| Reformation Sunday, 2001
1 Timothy 3:15 The Catholicity of the Reformation
In the thirteenth century a dispute arose inside the Franciscan order. The strict Franciscans called themselves the "spiritualists," and took seriously their vow of apostolic poverty. They could own nothing according to this rule. Opposing the strict spiritualists was a looser and more moderate Franciscan party called the Conventuals. They allowed for private ownership and desired a relaxing of other rules established by the founder, St. Francis of Assisi.
The controversy between the two camps escalated when the spiritualists asserted that their brand of life was the only true way to follow Christ. The moderates tried to stop the spiritualists, but were unsuccessful. In the year 1279 the Spiritualists were able to acquire a papal stamp of approval for their posture. Pope Nicholas III sided with the Spiritualists and declared in a papal bull that the more rigorous Franciscan rule was truly "the way of perfection that Christ had taught to the apostles." Though the Spiritualists had won the Pope's sanction, that didn't end the feud. The moderate Conventuals eventually had a friendlier Pope to deal with. The new Pope, John XXII promised to take their side. While he was preparing to revoke the pro-spiritualist papal bull decreed by his predecessor Pope Nicholas III, a company of the spiritualists visited him. They were desperate that the Pope not change anything. In fact they were so desperate they suggested a brand new concept to maintain their position intact -- papal infallibility. In their thinking if the popes' decisions were declared infallible, then the previous popes' bulls could not be altered, for they would be perfect, beyond criticism, and thus unchangeable. When Pope John XXII heard this he scoffed indignantly and denounced the idea a pernicious novelty. That was 1324 A.D.
The antagonism towards the doctrine of papal infallibility gradually dissipated. Soon the popes were toying with the idea and by the time Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Church door at Wittenberg the papacy had accepted the teaching.
For example, Silvester Prieras, the highest ranking Vatican theologian of the time, defended the doctrine of Papal infallibility against the Reformers saying, the Church means the Church of Rome, headed by the Pope, who is infallible and thus more authoritative than councils and even the Holy Scriptures themselves. There is no authority higher than the pope; and he cannot be deposed, "even if he were to give so much offense as to cause people in multitudes to go to the Devil in Hell..." That was the kind of attitude that confronted the Reformers.
On the other side of the spectrum a movement appeared called the Radical Reformation. If the Roman Church stripped the Scriptures of authority, the Anabaptists, Hutterites, and Mennonites stripped the Church of authority. They accepted the authority of Scripture and absolutely nothing else. Tradition, Church authority, history, creeds and councils, the Church Fathers; all these were cast aside like rubbish. A couple of quotations will illustrate the point. Sabastian Frank wrote in 1530: "Foolish Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory -- of whom not even one knew the Lord, so help me God, nor was sent by God to teach. Rather, they were all apostles of Antichrist." Alexander Campbell, the founder of the Disciples of Christ expressed a similar sentiment in the nineteenth century: "I have endeavored to read the scriptures as though no one had read them before me, and I am as much on my guard against reading them today, through the medium of my own views yesterday, or a week ago, as I am against being influenced by any foreign name, authority, or system whatever."
What are the results of such hyper-individualistic interpretation? Each man decides for himself what the essential doctrines of Christianity are, each man creates his own creed from scratch. Private judgment furthermore renders the universal and objective truth of Scripture virtually useless because instead of the Church proclaiming with one voice to the world what the Scripture teaches, every individual interprets Scripture as seems right in his own eyes. The unbelieving world is left hearing a cacophony of conflicting voices rather than the Word of the living God.
Our epistle and gospel passages shed light on the subject. From our epistle lesson we have a statement that exalts the Church. The apostle Paul tells Timothy: "I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth" (I Timothy 3:15). The Church is called the "pillar" and "ground" of the truth. This does not mean she is identical to truth. Jesus is the truth (John 14:6), and the Word of God is truth (John 17:17). Hence, the Church cannot have the same level of authority as these infallible sources. Nonetheless, the Church does possess authority. She is a holy temple, the house of God. As a marble pillar bears and buttresses a superstructure, so she upholds the truth. As the ground or foundation makes up the substructure of an edifice, the Church gives place for the proclamation of the truth. God has given her the responsibility to uphold the truth of Christianity, and to set forth the apostolic Christian faith.
On the other hand, our Gospel passage from Mark 7:5 warns us that the Church may wander from the Word of God. That is what Jesus explains to the Pharisees. Their teaching had basically set aside God's Law. They were punctilious about their ablutions -- washing hands, pots and dishes -- but negligent in caring for their own parents. Jesus condemns them for holding the tradition of men while rejecting the commandment of God. He rebukes them for equating the Halakhic formulations of the oral law with the clear commandments of the Torah. The traditions, or opinions and interpretations of the rabbis about a whole host of details could be helpful, but when they contradicted Scripture they were harmful. Jesus therefore contrasts tradition to Scripture, and subordinates tradition to Scripture.
It takes work and a bit of sophistication to strike the right balance between Scripture and Tradition, and the Church has not always done a good job of it. We could mention some traditions that contradict the Bible. I Timothy 2:5 says: "there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ." Yet there are those who teach that Mary is co-mediatrix. They claim she mediates our prayers to God the Father just as well as God the Son does. Moreover, when Jesus instituted the Holy Communion, "He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying "Drink from it, all of you ..." (Matthew 26:27-28). Clearly, the wine of the Lord's Supper is for all believers. Yet the Council of Constance in 1415 forbade the laity from receiving the cup. In I Timothy 4:1-3, St. Paul refers to the prohibition of marriage as a "doctrine of demons." And Hebrews 13:4 says the marriage bed is "undefiled," yet Pope Gregory VII in 1080 prohibited priests from marriage. These are the kind of human traditions that Jesus decries. They clash with God's Word. This is the consequence of removing final authority from Scripture and shifting it to the Church. The Church can become autonomous.
We must acknowledge as well the problems of modern American Evangelicalism. Instead of the Church being autonomous, for too many evangelical believers the individual becomes autonomous. Tradition is not allowed in any sense; the ecumenical creeds are virtually dismissed; and the Church is denied any real authority.
The Bible opposes this low view of the Church. St. Paul told Timothy: "the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also (2 Timothy 2:2). In other words, Paul set up a special teaching ministry that was to continue after his death. Combine this special ongoing teaching ministry with the fact that Jesus sent His Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and told them "He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you" (John 14:26), and we arrive at an important conclusion.
These references indicate that the Scriptures are the possession of the
Church and that the interpretation of the Scripture belongs to the Church as a whole, as a community. Therefore it is improper for Evangelicals to ignore tradition altogether. The Holy Spirit has guided the Church through all generations. There has been a stream of traditionary teaching that has flowed through the Christian Church from the day of Pentecost to the present time. Therefore, it is silly to brush aside the Creeds and Councils, the writings of the Church Fathers, and even the wisdom of the Middle Ages.
The Reformation sets a good example. The Reformers adroitly navigated the waters between an individualism that obscured the Church, and an infallible Church that obscured the Scripture. For the most part they avoided both dangers. They challenged the authoritarian reverence for history and tradition on the one hand, and the utter contempt for history and tradition on the other hand.
In fact, the position the magisterial Reformers maintained was essentially that which was held in the early Church and throughout most of the medieval Church -- that Scripture was the sole source of revelation; that it was the final authoritative norm of doctrine and practice; that it was to be interpreted in and by the Church; and that it was to be interpreted according to the Creeds and Councils of the first five centuries.
The goal of the great Reformers -- Martin Luther, Thomas Cranmer, John Calvin, and Martin Bucer -- their goal was to return the Church to the Great Tradition. A tradition that would harmonize with Scripture and let Scripture remain the supreme authority. This is what was meant by the Reformation watchword "Sola Scriptura." Sola Scriptura does not mean that Scripture is the only source, but the only infallible source of authority. [I am indebted to Keith Mathison for this insight and many more. His book The Shape of Sola Scriptura is simply brilliant, and highly recommended.] In order to reform the abuses of the Church, the Reformers had to attack certain traditions. Let us not think for a minute however that the Reformation was all about destroying history and tradition. No, that was the intention of the fanatics. The catholicity of the Reformation can be seen in the reality that Luther, Calvin, and Cranmer were attempting to preserve the continuity with the early Church, which they believed had been abandoned by Rome. They were attempting to persuade the Church to give up her fascination with the theological innovations of the later Middle Ages and to return to Scripture and the Fathers; Scripture as the authoritative text and the Fathers as helpful interpreters.
Reformed Episcopal Bishop Greg Hotchkiss has thought deeply on this subject, and written his conclusions in a pamphlet entitled, The Middle Way . Like the Reformers, the Reformed Episcopal Church today marches on the middle way between two fallacies. Bishop Hotchkiss describes the erroneous tendencies like this: "The one hailed a purely "Biblical" Christianity which, however zealous and well-intentioned it was, was also unhistorical and untraditional; the other bowed down to tradition as though it were an idol, no matter how unbiblical and foreign to Christian faith some aspects of it turned out to be."
Hotchkiss continues, "The Reformed Episcopal Church refuses to be placed in either of these categories. It has, in its confessions, through the conflict out of which this Church was born and from the light it has gained from each side of the question, pushed beyond these two alternatives, and sought a "middle way," a way wherein both Scripture and tradition would be properly honored and respected, a way wherein with the Bible as the supreme authority the Church as a truly historical and developing organism need not be entirely set aside." [Close quote.]
On this Reformation Sunday let us acknowledge that the Reformers called us to catholicity. The Holy Spirit has guided at least some part of the Church in each and every age since Pentecost. Catholicity is the belief that each successive period of the Church owes its life to the Church before it. Christ does not come to start the Church anew in each consecutive generation. The Church in all ages is necessarily one living and developing spiritual body. Therefore if we are going to embrace true catholicity, we will make use of the "whole spectrum of the Church's past traditions about ceremonies, laws, and government, whether from the ancient Church, and Medieval Church, or the Church of the Reformation times, rather than just one sliver of the past." ( The Middle Way , p. 13)
Bishop Hotchkiss sums up well how catholicity should frame our attitudes and lives about the Church. He says: "Finally, I would suggest that we will only be able to maintain such a high regard for church tradition if we are also able to maintain a high regard for Christ's Church, and regard that Church as the means, the instrument, of God's saving grace to humanity. To the degree that you value the Church as Christ's Body, his "new creation by water and the word," so shall you value the Church's traditions and forms. If you devalue the Church's valid historical traditions and developments, then you also devalue the historic Church itself. This is not based on any assumptions about the Church's supposed "infallibility," but upon the fact that Christ instituted a visible Church through the Apostles in this world, and promised to be with that Church to the end of the ages. To do nothing but discredit and disregard the traditions of the historic Church is to plunge headlong down the tunnel of sects and cults, for the inevitable mark of a sect or a cult is its presumptuous disregard for the past, and its proud assertions to have suddenly discovered some "real" truth, inexplicably hidden for ages from the view of mankind." [End of quote.]
Along with a good warning, these are inspiring and practical words. Let us treasure the supremacy of the Scriptures as well as the traditions of the Church. May God's Spirit stir up in us a love for the Church's sacraments, a zeal for her preaching of the Gospel, and a holy joy in her worship and fellowship. This is the catholicity of the Reformation. These are the things that make the Body of Christ strong and triumphant. Return to Sermons |
