As Pastor Greg has mentioned, we are working our way through this month, Reformation Month, on a broad overview of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Last time we looked at the reason for the Reformation; we focused on the experience of Martin Luther, articulating, I think, sharply—his experience does articulate very sharply—the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Today we look at the reaction to the Reformation. I’ll try to develop that in broad strokes. And then two weeks from today, we’ll look at the reversal of the Reformation. Those of you who are not here in the Sunday school hour, you’ll want to catch up. We covered the doctrine of inspiration and the idea of sola scriptura, what was the leading and foundational principle of the Protestant Reformation.
He did a wonderful job of expounding and applying that. You’ll want to catch up with that recording. Today, let’s look at Matthew chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24. This is our Lord’s Olivet Discourse; he’s on the Mount of Olives. And this is the famous discourse given there concerning the course of this age, and then the end of this age as well, climaxing in the return of Christ. Matthew 24.
Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, “You see all these things, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray.
Many will come in my name saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place. But the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There’ll be famines and earthquakes in various places.
All these are but the beginning of birth pains. And they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death. And you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come.”
Well, again, this is our Lord’s Olivet Discourse concerning the course of this age, and then the climax of the age. The climax of the age he addresses beginning in verse 29, the events associated with the very end, climaxing, of course, in the return of Christ in glory.
Verses 4 through 28 describe the course of this age. Verses 15 to 21 give us one outstanding example of this age, of the tribulation of this age, concerning the events of AD 70, and I think which are prospective of the greater tribulation at the end of the age. But verses 4 through 28 all describe for us what we can expect during the course of this age. Verse 14 is very important, the last verse that I read, because here Jesus tells us, in effect, this is the program of this age.
The entire age is given to this purpose. From God’s perspective, what is this age about? Answer: this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the age will come. So here’s the program for the age: the advance of the gospel throughout the entire world. That’s God’s agenda for this age. Now in verses 1 to 13, Jesus gives us what we can expect as the characteristics of this age throughout.
Verses 4 and 5, there’ll be false Christs. Verses 6 and 7, there’ll be wars, international rivalries. Verse 7, there’ll be natural disasters. Verse 9, persecution, suffering for the gospel. Verse 10, there’ll be apostasy and betrayal from within. Verse 11, there’ll be false teaching, there’ll be heresies. Verses 12 and 13, increased evil affecting even inside the church. But notice verse 6.
This is very important for understanding the passage: “But the end is not yet.” These are just the characteristics of this entire age. When you see the things that Jesus is talking about, we should not say, “Oh, the end is right around the corner. It’s coming.” Well, it could be. But that’s not what Jesus is saying here. He says the end is not yet. Verse 8, these are just the beginnings of birth pangs. These are the characteristics of this entire age. This is what you can expect throughout the age.
There’ll be wars, there’ll be famines, earthquakes, disasters of all kinds, false teachings, there’ll be apostasy. And verse 9, for the church, there will be persecution. “They will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death. And you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.”
So this will be called to endure persecution for his name’s sake. This is the equivalent of what he tells us in the Beatitudes at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel. In Matthew chapter 5, verses 10 to 12, he tells us we’ll be reviled, we’ll be persecuted. And this, he says, because of me. And here: “You’ll be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.”
Now, all of that may seem entirely bleak, but keep in mind verse 14: gospel advance throughout the world. “This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all the nations. And then the age, the end will come.” So here’s the program for the age: gospel advance amidst trouble and persecution. That, in a nutshell, is the program of this age from God’s perspective. Gospel advance amidst persecution and suffering.
Expect it. Verse 9: “They’ll deliver you up to tribulation, put you to death. You’ll be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.” This is an echo of what he said in chapter 10 of Matthew’s gospel when he sent his disciples out on their maiden voyage, so to speak, their first journey without him. Then he sends them throughout the house of Israel and he says to them, “I’m sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.”
We read this when we turn a few pages, just beyond the gospels; we read of this happening in the book of Acts. Acts chapter 4, they’re suffering for Jesus’ sake, commanded not to preach in his name, and they’re suffering for it. We saw it in Acts chapter 5 this morning in the scripture reading that Pastor Greg read.
The initial experience of the church was just what Jesus said. Throughout the book of Acts, we see it again and again. Paul would go from city to city to city, endure persecution, imprisonments, and so on. This is the program of the age. We see it after the book of Acts and the persecution of the earliest Christians at the hands of pagan Rome, and we see it through the entire age. The character of this age, Jesus says, is gospel advance, but often through even violent persecution.
The last time we saw the experience of Martin Luther coming to understand, in his own experience, the doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone. We saw it primarily in Romans chapter 1, verse 17, where Luther came to learn—which is expounded elsewhere in the New Testament many times over—that righteousness, in terms of our salvation, righteousness is not something we render to God.
We don’t give him so much righteousness and then he rewards us for it. But in justification, righteousness is something God gives us. And he gives it to us freely in Jesus Christ, whom we embrace by faith alone. And this was the good news that the Reformation was beginning to preach. We saw it captured in Luther’s slogan, Christus pro me, Christ for me. It is not my works, it’s Jesus’ works that save. It’s not my pains, it’s his pains. It’s not my righteousness, it’s his righteousness. And all this God gives me, received by faith alone.
And this was good news for sinners. And this was at the heart then of the Protestant Reformation. And that truth, that simple message of justification by grace through faith alone, because of the work of Christ alone, that began to be preached in the days of the Reformation, and initially we find it well received by many. And that’s what we read in Matthew chapter 24 verse 14: the gospel will be preached in all the nations throughout all the world as a witness to Christ in all of the nations. That’s what we read in the book of Acts, that even though there was persecution, the gospel made its advance step by step by step. That’s the program of the age.
The Protestant Reformation was a rediscovery of that gospel that was preached in the New Testament. And the Protestant Reformation has been rightly described as a time of revival because it was a recovery of the gospel, and whole nations at the time, in the years following the Protestant Reformation, whole nations seemed swept by the gospel.
The gospel under Luther’s influence spread largely northward and in the Baltic regions. We find nations like Scandinavia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland—all of these became Lutheran. I will have more to say about Lutheranism next week, or next time.
We should note here, just in passing, as an important note just to tuck away, that there are these two branches of the Protestant Reformation. There’s the Lutheran branch and the Reformed branch, or the Lutheran branch and the Calvinist branch of the Protestant Reformation. And what’s important to note, I think at least just to recognize, is that both Martin Luther and John Calvin objected strongly to the use of their name being attached to this movement of the gospel. Now both of them objected to it strongly.
Luther typically is more colorful in the way he says it, and so I’ll give you the way he wrote it: “What is Luther? The teaching is not mine, nor was I crucified for anyone. How did I, poor stinking bag of maggots that I am, come to the point where people call the children of Christ by my evil name?” And yet today we have the Lutheran branch and the Calvinist branch against the objection of both of those men. We call ourselves Calvinists; we communicate accurately what we believe in some respect that way, but we should at least note that when we say that, we are doing a disservice to Calvin himself.
Well, the Reformed branch of the Protestant Reformation moved largely to the West. There was significant influence in Switzerland at the time. There was Zwingli in Zurich, of course, and then primarily Calvin in Geneva. And the influence of Calvin from Geneva to the Western world was just massive. Many came to him, some of them—many of them—fleeing from persecution like in France and in England, fleeing to Geneva for safety. And they’re learning under Calvin and many of them coming back to their respective places, spreading the gospel there.
France early on was a strong—had a strong Protestant minority in France. It was a Roman Catholic kingdom. There was a strong Protestant minority there in the country. We’ll have more to say about that as we go along. The Reformation in Britain was its own story. I’ll have more to say to that as well. The Netherlands became dominantly reformed, particularly in the north. And there was also significant reformed influence in Poland, Hungary, Bohemia—it’s the land of Huss. All of this we see: gospel advance moving out from the time of the Reformation. A rediscovery of the gospel, a time of genuine revival when there’s this advance of the gospel.
The Reaction to the Reformation
But also, just as we read in the book of Acts, and just as Jesus warned us, the Protestant Reformation met with opposition at virtually every turn. And here we have a rather ugly chapter of Christian history. Rome had long learned how to deal with dissent, how to deal with heresies in the church—heresies as they called them. There were previous attempts at reform on various levels. All of them were crushed by the Roman Catholic Church holding authority with the various governments of the West. Previous attempts of various kinds in various places were crushed, and most notably, there was the famous Inquisition. It was one of the ugliest chapters of Roman Catholic history.
It grew out of the Crusades to keep the faithful in the fold. They felt threatened by defection, as they called it, to the Eastern Orthodox Church, and defection to various pre-Reformation groups, like the Waldensians, the Catharines, and some others like that. And their objective and their response in all of that in the Inquisition was never, never to evangelize. Their objective was to stamp out heresy by any means.
And by the time of Martin Luther, the Roman Catholic Church had already had a history of some 300 years of persecution. And it has been said that during that time, blood flowed like water. Those accused of heresy were ordered to recant. They were tortured to recant. If they would not recant, they were just put to death.
And there were tortures of the vilest kinds that were employed, surpassing even that of pagan Rome in the early centuries and experience of the church then. And the estimates of the number of people put to death during that period range from tens of thousands to several million put to death because of their heresies of embracing the reformed gospel.
Well, that was the church that responded to Luther and the later reformers. The formal response, we should mention that, the formal response of Rome is referred to as the Counter-Reformation. The Counter-Reformation, and it had basically three dimensions to it.
Number one were spiritual reforms—not theological reforms, spiritual reforms, or we might call them moral and ethical reforms. Too much about the Roman Catholic Church at the time was so corrupt, the jig was up, and it was too well exposed by then. Too many people knew about it. There was simony, there’s immorality, there’s nepotism.
It’s just basically a secular enterprise. At its best, the Roman Catholic Church at that time, at its best, was secular and irreligious. It was basically a secular enterprise to gain money, to gain power, building political influence with the various nations, building financial power and fortunes. And a good example of that is Pope Leo X. He was, by all reports, an elegant gentleman; no moral accusations against him.
This is the Roman Catholic Church at its best at the time. But after he was ordained as Pope, he famously said, “Now let us enjoy the papacy.” And to do that, you need money. And so he instituted the sale of indulgences that we talked about last week. That was Rome at its best.
Secular and irreligious. At its worst, the Roman Catholic Church, and particularly in Rome itself, was immoral and decadent. Rome was known for its high rates of prostitution. There’s bribery in high places. Orphanages had to be instituted for the Pope’s children, for priests’ children, illegitimate all.
And so these reforms, these spiritual reforms, these ethical reforms, they came hard, but they were gradually enacted to put a better face on the church. So one, there’s the spiritual reforms, as they’re called. The second dimension of the Counter-Reformation is Ignatius Loyola and the Jesuit order. Ignatius Loyola and the Jesuit Order was officially organized in 1540.
These men were fanatically loyal to the Pope, and they were eager to preserve the Roman Catholic Church and all of its authority at whatever cost that was necessary, and their objective was to restore the Roman Catholic Church to its prestige and the power that it had internationally even centuries before, like under Pope Innocent III. And to do that, to carry out this reinvigoration of the church, they carried it out by all means.
There’s sabotage. Sabotage the Protestants in any way possible. They would do it through missions, they would do it through literature, but they would also do it by betrayal and infiltration and even war. There was ruthless and extensive persecution of the Protestants. We’ll see more of that as we go along. It was a continuation of the Inquisition, of which the Spanish Inquisition was the most extensive and the most cruel. Heretics were sought out by whatever means, infiltrating, sabotaging them, betrayal of various kinds. Once they’re sought out, bring them in, force them to recant, or put them to death. And if you have not read it, let me encourage you to do it.
Fox’s Book of Martyrs is one of the all-time classics of Christian literature. It’s sort of the introduction, if you will, to Christian martyrology. It tells these stories in multiple stories of that, stirring reading detail, the tortures and the executions of many of them. It’s one of the outstanding classics of Christian literature, Fox’s Book of Martyrs. Under the Jesuits and Ignatius Loyola, we should also mention the infamous Index. That’s what it was called, the Index of Forbidden Books. This is one extension of the Jesuit order.
They were lists of books that were prohibited for any of the people in the country so long as they had the influence to read. And so of course, all the writings of Martin Luther were prohibited. The writings of John Calvin were prohibited. All the writings of the other reformers, Martin Bucer and Hugh Latimer and all of them, just banned, and on pain of death, you don’t read them. And included in the Index of Forbidden Books, believe it or not, imposed by the church, was the Bible.
On pain of death, you don’t read it. “This doesn’t belong to you. We can’t have the laity reading the Bible. Who knows what they’ll come up with?” And so they were forbidden under pain of death. And the church itself denied people access to the Word of God. Thirdly then, there’s the spiritual reforms. There’s the Jesuit order. And then thirdly, there’s the Council of Trent.
This is a general council of the Church of Rome. It was given to define the Roman Catholic faith forever, and it has. It was largely under the guidance of the Jesuits who led in that effort. This is Rome’s official answer to Protestantism. This is the official statement of Roman Catholic theology.
It affirmed the authority of tradition. It affirmed the authority of the Apocrypha. Things like that. It affirmed—and here’s just going to give you a sample of it—it affirmed “works of satisfaction.” This is their language. Works of satisfaction that we are able to do in order to make up for sin. You can see how this is a challenge to the sufficiency of Christ. Works of satisfaction that we are able to do.
The mass, the Eucharist, was declared to have the real presence of Christ, the actual body and blood of Christ in the elements of the Eucharist. Therefore, in the distribution of the elements, there’s a “re-offering”—this is their language—a continual offering of the sacrifice of Christ. It is, their words, a “divine sacrifice that is truly propitiatory by which God is appeased.” So you take the Eucharist, you eat the bread, and now you are participating in it. Here is a reenactment of the work of Christ. He’s being crucified again for you. Complete rejection of the finished work of Christ.
Now this was important for Rome. This is important for Rome because now, officially, Rome has the authority to administer Christ or to withhold Christ from the people. One of the marvelous benefits of the Protestant Reformation is it renewed this biblical notion of the immediate access of the human soul to God and God working with us in an individual way.
The Council of Trent also had a violent and dogmatic condemnation of the Protestants and all that they had to teach, and itemized one by one, “if you believe this, let him be anathema. If he believes this, let him be anathema.” Let me give you a couple of samples of that. If anyone denies this teaching or that, let him be anathema—that is, let him be condemned to hell, let him be damned. On justification, this is Canon 9: “If anyone shall say that by faith alone”—you can hear the Protestant teaching in this—”if anyone shall say that by faith alone the impious is justified, so as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain a grace of justification, let him be anathema.” Canon 11: “If anyone shall say that men are justified by the sole imputation of the righteousness of Christ, let him be damned.”
Well, early on in the Reformation, Luther had held out hopes of reforming the church. That was the purpose of the 95 Theses. He wanted these items for debate to try to reform the church. But by December of 1563, when Trent had finished its final session over a course of like eight years or something like that, no one held out a hope for that at all.
The divide between the Roman Catholic Church and the Christian gospel was just too great. I remember, I think it was just last year around Reformation Day, I happened to see a video clip online from Michael Knowles, a man I often agree with politically, but he’s Roman Catholic. And so he was talking about the Protestants in this video clip who are celebrating Reformation Day.
He said, “What an awful thing to celebrate. It was a divorce. Who celebrates a divorce?” Of course, the answer is, well, it depends on who you were married to. And here the reformers found themselves married to a church that denied the gospel, condemned the gospel. And in that case, it is the righteous, the faithful, the necessary thing to do to break away. And so they did.
Rome had learned how to respond to these, what they call Lutheran heresies. And although at first when Luther posted those 95 Theses, they went immediately throughout Germany and throughout Europe, and at first, the Pope did not take it seriously—”this will pass” kind of thing—and they were caught off guard. The 95 Theses spread like wildfire.
In fact, it had immediate repercussions within Germany itself, beginning in Wittenberg, where John Tetzel—you remember the priest selling indulgences—he was immediately run out of town. Initially, his sales were really high and successful, but he’s almost immediately run out of town. And the sale of indulgences would almost stop altogether throughout Germany. But there was a storm of protest from the Roman Catholic Church.
And the political situation in Germany was such that Luther was safe for a while. Many German noblemen had converted to the faith, they understanding justification, they’re rejoicing in it. And so they were able to present a united front against the emperor and eventually formed the Schmalkaldic League. And they were able to present a front to the emperor. And so Luther is then under that kind of protection for quite a while, specifically under the protection of Duke Frederick. And he was able to live out his life peacefully and die of natural causes in Germany.
By August of 1518, things were more volatile. There’s a letter we have from the Pope written to Duke Frederick, and he talks about Luther as “that son of iniquity who opposes the Church of God.” And the Pope summoned Luther to come to Rome. Well, Luther, of course, is not about to do that. The Pope demanded that Frederick turn him over to the authorities so that he’d be brought to Rome. Frederick was not about to do that either.
Now, many people have—the question’s often been raised—was Frederick a genuine believer? And it’s a complicated question. Given the fact that he protected Luther at such great risk of his kingdom, risk of his life, it would seem that he had genuine gospel motives in doing it. At the same time, Frederick remained a loyal son of the Roman Catholic Church. There are some reports that he was converted finally on his deathbed; I don’t know. But at any rate, he was the protector of Martin Luther during these years.
By 1520, Luther had written more important writings: The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, The Freedom of the Christian Man, things like that. And Frederick, rather than turning him over to Rome, demanded a council, a hearing, so that Luther be given a fair hearing. Luther was glad for that.
This was something the heretics were never given: a chance to talk and to defend their cause. On October the 10th—remember that date in just a second, we’ll come back to it. On October the 10th, 1520, there was a papal bull. A bull is an official document from the Pope. Plenty of jokes about the appropriateness of that language. A papal bull reaches Luther and he gave Luther—this is October 10th—and he gives Luther 60 days to recant or to be excommunicated. The papal bull reads like this:
“Arise, O Lord, and judge thy cause. A wild boar”—that’s Luther—”a wild boar has invaded thy vineyard. Arise, O Peter, and consider the cause of the Holy Roman Church, the mother of all churches, consecrated by thy blood. Arise, O Paul, who by thy teaching and death has illuminated and does illumine the church. Arise all ye saints and the whole universal church whose interpretation of scripture has been assailed.”
Well, that was October 10th, giving Luther 60 days to recant. On December 10th, then, Luther publicly celebrates the expiration of the bull, those 60 days that he was given, and he celebrates it by—and I love this guy—by burning the papal bull publicly along with some copies of canon law. These are the kinds of characters that God used and raised up with courage like that to bring out the gospel. Well, Luther now is excommunicated.
Frederick still refuses to carry out the order to send him to Rome, and he demanded this fair hearing before a Diet in Worms. A Diet is a council. “Diet of Worms” sounds terrible to the English ears, but it’s a council of Worms in Worms, Germany. And Luther then is given safe conduct to be given a hearing. He arrives at the council, the Diet, and he’s expecting to be able to have an opportunity to defend his case, to make his case before the emperor and those who are there. Instead, he’s given two questions. Stacks of books on the table there.
“Are these yours?” And two, “Will you recant?” That’s it. “Are these yours?” and “Will you recant?” It’s a dramatic scene. Luther goes over to the table, examines the books. He divides them up into categories. Some are more devotional and the kinds of things that no Roman Catholic would ever disagree with. Here are the more controversial ones and whatever. “Quit stalling. Will you recant or not?” And this is when Luther gave his famous, “Unless I’m convinced by scripture, I will not recant anything” speech. And you see there already then the expression of the Reformed principle, the Protestant principle of scripture alone, sola scriptura. “If I cannot be convinced by scripture of my error, I will not recant anything.” And so he’s condemned.
He’s got 40 days, and then it’s open season on Luther. Luther’s making his way back to Wittenberg, and he is kidnapped. That’s the language that’s always used, and what it was is a staged attack on Luther and his caravan, and it was staged, though, by Luther’s friend and protector, Duke Frederick, and he captured him, took him back to the castle at Wartburg, where Luther remained for some time, and letters would come back to him—”Wittenberg from Luther in the wilderness” is how he described it. During that time, Luther translated the scriptures into the German tongue for the people. But finally, he came back to Wittenberg, I think it was like 10 months after he’s been in hiding.
And Luther just says, “God is my protector.” Luther had stood before the emperor with his life in his hands. In God’s providence, he finished out his life in Wittenberg, as I mentioned, died of natural causes. By no means were all so blessed. The response of the Roman Catholic Church to William Tyndale is a good example. Tyndale preached justification by faith alone. He was strongly impacted by Luther. The reformers—he began to preach it himself, but his leading offense—his leading offense is that he dared to translate the scriptures into the English language.
And for that, he was hunted down. He lived most of his life as a fugitive, being hunted down. Finally, he was found. He was betrayed by a friend, and he was found, and he was captured and executed. He was strangled, and then they burned his body anyway.
The English Reformation came with a lot of difficulty. Originally, it began with Henry VIII, who made his break from Rome for less than noble reasons. He didn’t like his wife. He wanted a divorce. The Roman Catholic Church didn’t allow that. “Let’s break from the church and I’ll make myself the head of the church. And I’ll get the archbishop to write an annulment of my marriage.” And that will be that. And so he has his second wife and then his third wife and so on. But that was the beginning of the Reformation in England. We have now officially—for whatever poor reasons there were—officially there’s a break from Rome.
Henry’s son, Edward VI, he’s the son of Henry and Jane Seymour. I think it was Henry’s third wife. He was only 10 on his accession to the throne when Henry died, and so he followed his Protestant counselors. Most important was his uncle Edward Seymour; he followed his teaching. He was the Duke of Somerset. But Edward was a sickly boy and died by the time he was 16. But he did begin some Protestant reforms.
And then we have on Edward’s death, his sister coming to the throne. And this would have seemed to be the greatest blow to the gospel in England. This is Mary coming to the throne. She’s the daughter of Henry and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and she was no doubt resentful of Henry for what he had done to her mother and giving the annulment and all of that. From infancy, she had been raised as a rigid Roman Catholic. And so immediately she begins these moves against Protestantism to restore Roman Catholicism in England. The mass was restored. The English service was taken away. “Let’s go back to doing the services in Latin.”
The works of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli—all of them were banned from the kingdom. The leading ministers of England and the Protestant Church of England were banished from their pulpits. They were deprived of their freedom. Many of them were imprisoned. Many of them escaped to the continent. Many of them went to Geneva and learned there under Calvin. In 1555, we begin a four-year period of the years of what are called the years of Bloody Mary. It wasn’t enough to imprison these men for what they taught and preached. It wasn’t enough to deprive them of their freedom. It wasn’t enough to deprive them of their families. They handed them over to the government for execution as heretics.
And by 1558, when Mary died, 288 had been burned at the stake for their faith. That’s about two or three per week during those four years. Five were executed the week before she died. Most of them, of course, were men. Among them were one archbishop (that’s Cranmer), four bishops, 21 clergy, 55 women, and four children.
And their only crime was rejecting of the Roman Catholic teachings and embracing the gospel of grace through faith in Christ alone. These are referred to as the Marian martyrs. Every time I think of them, I think of the words of Hebrews chapter 11. These are men and women of whom the world was not worthy. Stories like that could be multiplied on end.
We have Patrick Hamilton, the first of the Scottish reformers to be martyred. He had been deeply impacted by Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith. He began to preach the same with great success. In 1528, he’s aged 24, he’s lured by the archbishop to St. Andrews under the guise of a debate. He no sooner arrives, and he’s immediately arrested, and within an hour, he was burned at the stake.
We have also in Scotland the St. Andrews Seven, the famous St. Andrews Seven, who were executed then. It was Thomas Chalmers at St. Andrews and six of his students. Again, you should read Fox’s Book of Martyrs. We have an account of this. And also J.C. Ryle has a wonderful little book on the five English reformers. And he outlines much of this that’s going on there as well. On one hand, horrifying reading; on the other hand, it’s exhilarating to see the faithfulness of these men, and also he articulates the gospel issues at stake in their execution.
Well, all of that then was just in Britain. The Reformation on the continent met the same kind of opposition from the church. There was widespread persecution in the Italian states. Men, women, and children were betrayed. Believers of all ages were gathered together and then murdered. Even the Roman Catholic officials themselves admit shuddering at the barbarousness of the killings in those times. And that, while the victims very often—most often—went to their death calmly, if not joyfully.
And we can’t talk about the Reformation in Europe, on the continent, long at all without talking about the Huguenots, or your French Huguenots. They don’t pronounce the final T. Mark Twain said the French have a beautiful language, but they really spell funny. But the Huguenots, these are heroic French Protestants.
King Francis I at the time had no particular religious concerns himself, but earlier than that, he had signed a pact with the Pope, and so he’s bound to that. And by 1545, thousands had been killed or sent to the galleys, 22 towns and villages completely destroyed. By the way, it was King Francis, when Calvin wrote his first edition of the Institutes, he dedicated it to the king, hoping by that to buy some time and influence and toleration. It didn’t work.
King Francis’s son, Henry II, carried on his father’s policy, but with more fervency than his father had. Some Frenchmen—many of them—fled from France to Switzerland, went to Geneva to learn under Calvin. Many of them only to go back to France at the risk of their lives. Many of them gave their lives taking the gospel back to France. By 1560, Henry II had died, and his younger son finally ascended to the throne. His name was Charles, Charles IX. He’s only age 10 at the time of his accession to the throne, and that left his mother, Catherine de’ Medici, as regent of France.
It was soon evident that her goal was to crush the Huguenots. Cruel martyrdoms; the Pope had demanded a preaching of no toleration. There were ruthless, almost open season on the Huguenots. There were burnings, there were cruel tortures of various kinds. And Catherine found a way to end it all and to crush all of the Protestant influence in France at a single blow.
She cemented a treaty between the Roman Catholics and the Huguenots by means of an important marriage. All the important people of the land would be there for the occasion. Before the festivities ended, though, this is one of the most brutal crimes of all of history.
The date was St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 24th, 1572. Catherine told her son—now he’s age 22—that the Huguenots were planning to kill all the Roman Catholics and that they had to make a preemptive strike. At first, Charles was unwilling to do that, but she persuaded him, and he signed the order that she had prepared. And at midnight, the castle bell tolled, and that was the signal for the butchery to begin. The leader of the Huguenots at the time was a man named Coligny.
He was among the first to be killed. They stormed his house. They ran him through with a sword while he’s still dying. They dragged him out into the streets, kicked him in the face with cheers of all kinds. His head was cut off and then presented to Catherine and Charles. And then it was embalmed and sent to the Pope as a trophy. For three days and three nights, the massacre continued throughout France. Thousands were brutally murdered in Paris alone. Mobs at will, killing Protestants. It was open season on them.
When news reached Pope Gregory, he was so overjoyed that he commanded a salute to be fired. he commanded the church bells to be tolled, be rung. He ordered a grand Te Deum to be sung at the church choirs, and he even struck a medal commemorating the great event, the great triumph of the church. The medal depicted an angel holding a cross and a sword.
Well, this is the Roman Catholic reaction to the Reformation. Some whole nations were won back, or at least partially won back to the Roman Catholic Church. Places like Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Poland. The Reformation in France was almost entirely stamped out. The Huguenots never to become a significant force again. Hungary, it was partially restored. The southern Netherlands were brought back to the Roman Catholic fold. Even in Germany, the Roman Catholic reaction nearly stopped or partially reversed at least Protestantism in the southern part of Germany.
All of this, Jesus warned us about upfront in His Olivet Discourse. Again, verse 9: “They will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death. And you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.” But also, verse 14: “This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
So just as we read in the book of Acts, so we read through the rest of history, and we read it through the Reformation history in particular, that despite the opposition, the gospel has continued to make its advance. Intense as the persecution has been, and amidst setbacks and gains of various kinds, the gospel continued to make its advance. The impact of the Reformation on England alone resulted in the gospel going to the world. The Reformation in England alone resulted in the gospel coming to America and from America to the world. And Jesus’ words have proven true over and again.
You’ll be hated, you’ll be opposed, you’ll be put to death. The gospel will make its advance. A fascinating thing to think—we take it so for granted—that these men and women giving their lives for the advance of the gospel, giving their lives so that people can have the scriptures, the Word of God in their own language so that they can hear it. Men and women the world over now, hearing for the first time, having access for the first time to the Word of God. And hearing, if they’re burdened by sin, there’s a Redeemer who has done all that God requires, and you may have Him freely by grace through faith. All right then, why do we survey this history at Reformation Month?
Three Reasons
Three reasons I’ll give you quickly and then we’ll close.
Number one, this is to illustrate the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 24. The course of this age will be marked by gospel advance and it will be marked by persecution. So it illustrates the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy.
Number two, it’s good for us to know our heritage. This is how the gospel came to you. This is how the gospel came to me. It was hard won by faithful men and women willing to endure whatever for Christ’s sake.
And then thirdly, we do this for another reason, and I hope it will have this effect. It will bring us to take seriously our Lord’s warning regarding the character of this age and shape our expectations accordingly.
Jesus said this age will be marked by gospel advance amidst persecution. Gospel advance amidst persecution. You’ve heard me say it any number of times here before, that in the West, in the last couple of hundred years in particular, we’ve been living in a kind of a historical bubble.
We haven’t seen that kind of persecution. We’ve been given this freedom so that the gospel would advance from us to the world. And it has happened. But we should not be mistaken to think that that’s the normal, that’s the norm. Jesus said this age will be marked by gospel advance amidst persecution. It is not difficult at all to see in our culture that that’s coming.
Increasingly, there’s this increasing violent opposition to Christianity in our culture. Christianity used to be the norm. It is not in our culture anymore. All the centers of our culture belong to another view entirely. And if and when more persecution comes, do you know what we’ll do? We’ll be faithful just like those who have gone before.
Revelation chapter 12 is a marvelous depiction of this—this apocalyptic imagery. We have Satan coming against the church, chasing it out in the wilderness, the people of Christ being persecuted. There’s a marvelous comment: they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, because they loved not their lives even unto death.
They love their King more. And for his sake, they’ll endure whatever to advance his cause, as he has commanded us. And so if it comes in our generation, it comes in another generation, God’s people will be faithful. And they will do it, we will do it in the knowledge that in the end, Jesus wins. And we win with him. Amen.