Peter Witkowski Church History, Heros of the Faith Biographies

John Knox: The Biblically Bold & Yet Flawed Reformer of Scotland

The booming cannons of the French galleons in the bay below St. Andrews Castle brought John Knox’s first pulpit ministry to a sudden end on July 30, 1547. Though Knox had not participated in the capture of St. Andrews Castle in 1546, he also did not condemn those who had killed the castle’s not so celibate owner, Cardinal David Beaton, who had orchestrated the death of Knox’s mentor George Wishart and several other men who affirmed Martin Luther’s teaching of salvation by grace alone through faith alone. A year after Beaton’s death, Knox decided to make St. Andrews Castle his home and became a tutor, hoping to escape the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church which was intent on arresting protestants.  

Though ordained by the Catholic Church to serve as a priest prior to his conversion, Knox only reluctantly agreed to serve as the castle’s preacher after another area pastor publicly charged then the 30-year-old Knox to not “refuse this holy calling .” Though Knox ascended to the pulpit with much trepidation and even a few tears, his first sermons burned with transformational truth. To quote one of Knox’s earlier biographers, “Knox struck at the root of the popery, by boldly pronouncing the Pope to be the antichrist, and the whole system as erroneous and anti-scriptural.” Commenting on his preaching ministry, Knox said, “I will be part of no other church except that which has Jesus Christ as its pastor, which hears His voice, and will not hear a strangers.” Though he preached for only a few months, many of those in and around the castle repented and believed because to quote Knox, “God so assisted his weak soldier, and so blessed his labors.”

Unfortunately for the young reformer and the other 120 defenders of the castle, Catholic France did not take kindly to the murder of Cardinals and sent a fleet to restore order. Once aware that no help would come from England, the leaders of the castle surrendered to the French fleet, expecting to become political exiles. But the French doubled crossed the Scots and made them serve as Galilee slaves.

A Slave

The sickness, exhaustion, and persecution that Knox endured while a galley slave somewhat foreshadowed the general tenure of Knox’s life. Though he preached the same gospel as Huss, Zwingli, and Calvin, the Scotsman would never enjoy the permanence nor the governmental support of those other gospel preachers. He would preach and pastor in the midst of great hardship.

Upon his release from prison in 1549, Knox made his way to England whose king, Edward VI, had embraced the Protestantism of his Father Henry VIII. Though the Anglican church initially embraced Knox, his time in England would prove both contentious and short. He upset his British clergy when he labeled the practice of kneeling before the Lord’s table as “idolatrous.” But more importantly, the young King Edward VI died on July 6, 1553, and his half and devotedly Catholic sister, Queen Mary Tudor, or “Bloody Mary,” ascended to the British throne intent on reestablishing the Roman Catholic faith with both words and the sword.

Fearing for his life, Knox resettled himself and his family in Frankfurt Germany in 1554, hoping to pastor the city’s English congregation. But once again, Knox found himself out of step with his fellow believers over the practice of the Lord’s supper and out of a church. He relocated to Geneva in 1556 to pastor that city’s English congregation.

After spending three formative years pastoring in Geneva and studying under John Calvin who became one of Knox’s closest friend, the reformer attempted a return to England in 1559 only to be redirected to Edinburgh because queen Elizabeth I took exception to Knox’s belief that a “woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man, not to rule and command him.” At first, Scotland proved equally hostile to Knox. The Bishop of St. Andrews threatened to shoot Knox on sight if the reformer resumed preaching. Undaunted, Knox continued on, revival broke out, and 14 priests in St. Andrews renounced the pope and embraced Jesus as their savior. In 1560 following the death of the Catholic Queen Regent of Scotland, the Scottish parliament ratified the Scottish Confession of Faith which Knox helped write, guaranteeing Protestants the freedom of religion. But even that victory was tainted. A few months later, Marjory (who Calvin labeled as Knox’s “most sweet wife,”) died, leaving Knox to care for his two children.

From 1560-1572, Knox experienced the calmest season of his life during which he wrote several books and became the pastor of St. Giles church in Edinburgh, Scotland. Though Knox enjoyed great success in this pulpit and experienced the joy of marrying his second wife – Margaret Stewart, he still found himself constantly harassed by the youthful and Catholic Queen Mary of Scotland and a handful of others who objected to his unapologetic defense of Protestantism.

On November 9, 1572, Knox preached his last sermon and had to be carried in and out of the pulpit by his friends. Sensing that death was close, Knox exhorted his congregants to stand firm in the faith. In one of his last prayers, he asked the Lord to, “Raise up faithful pastors who will take charge of thy church. Grant us, Lord, perfect hatred of sin, both by the evidences of thy wrath and mercy.” On Monday November 24 around 11PM after spending the day listening to his wife read Calvin’s sermons on Ephesians and John 17, Knox uttered his final words, “Now it is come,” took two more deep breaths, and then died as one historian noted “without out a struggle.” To quote Knox, “Serve the Lord in fear, and death shall not be terrible to you. Nay, blessed shall death be to those who have felt the power of death of the only begotten Son of God.”

A Prophet

Like Luther, Calvin, Wycliffe, and others, Knox unapologetically built his faith and ministry on the Scriptures, believing that God had called him to “instruct the ignorant, comfort the sorrowful, confirm the weak, and rebuke the proud.” He told his fellow Christians in Scotland, “The Word of God is the beginning of life spiritual, without which all flesh is dead in God’s presence; and the lantern to our feet…and…it is the foundation of faith, without which, no man understands the good will of God – so it is the only instrument which God uses to strengthen the weak, to comfort the afflicted, to reduce to mercy by repentance such as have slidden; and finally, to preserve and keep the very soul, in all assaults and temptations.” In other words, the Bible contained the message of salvation, which the Holy Spirit used to open the eyes of the lost and then to sanctify and preserve the saved. As the reformer told Mary Queen of Scotts, “The word of God is plain in itself and if there appears any obscurity in one place the Holy Ghost…explains the same more clearly in other places, so that their can remain no doubt.” As his writings make clear, Knox’s boldness in the pulpit, on paper, and before queens arose from his confidence in the Scriptures that had so changed his life could change the life of those who heard his sermons. To quote Knox, “I desire to communicate with them the light which God hath offered and revealed unto me, in Christ Jesus his Son.”

Knox and the Catholic Church

With his conscience bound to the clear teaching of the Scriptures, Knox found himself frequently at odds with the teaching and practices of the Catholic Church especially the church’s view of the sacraments because Rome had made human tradition equal with Scripture. Knox condemned the practice of the mass because the priestly action of declaring the bread and the wine to be Jesus’ physical body that could impart grace through consumption had no biblical foundation. He wrote, “The Mass is nothing; but the invention of man, set up without…the authority of God’s Word…and therefore is Idolatry.” Knox continued, “For it is not his presence in the bread that can save us, but his presence in our hearts through faith in his blood which has washed out our sins, and pacified his Father’s wrath toward us.” Similarly, Knox sought to correct the Catholic Church’s understanding of baptism, noting that it too was a sign and not a means of regeneration. Holy water saved no one. To quote Knox, “No man is so regenerated, but…he has need of the means which Jesus Christ…appointed to be used in his church, to wit, the Word truly preached, and the sacraments rightly administered.” Captive to the Word of God, Knox called the Catholic Church to return to the clear teaching and practice of the Scriptures.

Knox and Politics

Given the political turmoil of his age and the church’s dependence upon the state, Knox also believed that the state should be shaped by the Bible. As he said in one of his sermons, “Kings then have not an absolute power to do in their regiment what pleases them; but their power is limited by God’s Word.” Moreover, Knox believed that the state’s very survival depended upon its obedience to the Scriptures. If kings or queens openly rebelled against God’s Word, then God would in time crush those nations as he had crushed Israel for its rebellion against God. Knox warned the English government saying, “The Lord will in his own time destroy unjust governments by his own people, to whom he will supply proper qualifications for this purpose, as he formerly did with Jerubbaal.” According to Knox even rulers and citizens who did not actively sin but only passively endured false teaching stood in danger of God’s judgment. Knox proclaimed, “For God does not only punish the chief offenders, but with them, does he condemn the consenters to iniquity.” Pushing further than Calvin, Knox instructed his followers to obey their kings and queens only as long as they followed Christ. He wrote, “we must not obey the king of magistrate when their commands are opposed to God and his lawful worship; but rather…expose our person and lives, and fortunes to danger.” He wanted the Scriptures to shape by the individual, the church, and state.

Knox and Queen Mary

Acting out his convictions, Knox preached against Queen Mary’s attempts to reinstate the mass and advance Catholicism in Scotland. The queen disliked Knox’s sermons and ordered him to appear before her on five different occasions to give an account for his actions. During the first confrontation, the queen accused Knox of treason because he taught a religion other than the one practice by the crown. Knox rejoined, “Madam, as right Religion took neither original strength nor authority from worldly Princess, but from the Eternal God alone, so subjects are not bound to frame their Religion according to the appetites of their Princes.” The reformer then noted that his aim was not rebellion but that “both Princes and subjects obey God.” Undaunted by the queen’s first summons, Knox continued to boldly preach against the queen’s embrace of the errors and abuses of the papacy.

Knox With Mary Queen of Scots

As anticipated, Knox found himself back at court in December 1562 and then again in April 1563. His most famous interaction with the queen occurred a month later in May1563. At that meeting, the queen shed a “great abundance” of tears because Knox opposed her wedding to her Catholic fiancé. Knox replied, “I never delight in the weeping of any of God’s creature, yes, I can scarcely well abide the tears of my twin boys…much less rejoice in your majesty’s weeping.” Still, the reformer refused to abandon his convictions and continued to preach the full counseling of God’s Word,  embracing whatever consequences might come. In October 1563, the queen once again summoned Knox to court and then referred him to the privy council for punishment. Nothing would come of that inquiry as the queen’s administration became increasingly unstable because she indulged in an affair. By God’s grace, Knox would be vindicated for his faithfulness to the Scriptures. As the reformer told his friends, “For never shall we find the church humbled under the hands of tyrants, and cruelly tormented by them, but therewith, we shall find God’s just vengeance to fall upon the cruel persecutors, and his merciful deliverance to be showed to the afflicted.”

Two Rough Edges to Knox’s Preaching

While the crux of Knox’s confidence in the Scriptures proved commendable, it’s jagged edges proved unhelpful. On occasion, the Reformer attacked secondary issues within the church with the same force that he used against the false teachers outside of Protestantism. For example, he so vehemently criticized Thomas Crammer’s British liturgical teaching that the Lord’s Supper should be consumed while kneeling that churches in England and then in Frankfurt removed him from their pulpits. Moreover, these conflicts proved fruitless. Knox’s tactics failed to win men to his position. Calvin, one of Knox’s closet allies, offered Knox the following caution: “It behooves us to strive sedulously that the mysteries of God be not polluted by the admixture of ludicrous or disgusting rites. But with this exception, you are well aware that certain things should be tolerated even if you do not quite approve of them.” Knox forever struggled with this exception.

Similarly, Knox’s poor hermeneutic – specifically his method of interpreting and applying the Old Testament (OT) – led Knox at times to be offensive where the Scriptures were not. Knox viewed the OT prophets more through epistolary than a historical or prophetical lens which led him to proclaim that earthly sufferings were the direct result of individual or national sin. He declared that “The prophets are the interpreters of the Law and they make the plagues common to all offenders.” Commenting on how God used Isaiah, Jerimiah, and Ezkiel to call down judgement on Moab, Egypt, and other nations, Knox proclaimed, “the plagues spoken of in the law of God, appertain to every rebellious people, be they Jews or be they Gentile, Christians in title or Turks in profession.” Using the OT to justify his speculation into the secret judgements of God, Knox told the Catholic Queen Regent of Scotland that the tragic death of her two sons within the space of six hours was a sign of “the anger and hot displeasure of God” and called her to repent. Though Knox rightfully called sinners to repentance, the Scriptures did not provide him with a mandate to apply the judgements of the OT to his day. If anything, Knox would have done well to heed Jesus’s teaching in John 9:1-12 were he declared that physical illness was not always a direct result of sin. “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him (Jn 9:3).”

A Pastor

The only thing that equaled Knox’s passion for preaching was his love for the saints who had heard his preaching. Knox devoted much of his writing ministry to encouraging the fainthearted, longing to assist them in their sanctification.

Knox and His Letters

As Knox moved from place to place, he kept up a steady correspondence with his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Bowes. He readily encouraged her through her many bouts with depression. He wrote to her of Jesus saying, “he did taste the cup of God’s wrath against sin, not only to make full satisfaction for his chosen people, but also, that he might learn to be pitiful to such as are tempted…therefore, despair not, for your troubles be infallible signs of your election in Christ’s blood, being ingrafted in his body.” Knox writings reveal that he faithfully reverenced Mrs. Boews as his, “Dear beloved Sister” for as long as she lived.

Knox’s Last House

He also kept in touch with his congregations in England and Scotland, encouraging them to stand firm in the face of persecution. As Queen Mary Tudor began arresting and killing protestants such as Thomas Crammer, Knox encouraged his former congregations to hold fast to the gospel. He reminded them that, “By avoiding idolatry you may fall into the hands of earthly tyrants, but obeyers, consenters, and maintainers of idolatry, shall not escape the hands of the living God. For avoiding idolatry, your children shall be deprived of father, friends, riches, and earthly rest; but by obedience to idolatry, they shall be left without God, without knowledge of his Word, and without hope of his kingdom.” He then pointed them to God’s faithfulness proclaiming, “the Lord himself will be your comfort; he shall come in your defense with his mighty power; he shall give you victory when none is hoped for, he shall turn your tears into everlasting joy.” As he said in another letter, “This is the chief and principal cause of my comfort and consolation in these most tearful days, neither can our infirmities nor our daily persecutions hinder the return of Jesus Christ to us.”

Knox also frequently addressed Scottish Christians. He penned his first letters to the saints of St. Andrew’s while a galley slave. He remained in contact with the Scottish church while on the continent, encouraging them to form biblical churches that installed biblically qualified men to preach. He wrote, “Wheresoever God’s Word hath supreme authority, where Jesus Christ is affirmed, preached, and received to be the only Savior of the world, where his sacraments are truly administered, and finally, where his Word rules…there is the true church of Jesus Christ.” He also repeatedly called his fellow Scotsmen to take the threat of false doctrine seriously, encouraging political leaders to affirm the biblical teaching of the reformation and their subjects to hold said rulers to the commands of Scripture. To quote Knox, “Sleep not in sin, for vengeance is prepared against all the disobedient.” He forever pointed his congregants to the grace, mercy, and hope of Jesus.

Knox and His Prayers

In addition to encouraging his fellow Christians, Knox also faithfully prayed for his family, friends, and his opponents. Knox promised his mother-in-law that, “I will daily pray that your fears may be relieved, and [that your] doubts may obtain the same, to the glory of God and your comfort everlasting.” Similarly, he told his fellow English believers, “My daily prayer is for the sore afflicted in those quarters…beseeching God of his infinite mercy to so strengthen you; that in the weakest vessels Christ’s power may appear.” He also prayed for his adversaries asking the Lord, to “Illuminate the heart of our sovereign lady, Queen Marry.” At other times, he prayers for his enemies proved less encouraging. Once, he asked the Lord to “Pour forth thy vengeance upon” those who persecuted and murdered Christians. Knox’s prayers proved so effective that the Queen regent of Scotland once remarked that she was “more afraid of [Knox’s prayers than an army of 10,000 men.”

Knox’s confidence in the power and promises of prayer arose from his confidence in God’s sovereignty. Like Calvin, Knox affirmed that God predestined men and women to salvation through election in accordance with his holy will. The reformer wrote, “There is no way more proper to build and establish faith, then we hear and…believe that our election…consists not in ourselves but in the eternal and immutable good pleasure of God.” According to Knox, what proved true of salvation proved true of all of life. Knox noted, “the way of man is not in his own power, but…his foot-steps are directed by the Eternal.” Resting in God’s power, Knox expectantly prayed for the advancement of the gospel and the destruction of the wicked because God’s Word had decreed that the battle between good and evil would culminate in the return and triumph of Christ.  Commenting on the importance of prayer, Knox said, “Let no man think himself unworthy to call and pray to God because he has grievously offended his majesty in times past…To mitigate or ease the sorrows of our wounded conscience, two plasters hath our most prudent Physician provided, to give us encouragement to pray…a Precept and a Promise. The precept … “Ask, and it shall be given unto you.” …[the] promise… “If ye, being wicked, can give good gifts to your children, much more my heavenly Father shall give the Holy Ghost to them that ask him (Matt. 7).” …let us be encouraged to ask whatever the goodness of God hath freely promised.” Knox’s faith drove him to prayer for those whom he loved.  

Knox’s Pastoral Misstep

As with his preaching, Knox’s pastoral skills also proved imperfect. At times, the urge to care for his congregants led Knox to rashly put pen to paper. Most infamously, he secretly published the The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women in 1558 as Mary Tudor sought to hand over England to the rule of Philip I, the Catholic king of Spain. Unfortunately for Knox, Mary died on November 17, 1558, ending all hopes of England becoming Catholic. Mary’s protestant, half-sister Elizabeth I ascended to the throne on January 15, 1559. Though Knox had the Catholic monarch in view, Elizabeth I still found the content of his book offensive. To understand why, one only has to Knox’s first sentence which unfolded as follows: “To promote a Woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any Realm, Nation, or city is repugnant to Nature; contemptable to God, a thing most contrary to his revealed will and approved ordinances; and finally, it is the subversion of good Order, of all etiquette and justice.” Though Knox did not think all women incapable of ruling, citing the example of Deborah, the damage had been done. He would never again live in England. Sadly, he also inadvertently blunted Calvin’s influence in England. Though Calvin knew nothing of the book’s publication until after it began to circulate and disagreed with parts of its premise, Elizabeth I forever held Calvin responsible for its publication as it had been birthed in Calvin’s Geneva.

Conclusion

Knox’s Grave

Knox died confident in his faith. But his legacy has proved less than certain. Though Knox’s first biographers viewed him favorably, and an increasing number of historians have begun to portray the reformer as a Philistine prone to insults, sexism, and cultural conservatism. Acting on these views, the church where Knox is buried has turned the reformer’s grave into a parking space.

Without question Knox possessed faults worthy of criticism. At times, he violated the boundaries of biblical truth that he so prized. Failing to heed the warnings of Calvin and others, Knox turned secondary debates within the protestant church into first tier issues that thereby disrupted the unity of the local churches he served. He also misapplied the prophetic texts of the OT, drawing harsh unwarranted conclusions that went against the teaching of the New Testament. Even his pastoral ministry at points proved rushed and ill-timed, stunting the spread of the Calvinism in England.

But much of the historical critique of Knox focuses not on Knox’s biblical transgressions but rather on his devotion to the Bible. Such criticism proves neither new nor novel. Commenting on the rumors that swirled around him during the 1500s, Knox once quipped, “if all [the] reports were true, I would be unworthy to live in the earth.”

But the reports then as now were not true. Overall, Knox proves worthy not of repudiation but of imitation for he built his life and ministry around the unfettered preaching of the gospel. He witnessed to peasants and queens alike. And like his savior, Knox’s boldness in the pulpit was matched by his tender care for the weak and weary. Though he traveled much and suffered even more, Knox always found time to pray for and write to those congregations and individuals who had sat under his preaching. He possessed the two voices that Calvin deemed essential for pastoral ministry. The reformer could both gather the sheep and drive away wolves. If anything, the church needs more men like John Knox who could care less about their grave being turned into a parking lot as long as the gospel they loved marched on. May we never forget the line attributed to Knox that, “One with God is always in the majority.”

Peter Witkowski Church History, Heros of the Faith Biographies

Preacher, Reformer, & Politian: The Complex Life of Zwingli

In an odd twist of fate, Zwingli became famous for something that he never did. Catholic leaders in the Swiss Canton of Zurich which Zwingli called home, accused him of eating pork sausages on March 9, 1522. Though Zwingli was with Christoph Froschauer and the other ten men who ate the pork meat, Zwingli never took a bite himself. As he told his accusers, “I had nowhere taught that Lent ought not to be kept, though I could wish that it were not proscribed so imperiously.” Though he did not inhale any sausage, Zwingli had still managed to ignite the Swiss reformation. Biographer Bruce Gordon concluded, “It did not matter whether Zwingli ate the sausages or not; he was fully complicit, encouraging the breaking of the Lenten fast.” To understand why eating sausages proved to be so monumental and why Zwingli encouraged the little meal, we must travel backwards in time to 1484, the year of Zwingli’s birth.

The Preacher

Huldrych Zwingli came from a stable and well-off family. His father served as the mayor of his hometown of Wildhaus, an alpine village in the Toggenburg Valley. Zwingli’s uncle served as the head of a Swiss Abbey. With their blessing, Zwingli commenced his academic studies in the city of Bern at the age of ten. Twelve years later in 1506, Zwingli graduated from the University of Basel with a Master of Art’s degree. Though he had spent his youth studying philosophy, Zwingli still felt unsettled after graduation, turned to the Catholic Church for answers, and became a priest in the city of Glarus. While the more rural setting of Glarus provided the inquisitive Zwingli with the time needed to begin his theological education, the posting would not last. In 1515, the leaders of Glarus took exception to Zwingli’s vocal disapproval of the Swiss mercenary practice because the city had just signed a treaty with Francis I of France which stated Glarus would fill the French ranks with Swiss troops. Thus, nine years after entering the church, Zwingli found himself moving to the Einsiedeln parish.

Conversion and the Gospel

While Zwingli’s three year stay in Einsiedeln would prove to be his shortest posting, it would also prove to be his most formative. Here, Zwingli encountered the gospel of Jesus Christ and broke with Catholic Church doctrine which championed tradition and justification by faith and works. While Zwingli never recounted his full conversion story, he did credit the Scriptures for his spiritual transformation. He wrote, “I learned the purport of the Gospel from reading the treaties of John and of Augustine and from the diligent study of Paul’s epistles in the Greek.”

While he spoke sparingly about his conversion, he possessed no reticence when discussing God’s saving work. He wrote, “This is the gospel, that sins are remitted in the name of Christ; and no heart ever received tidings more glad.” Repudiating the Catholic idea that “justification by works” was “especially necessary, Zwingli said, “If we could have won salvation by our own works or our own innocence, He [Jesus] would have died in vain.” Zwingli affirmed that salvation came by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. He wrote, “The true religion of Christ, then, consists in this: that the wretched man despairs of himself and rests all his thought and confidence on God.” As the Reformer noted elsewhere, “Righteousness or guiltlessness according to the law is not because of any human deed, but through Christ alone whose own sinlessness purged our guilt before God so that if we cling to him…he shall be our innocence and righteousness before God.”

When Zwingli came to Zurich on January 1, 1519 at the age of 35 to assume the role of the people’s priest, he came to do one thing: preach the word. He wrote, “no one can set at rest the conscience as well as the word of God.”

The Reformer

Having come to faith through his study of the Scriptures, Zwingli decided to devote his first years in Zurich to preaching expository sermons from the gospel of Matthew, hoping to expose his audience to Jesus’s saving grace.

But Zwingli did not think God’s grace would end at conversion. He wrote, “When, therefore, the Son of God has once freed us from the death of sin and we firmly believe this, we cannot help being transformed by a wonderful metamorphosis into other men.” In other words, the Swiss reformer believed the Spirit who illuminated and saved the lost would also sanctify and purify those whom he had saved. Zwingli continued, “whoever does not change this life from day to day, after he has been redeemed in Christ mocks the name of Christ and disparages and disdains it before the unbelievers.”

The Reformation Begins

After hearing Zwingli’s sermons for a little over a year, small groups of Zwingli’s new converts began to openly practice what Zwingli had preached. And where did they strike first? They ate sausages, seeking to live out Zwingli’s conviction that salvation came through faith alone as opposed to human works. In so doing, they declared that the bishops and popes who had proscribed fasts as a matter of faith had in Zwingli’s words, “sinned greatly.”

What began at a kitchen table quickly enveloped the whole social order of Zurich. Before 1522 ended, Christians in Zurich had started to call for churches to remove their statues and altars, for monasteries to be disbanded, for the education system to be reformed, for the mass to be abolished, for the end of unjust taxation or tithes, and for the end of priestly celibacy. As Zwingli told his followers, “We shall try everything by the touchstone of the Gospel and by the fire of Paul. And when we find things in harmony with the Gospel we shall keep them, when we find things thus not in harmony, we shall throw them out.” In the short, the gospel invaded every aspect of Zurich’s public life with a speed that not even Zwingli could control.

The reformer often lamented that he had to send books filled with half-baked ideas to the publisher because the next crisis was upon him. Zwingli said of his most famous work Commentary on True and False Religion, “I have been so hurried along, that I have often hardly had a chance to reread what I have written much less to correct or embellish it.”

But while Zwingli welcomed the speed at which things happened, Bishop Hugo who resided in Constance about 50 miles south of Zurich found Zwingli’s spreading influence to be a great annoyance. In 1522, he began to censor priests who embraced the reformers ideas.

A Disputation and More Reforms

Facing a dilemma over who to follow, the government of Zurich held a disputation between Zwingli and representatives from the bishop of Constance on January 29, 1523. The intense debate lasted only a morning because the council believed it wise to break for lunch. When the council returned a few hours later with full stomachs, they declared Zwingli the winner and commanded the village priest to preach sermons from the Scriptures alone. In so doing the council both institutionalized Zwingli’s movement and confirmed the Catholic’s belief that Zwingli was the “arch-heretic.”

Now backed by Zurich’s government, Zwingli’s reforms moved forward with greater speed. From 1523 – 1525, the city installed a new liturgy, allowed for priest to stop offering the mass, and began celebrating the Lord’s Supper as a memorial. Responding to overzealous mobs, the city established a commission in 1524 that closed churches for a few days to facilitate the peaceful removal of icons and altars. By 1525, Zwingli had convinced the Zurich government to fully disband the city’s various monastic orders and to repurpose their properties as hospitals and homeless shelters. He also reformed the city’s education system, redirecting state funds to support preaching ministries and those who trained preachers in the original languages and the art of sermon crafting. Shortly before his Zwingli’s death, Zurich would also publish a German translation of the Scriptures which had been begun at the outset of Zwingli’s time in Zurich.

During this time, Zwingli also got married first secretly and then publicly in 1524. Two years later, he helped Zurich create the Court of Domestic Relations. It sought to encourage godly behavior and to issue marriage licenses which Zwingli believed to be in great need because the vows of celibacy taken by the city’s priest, monks and nuns produced in Zwingli’s words “prostitutes” and “bastards.” Zwingli believed such vows proved detrimental to the clergy and society because Paul’s command that “everyone” should be married did, “not exclude priests or any other persons” from the joy of marriage.” He went on to note that, “Any bishops who forbid priests to marry are false and impious and sacrilegious…because the Church once ordered that a bishop should be the husband of one wife according to the deliverance of Paul to Timothy and Titus.”

Opposition Grows

But as his reforms spread so did the opposition to his cause. First, a small group of his own followers called the Anabaptists split from Zwingli in 1525. Led by Balthasar Hubmaier, the Anabaptists affirmed that only adult believers should be sprinkled with the waters of baptism and called for Christians to embrace pacifism. Zwingli said of Anabaptist’s doctrine, it “all boils down to rebaptism…that one should not have a magistrate, that one should hold all things in common and that one owes neither rest nor tithes.” In 1526, Zurich held a disputation to discuss the merits of the Anabaptists’ theology. Again, Zwingli won the day. The Anabaptist who did not recant were exiled or imprisoned. In 1527, Zurich even executed an Anabaptist named Manz. Though Zwingli was not involved in Manz’s trial, Zwingli also did not object to the death sentence, believing Anabaptists to be more of civic menace than a theological one. Having already dodged one revolt over taxes and tithes, Zwingli responded harshly to what he perceived to be the Anabaptists’ call for anarchy, “the destruction of the government.”

Second, Zwingli butted heads with Luther over the practice of the mass. Like Luther, Zwingli rejected the Catholic idea that the eating of the bread and the drinking of the wine found at the Lord’s table contained the physical body of Christ and thereby once consumed both cleansed the Christian soul and enabled it to further resist sin. Zwingli wrote, “It is therefore, false religion which taught that the use of the symbolic bread destroys sins; for Christ alone destroys sin by his death.”

But while clear on what it was not, Zwingli and Luther could not agree on what it was. Luther believed in consubstantiation which declared that Christ was still present in the bread spiritually and thereby blessed the believer who ate the sacrament in faith. Zwingli said of Luther, “you maintain that the flesh is…eaten for the justification of the soul and to bestow strength and the rest.” The Swiss Reformer held to the memorial view which declared that “the eating of the Eucharist does not take away sins but is the symbol of those who firmly believe that sin was exhausted and destroyed by the death of Christ and give thanks therefore.” Though Zwingli and Luther met in 1529 and exchanged a good number of books and tracts seeking to find common ground, the two men found themselves increasingly at odds with each other believing the other had grossly distorted the Scriptures. When asked about Zwingli’s eternal destiny, Luther said, “I wish from my heart Zwingli could be saved, but I fear the contrary; for Christ has said that those who deny him shall be dammed.” While Zwingli never doubted Luther’s salvation believing their discussion to be over nonessentials of the faith, he did denounce Luther’s arguments as “being badly reasoned and so sluggish” and wished that they had never been published. The men would never be reconciled. Zwingli said of their relationship, “we are fighting about symbols so cruelly that love has to stand very far away.”

Lastly, the Catholic Church continued to write against and condemn Zwingli’s actions. On May 19, 1526, Bishop Hugo held a disputation at Baden that contained representatives from all the Swiss states that met for three weeks. Led by the Catholic polemicists Van Eck who had called Luther to recant in 1519, this disputation sided against Zwingli and decreed that his writings should be banned. Though Zurich never caved to the pressure of the other states or Rome, Zwingli’s life remained under threat. His opponents regularly used graffiti on public buildings and bridges to insult and attack Zwingli. Rocks were thrown through his windows. On another occasion, men hatched a plot to assassinate Zwingli, asking him to come visit a dying man so that they could murder the reformer when he got to the home. Thankfully, Zwingli’s servant discerned the messenger’s intent and kept Zwingli from going. Commenting on the situation, his first biographer and friend Myconius wrote, “he was almost always escorted, without being aware of it, by good citizens, lest evil should befall him on the way. And the Senate in this perilous time placed watchers around his house at night.”

The Politician

Zwingli proved to be one of the most politically charged personalities of the reformation though he never held public office. He even taught that pastors should not be politicians writing, “those who have the staff, that is, worldly power along with the office of shepherd, are not shepherds but wolves.” Despite this strong belief, Zwingli still possessed a large amount of influence over Zurich’s political culture, serving on several committees that drafted legislation and corresponding with other national leaders and kings.

The First Kappel War

With Zurich having embrace biblical preaching by 1527, Zwingli increasingly turned his political sights outward, seeking to both spread the gospel and to protect Zurich from attack. By 1529, the Christian Fortress Law which served as a Protestant mutual defense pact had come to include the cities of Zurich, Constance, Bern, St. Gallen, Basel, Schaffhausen, Biel and Mullhausen. Feeling threatened, the Catholic Swiss states signed a mutual defense treaty with Austria. Within months of the second treaty being signed, the Catholic city of Schwyz executed Jacob Kaiser for advocating for Zwingli’s reforms.

Horrified by this abuse of power, Zwingli called Zurich to declare war on Schwyz. The council voted down his proposal which also came with a battle plan because the other protestant states objected to the war. Humiliated, Zwingli offered his resignation, which two friends eventually convinced him to withdraw.

After securing the tepid support of Bern, Zurich declared war on Schwyz and marched on the city on June 8, 1529. But when the vastly superior Protestant forces encountered the Catholic army, the Bernese troops refused to take the field with their Zurich brothers. Instead, the Bernese commanders negotiated a peace treaty with the Catholics. Again, Zwingli’s hopes for a protestant Switzerland were dashed. The First Kappel Peace Treaty demanded only that the Catholic states dissolve their treaty with Austria and that each state be given the freedom to choose between Protestantism or Catholicism.

The Second Kappel War

Then in 1531, the Medici’s of Italy conducted a brief war that encompassed some Swiss territory. While the Protestant states mobilized to protect Swiss sovereignty, the Catholic states did nothing. Freshly convinced that Catholicism needed to be rooted out of Switzerland, Zwingli again called for Zurich to go to War. Again, the city council and Bern rejected his call to arms. Preferring diplomacy, they set up a land blockade of the Catholic states in May 1531. But the Catholic states thwarted the blockade and gained additional military strength. Sensing their failure, Zurich declared war on the Catholic states on October 9, 1531. Though Zwingli tepidly advised against going to war at this point and threatened not to march with the army to which he had been elected to serve as a chaplain, he once again changed course and marched out with the poorly trained troops.

Lacking strategy, arms, and good intelligence, the Zurich troops suffered a total defeat on October 11, 1531. When the Zurich troops encountered the Catholic army, the Zurich general did not know if he should advance or retreat. Eventually, he decided to retreat and inadvertently led his 3,000 man army into a bog which enabled the Catholic force of some 7,000 men to decimate the broken ranks of the Zurich troops in less than an hour. When the battle ended, a 100 Catholics had been lost compared to 500 Zurichers, one of whom was Zwingli. While the fog of war has prevented historians from knowing the exact nature of his death, most believe Zwingli was stabbed multiple times. As he breathed his last, he managed these words, “What evil is there in this? They are able, it is true to kill the body but not the soul.”

Stunned by their defeat and by Zwingli’s death, Zurich sued for peace with its Catholic neighbors. It abolished the Fortress Law pact, relinquished all plans for protestant expansion, and granted several of its contested territories the freedom to once again practice Catholicism. Though defeated, most of Zwingli’s religious reforms remained in force. And with the help of Heinrich Bullinger who served as the next preacher of Zurich, the city would continue to maintain its fidelity to the Scriptures and its Reformation heritage that Zwingli had gifted it for years to come.

Zwingli’s Legacy

Of all the characters who spawned, shaped, and guided the Reformation, Zwingli proves to be one of the most complex. He championed the Scriptures and built his life and his movement upon faithful, expository preaching. He possessed the ingenuity and the energy needed to transform a city in twelve years. But he also possessed an unhelpful bent towards pragmatism that led him to live in a secret marriage, to surrender the control of the Zurich church to its secular government, and to engage Luther, the Anabaptists and others with a speed and forcefulness that often proved offensive and counterproductive. Moreover, Zwingli earned the unique distinction of being the only protestant reformer to have died in battle, a lasting testimony to his involvement in secular politics, an involvement Bullinger, his immediate successor, repudiated as unhelpful. Bullinger refused to serve on Zurich’s various committees throughout his pastoral tenure in Zurich.

Final Thoughts

What do we make of the passionate, gifted, and yet flawed father of the Swiss reformation? We praise him for his fidelity to Scripture and for his belief that Scripture could be understood through prayer and study. And we praise him for his faithful exposition of Scripture which saved thousands and shaped Bullinger and Bucer who discipled Calvin whose doctrine of the Lord’s Supper continues to be practice in most protestant churches. As Bullinger noted, “Zwingli lives, however, just as Scripture speaks of Abel, though dead, still being alive. He remains in his faith and his writings.” After all, who else has accomplished so much through the simple eating of sausages?

But at the same time, we can also honestly acknowledge his failures, noting that sometimes he moved too quickly and too polemically, allowing pragmatic concerns to influence the application of our theology. As Bruce Gordon noted, “He was neither a hero nor martyr. We must see him for what he was – an embattled prophet.” May the lessons of this Swiss Reformer and prophet not be lost on us.

Peter Witkowski Church History, Heros of the Faith Biographies

A Brief Introduction to the life and Legacy of John Calvin

On November 1, 1533, theological controversy erupted once again in connection with All Saints Day. But instead of Germany, this drama occurred in Paris, France.

Sixteen years and a day earlier, the well-intentioned and at the time somewhat naïve monk, Martin Luther, had nailed his 95 Theses or questions to the door of the Wittenberg chapel. With that document, Luther had hoped to combat the idea that men and women could earn salvation through good works or even through the purchase of a piece of paper called an indulgence. Sadly for him and Christendom, the Pope rejected Luther’s calls for reform. After a meandering series of accusations, book burnings, and councils, the Catholic Church excommunicated Luther, forcing the monk to retreat into Germany for the purpose of creating a church that would once again champion the historic faith of Jesus and the apostles which declared salvation to be by grace alone through faith alone.

A Quick Biography

By 1533, Luther’s reformation had taken hold of Germany and parts of Switzerland. But little of Luther’s light had penetrated the spiritual darkness that had enveloped the nation of France. John Calvin would later note, he  grew up, “obstinately devoted to the superstitions of Popery.” He began college intent on becoming an officer of the Catholic Church. But as he progressed in his studies, Calvin’s father directed the young scholar away from the church and into law for to quote Calvin the profession “commonly raised those who followed it to wealth.” After turning his back on theology, Calvin somewhat ironically came into contact with the writings of Luther and other reformer’s books which had just begun to eke across the French boarder. While reading, Calvin experienced a sudden conversion which would reshape his life. Calvin wrote, “Having thus received some taste and knowledge of true godliness I was immediately inflamed with so intense a desire to make progress therein.” Though he finished his legal studies and excelled at that profession, the doctrines of grace had captured his heart.

Because he maintained a stringent academic regime which began around 6AM and ended about midnight, Calvin quickly earned the reputation of being an expert in both reformed and biblical theology. When his friend Nicolas Chop decided to educate academics in Paris on the errors of works salvation in the middle of an All-Saints Day speech, he asked Calvin for help. While the extent of Calvin’s involvement in the speech remains debated by scholars, its poor reception could not be questioned. Much like Luther’s 95 Theses in 1517, Calvin’s and Chop’s calls for reform in 1533 were forcefully opposed by the Catholic Church. A few days after the speech’s conclusion, officers were sent to arrest Calvin. But he got wind of the plot and a using a blanket rope escaped out of high window. He scurried off to southern France.

A few months later on October 18, 1534, posters appeared all over France including outside the door of king Francis the 1st’s bedroom, denouncing “the horrible, great, and unbearable abuse of the papal mass.” The king was not amused and responded to the documents with swift persecution, burning 32 protestants at the stake. Grasping that France had no stomach for the Reformed faith, Calvin fled his homeland and headed to Italy, seeking to begin a private life of study and reflection. After some time, he decided to relocate to the city of Basle.

But before he could get to his destination, international politics interrupted his travels and forced him to spend an unexpected night in Geneva. What appeared to be simply another mundane night in Calvin’s life was suddenly interrupted by the arrival of the loud, headstrong, and somewhat flamboyant protestant preacher, William Farel. For the next hour or so, Farel begged the young reformer of 26 years to lead the Genevan church. Calvin politely declined, saying, “My heart was set upon devoting myself to private studies.” Farel was not to be put off. Calvin reports what happened next. “Upon this, Farel, immediately strained every nerve to detain me.” Before all was said and done, Farel would call down a curse on the young Calvin, proclaiming, “You are following only your own wishes, and I declare, in the name of God Almighty, that if you do not assist us in this work of the Lord, the Lord will punish you for seeking your own interest rather than his.” The threat struck home. Calvin said, “I was so stricken with terror, that I desisted from the journey which I had undertaken.”

Though Farel undoubtedly overstated his case and would continue to make brash decisions such as marrying a sixteen-year-old girl in his fifties, God had ordained this expression of Farel’s audacity for the benefit of the Genevan church and for all of Christendom.

God would use Calvin’s presence in Geneva to stabilize and preserve the faith once delivered for all. While Luther deserves credit for rediscovering and popularizing the gospel, Calvin’s should be celebrated for preserving the faith that Luther unearthed from the destructive rays of societal chaos, political egotism, and doctrinal confusion. Calvin proves important to the church today because his books, sermons, and tracts have provided Christians with a great understanding of theology, preaching, and pastoral ministry.

Calvin the Theologian

Calvin wrote and wrote. Through his hundreds of books, he gifted the church a library of accessible volumes that have helped Christians understand the important doctrines of the faith.  By hand and sometimes by dictation, Calvin created commentaries on most of the New Testament. He died before he could get to 2 and 3 John and Revelation. He also published a catechism, sermons, and most famously his Institutes of Christian Religion. Though few have read this book that rivals the size of the Old Testament in its entirety, the volume continues to inform Christian thought for Calvin methodically discussed a host of Christian doctrines. He touched upon everything from the Lord’s Supper to Guardian Angels, to natural revelation to prayer. Perhaps most famously, he solidified the protestant church’s understanding of the fallenness of man, the saving power of Grace, and the providence of God.

After reading the Scriptures, Calvin concluded that men and women entered the world broken by original sin. When Adam sinned both he and all his descendants became sinners. Calvin writes, “the whole man is overwhelmed – as by a deluge – from head to foot, so that no part is immune from sin and all that proceeds from him is to be imputed as sin (ICR, 2.1.9).” Because men and women were chained to sin, they could not choose anything good. By necessity, evil people with corrupt wills would want and would choose evil. Calvin writes, “The mind of man has been so completely estranged from God’s righteousness that it conceives, desires, and undertakes, only that which is impious, perverted, foul, impure, and infamous.” As Augustine and Luther, Calvin denied that men and women had the willful freedom to choose good. Sin served like a weighted anchor upon the soul directing people towards evil. According to Calvin, people legitimately choose to do evil apart from coercion as it was all they would ever want to choose.

When God saved a sinner, he accomplished the feat through the gracious opening of the sinner’s eyes to the realities of sin and to the glories of Christ. Once aware of the truth of the gospel, men and women can do nothing but believe. It is the necessary response to the saving power of God. Just as a woman with a foreclosure notice on her front door will undoubtedly cash a check for a billion dollars, the enlighten soul willingly repents and believes when exposed to the saving grace of Jesus. In other words, people do not so much choose God as God chooses them. Calvin writes, “For no man makes himself a sheep but is made one by heavenly grace.” In other words, men and women repent and believe according to God’s grace, his irresistible grace. Calvin concludes, “To sum up: by free adoption God makes those whom he wills to be his sons; the intrinsic cause of this is himself, for he is content with his own secret good pleasure.”

This doctrine has left Calvin open to the charge of hyper-Calvinism or fatalism, a type of let go and let God mentality. Proponents of this thinking say that since God has already determined the future, they do not have to evangelize, love others, or do anything to advance the gospel. God is going to save whom he is going to save. Though some churches have taught hyper-Calvinism, Calvin did not teach this doctrine.

He believed God’s providential plans occurred through our willing hearts. In other words, God does all that he desires and so do we. When God ordains events, he does so in ways consistent with our wills. While God ordained that Joseph would be sold into slavery so that he could ultimately save his family, God did not make Joseph’s brothers go against their natural desires to toss Joseph into a pit. God worked through their evil wills to accomplish his divine plan which was good.

The doctrine of providence should not lead people to fatalistic despair or laziness. Human actions were and are still meaningful. Providence does not erase human responsibility. Rather it should fill our hearts with hope. After noting that you or I could die from a host of causes ranging from a snakebite, to a fall, to an animal attack,  to a hail storm, to a falling shingle, or to a mugging, Calvin writes of the Christian, “it comforts him to know that he has been received into God’s safekeeping and entrusted to the care of his angels, and that neither water, nor fire, nor iron can harm him except in so far as it pleases God as governor to give them occasion.” If God reigns, we have no reason to fear for God does good for us.  

Calvin The Preacher

Though Calvin loved theology, he did not think it the discipline of scholars. He wanted it to reside in the hearts of everyday people. To accomplish this goal, Calvin preached, a lot. During his life, John Calvin preached more than 2000 sermons, devoting 65 sermons to the gospels, 159 sermons to Job, and 200 sermons to Deuteronomy. When Calvin returned to Geneva after having been exiled because he got mad at the City Council and locked them out of the church on Easter Sunday, Calvin returned to the Psalm that he was preaching when he had left the city, picking up at the very verse he had left off years before. Geneva contained three churches and the pastoral staff consisting of four additional preachers and three associates that worked along-side of Calvin. The men would preach at least twenty sermons a week in the various churches. Calvin preached twice on Sunday and then every weekday on alternating weeks. His Sunday sermons featured expositions from the New Testament or the Psalms. On weekdays, he would preach through the Old Testament.

Calvin valued expository preaching because he believed it to be the method by which God saved and sanctified the lost. He said, “Faith needs the Word as much as fruit needs the living root of the tree.” The preaching of the Word also sustained Christians after conversion. Calvin wrote, “The…Word is the basis whereby faith is supported and sustained…take away the Word and no faith will remain.” Calvin firmly believed the success of the church and the success of all the Reformation reforms would rise and fall with the preaching of the word. If a local church lost the citadel of biblical preaching every other ministry would fall in short order. To remain, a church must preach the word.

Understanding the importance of preaching, Calvin reserved the pulpit for qualified men. To get a church in Geneva or one of its country parishes, a man had to possess a godly character, knowledge of the Scriptures, and be a competent speaker. Calvin concluded, “There are two things required [of us preachers], first that we provide a good explanation to the faithful of that which is required of salvation, and then we add as much vehemence as appropriate, so that the doctrine touches and enlivens the hearts.” The sermon was supposed to be the means whereby the fallen heart connected with the Holy Spirit. This experience in-turn would result in spiritual transformation. It was the means by which pastors moved people to obey Christ through the power of the Spirit.  

Calvin passed on the core tenants of the Reformation through expository preaching. He taught scores of succeeding generations of Christians the means and methods of faithful, gospel exposition.

Calvin the Counselor

Lastly, Calvin gave the church a legacy of pastoral care that demanded that those who studied theology and preached the sermons regularly step out of the pulpit and into the lives of their congregation. To help the people of Geneva live out what they heard preached, Calvin ordered his fellow pastors to join him in spending time in the homes of their congregation. He wrote, “It is not enough for a pastor in God’s church to preach and to cast his words into the air, he must practice private admonitions.” Calvin and his fellow pastors visited every church member at least four times during the year to discuss theology, to pray for them, and to verify their church attendance.

If the visits revealed sin’s in the church members life, the pastors would call their counselee to repentance. For example when Calvin discovered through the visitation process that the sailor Jacque Verna was soliciting his daughter-in-law for unwholesome favors, he ordered him to stop and when he learned a mother was beating and burning her step-daughter he reported her to the local magistrates. Calvin and his fellow pastor also provided for the poor, counseled with those in jail, and care for the sick. If someone was bedridden for three days, a pastor would visit them to, “console them according to the Word of God.” When the plague hit Geneva in between 1542-44, the pastor’s struggled in assessing the situation. But before the plague left, two of Geneva’s pastors would die from the plague after catching germs from the sick people they had visited. According to Calvin, the faithful pastor was to know the scriptures well, was to love the pulpit, and was to invest in the lives of his congregation.

Conclusion

Calvin’s theological legacy is both complex and rich. Regardless of whether you agree with his conclusions, modern church members should appreciate Calvin’s faithfulness. Through his theological writings, his preaching, and his pastoral counsel, he provided future generations of Christians with the tools they needed to both understand and pass on the fundamentals of the Christian faith to future generations. The Faith once delivered for all that Luther discovered and popularized, Calvin institutionalized. When he died on May 27, 1564, he left behind a legacy of faithfulness worthy of our remembrance.