Of the various definitions one
might give to the term ‘Evangelical’, I would commend the necessary one that Evangelicals
regularly read the Scriptures. While
not a sufficient definition—the Devil himself is quite versed in God’s Word—it is
surely in the bedrock of whatever Evangelical movement is inspired by and
emerges from the careful and regular reading of Scripture.
Evangelicals do not just believe
that Scripture is the Word of God and therefore the fountain of all theological
and ethical teaching for the Church. They
find various ways to express this and the further claim that this Word is
without error. Yet to be an Evangelical
is also to read the Scriptures, to know them, and to study them. Claiming that the Bible is God’s inspired
Word is translated further into an active reading of the Word, a love for God's Word, and a life formed and transformed by God's Word.
We might trace the history of
those who framed their faith by the Scriptures right back to the first century,
but the designation ‘Evangelical’ should be reserved for that part of history
beginning with the Reformation. While we
might suppose this to be the 16th century, beginning with Martin
Luther, we really need to step back a little in time, perhaps to the year 1378. This is the year that John Wycliffe, after
circulating a tract against popery and having recovered from an illness, set
about translating the Bible into English.
At the time, two persons claimed the seat of Peter: Pope Urban and Pope
Clement. The reason for associating
Wycliffe with what would come to be the Evangelical movement is that this
desire to make the Scriptures available to all was also met with opposition
from the established Church. The bishops
tried to suppress his work. The
Scriptures contradicted certain accumulated teachings of the Roman Catholic
Church, and Wycliffe, in 1381, next opposed the doctrine of
transubstantiation. He also challenged
Pope Urban when the latter called for Christians to kill Christians supporting his
rival, Pope Clement. We see the seed of
the Reformation planted as Scriptural authority began to challenge that of the
Pope and of ecclesiastical teaching that found no footing in God’s Word.
The reforming of the Roman
Catholic Church began with a return to Scriptural authority above all
ecclesiastical claims, some of which had no support in Scripture whatsoever and
others dependent upon contorted interpretations. The great Bohemian, pre-Reformation reformer,
Jan Hus (c. 1369-6 July, 1415), taught that the Church was a community of faith
founded upon Scripture and Christian love:
Thus also many
of the faithful in common believe implicitly all the truth of Scripture, and
when a truth unknown to them is proposed, they search to see if it is laid down
in holy Scripture, and if this is shown to be the case they at once acknowledge
the sense which the Holy Spirit insists on. Therefore, whoever has in common
with others faith formed in love, this suffices for salvation when accompanied
with the grace of perseverance (The Church, ch. VIII).[1]
Hus opposed certain teachings of
the Roman Catholic Church because of his devotion to Scriptural authority. He was betrayed by the officials who gave him
safe passage to the Council of Constance and burned at the stake on 6 July, 1415.
Humanists at the time of the
Reformation argued for an openness to reading the Scriptures. Erasmus said that he dissented
from those who
are unwilling that the sacred Scriptures, translated into the vulgar tongue,
should be read by private individuals, as if Christ had taught such subtle
doctrines that they can with difficulty be understood by a very few
theologians, or as if the strength of the Christian religion lay in a man's
ignorance of it.... And I wish they were translated into all languages of all
people, that they might be read and known. I wish that the husbandman may sing
parts of them at his plough, that the weaver may warble them at his shuttle,
that the traveller may with their narratives beguile the weariness of the way.[2]
Evangelicals find spiritual
ancestors in the likes of William Tyndale, who translated the New Testament
into English. He objected to one
claiming that the Pope’s Law surpassed God’s Law, saying that, ‘if God spare my
life, ere many years, I will cause the boy who driveth the plough to know more
of the Scriptures than you do.’[3]
Martin Luther confronted his accusers
at the Diet of Worms on 18 April, 1521 by affirming Scripture as the basis for
his theology. Allegedly, when he
rejected their insistence that he recant his teachings, he replied,
Unless I am
convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not
trust either in the pope or in the councils alone, since it is well known that
they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the
Scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God.[4]
Whether he actually said this in
so many words or not, this was the basic tenet from which the Reformation
proceeded. Luther’s claim was consistent
with what he had written to Pope Leo X in 1518.
He said that
he did not
pretend to advance or defend anything contrary to the holy scriptures, or to
the doctrine of the fathers, received and observed by the church of Rome, or to
the canons and decretals of the popes: nevertheless, he thought he had the
liberty either to approve or disapprove the opinions of St. Thomas,
Bonaventure, and other school-men and canonists, which are not grounded upon
any text.[5]
The Reformation would proceed upon
the authority of Scripture, the reforming of ecclesiastical teaching upon that
authority, and the unbinding of an individual’s conscience from the blind
authority churchmen held over Christians.
The Anabaptist wing of the Reformation
took things further. Church teaching
would not only be a reforming of the what had been taught on the basis of the
Scriptures, it would only be what the Scriptures had themselves taught. Thus, small groups gathered to study the
Scripture and pray in Zurich from
January, 1525, onwards. At his
trial in 1527 in Rotterdam, the early Anabaptist minister, Michael Sattler stated,
Ye ministers of
God, I am not sent to judge the Word of God; we are sent to bear witness of it,
and, hence, cannot. consent to any law, since we. have no command from God
concerning it; but if we cannot be discharged from the law, we are ready to
suffer for the Word of God whatever sufferings are, or may be imposed upon us
all for the sake of the faith in Christ Jesus our Saviour, as long as we have
breath within us; unless we be dissuaded from it by the Scriptures.[6]
Therein lies the calling of the
Evangelical: to be a witness to what Scripture and Scripture alone
teaches.
In 1529, John Calvin, the
initiator of the Reformed tradition of the Reformation, changed his pursuit of
an ecclesiastical calling for that of the law because he, ‘by reading the
scriptures, had conceived a dislike to the superstitions of popery’.[7] Calvin, of course, returned to ecclesiastical
service as one of the magisterial reformers.
He sought to establish Christian teaching on Scripture.
Turning next to the Anglican
Communion, Thomas Cranmer, who gave the Church of England its first Book of
Common Prayer, continued the Reformation on English soil. He would become archbishop in the time of
King Henry VIII. When he was a fellow at
Jesus College, Cambridge University, he was responsible for the examination of
candidates for their bachelors and doctoral degrees. John Foxe says, ‘It was his principle to
judge of their qualifications by the knowledge they possessed of the
Scriptures, rather than of the ancient fathers, and hence many popish priests
were rejected, and others rendered much improved.’[8] For his opposition to Rome, he would
eventually be burned at the stake.
In time, the Anglican Church
needed reformation. John Wesley’s
attempt to bring about renewal unfortunately led instead to a break with the
Church of England, and the breakaway Methodist Church was the result. In a tract called and describing ‘The
Character of a Methodist’, Wesley wrote first of the authority of Scripture:
all Scripture is
given by the inspiration of God’…. We believe the written word of God to be the
only and sufficient rule both of Christian faith and practice; and herein we
are fundamentally distinguished from those of the Romish Church [1].
Wesley writes especially of the
importance of love, but this includes a love for God that entails keeping God’s
commandments found in Scripture (12). Evangelical
fervour stems from this love for God and desire to obey His Word:
All the
commandments of God he [a Methodist] accordingly keeps, and that with all his
might. For his obedience is in proportion to his love, the source from whence
it flows. And therefore, loving God with all his heart, he serves him with all
his strength. He continually presents his soul and body a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable to God; entirely and without reserve devoting himself, all he
has, and all he is, to his glory [13].
What characterized the
Reformation and all subsequent reforms is a return to Scripture in all matters
of theology and ethics. This reform characterizes
the Evangelical movement through subsequent centuries, not only in terms of
doctrinal authority but also in terms of devotion to God. If Scripture truly is God’s Word, how could
the Christian not want to read it, memorise it, sing it, preach it, live by it,
and love it with the same love as that expressed for the rules of the Lord in
Psalm 19: ‘more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter
also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb’ (v. 10).
Protestant mainline denominations
in our day, sadly, have drifted from this love of the Word of God and developed
teachings contrary to it. They have
followed other loves, and often those directly contrary to the Scriptures. Over the centuries, the Evangelical movement
existed within them as a reforming movement, but in our day, Evangelicals have
ceased to exist as a movement within the Protestant denominations because they
have lost the battle to bring Scripture-based reformation in those places. This has left Evangelicalism as a movement
somewhat disoriented. Is it nothing more
than an orthodox expression of the Church, where that means an adherence to the
historic teaching of the Church that is Scripture-based, but no longer a reforming
movement?
Not necessarily so. Wherever one finds a hunger for the Word of
God, a study group devoted to learning the Scriptures, a pulpit ministry
expositing the Scriptures, a theological college founded unapologetically and wholly
for the study of God’s Word above all else, or simply an individual so desiring
to know God that he or she daily reads and studies the Scriptures and seeks out
others who do the same—there one will find the fire of Evangelicalism yet
aflame. There one will hear testimonies
of those who have repented, of those who have found a new love for God, of
those devoted to His Word, His Church, and its mission. Indeed, the fire of every renewal, whether in
one’s own heart, in a family, in a church, in a denomination, in a seminary, in
a mission organization, or in any Christian organisation begins with the flame
of desiring God and the kindling of a devotion to His Word.
Lord, may
pulpits be filled with expositors of the Bible.
May Christians, so filled with a love for You, frequently gather
together to hear Your Holy Word. May the
darkness of this world be filled with the Light of Scripture. May this generation of Christians, so averse
to reading and so desirous of entertainment, find joy and peace in daily reading
and meditating on Your Word. Renew us,
Oh Lord! Kindle in us a love for You and
a desire for Your Word.
[1]
Jan Huss, The Church, trans. David Schaff (New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1915).
[2]
John Foxe, Book of Martyrs (Chicago: The John C. Winston Co., 2007;
orig. 1583), p. 33; online: https://ia800503.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/17/items/christian-books-collection/CHRISTIAN%20BOOKS%20COLLECTION.zip&file=FOXE%27S%20BOOK%20OF%20MARTYRS%20by%20John%20Foxe.pdf.
[3]
Ibid., p. 37.
[4]
Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1978), p. 182.
[5]
Foxe, Ibid., pp. 643-644.
[6]
J. van Braght Thieleman, The Bloody Theater or Martyrs Mirror of the
Defenseless Christians, trans. Joseph F. Sohm (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press,
2002; orig. 1660), p. 417.
[7]
Foxe, Ibid. 648.
[8]
Foxe, Ibid., p. 330.
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