from ours.  But, without them, we would locked into a religious system that proclaimed salvation by merit and purgatory after death to fit us for heaven.  Thanks to desiringgod.org  for providing this material.

Here We Stand

Day 15

Guillaume Farel

1489–1565

The French Firebrand

By Johnathon Bowers

In a 1791 sermon, Lemuel Haynes remarked, “Nothing is more evident than that men are prejudiced against the gospel. It is from this source that those who are for the defense of it meet with so much contempt” (The Faithful Preacher, 25). The French Reformer Guillaume Farel knew his fair share of contempt.

A fervent gospel minister, Farel spent his days championing the Protestant cause, often in the face of opposition. At times, this opposition arose from true gospel prejudice. At other times, though, Farel’s own foolhardiness was to blame. John Calvin noted that Farel could sometimes get “carried away by the vehemence of his zeal” (Calvin, 152). Blending a headstrong temperament with a deep concern for biblical piety, Farel contended unflinchingly for the faith and was instrumental in the cause of early French reform.

“The Papacy Fell from My Heart”

Born in Gap, France in 1489, Farel grew up in a devout Catholic household. As a twenty-year-old, he enrolled at the University of Paris to study theology. While there, Farel encountered the humanist scholar Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, a man whose devotion to Christ inspired Farel.

After graduating in 1517, Farel began teaching at the Collège du Cardinal Lemoine. Reports of Luther’s reforming efforts in Germany reached him there, bolstering his own growing conviction that Catholic worship and teaching had strayed from their biblical roots. As he studied Scripture over several years, Farel found that “little by little the papacy fell from my heart” (William Farel, 26).

Farel resigned from his teaching position, and in 1521 he began to promote the message of reform wherever he could. He preached in France and in the French-speaking Swiss regions, crossing paths with Johannes Oecolampadius in Basel and Wolfgang Capito and Martin Bucer in Strasbourg. Farel was known for his confrontational style, which prompted the following warning from Oecolampadius: “the more you are prone to violence, the more you must work on being gentle and tone down your lion-like outbursts by the spirit of a dove” (William Farel, 38).

Calvin’s Co-Laborer

In 1533, after an unsuccessful visit the previous year, Farel took up residence in Geneva, intent on leading the city to adopt the Reformation. His hopes were realized in 1536 when the General Council of Geneva officially allied itself with Protestantism.

It was in that same year that Farel famously persuaded Calvin to join him in his work. Calvin was passing through Geneva on his way to Strasbourg, intent on a quiet life of scholarship. Farel learned of Calvin’s presence in the city and tried to convince him to stay. When gentler appeals proved unsuccessful, Farel threatened Calvin with God’s judgment. Farel’s words found their mark. Calvin later wrote, “By this imprecation I was so stricken with terror, that I desisted from the journey which I had undertaken” (William Farel, 69).

The decision to stay in Geneva was pivotal for Calvin, for although he and Farel were driven out of the city in 1538 — the two had clashed with the magistrates over church discipline matters — Calvin returned to Geneva in 1541 and ministered there for the rest of his life. Farel relocated to Neuchâtel, a city where he and Antoine Froment had introduced Reformation teaching in 1530. Like Calvin in Geneva, Farel established himself in Neuchâtel until his own death in 1565.

Calvin and Farel maintained a close relationship after their time together in Geneva, corresponding at least once a month for twenty years. The two men, together with Pierre Viret in Lausanne, formed a crucial partnership that helped advance the cause of French reform. Sadly, Calvin and Farel’s relationship ruptured when, in 1558, Farel announced his betrothal to Marie Thorel, a teenaged woman over fifty years his junior. Though it seems there was no sexual impropriety involved, the marriage created a scandal because of the vast age difference between the two spouses. Calvin’s friendship with Farel never recovered its former luster.

A Lover and a Fighter

As lion-like and controversial as Farel could be, he was committed to the spiritual vitality of the French-speaking people. He produced some of the first Reformation works available in French, writing a commentary on the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer in 1524 and a summary of Reformed teaching in 1529.

In his writings, Farel displayed a particular interest in the topic of prayer. In an article titled “Guillaume Farel’s Spirituality,” Theodore Van Raalte argues that Farel’s emphasis on prayer shows us a side of him that is too often overlooked, a side marked by “profound piety and pastoral love.” Farel was both a lover and a fighter, a pastor and a pugilist. Whatever his faults, this French firebrand loved the gospel and devoted his life to sharing its riches.

Reformation: Thomas Cranmer

October 14, 2017 /
 “Reformation” quickly brings Martin Luther and his 95 theses to mind.  We’re learning that the Reformation involved many other men and women, some of whom paid with their lives to confront Roman Catholic church corruptions .  With thanks to desiringgod.org, here’s today’s hero of the faith . . .

Here We Stand

Day 14

Thomas Cranmer

1489–1556

The Gospel Lobbyist

By Matthew Westerholm

As King Henry VIII lay dying in his bed, he wanted one man to come and hold his hand. Amazingly, that man was a major proponent of the Protestant Reformation.

Thomas Cranmer helped lead the English Reformation, but he is an unlikely hero alongside Luther, Calvin, and the other Reformers. He did not write any major theological books or pastor any important churches. Indeed, Cranmer did not adopt the central truths of the Reformation until relatively late in his life. But during the years of the Protestant Reformation, he shaped English theology perhaps more than any other person who has ever lived.

The Seed of Separation

Born in 1489, in the small village of Aslockton, Thomas Cranmer grew up near the same Sherwood Forrest where Robin Hood hid out three centuries earlier. He was a slow reader, taking eight years to finish Cambridge’s four-year undergraduate degree. He persevered in his studies, completed a masters degree, was ordained into ministry, and was elected by Cambridge to teach. He built a reputation for pushing his students to study the Bible for themselves.

While Cranmer spent his days peacefully serving on academic committees, England was in turmoil. King Henry VIII wanted to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Through a strange set of circumstances, Cranmer suggested to some of Henry’s advisors that the King of England was not ultimately subject to the pope’s rule (much to the king’s delight). Cranmer’s advice, then, inadvertently planted a seed that separated the English church from Roman Catholicism.

The Reformed Politician

Cranmer traded away Roman Catholicism for Reformed doctrine by the end of his life, a transformation that mirrored the turmoil and split of the English Reformation. While a student at Cambridge, he had read Martin Luther skeptically, but he warmed to Reformed thought after befriending Simon Grynaeus and Andreas Osiander. He eventually rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation after conversations with his friend Nicholas Ridley. Cranmer then clarified his liturgical reforms through conversations with the Italian Reformer Peter Martyr and the German Reformer Martin Bucer.

Cranmer’s theology changed too dramatically for English Roman Catholics and too slowly for Reform-minded evangelicals. To some (even today), Cranmer’s reforms seemed too personally and politically motivated. But he did not have the luxury of working out abstract beliefs among a company of disinterested academia. His theology was formed in a volatile pastoral and political cauldron of crises.

Father of the Anglican Church

Cranmer’s greatest ministry accomplishments came during the rule of Edward VI, when he rewrote the public liturgies, pastoral sermons (or homilies), private prayers, and articles of faith. These writings defined the doctrinal framework and personal piety which later developed into the Anglican Church, for which he is most remembered.

Cranmer wanted everyone in English churches to embrace justification by faith alone. He wrote,

This proposition — that we be justified by faith only, freely, and without works — is spoken in order to take away clearly all merit of our works, as being insufficient to deserve our justification at God’s hands; and thereby most plainly to express the weakness of man and the goodness of God, the imperfectness of our own works and the most abundant grace of our Savior Christ; and thereby wholly to ascribe the merit and deserving of our justification unto Christ only and his most precious blood-shedding. (The Works of Thomas Cranmer, 131)

Double Recantation

When the Roman Catholic Queen Mary I took power, Cranmer’s Reformed convictions cost him his life. During an agonizing three-year period, he was imprisoned, isolated, humiliated, interrogated, and tortured. He was forced to watch his friends, Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, burned alive.

Later, at his own execution, Cranmer nearly succumbed and recanted his beliefs, but this usually hesitant and quiet statesman powerfully demonstrated his faith in Christ while being burned at the stake.

The Thief on the Throne

But the moment that best illustrates Cranmer’s enduring legacy was not the day of his own death, but a day nine years earlier, as he stood at the deathbed of King Henry VIII. On January 27, 1547, King Henry was dying. An attendant asked him whom he wished to have at his bedside. The king asked for Thomas.

By the time Cranmer arrived, King Henry was unable to speak. Foxe tells the story.

Then the archbishop, exhorting him to put his trust in Christ, and to call upon his mercy, desired him though he could not speak, yet to give some token with his eyes or with his hand, that he trusted in the Lord. Then the king, holding him with his hand, did wring his hand in his as hard as he could. (Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, 748)

The scene sweetly punctuates the most important friendship in the English Reformation. Whatever King Henry believed when he squeezed Cranmer’s hand that day, God used the bond between them to break England free from Roman Catholicism and to recover the one true gospel.

Reformation: Johannes Oecolampadius

October 13, 2017 /
 His name makes us ask, “Who?”.  His contribution to the Reformation was significant, even though this overview of the man is brief.  We commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation this way thanks to desiringgod.org.

Here We Stand

Day 13

Johannes Oecolampadius

1482–1531

The Monastery’s Lost Houselamp

By Douglas Wilson

The first thing we should do is get the issue of the name out of the way. Let us not stumble over the name. If he lived among us today in North America, we would call him John Houselamp. His German surname was Hussgen, which John himself worked into the Greek form (as was customary at the time).

In this brief overview of this talented man’s contribution to the great Reformation, perhaps we should just call him John.

“I Have Lost the Monk”

John was born in Germany in 1482, ten years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. As Calvin is associated with Geneva, Bucer with Strasbourg, and Luther with Wittenberg, John Oecolampadius is associated with Basel. He was one of the rising tribe of humanist scholars, thoroughly trained in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. By 1515, John had attained the post of cathedral preacher in Basel.

While in Basel, he worked as an assistant to Erasmus — the project being Erasmus’s first edition of the Greek New Testament, for which John wrote the epilogue. John was a humanist scholar who went over to the Reformation, while Erasmus was a humanist scholar who remained in the Roman communion. This was a time of spiritual turmoil for John, resulting in him becoming a monk. But he soon decided that was not right, saying, “I have lost the monk; I have found the Christian.”

A German Choir

He left Basel for a time, but returned in 1522 when he assumed a post at the University of Basel. He was a scholarly and effective participant in various disputations — which was one of the ways that cities made their decisions — and as a result, the leaders of Basel decided to join forces with the Reformation. The Mass was abandoned in Basel by 1529.

This was a time of genuine spiritual quickening, as was demonstrated by the following incident:

At about this time, God honored Oecolampadius and his church with something spectacular. Normally a choir gave short responses in Latin at various prescribed liturgical moments in the worship service. However, on Easter Sunday, the congregation in St. Martin’s spontaneously broke out in German singing during the service. Nothing like this had happened anywhere. The Council immediately forbade such singing. The congregation responded by continuing to do it. (Reformer of Basel, 19–20)

Marriage and Controversy

One interesting detail relates to John’s decision to marry in 1528. His wife was a widow named Wibrandis, who, after John passed away, married another Reformation leader, Wolfgang Capito. After he passed away, she married another Reformer, Martin Bucer. These things happen of course. But not that often.

On the matter of the Lord’s Supper, the reformational world was divided between the respective views of the Lutherans, the Calvinists, and the Zwinglians. The Lutherans held to a physical presence of Christ in the Supper, the Calvinists held to a spiritual presence, and the Zwinglians held to a memorialist position.

Basel is only 54 miles from Zurich, where Zwingli was ministering. John grew close to Ulrich Zwingli, working together with him, and came to hold Zwingli’s position on the Lord’s Supper. In 1529, John participated in the Marburg Colloquy, together with Zwingli, Luther, Bucer, Melanchthon, and others, in an unsuccessful bid for Protestant unity on the Supper.

When Zwingli was killed in battle, in 1531, John took the shocking news very hard, and died himself shortly after.

The Spirit Prays for Us

October 12, 2017 /

There are days when many  of my prayers are silence.  I’ve asked for healing over and over.  I’ve  complained (it’s okay; the psalmist did—Psalm 64:1).  Some days there’s nothing left to say.  I read a psalm.  Or a prayer from The Valley of Vision.  But from my own mind, I have no words.  I don’t mean to sound like a martyr; but suffering sometimes is like that.  So today’s text is good news . . .

 “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).

“Likewise”, Paul writes, “the Spirit helps us . . . “  In the same way (“likewise”) as what?  Just as we have “the first fruits of the Spirit’ and so groan longingly for bodily redemption, so “the Spirit helps us . . . ” .  The Greek word, soonantilambanomy, means “grasp hold of someone to help”.

So, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness . . .” .  Greek, asthenia, refers to weakness of any kind.  Paul uses it in 6:19, “I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations”.

Our suffering (the context of 8:1-27) intensifies our natural weakness (in this case, the weakness of ignorance).  Paul specifies it as not knowing “how to pray as we ought”.  He doesn’t mean the form of our praying, nor its frequency or fervency, but its content.  Especially in our suffering, we don’t know what to ask God for.  But “the Spirit helps us in our weakness”.

Jesus promised the Spirit to be exclusively in his own people . . .

“This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you” (John 14:17).

As Jesus promised, the Spirit indwells us.  He is God the Holy Spirit present with us and in us.  And he not only “comes alongside to help us” (paraklaytos—John 14:26), but in our suffering-weakness he “grasps hold of us to help us”.

My handicapped niece painted Jesus bending over with two hands reaching to pick up a young girl who had fallen.  This is what I see in Paul’s words, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness”.  He helps, not because we’re too weak to walk, but because we’re too ignorant to pray.

He “intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.”  Greek, stenagmois (“groanings”) alalaytois (“that cannot be expressed in words”).  We can’t verbalize these groanings, though they may or may not be audible.  They are the Spirit in us praying for us.

“And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (8:27).

God, writes Paul, examines our heart and knows what the Spirit in us is thinking.  This is because the Spirit intercedes for God’s holy ones according to God’s will.

David wrote of the Lord searching and knowing him . . .

“O LORD, you have searched me and known me” (Psalm 139:1).

Here Paul writes of God searching our heart to know the mind of the indwelling Spirit.

Now we see what we’re ignorant of—namely, what God’s will is in our times of suffering.  So, the Spirit “takes over” and prays God’s will for us.  So, not only does incomparable glory await us, in the present we have the Holy Spirit who “grabs hold of” us to help us by interceding according to God’s will for us.  And he intercedes for us, not only to strengthen us in suffering, but also to empower us in suffering “so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk . . . according to the Spirit” (8:4).

“Paul is saying . . . that our failure to know God’s will and consequent inability to approach God specifically and assuredly is met by God’s Spirit, who himself expresses to God those intercessory petitions that perfectly match the will of God.  When we do not know what to pray for–yes, even when we pray for things not best for us–we need not despair, for we can depend on the Spirit’s ministry of perfect intercession on our behalf.” (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, p.525).

* * *

Our prayers matter.  Else why would the Spirit intercede for us with sighs too deep for words?  That he intercede for us “according to the will of God” is a reminder that prayers are effective when we pray according to his will (1 John 5:14,15).

That being said, two questions.  One, if God’s going to do what he wants, why does the Spirit intercede in prayer for us?  (Why doesn’t God just do his will?)  Two, can we know when the Spirit intercedes for us and does it matter or not if we know?

Answer to #1:  all prayer is designed to deepen our relationship with the Lord.  God will do his will with or without our prayers.  But seeking him draws us closer to him.  And in some way, God uses prayers prayed according to his will to accomplish his will.  (All this, by the way, sounds authoritarian on God’s part–until we remember God’s will is holy, pleasing and perfect–Romans 12:2).

Answer to #2–Perhaps we know when the Spirit is interceding when we sense a special measure of the Spirit’s presence.  Regarding the Spirit accomplishing his intercession, it doesn’t matter if we know he’s praying for us or not.  But regarding our assurance that he’s interceding, it does, because we’re enjoying that assurance with a felt sense of his presence.

Questions aside, Paul intends these statements to give us assurance in suffering.  When we’re hurting and don’t know how to pray as we should, the Spirit indwelling us prays for us according to God’s good will.

I sit in my wheelchair on my little platform outside on my pool deck.  Downcast.  Prayers for healing so far unanswered.  Wondering why God should answer when many others suffer so much.  Old age is filled with illness.  Breathing deeply in dismay.  Sighing.  Is the Spirit deep inside me interceding for me according to God’s will?  That’s the hope Paul offers.  I grab on.

 

 

 

 

 

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