Lux Lucet

Day 2 of The Trinity Foundation’s Reformation conference saw four separate presentations by two men whose work has long been associated with the Foundation.  Mark W. Evans, a minister from Faith Presbytery, the Bible Presbyterian Church presented a single paper in two sessions titled The Reformation:  Past, Present, and Future.

The other speaker of the day was Dr. Paul M. Elliott, president of Teaching the Word Ministries.  Dr. Elliott gave two separate talks, the first titled The Reformation is Not a Return to Pre-Reformation Positions, and the second The Reformation Is Not Co-Belligerence with Unbelievers.

For those interested, all four sessions from Day 2 plus the two sessions from Day 1 were recorded and will be available on the Trinity Foundation website.  The planned date of the posting is not known to this writer.

Mark W. Evans

The first session of Pastor Evans’ talk centered on the beginnings of the Reformation.  And where else would one start such a discussion but 500 years ago in Germany.  It was there that an obscure Augustinian monk, moved by the fraudulent selling of indulgences by the popish huckster John Tetzel, change the course of history by nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenberg church door.

The theses were meant by Luther as a debate challenge, would anyone dare to defend the practice of selling indulgences?  As it turned out, no one did.

But what Luther intended as an academic debate, God intended for another purpose.  Evans quotes 19th century church historian J. A. Wylie, who wrote, ” The ‘Theses’ put God’s gift in sharp antagonism to the Pope’s gift.  The one is free,  the other has to be bought.  God’s pardon does not need the Pope’s [e]ndorsement, but the Pope’s forgiveness, unless followed by God’s, is of no avail; it is a cheat, a delusion.  such is the doctrine of the ‘Theses.’ That mightiest of all prerogatives, the power of pardoning sins and so of saving men’s souls, is taken from the Church and given back  to God.”

Luther’s Theses, originally published in Latin, were translated into German by some unknown individual and, as we would say in the age of the internet and social media, went viral.  The rest is history.

Evans continues by noting what no many Protestants believe in the 21st century, namely that, “The papacy was known by the Reformers as the system of Antichrist that was led by ‘the man of sin and son of perdition.’ ” He quotes Calvin’s commentary on 2 Thessalonians.  Calvin wrote,  Now, every one that has learned from Scripture what are the things that more especially belong to God, and will, on the other hand observe what the Pope claims for himself – though he were but a boy of ten years of age – will have not great difficulty in recognizing Antichrist.

Evans also recalls the struggles of Reformers who preceded Luther.  John Wycliffe in England, Evans recounts, was a “zealous scholar” who “struck a devastating blow” when he translated the Latin Vulgate into English.  His followers, known as Lollards, spread copies throughout England. As Evans notes, Lollards caught by Roman clergymen were burned at the stake with their Bibles chained around their necks.  Evans reminds us that these men were not merely followers of Wycliffe, but followers of Jesus Christ.

John Huss is another important figure from the dawn of the Reformation, and Evans provides a synopsis of his work in Prague, his troubles with the Roman Catholic authorities in Bohemia, and eventual martyrdom.

J. H. Merle d’Daubigne is another church historian admired by Evans and many other Protestants.  Evans quotes the Swiss historian’s account of a lesser known reformer, a Carmelite friar named Thomas Conecte, who declared that, “the grossest abominations were practiced at Rome, that the Church required a reform, and that so long as we answered to God we should not fear the pope’s excommunications.”  Along with so many others, Conecte was burned for speaking the truth.

Jerome Savonarola was another early reformer who fell victim to Antichrist’s hatred of the truth.  Savonarola’s crime, in the eyes of the pope at least, was his refusal to give any credit for justification is sinners, but argued that it was God alone who saves.  Savonarola went to the stake and to glory in 1498.

Returning to Luther, Evans tells us that while various councils and protests had been lodged against the abuses of the Church, it was Luther’s that struck at the vitals of the Antichrist’s oppressive regime, the elevation of oral tradition over the Word of God.

As has already been noted, Luther did not do what he did in a vacuum.  Others had preceded him in preaching the Gospel of God’s free grace.  But there was more to it than that.  The Lord providentially provided vital Greek manuscripts brought to the West by monks fleeing the fall of Constantinople in 1453, scholars who were able to produce critical editions of these texts and the printing press the spread them.

The second half of Pastor Evans talk raised the issue of the decline of the Reformation in the 19th century.  That such a thing took place as far back as the Victorian era likely would surprise many.

One of the ways the corruption was spread was through the Westcott and Hort’s critical edition of the New Testament text.  Up until that time, the Greek text that undergirded English Bibles was based on the Received Text of Erasmus.  But the Alexandrian text preferred by 19th century scholars was substantially different and served to cast doubt on whether the Bibles that were in use up to that time, the very Bibles used by God to spread the Reformation, were really the Word of God.  As Evans notes, God did not wait until the 19th century to give us the correct Greek text.

In the second half of his talk, Evans expanded on the idea of the pope as Antichrist.  Many suppose that “anti” means against.  And indeed this is one the meanings of the prepositions.  But as Evans reminded us, “anti” also can mean in place of.  And this, in his view, is the correct way to understand the “anti” in Antichrist.  Antichrist is someone who stands in the place of Christ. A usurper who claims for himself what properly belongs only to the Lord Jesus.

Evans provides three ways in which the Antichrist system of Rome attempts to rob Christ of his prerogatives.

1. Instead of confessing to Christ, Romanists are taught to confess their sins to a priest
2. Instead of holding forth Christ as head of the church, in Romanism the church takes this role
3. In the Romish sacramental system, the wafer takes the place of Christ, men are taught to worship it

Evans cites R. L. Dabney on the decline of Protestantism in the 19th century.  According to Dabney, the decadence of Protestants in his day was such that Rome actually looked pretty good by comparison.  For Dabney’s argument, see the essay The Attractions of Popery.

And if things were bad in the 19th century, what would Dabney say about 21st century Protestantism?  In the United States, Protestantism has declined so far that beginning with Ronald Reagan, the nation has been sending and receiving ambassadors to the Vatican in clear violation of the principle of separation of church and state required by the Constitution.

As things stand, it would be easy to despair of hope that the clear proclamation of the Gospel of Justification by Belief Alone could ever make a recovery.  But Evans closed his talk on a hopeful note.  The God of the reformers is the same today.  If he was able to bring reformation to 16th century Europe, steeped as it was in medieval mysticism, he surely can do so today.

(To be continued…)