BEHIND THE BOOK Connecting to the Bible (Observation) SOLUS CHRISTUS AND ULRICH ZWINGLI (READ VARIOUS TRANSLATIONS) OCTOBER 18 TH, 2017 Introduction: Solus Christus or Solo Christo, is the Sola that refers to Christ alone being the object of our faith for salvation. In the Middle Ages, the minister was seen as having a special relationship with God, as he mediated God's grace and forgiveness through the sacraments. But there were other challenges. We often think of our own age as unique, with its pluralism and the advent of so many religions. But not too long before the Reformation, the Renaissance thinker Petrarch was calling for an Age of the Spirit in which all religions would be united. Many Renaissance minds were convinced that there was a saving revelation of God in nature and that, therefore, Christ was not the only way. The fascination with pagan philosophy encouraged the idea that natural religion offered a great deal--indeed, even salvation--to those who did not know Christ. The Reformation was, more than anything else, an assault on faith in humanity, and a defense of the idea that God alone reveals Himself and saves us. We do not find Him; He finds us. That emphasis was the cause of the cry, "Christ alone!" Jesus was the only way of knowing what God is really like, the only way of entering into a relationship with Him as father instead of judge, and the only way of being saved from His wrath. No one preached solus Christus more strongly than Swiss reformer, Ulrich Zwingli, as the second and third of his Sixty-seven Articles demonstrate, The sum of the gospel is that our Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, has made known to us the will of his heavenly Father, and redeemed us by his innocence from eternal death, and reconciled us to God. Therefore Christ is the only way to salvation for all who were, who are, and who shall be. Zwingli was born in 1484. He attended the universities of Vienna and Basel before serving as priest in the Swiss town of Glarus from 1506 to 1516. He broke with the Roman 1
Catholic church while he served as a priest in the town of Einsiedeln the following two years 1517-1518. His departure came as a result of expository preaching in the German vernacular of his congregation. He went to serve in the free city of Zurich by 1519 where his work as a reformer began. Zwingli s primary contribution to the Protestant Reformation came while serving as pastor of the Grossmünster in Zurich through his public debates and disputations against the Catholic church. He is known as the third great reformer, being overshadowed by Luther and Calvin and probably die to his short life. Zwingli made many great contributions to the reformation of the church, some theological others in practice. Like the apostle Peter, Zwingli taught a few what not to dos as well. We will look at his theological contributions and his political activities and glean from this great reformer s willingness to do something bold for God. Theological Contributions Zwingli interjected himself into many theological categories, especially considering his writings span less than a decade, but this evening we will only look at a few for the sake of time. For his public debates with Catholic authorities in early 1523, Zwingli composed The Sixty- Seven Articles. The document s brief introduction and conclusion reveal Zwingli s deep respect for the authority of God s word and his firm belief in the Bible s unique status as the only revelation of the saving good news of Jesus Christ and of God s will for Christian people. The introduction reads, The articles and opinions below, I, Ulrich Zwingli, confess to have preached in the worthy city of Zurich as based upon the Scriptures which are called inspired of God... and where I have not now correctly understood said Scriptures I shall allow myself to be taught better, but only from said Scriptures. Zwingli would expand on these articles in a book-length treatise in 1525 titled The True and False Religion. In 1526, he composed Ten Theses for Bern, which served as a succinct summary of his Reformed perspective. Among the more interesting theological contributions that Zwingli offered were his views on God s sovereignty and providence, particularly in salvation, and the ordinances of baptism and the Lord s Supper. Timothy George summarizes Zwingli s view on God s sovereignty and providence well stating, God s creative power is purposeful, teleological, that is directed toward a specific goal. God, then, is not just a vast reservoir of unlimited energy, but the personal center of all reality whose power is not divorced from His wisdom, knowledge, and foresight. George goes on to say, God s providence is concerned not only with the great events of history but also with the minutia of daily life. 1 Zwingli wrote, 1 Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers (B&ZWINGLI Publishers: Nashville, TN, 1988), 122-3. 2
We cannot but admit that not even the least things takes place unless it is ordered by God. For who has ever been so concerned and curious as to find out how much hair he has on his head? There is no one. God, however, knows the number. Indeed, nothing is too small in us or in any other creature, not to be ordered by the all-knowing and all-powerful providence of God. It is important that we recognize the recovery of this beautiful biblical doctrine by the Reformers as the RCC had come to teach a distant and non-transcendent god who is sitting back with arms folded watching his little gods (RCC clergy and papacy) tend to his work. The reformers boldly reclaimed this the truth of God s sovereignty and providence, especially in the work of salvation. This led Luther to recognize the futility in a works salvation, while leading Zwingli to a strange belief in the salvation of those who never hear the gospel but demonstrate piety. None of the reformers were perfect. The other two areas of theological intrigue Zwingli meddled in were the Lord s Supper and Baptism. His views in these two areas lead me to believe that if Zwingli were alive today he would certainly be a Baptist. The Lord s Supper is the most popular of the two because of the heated rivalry between he and Luther. Zwingli held a memorial view of the Lord s Supper while Luther held a spiritual presence view. The two had a famous showdown on day 2 of the Marburg Colloquy when Luther etched the words, Hoc est corpus meum, into the table in front of his seat. Listen to the exchange between the two. Zwingli: Luther: It would be a shame to believe in such an important doctrine, teach, and defend it, and yet be unable or unwilling to cite a single Scripture passage to prove it. (taking the cover from the inscription on the table): This is my body! Here is our Scripture passage. You have not yet taken it from us, as you set out to do; we need no other. My dearest lords, since the words of my Lord Jesus Christ stand there, Hoc est corus meum, I cannot truthfully pass over them, but must confess and believe that the body of Christ is there. I personally think when Wolfgang Capito of Strausburg wrote a letter to his friend Ambrose Blaurer in 1525 he described the whole debate best when he said, Future generations will laugh at the pleasure our age takes in quarrelling when we raise such disturbance about the very signs that should unite us. George says, One of the great tragedies of Reformation history was that so much strife and hurt occurred around the meal which Jesus intended as a supper of peace. The third and final theological contribution that I want to discuss is what I find to be the most interesting and that is baptism. After a tumultuous uprising of Anabaptist condemning infant baptism in Zurich, ultimately leading to their death by way of drowning, Zwingli was forced to formulate his own view of baptism. In his early formulations, he believed baptism to be a sign of identification with the church and not applicable to infants but only confessing adults. He would later change his view after he was forced to view it politically. George writes, Infant baptism came to be the fulcrum on which both the unity of the church and the integrity of the civic order turned. In 1526 Zwingli persuaded the Zurich 3
Council to establish a baptismal register in every parish. This device, together with the decision to expel those citizens who refused to submit their infants for baptism, enabled the magistrates to make infant baptism an instrument for political conformity. 2 Zwingli believed, A Christian city is nothing more than a Christian Church. T.M. Lindsay says, all the rules and regulations about public worship, about doctrines, and about the discipline of the church, were made in Zwingli s time by the Council of Zurich, which was the chief civil power in the state. 3 In my opinion Zwingli forced himself to create an extra-biblical doctrine of covenantal-continuity in order to maintain the civil order he was seeking. His creation still stands today as the foundational theological construct of the Presbyterians and other Reformed denominations. It is my belief that this serves as one of the best examples for us as to why we should not seek to intermingle church and state. The Bible gives no indication that God intends for us to Christianize the world politically. We are called to make disciples of all nations in order that they may be saved from this wicked world and spend eternity in kingdom of God, which will be a pure and undefiled Theocracy. Conclusion Like many other reformers in his day, Zwingli was brash and stubborn. In 1531 he rode into a battle between Protestants and Catholics serving as a chaplain to the Protestant troops. He was killed, burned, and then out of hatred for the heretic, the Catholics mixed his ashes with dung to prevent his followers from using his parts as relics. Legend is that his heart was unharmed by the fire and found by one of his followers. It later became a relic. The irony is in just how firmly Zwingli stood against idols such as relics. Zwingli s dying words were, You may kill the body but you cannot kill the soul. There is much to learn from Ulrich Zwingli but if we should take anything away from his life, it should be his unwavering devotion to the sufficiency of Christ and his work on the cross to save the elect. Let these be the last words of our brother Ulrich Zwingli, The summary of the gospel is that our Lord Christ, true Son of God, has made known to us the will of his Heavenly Father and had redeemed us from death and reconciled us with God by his guiltlessness. Therefore, Christ is the only way to salvation of all who were, are now, or shall be. 2 George, 143-4. 3 T.M. Lindsay, The Reformation (Banner of Truth: Edinburgh, 1882), 68. 4
---------------------------------------------- Behind the Book is only one aspect of Heritage s teaching ministry which seeks to employ our church s mission statement: Connecting to God, Growing with Others and Impacting the world. On Wednesday evenings we connect to Sunday morning s Bible passage and discover what it says through in-depth Bible study. Sunday morning in corporate worship (9:30am) we grow from the passage by learning what it means for our daily living. In Community Groups (10:45am) we practically apply the text, being impacted by it and learning to impact the world with it. CGI provides a balanced approach to life and Bible study; an upward look (Connect), an inward look (Grow) and an outward look (Impact) ensuring that our mission fulfils our vision to be a God-centered, Great Commission congregation. It s a well-known and beneficial way to approach the Bible Connect/Observation, Grow/Interpretation, Impact/Application. It s also a Trinitarian approach to Scripture: Connecting to the Father, Growing in Christ and Impacting the world by the Spirit, so that the way we study the Bible daily reminds us about who our God is and how he is unique among all religions of the world. 5