Heroes and Reformers of History … No. 9

THEY LAID THE EGG THAT LUTHER HATCHED

It was on the eve of All-Souls Day, October 31,1517 that an obscure monk, a professor at the University of Wittenberg, posted his 95 Thesis on the door of the Castle Church in which he called for a disputation on the sale of indulgences. It proved to be the act that launched the Protestant Reformation, and it is extolled by some historians as the most significant event in the history of mankind next to the resurrection of Christ. It changed the course of modem history.

The news of what Martin Luther did on that day spread like wildfire all across Europe. In a matter of weeks every university campus and most every church was aflame with excitement. The pope in Rome was disturbed. It seemed unreal that an obscure monk could declare war against an entrenched clergy and even the pope and thus stir the whole of Europe.

The pope soon issued a bull (decree) against the daring monk, threatening excommunication. Luther, who by then had denied the authority of the pope and the infallibility of general councils, burned the bull in a public spectacle. Excommunication finally came in 1521. Luther spent the next 25 years preaching the gospel of salvation by faith rather than by works. In defiance of pope and Emperor alike he issued book after book, advocating the priesthood of all believers. He translated the New Testament into the vernacular of the German people. He insisted that God’s only communication with mankind is through the Scriptures.

His stand against the pope and the Emperor fired the imagination of Europe. He put the ordinary Christian on his theological feet. As he called for freedom in Christ his followers multiplied. Protestantism was born. Except for the protection of his friends he would surely have died the martyr’s death for what he did.

Luther of course had no idea what he was starting when he posted those theses to the cathedral door. It was the normal thing to do if one wanted to call for a discussion of some issue. And it wasn’t that Luther did not then still believe in indulgences. It was the abuse of them that he was questioning, “the holy trade” it was unblushingly called.

The poor, ignorant people that bought the indulgences did so because they had a mortal fear of lingering in purgatory, the place where the last vestige of sin had to be burned away before one could enter heaven. They were assured of going to heaven if they died with the blessings of the priest. It was time in purgatory they wanted to shorten, not only for themselves but for their loved ones. Those who sold the indulgences told the people that a loved one would be released from purgatory the moment their money rang in the collection plate. It was such abuses that stirred Luther to issue his challenge.

What Luther did would have been no more than another priestly dispute, which is what the pope first called it, except that there were forces at work that neither Luther nor the pope knew about. For upwards of two centuries the church and the world were being prepared for what happened on that cold October day in Wittenberg in 1517. The great events that change history never happen in a vacuum. There were those heroes and reformers that were “unto Luther” and who prepared the soil for the seed he sowed. Or to change the metaphor, when Luther set fire to the papal bull and ignited a conflagration over all of Europe it was because his forerunners had issued thousands of torches throughout the land, ready to be lighted in such splendor as to obliterate much of the darkness of papal Rome.

The monks complained that it was Desiderius Erasmus, the Christian humanist, that laid the egg that Luther hatched. This is to say there would have been no Luther had there not been an Erasmus. Originally a monk himself, Erasmus left his order when he was convinced that such a life was not for him. Using the weapon of “enlightened common sense,” he authored satires that criticized the Roman church for its ignorance, superstition, and obscurantism. One of his books that examined the practices of the church went through 600 editions! He was devastating in his attacks upon the corruption in the Roman church. But his greatest contribution was his epoch-making edition of the Greek New Testament, the first ever printed, which appeared one year before Luther burned the papal bull.

Erasmus, however, was but one of Luther’s forerunners. Equally important was Johann Gutenberg, the German who invented the printing press. He had his new creation perfected well enough for it to produce the Gutenberg Bible in 1456, the first complete book known to be printed in the Christian world. For sometime the new invention was kept a trade secret, but by the time Luther was born in 1483 printing was well established throughout Europe. Up until then everything had to be laboriously copied by hand. The Reformation would have been impossible without the miracle of printing. Luther used it in pamphlet after pamphlet as his reformation truths found their way into the homes of the rich and poor alike.

Earlier still was a Franciscan priest, William of Occam, who died around 1350. He paved the way for Reformation theology by being one of the first prominent figures to question the presumptions of the papacy. He insisted that only Christ is the head of the church and if there must be a papacy it should be made up of a college of popes so as to distribute power. Once he rejected papal authority in secular matters, it was necessary for him to flee and take refuge among those who could protect him. As a logician he also set forth a principle that would prove liberating to the church and world alike if it were heeded, which came to be called “Occam’s razor.” He put it this way: “What can be said with fewer words is done in vain with more.” This means to apply the razor and cut away all the excess baggage. Speak to the point with an economy of words! Put a point on what you have to say and make your ideas clear! Luther learned this lesson well, for pope and peasant alike had no problem understanding him.

Those who edit journals and preach sermons, as well as reformers like Luther, would do well to learn the lesson of Occam’s razor.

And of course John Wyclif must be included in our list of heroes unto Luther, for he was the first to produce an English Bible from the Latin Vulgate. Dying in 1384, he advocated Reformation ideas almost a century and a half before Luther. He opposed the doctrine of transubstantiation, the presumptions of the clergy, and taught that believers do not need a priest to mediate with God for them. His followers were known as Lollards, who claimed that everyone should have access to the Bible. They helped to prepare the way for Luther in the next century. Thirty years after his death Wyclif was condemned as a heretic by the Council of Constance. His body was disinterred from holy ground in 1427. But this pales before what Pope Stephen VI did back in the tenth century when he had the body of his predecessor disinterred, propped up in a chair and tried for heresy. Once condemned, the former pope’s body was thrown in a river.

Then there was John Hus who died as a martyr in 1415 for the cause of church reform. He was indebted to Wyclif for some of his views. He stressed the authority of the Bible and the importance of preaching the gospel. He believed that neither popes nor cardinals could establish doctrines contrary to the Scriptures, nor should Christians obey them when they are wrong. He condemned the sale of indulgences long before Luther, and he pled for purity of life in a time of clerical wantonness.

He was invited to the same council that condemned Wyclif, presumably under safe conduct, but he was tried, condemned, and burned at the stake with never an opportunity to defend himself. This led to the formation of the Hussite Church among the Czechs, a “Protestant” church long before Luther.

Girolamo Savonarola died as a martyr for being a preacher of reform not all that far from the pope himself —in Florence, Italy where he captured the hearts of the people by his charismatic preaching. His powerful preaching at first lifted him to high positions in the church in Florence, but things changed when he began to cry out against the corrupt papal court. At one of the carnivals in the city he persuaded the people to make a bon fire of their cosmetics, pornographic books, and gambling equipment. His anti-papal views led to his excommunication and execution.

Earlier still were the Waldensians who go back to the twelfth century, led by Peter Waldo. They too reacted against the worldly clergy that led the church during most of the medieval centuries. Their commitment to lives of purity and poverty stood in bold contrast to the corrupt clergy. They eventually claimed to be the only true church. When the pope condemned them as heretics it only convinced them further that the Roman church was the “Whore of Babylon.” They rejected everything that was uniquely Roman Catholic —purgatory, feast-days, papal authority, holy water, prayers to images of the saints. By the time of Luther their views had penetrated much of Europe and became a part of the Lutheran reformation.

Perhaps more important than any of these was a movement that worked quietly for reform within the mainline Roman church known as Devotio Modema or the modem way of serving God. It was a spiritual revival within the Roman Catholic Church itself. It had been working slowly but surely like leaven for almost 200 years before Luther. It was led by no one particular reformer but by many who resolved to live changed lives. Many of them were pious monks and devout mystics who quietly worked for reform in schools and monasteries.

Some of these were called the “Brethren of the Common Life” who chose to live the simple life and to honor Christ by working with their own hands. One such mystic was Thomas a’ Kempis who wrote the Imitation of Christ. The book is utterly centered in Christ, who is the only one that can be the heart and soul of any real revival. The book was esteemed next to the Bible in this quiet revolution within the church. After all, Jesus Christ was at the heart of the Protestant Reformation, and those in the Devotio Modema who really discovered Christ in their lives were the ones that lighted their torches from the flame ignited by Luther. They were ready when he was. Luther by no means stood alone.

All this shows that God is at work in ways that we have no way of even imagining. It is only centuries later that we can begin to see, and then only dimly, how God was at work in bringing about his purposes. This story helps us to see that whether it is a mechanic working on a printing press, a translator poring over old manuscripts, a fiery preacher lifting up Christ in the streets, a movement within the church rededicating itself to Christlikeness, or an obscure monk calling for reform, no one ever has to stand alone.

God is always there in the shadows watching over his own. He is always faithful. And it is certain that if one lights a torch for more light and freedom for God’s people there will be others waiting to light their torches from his. It is wonderfully encouraging to know that our labor for the Lord is never in vain. And the more we shake our torches the brighter they burn. —the Editor