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Celebrating the Reformation
THE BATTLE FOR THE BIBLE
Bishop Stephen Bradley observed: "We are in danger of forgetting truths for
which previous generations gave their lives."
That our churches are in danger of forgetting the great Reformation truths,
for which previous generations of martyrs willingly laid down their lives,
was forcefully impressed upon me during a recent ministry trip to Europe. I
had the opportunity to visit Oxford and see the Martyrs Memorial. It drew
my attention to an event that occurred 450 years ago.
THE OXFORD MARTYRS
On 16 October 1555, just outside the walls of Balliol College, Oxford, a
stout stake had been driven into the ground with fagots of firewood piled
high at its base. Two men were lead out and fastened to the stake by a
single chain bound around both their waists.
The older man was Hugh Latimer, the Bishop of Worcester, one of the most
powerful preachers of his day, and the other Nicolas Ridley, the Bishop of
London, respected as one of the finest theologians in England.
More wood was carried and piled up around their feet. Then it was set
alight. As the wood kindled and the flames began to rise, Bishop Latimer
encouraged his companion: "Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the
man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as
I trust shall never be put out."
Hundreds in the crowd watching the burning of these bishops wept openly.
The place of their execution is marked today by a small stone cross set in
the ground in Broad Street, while nearby in St. Giles stands the imposing
Martyrs Memorial, erected 300 years later in memory of these two men and of
Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who 4 months after their
execution suffered the same tortured death by burning in the same place, and
for the same reason.
HALLOWEEN VS REFORMATION DAY
As I stood and considered the sacrifices and sufferings of these courageous
Reformers in Oxford, crowds bustled by without stopping for even a moment to
consider the historic significance of Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer's
martyrdom exactly 450 years before.
And it is not just the secular population who seem insensible to the
significance of the Reformation in achieving levels of freedom, productivity
and prosperity unparalleled in history. Visits to the various impressive
cathedrals and churches in Oxford and London indicated that most church
goers seem oblivious to the great issues that inspired the Protestant
Reformation, and the life changing, culture transforming faith for which
these brave souls gave their lives.
The issues, programmes and events being advertised on the church calendars
and in displays, notice boards and literature tables in the vestibules of
these impressive architectural masterpieces spoke more of the secularizing
of the Church than of any spiritual Reformation or missionary vision.
As we approach Reformation Day, 31 October, many Christians seem more
conscious of Halloween than of the Reformation. It appears that more of the
children in our churches are celebrating the pagan and occultic Halloween
than the great spiritual revival that led to the birth of the Protestant
Reformation.
FAITH AND FREEDOM
On one day in 1519 seven men and women in Coventry were burned alive for
teaching their children the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the
Apostles Creed - in English!
In his trial, Bishop Ridley was urged to reject the Protestant Faith. His
reply: "As for the doctrine which I have taught, my conscience assureth me
that it is sound, and according to God's Word*in confirmation thereof seal
the same with my blood."
After much further pressure and torment, Bishop Ridley responded: "So long
as the breath is in my body, I will never deny my Lord Christ, and His known
truth: God's will be done in me!"
Bishop Latimer declared: "I thank God most heartily, that He hath prolonged
my life to this end, that I may in this case glorify God by that kind of
death."
THE ILLEGAL ENGLISH BIBLE
It may surprise most English speaking Christians that the first Bible
printed in English was illegal and that the Bible translator was burned
alive for the crime of translating God's Word into English.
William Tyndale is known as the father of the English Bible, because he
produced the first English translation from the original Hebrew and Greek
Scriptures. 150 years earlier Wycliffe had overseen a hand written
translation of the Bible, but this had been translated from the Latin
Vulgate. Because of the persecution and determined campaign to uncover and
burn these Bibles, few copies remain. It would take an average of 8 months
to produce a single copy of the Wycliffe Bible as they had to be written out
by hand. William Tyndale's translation was the first copy of the Scriptures
to be printed in the English language.
The official Roman Catholic and Holy Roman Empire abhorrence of Bibles
translated into the vernacular can be seen from these historic quotes: the
Archbishop of Canterbury Arundel: "That pestilent and most wretched John
Wycliffe, of damnable memory, a child of the old devil, and himself a child
and pupil of the anti-Christ*crowned his wickedness by translating the
Scriptures into the mother tongue."
Catholic historian Henry Knighton wrote: "John Wycliffe translated the
Gospel from Latin into the English*made it the property of the masses and
common to all and*even to women*and so the pearl of the Gospel is thrown
before swine and trodden under foot and what is meant to be the jewel of the
clergy has been turned into the jest of the laity*has become common*"
A synod of clergy in 1408 decreed: "It is dangerous*to translate the text
of Holy Scripture from one language into another*we decree and ordain that
no-one shall in future translate on his authority any text of Scripture into
the English tongue or into any other tongue, by way of book, booklet or
treatiese. Nor shall any man read, in public or in private, this kind of
book, booklet or treatiese, now recently composed in the time of the said
John Wycliffe*under penalty of the greater excommunication."
GOD'S OUTLAW
William Tyndale was a gifted scholar, a graduate of both Oxford and
Cambridge Universities. He was ordained into the ministry, served as a
chaplain and tutor and dedicated his life to the translation of the
Scriptures from the original Hebrew and Greek languages.
Tyndale was shocked by the ignorance of the Bible prevalent amongst the
clergy. To one such cleric he declared: "I defy the Pope and all his laws.
If God spares my life, before many years pass I will make it possible for
the boy who drives the plow to know more of the Scriptures than you do."
Failing to obtain any ecclesiastical approval for his proposed translation,
Tyndale went into exile to Germany. As he described it "not only was there
no room in my lord of London's palace to translate the New Testament, but
also that there was no place to do it in all England."
Supported by some London merchants, Tyndale sailed in 1524 for Germany,
never to return to his homeland. In Hamburg he worked on the New Testament,
which was ready for printing by the following year. As the pages began to
roll off the press in Cologne, soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire raided the
printing press. Tyndale fled with as many of the pages as had so far been
printed. Only one incomplete copy of this Cologne New Testament edition
survives.
Tyndale moved to Worms where the complete New Testament was published the
following year (1526). Of the 6000 copies printed, only 2 of this edition
have survived.
Not only did the first printed edition of the English New Testament need to
be produced in Germany, but they had to be smuggled into England. There the
bishops did all they could to seek them out and destroy them. The Bishop of
London, Cuthbert Tunstall, preached against the translation of the New
Testament into English and had copies of Tyndale's New Testaments
ceremonially burned at St. Paul's. the Archbishop of Canterbury began a
campaign of buying up these contraband copies of the New Testament in order
to burn them. As Tyndale remarked, his purchases helped provide the finance
for the new improved editions.
In 1530 Tyndale's translation of the first five books of the Bible, the
Pentateuch (the books of Moses) were printed in Antwerp, Holland. Tyndale
continually worked on further revisions and editions of the New Testament.
He also wrote The Parable of Wicked Mammon and The Obedience of a Christian
Man.
This book, The Obedience of a Christian Man, even found its way to King
Edward VIII who was most impressed: "This book is for me and all kings to
read!" Kind Henry VIII sent out his agents to offer Tyndale a high position
in his court, a safe return to England and a great salary to oversee his
communications.
However, Tyndale was not willing to surrender his work as a Bible
translator, theologian and preacher merely to become a propagandist for the
king! In his book The Practice of Prelates Tyndale argued against divorce
and specifically dared to assert that the king should remain faithful to his
first wife! Henry's initial enthusiasm for Tyndale turned to rage and so
now Tyndale was an outlaw both to the Roman Catholic Church and its Holy
Roman Empire, and to the English kingdom.
BETRAYAL AND BURNING
In 1535 Tyndale was betrayed by a fellow Englishman, Henry Phillips, who
gained his confidence only to treacherously arrange for his arrest. Tyndale
was taken to the state prison in the castle of Vilvorde, near Brussels. For
500 days, Tyndale suffered in a cold , dark and damp dungeon and then on 6
October, 1536, he was taken to a stake where he was garroted and burned.
His last reported words were: "Lord, open the king of England's eyes."
TYNDALE'S DYING PRAYER ANSWERED
The Lord did indeed answer the dying prayer of Tyndale in the most
remarkable way. By this time there was an Archbishop of Canterbury (Thomas
Cranmer) and a vicar general (Thomas Cromwell) both of whom were committed
to the Protestant cause. They persuaded King Henry to approve the
publication of the Coverdale translation. By 1539 every parish church in
England was required to make a copy of this English Bible available to all
of its parishioners.
Miles Coverdale was a friend of Tyndale's, a fellow Cambridge graduate and
Reformer. His edition was the first complete translation of the Bible. It
was mainly Tyndale's work supplemented with those portions of the Old
Testament which Tyndale had not been able to translate before his death.
Then, a year after Tyndale's death, the Matthews Bible appeared. This was
the work of another friend and fellow English Reformer, John Rogers.
Because of the danger of producing Bible translations, he used the pen-name
Thomas Matthews which was an inversion of William Tyndale's initials (WT)
TM. In fact at the end of the Old Testament he had William Tyndale's
initials WT printed big and bold.
At Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's request, Henry VIII authorised that this
Bible be further revised by Coverdale and be called The Great Bible.
And so in this way Tyndale's dying prayer was spectacularly answered. The
sudden, unprecedented countrywide access to the Scriptures created
widespread excitement. Just in the lifetime of William Shakespeare, 2
million Bibles were sold throughout the British Isles. About 90% of Tyndale
's wording passed on into the King James Version of the Bible.
THE MOST INFLUENCIAL ENGLISHMAN
Not only can William Tyndale be described as the father of the English
Bible, but in a real sense the foremost influence on the shaping of the
English language itself. Because Tyndale's translation was the very first
from the original Hebrew and Greek into the English language, he had no
previous translations to help in his choice of language. While Latin is
noun-rich, Greek and Hebrew are verb-rich. At that time the English
language had been heavily influenced by French and Latin. Tyndale went back
to the original Saxon and found that the Saxon English was more compatible
to the Greek and Hebrew than Latin and French.
The clarity, simplicity and poetic beauty which Tyndale brought to the
English language through his Bible translation served as a linguistic
rallying point for the development of the English language. At the time of
his translation there were so many variations and dialects of English and in
many sections of the country the English language was being swamped with
French words and Latin concepts. Tyndale's translation rescued English from
these Latin trends and established English as an extension of the Biblical
Hebrew and Greek worldview.
And so, every person in the world who writes, speaks, or even thinks, in
English is to a large extent indebted to William Tyndale.
It is also extraordinary that while English was one of the minor languages
of Europe in the early 16th Century, today it has become a truly worldwide
language with over 2 billion people communicating in English.
PIONEERS FOR FREEDOM
The Reformation in the 16th Century was one of the most important epochs in
the history of the world. The Reformation gave us the Bible - now freely
available in our own languages. The now almost university acknowledged
principles of religious freedom, liberty of conscience, the rule of law, the
separation of powers and constitutionally limited republics were unthinkable
before the Reformation. The Reformers fought for the principles that
Scripture alone is our final authority, that Christ alone is the Head of the
Church, that salvation is by the grace of God alone, received by faith alone
on the basis of the finished work of Christ alone.
THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL
The Gospel of Christ is life changing, culture shaping, history making and
nation transforming. If it doesn't change your life, and the lives of those
around you, then it's not the Biblical Gospel. This Reformation Weekend
(28 - 31 October) join with us as we celebrate the great heritage of faith
and freedom which was pioneered by John Wycliffe, John Huss, Martin Luther,
Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, John Knox, William Tyndale and other courageous
believers.
If you are in Cape Town, please do join us for the Reformation Celebration
at St. Andrews Church all day Friday 28 October.
Other articles and resources on the Reformation are available on
www.reformationsa.org
Dr. Peter Hammond
Frontline Fellowship
P O Box 74
Newlands 7725
Cape Town
South Africa
Email: admin@frontline.org.za
Website: www.frontline.org.za
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