The Beginning of the Reformation - Luther

Are I guess we're. Today is October 31st and it's a it's a big day. And it's not because this evening there's going to be all sorts of oddly dressed people parading about the streets of the city. But obviously today is Reformation Sunday and we remember what happened on October 31st 1517.

At least we do. I'm afraid that a large portion of evangelicals today probably couldn't tell you the difference between Martin Luther and Martin Luther King as to when they lived what they did or what they believed.

One was a Trinitarian and one was not. I just thought I'd mentioned that in passing didn't catch all by surprise. They didn't realize Martin Luther King denied the deity of Christ and was a formal heretic.

Didn't know that did you. Okay anyways that's not a popular thing to point out but his writings are are filled with that kind of silliness. But anyway Martin Luther when he nailed the 95 theses to the castle church door at Wittenberg was doing nothing more than seeking a academic debate within the context of the church of his day.

He was not seeking to start a new movement. He was not seeking to start the Protestant Reformation. Everybody who got up on November 1st 1517 had no earthly idea that future generations would look back and look at that as the first day of the Protestant Reformation.

But hindsight is 2020. And as I mentioned Wednesday evening it has struck me many many times in my study of church history that there would have been individuals that I would have chosen to lead the Reformation that would seem significantly more prepared and gifted for the work than someone like Martin Luther or Ulrich Zwingli.

Zwingli's Reformation in Zurich pretty much paralleled Luther's. He was only a few years behind him and he wasn't. I mean he was aware of Luther and Luther's actions had some impact upon him. But it was not like he was just simply following after Luther.

There were. There were unique elements to that. And so really you you had the Reformation beginning in multiple places pretty much concurrently with one another. And in fact five years before Luther a man by the name Jacques Lefebvre in France had said many of the same things that Luther said.

And many French Protestants today actually trace the Reformation back to 1512 not to 1517. There was something going on. But it really hadn't just started then. Let me tell you a story about Luther after he posted the 95 theses there was a debate that took place between himself and a man by the name of Johann Eck.

This took place in on April 26 1518. So you know about six months later remember things didn't things did not happen back then. The speed they happen today I am convinced that much of the the shallow thinking and lack of attention that we have is because we are just hit with with new information every day we live in a data fog.

And the fact that there was a debate by April of 1518 from something posted October 31st 1517 to us might seem to be slow but back then was actually pretty quick because you know you nail something up to the door.

That wasn't a protest it was an announcement. And it takes time for that stuff to get around. It had to be printed. Printing was a new process. It had to be distributed had to be read arrangements had to be made.

And if you want to rain something you didn't just you know reach over and you know pick up your droid and Luther there he is. Hey Marty baby what's going on. You know you didn't you didn't do that back then even if you wrote a letter you might you know you didn't have it had to get there slowly.

If it got there at all communication arranging things. Can you imagine that you know I I fly a lot. I'll be covering out oh what another 18 ,000 miles or something over this week flying down to Lima Peru and back.

And if you've landed on a plane you know that basically as soon as the wheels touch down now they allow you to fire up your cell phone. And it's funny to sit there and listen to all the all the cell phones firing up.

And then you start hearing little and all the all the little voicemails and text messages that are waiting for you and and it's just we're just so connected. I mean you're still taxing to the gate and there's communication taking place.

That's not how things were back then. And it really gave me an opportunity to think about things before you actually opened your mouth and said things about things. It was a fascinating concept. So a debate takes place between Johan Eck and Martin Luther and this this particular encounter forces him to start thinking through what really he had said in the 95 theses where he was simply concerned about the subject of indulgences.

Many people were many people looked at it was just such a gross monetary selling of God's forgiveness that that the average person could see. Man this is just this is just all wrong. But it is at the disputation that takes place that a discovery takes place on Luther's part.

And that is he was accused in the course of this disputation of being a Hussite. Now what was the Hussite. Well a Hussite was a follower of Jan Hus. Now Luther knew who Jan Hus was. Everybody knew who Jan Hus was.

Jan Hus was a heretic primarily knew of Jan Hus. Not for having having read anything he said. But Jan Hus had been burned at the stake at the Council of Constance in 1415. So just over a hundred years earlier now once someone was burned to the stake that really didn't generally do a lot for their book sales.

And so it's understandable why Luther would not really know what Jan Hus had had to say. All he knew was he didn't want to be burned to the stake. And so if someone famous had been burned to the stake and you started calling you said someone you're following after that person everybody knew that person had been burned by a council of the church.

Things are getting a little personal. I mean we think things are personal in the political races right now. And they certainly are. But now you're talking about doing something to get somebody killed.

And so we're not sure exactly how it worked. But one of the sources says that during one of the breaks in the debate Luther went to the library. Luther was on the visiting team. Remember I mentioned Wednesday night that you'd have these debates and they would get together.

And this was this was the entertainment between maybe I didn't mention it here but when universities would compete it wasn't like yesterday where you have football teams out there they did debates and so the young people would come and you know they'd cheer people on and then at night they'd go out and paint the town red.

And this was this was how you entertained yourself and as an as university student in those days. And so Luther was on the visiting team from Wittenberg and so he went to the visiting team's library during one of the breaks and debate and dug up information and the writings of Jan Hus.

And I would love to have a have a video of Luther at one of these tables from the medieval period. And these big books most of them were still handwritten at that time. And he's he's reading what Hus has said and the the point of time when the light came on.

Can imagine what it was like when he sat back in his chair and realized that Jan Hus had said many of the things he was saying. Eck was right. Luther was saying many of the things Jan Hus said and Jan Hus had been burned alive.

What was the thought process what was going on in his mind when he realized that. And the conversations as the visiting team returned home to Wittenberg as Luther is riding along in one of those bumpy carriages were like I mean man a chiropractor back then would have made a mint but you know and it's sort of quiet because words gotten around and maybe Andreas Karlstadt or someone who's close to Luther.

So Martin do you really agree with Jan Hus on some of those things. What's more. He had been pressed on the fact that look you know my indulgence is fine. They're sold with papal authority. The Pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth.

Who are you to question him. And so see a process starts. And what it illustrates is that again Luther wasn't the first one to have gone here. Jan Hus was there before him. Jan Hus had been deeply influenced.

He dies as I said the Council of Constance of 1415. He was promised safe passage to the Council of Constance that is the the secular leaders had promised that he would be safe in traveling to and from the conference.

That didn't work out too well for Jan Hus to trust that. That's going to become important later in Luther's life when he is promised safe passage to the Diet of Worms. That's not Diet of Worms even though that's how it's spelled and always gets a real chuckle when I teach church history to young people.

Oh the Diet of Worms a diet was a was a Congress a meeting of the Holy Roman Empire and it met at Worms and he was promised safe passage and he trusted in it and he was allowed to leave. But it was as he was leaving the Diet of Worms that Frederick his protector had him kidnapped and taken to the Vartburg Castle and hidden away as Knight George for a period of time because the Emperor was surely going to have him arrested and killed as a heretic.

So there are some fascinating parallels between Luther and Hus. And in fact as Luther was going into Worms someone had scrawled on the wall next to the main road. Luther the Saxon Hus you know a warning.

Remember what happened to Hus. He came with a promise of safe passage. It's going to happen to you too. So there was a tremendous amount of pressure on on Luther as he did that. But Hus was not the first either.

Hus had been greatly influenced by the writings of another who logically if we were running only on logic would have been the one to have been the one to spark the Reformation. And that was a man of great intellect and fiery rhetoric a man we know as John Wycliffe.

And Wycliffe was a English prelate an English scholar. He dies toward the end of the 14th century of natural causes though he had been summoned to Rome many times where he would have died of very unnatural causes unless you can consider fire a natural cause.

And again he had said many of the same things he had enunciated. What would become the formal principle of the Reformation. The formal principle of the Reformation is known as sola scriptura. Sola scriptura the scriptures alone is the sole infallible source of authority for the church.

The material principle of the Reformation is called sola fide. Faith alone is the means of receiving God's righteousness. The material principle is being preached. It's what it's what had the power. The formal principle was the basis upon which that was based.

And that was sola scriptura the sufficiency of scripture. Wycliffe criticized the papacy. He recognized that such dogmas as transubstantiation were relatively new. Remember this is a period of time where where anachronism still exists in the culture.

What does that mean. As I mentioned a number of times before during the medieval period in Europe anachronism was the minds that the people had. What does that mean. They thought things had always been the way they were now if you look at the paintings from the medieval period of biblical themes you may have found it strange that David is riding around on a horse living in a castle wearing armor.

That's because they thought that that's what things were like things had always been that way. If you're born during the medieval period in Europe generally you would never travel more than seven miles from your home in your entire life.

So if you're born in a valley chances are you never even leave the valley. That's where you live. Your world is very small and so it's easy to think that. And things weren't changing much. I mean from about 700 to about 1 ,300.

Things didn't change much dress technology. Things didn't change a whole lot. And so it was easy for you to slip into the mindset. And everybody did basically that you didn't question things. And that allowed you know culture to be very stable in that sense we always done it this way.

So we'll just keep doing it that way. We don't want innovation or anything like that. And so with that kind of a mindset it was sort of amazing that Wycliffe could recognize this transubstantiation stuff a fourth ladder in council.

That's not that long ago. This isn't what the what early people taught and believed and so on and so forth. And so you had these people who came earlier. Why then doesn't the Reformation begin with someone like Wycliffe who wrote just as incendiary thing.

In fact Wycliffe's writings are significantly more incendiary than Luther's at least initial writings now starting about 1519 or so when Luther starts seeing the ramifications of his protests on indulgences a process begins so by 1519 1520 1521 his writings are bearing are sounding more and more Protestant and less and less Roman Catholic.

That process continues. For example just yesterday a friend of mine posted on on his blog studies he had done and it's very common for Roman Catholic controversialist to say oh well you know Martin Luther he believed the Immaculate Conception just like we do today.

Well he didn't but as an Augustinian monk he would have at first. And how long did it take him to get to the point where he no longer believed that. Well sometime between 1525 and 1528 or so because a sermon of his that talks about the Immaculate Conception was published in 1527 when it was then republished 1528 that was gone.

And so somewhere in that time period Luther himself had changed his perspective. But when he stood before Charles the Diet of Worms he still held to many Roman Catholic beliefs and as I mentioned Wednesday night died holding to some.

But it was a process it didn't just happen overnight and just wake up one morning and boom I'm a Lutheran you know he wouldn't have had any concept of what anything like that would have meant at that point in time.

So why didn't it start them. Well because there were all sorts of streams of history that had to come together at one place at one time for the Reformation to begin. And when Wycliffe wrote what Wycliffe wrote it wasn't time.

It simply wasn't time. What was missing. Well some of the most important aspects to keep in mind as to what gave rise to the Reformation. I talked about some of these on the dividing line but I know a lot of you don't catch that.

So if you did then I'm going to be repeating them. And therefore you will be expected to know these things very very well since you've heard them twice. First was a decay in the authority of the Roman Church in the 14th century the Roman papacy experience was called the Babylonian captivity the church.

And what in the world does that mean the papacy. A lot of people don't know this. The papacy moved it left Rome and went to Avenue on France and was there for quite some time. And and then when people say no this isn't right supposed to be in Rome they tried to move it back and that resulted in a schism.

And for a number of years you had two competing popes who busily anathematized each other and the various kings and nations of Europe would line themselves up behind one or the other depending on what their political expediency was.

So I can guarantee you whoever support France the King of England was on the other side. And so in the minds of many not just the intellectual but I mean everybody in Europe knew that this was going on.

It wasn't a secret. And when you have two guys anathematizing the other one both claiming to be the Vicar of Christ it sort of damages the idea of the one infallible leader of the church idea and led to even even when the schism was healed it wasn't healed by a Pope.

There was a council. The council deposed the other two popes and elected a third but they didn't accept that. So for a while you had three popes. And then finally at the Council of Constance which is the same council that burned Ian Huss for preaching evangelical theology.

That council healed the schism and resulted in one Bishop of Rome once again. So it wasn't the papacy that healed itself. It took a council to do it which led to a movement called conciliarism where councils were viewed as having the ultimate authority.

Well that didn't last long mainly because the Pope didn't want it to. But this had all led to in essence a degradation of people's view of the authority of the church. And then this had led only further to a degradation in the papacy itself you had at the time of Luther.

When Luther visited Rome in 1510 he saw it as a debauched place. He saw it as a place lacking spirituality. As a priest he went into a place where you could offer the Mass and he found Italian priests who were being paid to offer Masses to the dead and they would come in and they would they would rush through it so fast they weren't even pronouncing the words just simply to make money.

And he was was extremely offended by all of this. But he also saw Pope Julius riding through the streets of Rome in full armor at the head of a column of cavalry. Yeah you know instead of the shepherd's crook you know it's a long sword and that's that's how it where the papacy was at that time the Borgia Popes were of recent memory.

Most of them died of being poisoned. You you became Pope because you had the most money as a Cardinal so you could buy everybody else off and it was just a and everybody knew that the Pope had numerous mistresses and all sorts of illegitimate children and it was just a joke and everybody knew it and that was important at this particular point in time.

Likewise also very important was were the Ottoman Turks and most people don't realize that Islam had something to do with the Reformation. But it did. The Ottoman Turks were coming in from the east. Constantinople had fallen to the Turks in 1453.

That did a number of important things. One thing that it did was it as they were moving farther and farther toward Europe itself into Europe itself. There was a need for political unity so that the Holy Roman Empire and the constituent peoples and Italy and so on so could all send armies to fight them that no one nation could hold off all the Ottoman Turks but as a united front they could.

Well that meant that they had to be able to compromise on things. And so for example Luther taught at Wittenberg which was Frederick the Wise's own University he started it and so it just so happened that Charles the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire who would have much preferred to have just lit Luther up like a candle couldn't do so because he needed Frederick's military cooperation in fighting the Turks.

And so there had to be compromises which gave freedom and started movements that otherwise would not have been the case had that threat not been there. What's more is when Constantinople fell many of the scholars the Greek scholars remember Constantinople modern Istanbul Byzantium as it was once known the center of the Byzantine Empire was where the vast majority of Greek scholarship had resided for quite some time.

And so when Constantinople fell there was a flood of refugees Greek scholars who came into Europe bringing their manuscripts with them. And this was extremely important in regards to the collation of the text of the New Testament the rise and understanding of the Greek language.

This is right around the time when when the Renaissance is taking place Renaissance humanism ad fontes to the source they want to. They don't want to know what medieval scholars thought about this. They want to go back to the original sources.

There is a sudden interest in learning Greek. A man named Johannes Reuchlin learns Hebrew writes the first Hebrew grammar for Christians to use to look at the Old Testament its original languages. All of this was very dangerous to do because the Inquisition would automatically assume you're a heretic if you were doing these things.

And of course all of this requires the printing press. Luther's ideas Zwingli's ideas eventually Calvin's ideas. Why was it for example once Bloody Mary took over in England and began to try to reverse the effects of Reformation in England.

Why was it that so many English reformers fled to Geneva and were trained there Geneva will they have been reading. They would. They would voraciously get their hands on anything was published. And so as Calvin would be preaching those sermons we translated into English and they would be brought to England.

And so people went to Geneva and they were trained there. And once Bloody Mary's reign ended then they went back to England and they brought all that literature with them. That could not have happened prior to the invention of printing in the West in the middle of 15th century.

It just couldn't have happened. In fact it couldn't even happen right. Then because it took more than one printing press it takes it took time for that technology to spread and become usable. And so good 50 60 years.

And by 1517 there are enough printing presses available that you can now have this reproduction of these writings. And that's why Rome looked the printing press. And that's why Rome had as an enemy that they had the index prohibitorium the index of prohibited books which grew exponentially as the printing press allowed these things to have even further distribution amongst the people.

And so you had to have the printing press to allow this material to get out. Then you had to have the rise of humanism. You had to have men like Lorenzo Valla. Lorenzo Valla was the first guy at least that we know of because of what he wrote who all of a sudden realized things have changed.

And in fact since things have changed I'll bet you things change when we pass written sources down over time. What he did is he he said you know the Latin Vulgate gets copied all the time. Latin Vulgate was translated by Jerome around the year 400 before and after.

But let's just use 400 as a nice even number beginning of the fifth century. Let's see if we can detect changes in the text of Vulgate by comparing it with Jerome's own commentaries because Jerome translated the Vulgate.

But Jerome's commentaries would not be copied very often. And not the most popular guy I mean popular but still not in comparison how often Vulgate was translated. So he went and he gets he gets Jerome's commentaries.

And he compares the modern version of Vulgate with Jerome's own comments in his commentary which you would assume would be from his own translation. And they were. And Valla demonstrated that the Vulgate had been expanded a little bit and there had been a copyist activity in the text of the Vulgate and he suggested a corrected text based upon Jerome's original commentaries.

Now again you have to remember in this day he had to do all this anonymously because even raised these questions could get you put on the rack or tied to a stick and burned like a candle. And in fact no one during his lifetime knew that he had raised these things.

It was Erasmus later on Desiderius Erasmus the Dutch humanist scholar who ran across Valla's stuff and published them. Erasmus was a fascinating fellow. He lived in a day where there's a he was very influenced by a man named in in England by name of John Collett.

John Collett was teaching through Romans using this amazing methodology called the grammatical historical method of interpretation. He was actually preaching by verse through Romans in the context in which Rome which Paul would have written to the Romans in the first place.

And this just blew people away. Can you imagine reading the Bible in this fashion rather than well such and such a scholar quoted such-and-such a scholar who said such and such a thing about such-and-such a thing which develops in every religion and it kills what develops in.

That's just the way that it is. And so Erasmus was fascinated by him that prompted him to learn the Greek language better than he had prior to this. And Erasmus thought you know what we really need as humanists.

And we use that term negatively today. Back then it did not have the same connotation it has today. All the humanists were very religious men. They just simply believed that God had given men certain gifts and capacities to be able to study and learn these things.

And so Erasmus goes you know we really need we really need a printed edition of the Greek New Testament. That's what we need. We don't just need the Vulgate. In fact I'm going to do is I'm going to come up with a fresh translation in Latin and I'm going to print it on parallel pages with the Greek text.

So he moved because the area was in did not have enough manuscripts in the work with he he he moved and he contacted a man by the name of John Froben and Froben was a printer but Froben had some inside information.

Froben knew that there was already a multi-volume well-done set of the Greek New Testament that had already been printed now. Why didn't anybody know about this. Because they volumes were sitting in a warehouse.

Why were the volumes sitting in a warehouse. Because unlike today if you printed anything you also had to get papal permission before you could publish it. And if you think we have red tape today in dealing with government can you imagine what it was like back then to communicate with faraway Rome and to get approval especially something to be somewhat controversial member at the Council Florence in the 1400s the Greeks had come over and they tried to reunify the church.

The church had split in 1054 between the East and the West. Well it didn't work. And so in most people's minds Greek was the language of the heretics and the official Bible of the church was the Latin Vulgate.

And so why would anyone want to learn Greek anyway. So it's just the language of heretics anyhow. So it would have been a controversial thing to do this. Well Cardinal Cardinal Jimenez had put together what was called the completion polyglot and massive work but they were waiting for approval from Rome and Rome was a bit distracted at this point in time with all sorts of political intrigue and things like that.

So Luther I'm sorry Erasmus dives into the preparation of this text and he makes good speed through most of it. He used about five or six manuscripts. Ironically the oldest and best manuscript he had.

He didn't trust because it was different in places from the newer manuscripts he had which would have been easier to copy. But he still had to make textual choices between the manuscripts he had. He gets the book of Revelation and now he's got a problem.

He had moved to Basel simply because he figured the library would have plenty of manuscripts in view could not find a single manuscript of the book of Revelation anywhere. And so John Froben knows that there's this big beautiful set just waiting to be published.

It's already printed. It's gonna take him time to print his. He's investing in you know keeping Erasmus going during this time. So he's really putting the pressure on. Look we gotta get this thing out.

And so what he does. What Erasmus does is he he borrows a friend's commentary on the book of Revelation. It's a commentary written many centuries before him. What he does. He extracts the text revelation from the commentary.

So this will put in a handwritten commentary. And so you're extracting the text from the handwritten commentary. I can imagine what that would be like. But then what's worse is he gets to the last six verses of chapter 22 and the last few pages of the book of fallen off.

So what he does is he takes the Latin Vulgate and he translates from the Latin Vulgate into Greek for the last six verses of the book of Revelation. Now in the process he creates all sorts of words and readings that no one's ever seen before.

But interestingly enough those readings are still in what's called the Texas Receptus and are still the basis of the King James and the New King James Version to this day. So if you have an NKJV the last six verses of Revelation will have readings in it that no one had ever seen in their entire life until Erasmus rushing to get the first edition of his Greek New Testament out translated from the Latin Vulgate into Greek to do the last six verses of the book of Revelation which is interesting.

So they get it done. But some of you are sitting there going. Yeah. But who cares. They get it done because they still have to wait for papal approval. Right. Anybody was thinking about that going. Why are they rushing.

Ha. Well here's here's what Erasmus does. He takes a gamble. They skip the papal approval part but they dedicate the volume to Pope Leo. That's how you try to get around it. You dedicate the volume to Pope Leo the 10th.

So the first printed Greek New Testament that Erasmus put out was dedicated to Pope Leo the 10th who is the same Pope who writes a little papal pronouncement exergei domine. Exergei domine arise O Lord because a a swine has broken out in your vineyard and that's Luther.

Exergei domine was the letter of excommunication of Martin Luther. So the first Greek New Testament that was printed and published not first printed but first printed in published was dedicated to Pope Leo the 10th who would eventually only a few years later excommunicate Martin Luther.

But it was one of these Erasmian New Testaments this is 1516 the first one comes out that falls in the hands of that very same professor from Wittenberg Martin Luther who is at that time studying Romans and is instrumental in his recognition that the Latin Vulgate point attention agate do penance is not the same thing as the Greek New Testament metanoia say repent.

And it was the availability of that information that was absolutely foundational to laying a proper foundation to the Reformation in Biblical Studies for example in Zurich when Zwingli would the Reformation in Zurich was primarily done.

You know the Swiss are an odd lot very democratic all have been. The Reformation took place primarily through debates called disputations and Zwingli was a tremendous debater and most of the Catholic priests debating all they could do was Latin.

Zwingli could read all the original languages and would stand there with a with the Latin Vulgate the Greek New Testament the Hebrew and just blow people away right and left. Where did you get that stuff.

Well again all these streams of history had to start coming together at one time one place. It wasn't there at the time of Wycliffe it wasn't there at the time of Huss but it was there on October 31st 1517.

Now as I said when Luther walked up that door he had no idea that door in essence was the the top of a massive powder keg a religious and cultural and political and intellectual powder keg. He did not know that it was not his intention it was not his purpose.

It scared him to death and continue to scare him to death for many years afterwards. He did not know that that door was a was a light a lighter you know the fuse and that as he walked away that day thinking he had just invited people to engage in debate that in reality he had lit a fuse that no matter how hard he even might try to get it out in the preceding in the following months and years was not going to go out.

And the explosion was great indeed in many many different ways. So that's why I say on November 1st 1517 everybody woke up had no earthly idea that anything changed frequently that's how history works.

But for me as I have over the years considered all these streams that had to come together the rise of nationalism the fact that many Germans were now viewing themselves more as Germans than just as Christians that made them upset that indulgence money was going straight out of Germany into Italy to build beautiful you know St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and leaving German Christians with nothing that was extremely important all these things had to come together in exactly the right way for this to take place.

And so if we confess this was an act of divine providence then we certainly have to see that God is a God who is providentially involved in his world and he is accomplishing exactly what he chooses to accomplish in the way he chooses to do so at the time he chooses to do so and we now not quite 500 years later look at these situations and we are so often disconnected from them we don't see the connection that we have how vital they were to development of our own freedoms and so on and so forth.

But the reality is this wasn't all that long ago and we have been deeply influenced by these things. And the person who doesn't know the influences that have given rise to their beliefs and understandings is a person I think deprived of the depth of those beliefs and likewise deprived the opportunity to rejoice in what God has done so Reformation Sunday we're going to be talking about the five solas and things like that in the sermon this morning.

But now you've got some background that hopefully will make it all that much more meaningful for you all. Right. Let's close our time in the heavenly father we do thank you for your providence care over the very stream of history itself.

And as we enjoy the many blessings that you have provided to us in that great event called the Reformation we ask that you would make it ever more sweet to us that we know the gospel that you have preserved us in that gospel.

May we love it. May we show our love toward you as we lift up our hearts and worship and praise now we pray in Christ's name.