I often describe the Reformation as a “back-to-the-Bible” movement. The 16th century dawned with “everyone” agreeing that the Christian church needed to be reformed, but “no one” agreeing as to what changes needed to be made. In the early 1500’s the Pope sent Dominican emissaries across Europe to sell indulgences. Indulgences were the Roman Catholic Church’s promise that sins could be forgiven by the Church for a financial offering to the Church. (The Pope was engaged in a fund-raising project in order to continue the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.)
Martin Luther (1483-1546) entered the historical drama at this point. In the midst of the sale of indulgences, the Dominican monk, Johann Tetzel, offered the sale of indulgences in the region around Wittenberg, where Luther was a professor of Bible and theology at the university. Thus, a conflict over the forgiveness of sins and justification by faith was about to erupt. On the first “Reformation Day” (October 31, 1517) Martin Luther nailed the Ninety-Five Theses to the Wittenberg Chapel door.
Luther’s theology revolved around the Biblical teaching of justification by faith. In the course of time Luther was called to defend his teachings before Roman Catholic authorities (the Diet of Worms, 1520). If the Roman Catholic Church’s “grab bag” of church traditions was authoritative, Luther had no hope of proving his point about justification. (This “grab bag” would include the Bible plus the writings of the church fathers plus the church councils plus papal declarations plus the theology of medieval Catholicism.) Luther’s argument was that the Bible was the ultimate source for theological truth (sola Scriptura) and the Bible taught justification by faith (sola fide) by the grace of God (sola gratia). Luther ignited a Reformation.
The Reformation begs the question, “What does a reformed church look like?” Perhaps surprising to Luther, within decades the reformation movement had Lutheran churches in northern Europe, John Calvin’s Reformed Churches in Switzerland and elsewhere, and England had its own Church of England (Anglicanism). Each of these three branches of the Reformation shared two concepts: (1) they practiced union of church and state and (2) they condemned the Anabaptists.
In theory the union of church and state worked this way: the government protected the “true” church, and the church provided a guiding conscience for the government. The theory never worked out in reality. In the end, in the realm of “real politics,” the church always was subverted to the agenda of the state. Thus, the Anabaptists demanded a separation of church and state in order that the churches might be truly reformed and serve God.
The label of “Anabaptists” (re-baptizers) was given to these people because they recognized that the New Testament taught a believers’ church and believers’ baptism. Thus, the Anabaptists rejected infant baptism and the union of church and state. (Infant baptism is a necessary corollary to the union of church and state. It is the mechanism that keeps the membership of the church and citizenship in the state as equivalent communities.)
One of the early Anabaptist leaders was Balthasar Hubmaier (ca. 1480-1528). He believed in (1) the Bible as the source of the church’s authority, (2) justification by faith; (3) a believers’ church; (4) believers’ baptism; and (5) separation of church and state. He grounded these convictions on biblical teachings. For these convictions he was arrested by Roman Catholic authorities and executed by burning on March 10, 1528 (a 495th commemoration this year). His wife, Elsbeth, sharing his convictions and a similar fate, was drowned three days later.
Balthasar and Elsbeth Hubmaier gave their lives for their “back-to-the-Bible” convictions. How serious are we about being faithful to God’s Word in our generation?
