The Hope of the Believer . . .

RENOVATORS, NOT INNOVATORS  

Good works do not make a man good. but a good man does good works. —Martin Luther

A single line in a history book about the reformers that brought on the Protestant Reformation impressed me as especially poignant: "The Reformers were never innovators, as the papacy was so often to allege, but renovators." Not only does my reading about the Reformers persuade me that this is a correct assessment, but I believe this distinction should apply to the ongoing work of reform to which this journal is dedicated. We are to be renovators in the life of the church, not innovators. I will point to what this distinction means to me.

The history book I was reading noted that Wyclif, Hus, and Luther, to name three of the earlier reformers, did not bring in new material with which to forge the Reformation but rediscovered old truths and principles and gave them a new relevance. It was renewal through recovery. In their struggle for renewal they had to remove some of the innovations that the medieval theologians had imposed upon the church, but they were not themselves innovators. They did not impose new ideas, ordinances, and principles upon the church but uncovered old ones that reached back to Christ and the apostles. In order to do this they found new ways to express old ideas.

The above quote from Luther is an instance of this. The innovations that had been imposed upon the church through long years of legalistic tradition, from the doctrine of the superogation of works to the sale of indulgences, forced the conclusion that goodness is a matter of doing good. We become good by doing good works. Luther as a renovator recovered the doctrine of justification by faith, which is as old as the Scriptures themselves. It was the doctrine of justification by works, imposed by the monastic theologians, that was the innovation. Luther put an old doctrine in a new dress when he said "Good works do not make a man good, but a good man does good works." He was saying that we are not saved by good works, but when we are saved (1)y faith) we will do good works. Luther was saying that only Christ can make us good, and we are good only to the degree that Christ is within us. When we do good works, it is Christ doing it through us, for we have no goodness of our own. This is a great renovating truth, one that frees us from the innovation of law-keeping.

John Wyclif, who appeared on the scene almost two centuries before Luther, blazed the trail for the Reformation by challenging an array of innovations that had been invented by the medieval church. He opposed the doctrine of a special priesthood, insisting that all believers are priests, and that one does not have to have a priest to mediate with God for him. Each believer can go before God on his own behalf. Wyclif also challenged the doctrine of transubstantiation as a human invention. Moreover, he claimed that the church is made up of all God's chosen ones, not of a clerical hierarchy. He also was the first to translate the Bible into English, believing that anyone can understand the will of God by reading for himself.

While Wyclif escaped the Inquisition during his lifetime, the Council of Constance in 1415 condemned him as a heretic long after he was dead, and had his body disinterred from holy ground and burned. They would have called Wyclif an innovator, but they were the innovators, imposing as they did the doctrines of men upon God's people. Wyclif was a renovator in that he sought renewal by recovering truths as old as the Bible itself.

John Hus was influenced by Wyclif. He too opposed images and priestcraft, holding that only God can forgive sins. He condemned the sale of indulgences. He insisted that the Bible is the only authority in the church and Christ is its only head, contrary to the claims of the papacy. He emphasized personal piety and purity of life. This cost him his life. He died as a martyr in 1415. While he was condemned as a heretic, it was really his persecutors who were the heretics. Hus was a renovator who sought to restore ancient truths and practices to the church and to discard the hurtful innovations of the medieval clergy

Alexander Campbell saw himself as within the tradition of the Reformers. He insisted that he was introducing nothing new, and that everything he advocated was at least as old as the New Testament. This is why he saw his plea as catholic — a catholic faith, a catholic table, a catholic name, a catholic baptism. That is, he was no innovator with a cache of new offerings. What he stood for were the old truths and ordinances of the church universal from its beginning.

This journal stands within that same tradition. I may seek new ways to express old truths, but I offer no new agenda. Some suppose that our plea for unity in diversity is a newly born heresy, but I have sought to show all these years that unity in diversity is the unity for which our Lord prayed as he turned his face toward the Cross. To whatever degree the early Christians were united it was a unity in diversity, for there is no other kind of unity except unity in diversity. The demand for unity by conformity is an innovation, born of sectarianism.

My position that fellowship is based upon the essentials of the faith and not on opinions, and that it is opinions that divide us, is nothing new. It is the teaching of Scripture.

My claim that the Church of Christ is made up of all those in Christ wherever they may be, including many in the various denominations, even when they are less than perfect and hold erroneous views, has been rejected by many as a modern heresy. The real heresy is for any religious group or sect to claim to be the totality of God's church on earth. Wherever God has a child I have a brother or sister. We are sisters and brothers, not because we agree on "the issues," but because we have believed in Christ and been baptized into him. When we act upon such simple New Testament truths as this we are renovators in that we are renewing and reinvigorating God's people.

Innovations are of course in order when they are merely new ways of doing old things or when they assist us in performing the basics of our faith. A church building is an innovation as are all these electronic devices we now use, such as this computer I am using. In the area of methods and opinions we may continually innovate, looking for better ways to do what we believe God wants us to do. It was so with Luther. The printing press was still new in his day, and he used it mightily in sending out his call for reform. It is conceded that the Reformation could not have happened without the printing press. In this respect Luther was an innovator, but in reference to the principles, ideals, and ordinances for which he pled, he was a renovator.

It is a distinction worthy of our awareness. We are of course to look for new and better ways to do things, but we need no new gospel or doctrine, nor any additions thereto. Innovators love new revelations but renovators are content to draw upon that faith once for all given to the church. Innovators want to change things by bringing something new, while renovators want to change things by recovering what is old. — the Editor