Five Hundred Years Since the Reformation - Part 1

2018 Sermons
Jim Jester Sermons

 

500 Years Since the Reformation.mp3

By Jim Jester

July 8, 2018

Scripture Reading: 2 Timothy 4:1-4

“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”

It is my intention to present a series of sermons on the Protestant Reformation. 2017 marks the 500-year anniversary of the launch of that Reformation (and we are still within that year). I feel small when compared to these giants of the Reformation period.

In The News This Week

Putin Slams the Pope

Russian President Vladimir Putin has slammed Pope Francis for pushing political ideology instead of running the whole church.

Putin warned Pope Francis, saying that the leader “is not a man of God.”

“Pope Francis is using his platform to push a dangerous far-left political ideology on vulnerable people around the world, people who trust him because of his position,” Russian chief executive said.

“If you look at what he (the Pope) says it’s clear that he is not a man of God. At least not the Christian God. Not the God of the Bible,” President Putin addressed the crowd at the Naval Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Kronstadt.

“He dreams of a world government and a global communist system of repression,” the fiery leader added.

“As we have seen before in communist states, this system is not compatible with Christianity.”

In the past years, the Pontiff has become increasingly active in pushing the globalist agenda and far-left talking points upon the masses.

Pope Francis even called for a global central bank and financial authority, and more recently he said, “Americans need to be ruled by a world government as soon as possible for their own good.”

The Catholic leader was also reported on referring the China’s “one child policy” for Western nations, as well as telling a congregation in Rome that having a personal relationship with Jesus is “dangerous and harmful.”

Putin is a practicing Christian, he is not a Roman Catholic, and the pope is not his leader.

Based on recent statements of the leader, Putin does not even consider Pope Francis to be Christian.

The Russian leader is rarely openly critical of foreign leaders, instead preferring to use diplomacy to win people over to his side. However, notorious globalists including George Soros, Jacob Rothschild and Bill Gates have received tongue lashings before, and now Pope Francis has joined their company. – newsgru.com, July 9, 2018

Well, praise Yahweh! And, someone else slammed the Pope – Martin Luther and all the Reformers.

Scripture Lesson

In our scripture reading, the point in verse three is made, “The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.” Paul’s climax of this letter to Timothy also includes his charge of faithfulness in the face of imminent martyrdom.

“For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day; and not to me only, but also to all them that have loved his appearing.” – 2 Tim. 4:6-8 ASV

This was encouragement to Timothy in his ministry of teaching the truth (convenient or not); and truth is comprised of sound doctrine not “jewish fables” (Titus 1:14). Furthermore, God will reward us for our faithfulness in service to His kingdom.

We live in a day of dearth of sound doctrine – a famine of “hearing the words of Yahweh” (Amos 8:11). Bible doctrine and correct theology was the driving force of the Protestant Reformation, and it ought to be so today. But sadly, most churches do not preach sound doctrine.

Martin Luther (1483-1586)

Martin Luther is credited for being the leader of the movement that effectively created the Protestant sect of Christianity.

Martin Luther came from hard-working stock. He was born in the small town of Eisleben, Germany, on November 10, 1483. His father, Hans, was a copper miner who eventually gained some wealth from a shared interest in mines, smelters, and other business ventures. His mother was pious but religiously superstitious. Luther was raised under the strict disciplines of the Roman Catholic Church and was groomed by his father to be a lawyer. To this end, he pursued an education at Eisenach (1498–1501) and then at the University of Erfurt in philosophy. There, he received a bachelor of arts degree in 1502 and a master of arts degree in 1505.

Luther’s life took an unexpected turn in July 1505, when he was twenty-one. He was caught in a severe thunderstorm and knocked to the ground by a nearby lightning strike. Terrified, he cried out to the Catholic patroness of miners, “Help me, St. Anna, and I will become a monk.” Luther survived the storm and made good on his dramatic vow. Two weeks later, he entered the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt. His father was furious over Luther’s apparent wasted education, but Luther was determined to follow through on his vow.

Lost in Self-Righteousness

In the monastery, Luther was driven to find acceptance with God through works. He wrote:

“I tortured myself with prayer, fasting, vigils and freezing; the frost alone might have killed me…. What else did I seek by doing this but God, who was supposed to note my strict observance of the monastic order and my austere life? I constantly walked in a dream and lived in real idolatry, for I did not believe in Christ: I regarded Him only as a severe and terrible Judge portrayed as seated on a rainbow.”

Elsewhere he recalled: “When I was a monk, I wearied myself greatly for almost fifteen years with the daily sacrifice, tortured myself with fastings, vigils, prayers, and other very rigorous works. I earnestly thought to acquire righteousness by my works.”

In 1507, Luther was ordained to the priesthood. When he celebrated his first Mass, as he held the bread and cup for the first time, he was so awestruck at the thought of transubstantiation that he almost fainted. “I was utterly stupefied and terror-stricken,” he confessed. “I thought to myself, who am I that I should lift up mine eyes or raise my hands to the Divine Majesty. For I am dust and ashes and full of sin, and I am speaking to the living, eternal and true God.” Fear only compounded his personal struggle for acceptance with God.

The Trip to Rome

Martin Luther went to Rome in 1510. He had high expectations for his visit to Rome. When he arrived, he fell to the earth, raised his hands and said, “Hail to thee, holy Rome! Thrice holy for the blood of the martyrs shed here.” Luther wanted a spiritual experience; so, he visited the graves of forty-six popes and the cemeteries of 80,000 martyr’s bones.

Luther climbed the Scala Sancta (“The Holy Stairs”), supposedly the same stairs Jesus ascended when He appeared before Pilate. According to fables, the steps had been moved from Jerusalem to Rome, and the priests claimed that God forgave sins for those who climbed the stairs on their knees. Luther did so, repeating the Lord’s Prayer, kissing each step, and seeking peace with God. But when he reached the top step, he looked back and thought, “Who knows whether this is true.” He felt no closer to God.

Luther began to turn his back on the Church and Rome itself. He once wrote,

“Where God builds a church, the Devil puts up a chapel next door. …It is almost incredible. What infamous actions are committed at Rome; one would require to see it and hear it in order to believe it. It is an ordinary saying that if there is a hell, Rome is built upon it. It is an abyss from whence all sins proceed. …Rome, once the holiest city, was now the worst. Let me get out of this terrible dungeon. I took onions to Rome and brought back garlic.”

Luther’s visit to Rome was a great disappointment. All he found was corruption.

Luther received his doctor of theology degree from the University of Wittenberg in 1512 and was named professor of Bible there. Luther kept this teaching position for the next thirty-four years, until his death in 1546. One question consumed him: How is a sinful man made right before a holy God?

In 1517, a Dominican itinerant named John Tetzel began to sell indulgences near Wittenberg with the offer of the forgiveness of sins. This practice began during the Crusades to raise money for the church. Commoners could purchase a letter from the church that allegedly freed a dead loved one from purgatory. Rome profited enormously from this sham. In this case, the proceeds were intended to help Pope Leo X pay for a new St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

This horrible abuse enraged Luther. He determined that there must be a public debate on the matter. On October 31, 1517, he nailed a list of Ninety-five Theses regarding indulgences to the front door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Nailing such theses to the church door was a common practice in scholarly debates of the time. Luther hoped to provoke calm discussion among the faculty, not a popular revolution. But a copy fell into the hands of a printer, who saw that the Ninety-five Theses were printed and spread throughout Germany and Europe in a few weeks. Luther became an overnight hero. With that, the Reformation essentially was born; the most important extra-biblical event in all of history. If the book of Acts were still being written, this event would be there.

The Tower Experience

It is possible Luther was still not yet converted. In the midst of his spiritual struggles, Luther had become obsessed with Romans 1:17: “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’” Luther had understood the righteousness of God to mean His active righteousness, His avenging justice by which He punishes sin. On those terms, he admitted that he hated the righteousness of God. But while sitting in the tower of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Luther meditated on this text and wrestled with its meaning. He writes:

“Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the Decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath! Thus, I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted.

At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, in it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous, shall live.” There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous, shall live.” Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scriptures from memory. I also found in other terms an analogy, as, the work of God, that is: what God does in us, the power of God, with which He makes us strong; the wisdom of God, with which he makes us wise; the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.”

The time of Luther’s conversion is debated. Some think it took place as early as 1508, but Luther himself wrote that it happened in 1519, two years after he posted his Ninety-five Theses. More important is the reality of his conversion. Luther came to realize that salvation was a gift for the guilty, not a reward for the righteous. Man is not saved by his good works but by trusting the finished work of Christ. Thus, justification by faith alone became the central tenet of the Reformation.

Attacking Papal Authority

Justification by faith alone clashed with Rome’s teaching of justification by faith and works. Thus, the pope denounced Luther for preaching “dangerous doctrines” and summoned him to Rome. When Luther refused, he was called to Leipzig in 1519 for a public debate with John Eck, a leading Catholic theologian. In this dispute, Luther affirmed that a church council could err, a point that had been made by John Wycliffe and John Hus.

Luther went on to say that the authority of the pope was a recent contrivance. Such religious superstition, he exclaimed, opposed the Council of Nicaea and church history. Worse, it contradicted Scripture. By taking this stand, Luther irritated the major nerve of Rome—papal authority.

In the summer of 1520, the pope issued a bull, an edict sealed with a bulla, or red seal. The document began by saying: “Arise, O Lord, and judge Your cause. A wild boar has invaded Your vineyard.” With these words, the pope was referring to Luther as an unrestrained animal causing havoc. Forty-one of Luther’s teachings were deemed to be heretical, scandalous, or false.

With that, Luther had sixty days to repent or suffer excommunication. He responded by publicly burning the papal bull. This was nothing short of open defiance. Thomas Lindsay writes, “It is scarcely possible for us in the twentieth century to imagine the thrill that went through Germany, and indeed through all Europe, when the news spread that a poor monk had burnt the Pope’s Bull.” But though he was hailed by many, Luther was a marked man in the eyes of the church.

Diet of Worms: Luther’s Stand

In 1521, the young Holy Roman emperor, Charles V, summoned Luther to appear at the Diet of Worms in Worms, Germany, in order to officially recant. The renegade monk was shown his books on a table in full view. Then Luther was asked whether he would retract the teachings in the books. The next day, Luther replied with his now-famous words:

“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me, Amen.”

These defiant words became a Reformation battle cry.

Charles V condemned Luther as a heretic and placed a hefty price on his head. When Luther left Worms, he had twenty-one days for safe passage to Wittenberg before the sentence fell. While he was en route, some of his supporters, fearing for his life, kidnapped him and took him to the Wartburg Castle. There, he was hidden from public sight for eight months. During this time of confinement, Luther began his translation of the Bible into German. Through this work, Reformation flames would spread even swifter.

On March 10, 1522, Luther explained the mounting success of the Reformation in a sermon. With strong confidence in God’s Word, he declared:

“I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept… the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.”

Luther saw that God had used him as a mouthpiece for truth. The Reformation was not founded on him and his teachings, but on the unshakeable footing of Scripture alone. And yet today, God is using us as a mouthpiece for the truth of Christian Identity.

A New Reformation?

Five hundred years is hard to wrap our minds around. That is over double our history as a nation. It’s even longer than the children of Israel were in Egypt or the timespan between the Old and New Testaments.

But if it’s hard to fathom five hundred years, it’s harder still to fathom what our lives would look like today had the Reformation not taken place those many years ago. God used the Reformers to break the political power of the Roman Catholic Church, bringing widespread use of God’s Word and leading Europe out of the Dark Ages.

But here we are in the “dark ages” once again! So much so that we need a new Reformation! And, what do I mean by a new “dark age?” It includes the rise of papal power in the guise of Protestantism, political and religious manipulation, abuse and widespread ignorance of the masses, just like before; but today’s “dark age” includes the racial aspect (unlike the past). Aliens of every dark shade continue to flood into the country unabated, either legally or illegally, even though president Trump is trying to stem the tide so that America does not repeat the European narrative; and “churches” are welcoming them in! What a sin.

We see “darkies” in every venue of life and certainly in the media to a greater extent than in real life. Someone must “cry aloud and spare not” in warning of the destruction of western and Christian civilization. The Reformation ought to continue; and the way I see it, Christian Identity is the only theological movement that qualifies to lead the way. Nobody else will do it because it is too politically and religiously incorrect. We are sadly aware of how far the churches of judeo-Christianity have deteriorated and fallen from the sound doctrines of the past. The following is a prime example.

A Racist Example

Korean PCA minister Duke Kwon, in his 2017 LDR speech denounced White Christians as “fools,” “trolls,” and “enemies” and the White race in general as “the oppressor” who must agree to their own enslavement for the benefit of Blacks.

LDR Weekend is an annual conference geared toward blacks, sponsored by Mission to North America, an official ministry of the “conservative” Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).  It’s organized in large part by Jemar Tisby and Michelle Higgins, of Gender Apartheid fame. Every church person in America, even those who aren’t from the Reformed camp, have no idea of the deep and raging hatred non-white “Christians” have for them, let alone how widespread this hatred is, or how fast it’s metastasizing.

And keep in mind that Kwon isn’t a nobody – he’s a highly respected minister. Duke Kwon preached at the worship service at the PCA’s most recent General Assembly, meaning that he represents mainstream thought in the Reformed world.

Here are some notable points from the transcript of the address delivered by PCA minister Duke Kwon at LDR Weekend on September 2nd, 2017. [Just before the 500th anniversary of the Reformation]

Brief Summary of Kwon’s address:

  • Blacks are the “prophet people of God.”
  • It’s time to start “speaking the truth in love” about the urgent need for whites to start paying reparations to blacks.
  • Ephesians 2-4 is all about the need for reparations to blacks.
  • The story of Zacchaeus is all about the need for reparations to blacks.
  • Whites who disagree are “fools,” “trolls,” and “enemies.”
  • White people are “the oppressor.”
  • White cops who showed up in military gear to a BLM protest two days after 14 cops were gunned down in cold blood at another BLM protest are “fools” and “evil” whose folly and evil were exposed to all the world by a brave Black Lives Matter activist.
  • In addition to writing checks to blacks, white Christians must turn all our churches upside down, change our practices, “reconsider” our theology, change our hymns, etc., to ensure that our churches now “center” on black people.
  • Because, in 2017, white churches are the most dangerous places in America for blacks, and black people are fully justified in feeling like they’re being lynched at white churches.

As you can see, this is a rather extreme position, but his basic belief is very much the same as most all established Christian denominations, i.e., “Judeo-Christianity.” Yet, most of them, including the PCA, find their roots in doctrine from the Westminster Confession. They’ve come a long way baby – in the wrong direction.

The Westminster Confession

In 1643, the English Parliament called upon "learned, godly and judicious Divines", to meet at Westminster Abbey in order to provide advice on issues of worship, doctrine, government and discipline of the Church of England. Their meetings, over a period of five years, produced the confession of faith, as well as a Larger Catechism and a Shorter Catechism. For more than three hundred years, various churches around the world have adopted the confession and the catechisms as their standards of doctrine, subordinate to the Bible.

The Westminster Confession of faith was modified and adopted by Congregationalists in England in the form of the Savoy Declaration (1658). Likewise, the Baptists of England modified the Savoy Declaration to produce the Second London Baptist Confession (1689). English Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists would together (with others) come to be known as Nonconformists, because they did not conform to the Act of Uniformity (1662) establishing the Church of England as the only legally approved church, though they were in many ways united by their common confessions, built on the Westminster Confession. – Wikipedia

From the W.C.F. comes many Protestant denominations: Presbyterians, Lutherans, Baptists, etc.; all basically of a Calvinistic declaration of faith. Later, other versions of this historic Confession were developed for other denominations, such as Episcopal, Methodist, Pentecostal; all basically of Arminian doctrine.

The five points of Calvin are a summary of the Canons of Dort, and are remembered by the acronym TULIP.

  • Total Depravity
  • Unconditional Election
  • Limited Atonement
  • Irresistible Grace
  • Perseverance of the Saints

More recently, a broad range of theologians have sought to reformulate the TULIP terminology to reflect more accurately the Canons of Dort. One of the more popular efforts has been PROOF, standing for Planned Grace, Resurrecting Grace, Outrageous Grace, Overcoming Grace, and Forever Grace.

The central assertion of these points is that God saves every person upon whom he has mercy, and that his efforts are not frustrated by the unrighteousness or inability of mankind.

Overall, we should remember, that all of Protestantism once believed and taught similar doctrines, which were all developed out of the Reformation. Now very few teach any of these.

Alienism vs. Kinism

Among the Reformed camp there is a battle going on, yet they both claim the Westminster Confession as their doctrine.

By definition, the Alienist is universal and believes God’s covenant extends to all races. The Kinist is also universal and believes the same, but they assert it is God’s design to keep the various races separate. There are some of these in the Reformed camp. Of course, we as Identity Christians would agree with this aspect of Kinism; but we go farther and insist that God’s Covenant was only made with one elect race; and therefore Jesus’ sacrifice only extends to them.

The Alienist will rage, “We’re all the same!” But the Westminster Confession affirms the reality of inherited tendencies and They [our first parents] being the root of all mankind, the guilt of sin was imputed; and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.” (WCF 6:3)

This is what is known as federal theology — the doctrine that both sins and virtues of the fathers are visited upon their posterity by ordinary generation (genetically) to many generations. As with traits of appearance, behavior, aptitude, and tendency are also passed down in the blood. The Irishman tends to the bottle and merry contention, but so too does he bend toward genius in poetry, song, and story; the German tends toward stoicism and grudges, but also to engineering, precision, efficiency, and genius in the arts. The African character, by contrast, is defined by impulsiveness, mirth, and mania. And no matter the continent on which he resides, nor the age, he has always expressed the extremities of barbarism. In him is a native genius for rhythm and gifts of an athletic nature. Kind produces after kind. This is so on the racial level as much as on the familial level, because the two are but magnitudes of the same thing. Propensities, talents, and handicaps of parents are manifest in their offspring before any cultural influences.

Yet the Alienist rears up indignant still and says, “But Jesus’ blood washes away all the curses born in the blood of men! So Christians all have one and the same nature and tendencies!”

Thankfully, the church fathers anticipated this madness and rebuked it:

“This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.” (WCF 6:5)

Yes, the official Westminster position on the matter is that traits of character are not only heritable by ‘nature’ (genetically), but also that they are not removed from us by regeneration.

Of course, modern Alienists object, insisting that the new covenant’s encompassment of the nations means the abolition of the nations. But the notion that the Reformers referenced the nations coming into the covenant only as a means of denying their existence is pure foolishness. To take the word “nations” as meaning the undifferentiated mass of humanity, violently imposes upon the text of the Confession – and the Bible back of it – something conspicuously absent from, and contrary to, the text.

The Bible emphasis of a “covenant” as a “testament” of the “Testator,” i.e., Christ, begs consideration of the historic dismay of missionaries and Bible translators at finding African tongues devoid of equivalents for our words like oath, promise, bond, covenant, testament, contract, etc. The lack of such verbiage in the languages of that race bespeaks a conceptual and ultimately a huge vacancy. Therefore, a genuine conversion to Christianity proves impossible for them.

Though the gospel has been announced to all nations, to pretend that it has been, or can be, embraced by all ethnicities equally is supported in neither Scripture, history, nor common experience.

The Arminian is outraged at God’s unequal calling of individuals, and the Alienist is outraged at His unequal calling of races. Inasmuch as races are composed of individuals and individuals are assembled into races, these arguments are essentially the same and make up the central objection of the heathen against Christianity today. Entwined with God’s sovereignty is His objective goodness and chosenness of individuals. Universally considered by the heathen as “Christian arrogance” and “theological imperialism” by Alienists in and out of the church, Calvinism is also openly decried as “spiritual racism” by Arminian-Alienists, or just plain “racist”.

In terms of Christian orthodoxy, culture, and history, that chosenness is manifest almost exclusively in European man and through European thought. It is the case after all, that the New Testament was written originally in a European tongue; and the whole history of the creeds, confessions, catechisms, and doctrinal wars took place in Europe. So it is, that everyone outside White Alienists see the Westminster perspective as Eurocentric and as “White Supremacy.”

Chapter 11, Of Justification, emphasizes that it is upon those whom “He also freely justifieth … for Christ’s sake alone … [and that] not by any other evangelical obedience” (11:1).

These lines were penned under the circumstance of colonialism, and the British colonies were principally filled with men committed to these sentiments. The understanding of all Presbyterians in the very era of the confession’s drafting was that Heaven had given the New World to the sons of Europe. Manifest Destiny and African slavery were taken for granted by the men of Westminster to be completely moral.

As we know, however, the church fathers of that time are now, by Alienist viewpoint, counted among the greatest fiends of history. In light of this, neither minorities nor White Alienists today can earnestly subscribe to the confession here. Irrespective of their profession, they would no sooner believe our slaveholding, Indian-fighting, pioneer fathers to be orthodox saints than they would Hitler. Because of social ethics, Alienists ultimately do not accept the first generations of confessional Presbyterians to have been genuine Christians. Regardless of our Presbyterian fathers’ professed trust in Christ alone, Alienist Presbyterians today insist that is not enough.

Where the Confession emphasizes the sufficiency of and reliance upon God’s grace, the Alienist turns it into license and licentiousness; and where the Confession speaks to sanctification in the keeping of God’s law and good deeds, they see in it only a mandate of political correctness, cultural Marxism, and the liberal spirit of the world. Thus under the pretense of confessional orthodoxy, they hem themselves in between false law and equally false grace. Resulting in an inverted funhouse mirror reflection of the faith. That is what most churches have become – a literal funhouse.

Section 7 of the same chapter goes on to state, “Works done by unregenerate men … are therefore sinful and cannot please God.” (WCF 16:7)

This, a point that enrages all carnal men, enrages also the Alienist churchman, and most minorities besides, when it is considered that the heroes of the “multi-cult” (multiculturalism) have all been heretics or unbelievers. None perhaps surpass the example of Martin Luther King, Jr., but he is one among a pantheon of false saints whom the liberal reveres: Malcolm X, Muhammed Ali, James Cone, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, the Freedom Riders, all the members of the Frankfurt and Highlander Folk Schools, Abe Lincoln, John Brown and his abolitionists, and even Dietrich Bonhoeffer are all found to have been rank heretics, if not outright heathen.

Chapter 17, On the Perseverance of the Saints, “They, whom God hath accepted in His Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by the Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.” (WCF 17:1)

Despite all pretenses, Alienists do not accept this, either with respect to God’s sovereign choosing of the European context as the seedbed of Christendom, nor to the strictly European context of all the creeds and confessions of which the Westminster standards are the culmination. In the colonial and American contexts, it is also the matter of all the giants of the Westminster tradition being slave-masters, White nationalists, segregationists, and the like. And they certainly deny it with regard to throwbacks, such as Christian Identity, that agree with the views of all those reformers.

The confession’s stance here is that God chose and sustained the faith of “racists.” And not just any racists, but those whom moderns deem the absolute worst because their views were derived from God’s Word. The Confession literally demands them to accept those whom they see as the worst villains in history as the heroes of the faith. And they can’t. The disconnect is glaring.

Reformation Retrospect

Looking back at some more of the Reformers:

John Wycliffe (1328–1384) – “The Morning Star of the Reformation” – is remembered for being the first to translate the Bible into English (from Latin). Even without the aid of a printing press, Wycliffe’s Bible was so widely distributed that, even after many copies were burned in Europe, today there are still 150 original manuscripts. His preaching so relied on Scripture that his followers were derisively called “Bible men.”

Wycliffe was so despised by the Roman Catholic Church that over forty years after he died, his body was dug up and his bones burnt. His ashes were tossed into the River Swift in England. Although this action was meant as a desecration to Wycliffe’s remains and a warning to others, the spread of his ashes served as a picture of his influence which had already spread. With the Bible translated into the language of the people, it was too late to undo the knowledge of the truth.

John Huss (1369–1415) – Was influenced by the writings of Wycliffe. Through studying Scripture, Huss discovered that salvation is only possible through faith in Christ’s payment for sin and, with strong biblical conviction, preached compelling sermons against works-based salvation. Because of his “heresy,” the Roman Church excommunicated him and later called him before a council in Constance, Germany, to stand trial. He was sentenced to being burned alive at the stake on July 6, 1415.

When his executioners chained him to the stake, Huss proclaimed, “My Lord Jesus Christ was bound with a harder ‘chain’ than this for my sake, and why then should I be ashamed of this rusty one?” Just before the flames were lit, the Duke of Bavaria urged him to recant his faith in Christ and retract his preaching. “No,” he replied, “what I taught with my lips I now seal with my blood.”

William Tyndale (1494–1536) – Tyndale’s great contribution was translating the Bible into English from Greek (rather than from the Latin Vulgate as Wycliffe had done). Attending Oxford and Cambridge, Tyndale was a brilliant scholar and a gifted linguist. The Tyndale translation of the New Testament was so precise, in fact, that 90 percent of our King James Version comes directly from his work.

Tyndale’s most famous quote was spoken in response to a clergyman who, in opposition to Tyndale’s preaching, said, “We had better be without God’s laws than the Pope’s.” Tyndale responded, “I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spares my life, ere many years, I will cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost!” Thank God that he did.

John Knox (1513–1572) – The most famous quote about John Knox was from Mary, Queen of Scots: “I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.” And the most famous quote by Knox is, “Give me Scotland, or I die.”

That both of these quotes represent his prayer life—one about his prayers and another from his prayers—says something of the depth of his dependence on prayer.

Knox, like many of the Reformers, was a Catholic priest who discovered the gospel through the study of Scripture. When he began preaching salvation by grace alone, the Bible as sole authority, and against Catholic mass and purgatory, he was imprisoned onto French galley ships. Eventually he was released, went to England, and later back to Scotland. It was there that he led the Protestant Reformation in Scotland.

Felix Manz (1498–1527) – Manz came to Christ out of Roman Catholicism and, for a time, partnered with the Reformer Ulrich Zwingli in Zürich, Switzerland.

Through studying Scripture, however, Manz wanted to take the principle of Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) to fuller biblical conclusions than most of the Reformers. Specifically, he called for the Mass to be abolished and for believer’s baptism to be practiced, making him an Anabaptist. This title meant “re-baptizers” because of their belief in “believer’s baptism” which meant that even those who had been baptized as infants would be baptized by immersion after their profession of faith.

Manz was taken by boat to the middle of Lake Zürich and, with his hands tied behind his knees, he was pushed into the water to drown. One of the saddest aspects of Manz’s martyrdom is that he was sentenced by the Zürich council led by Zwingli.

Zwingli, like most of the Reformers, never seemed to be able to understand the biblical concept of the local church as separate from the state. Zwingli and Calvin were the harshest toward Anabaptists. Nonetheless, we owe much even to these for how God used them in breaking the political power of the Roman church, which in turn, brought Europe out of the Dark Ages, and would eventually pave the way for true religious liberty, even for Anabaptists and other Non-Conformists.

For his part, Manz was a bold preacher of the gospel, preaching and praising God even as he was taken to be executed. His followers, expelled from Zürich, eventually made their way to Holland, joined Menno Simons, and were later known as Mennonites.

Why We Celebrate the Reformation

It is true that most of the Reformers did not go far enough in their conviction of Sola Scriptura. How else do you explain their continued use of sacraments and their development of Protestant (Lutheran, Anglican, Presbyterian) state churches? Even Wycliffe remained Catholic until the day of his death – he died of a stroke while saying Mass.

We should thank God for their courage. The Reformers willingly lived hard lives, enduring ridicule, exile, poverty, and often martyrdom, to courageously defend their beliefs. And God used them to reshape Europe – politically and spiritually.

We should celebrate the availability of Scripture. That Waldo, Wycliffe, Luther, and Tyndale all translated God’s Word into common languages is no coincidence with the widespread influence of their lives.

The “Dark Ages” were indeed a spiritually dark time. The unavailability of Scripture to the common people led to such darkness; and, the propagation of Scripture led to spiritual light.

It used to be that all Protestant churches believed and taught long held Reformation doctrine. What has happened? Did the Bible change, or did they change? They did. “For there will be a time when they will not maintain sound doctrine, but in accordance with their own lusts will they amass teachers for themselves, tickling the ear” (2 Timothy 4:3, CNT).

Just as Martin Luther discovered a long-hidden Bible doctrine, so Christian Identity has discovered a hidden doctrine – the racial identity of true Israel. We will hold to sound doctrine even though the rest of the church world believes fables. Spiritual light will remove the “darkness” of our age. Christian Identity is the only theological movement that is able to continue the Reformation. Five hundred years and Protestantism needs reforming again.

Movements and men rise and fall. Legacies fade. Histories are forgotten. But God’s Word endures: “For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89). And who knows, Yahweh Himself may still be writing chapters the book of Acts in His own mind, for He remembers our service to the Kingdom and He will reward us in that Day.