Heritage of Truth
To discover wisdom, one must seek as for silver, and search as for hidden treasure, suggested the wise man Solomon (Proverbs 14:5). This thought came to me during a visit to beautiful Zurich, located on a blue lake nestled at the foot of the snow-capped Swiss Alps. In this city, in the 16th century, a young priest, Ulrich Zwingli, struggled to reform the establishment church by presenting the Bible as the sole, infallible guide to doctrine and Christian living, with the Holy Spirit being its only interpreter.
It thrilled me to see the pulpit in the stately Grossminster church, from which he thundered his message. From open Scripture, he appealed to his congregation to accept Jesus as their only hope of salvation. In 1524, Zwingli abolished the mass in Zurich, but, unfortunately, his reformist movement was cut short when he died in a battle, aged 47.
If he’d lived longer, he no doubt would have carried his reforms further. Instead, it was two of his assistants, Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz, who took his reforms further, digging a little deeper into the Bible. From their study, they came to the realisation that only adults with a knowledge of salvation should be baptised.
These two men and one Georg Blaurock baptised each other on profession of faith, and with this act formed a separatist congregation in Zollikon, near Zurich. At first they practised baptism by pouring. A few months later, however, they became convinced that complete immersion was the only truly biblical form of baptism. The ultimate break with Zwingli come over the issue of the authority of the secular city council—the state—over the church, which he affirmed and his disciples denied.
Greber and Manz began a movement called the Anabaptists—it means “rebaptisers”—which suffered violent opposition from Catholics, who would have them burned at the stake, and Protestants who, because of their belief in baptism by immersion, would have them drowned.
Feliz Manz became their first martyr, in 1527, when he was drowned in a mock baptism in the Limmat River, which flows through Zurich.
As a believer in baptism by immersion, some solemn thoughts ran through my mind as I stood near the traditional site of his martyrdom.
Dubbed radical reformers, other Anabaptist groups sprang up around Europe, including Germany and Holland.
Digging more deeply into Scripture, they taught a church–state separation, freedom of religion and conscience, a simple lifestyle, and pacifism. Those millions of Christians who now baptise by immersion look back with appreciation to those earnest men and women who gave their lives to reintroduce an important Bible doctrine. Quakers, Amish, Mennonite and Hutterites all trace their roots to the Anabaptists.
Martin Luther studied Bible prophecy and anticipated the Second Advent of Christ. But it was a Chilean Jesuit priest, Manuel Lacunza, who dug deeply enough into the books of Daniel and the Revelation to discover more about it. He proclaimed the coming of Jesus—the Second Advent—in a multivolume work titled La Venida del Mesias en Gloria y Majestad. Assuming the name Rabbi Ben-Ezra, he represented himself as a converted Jew. Translated into English as The Coming of the Messiah, his book stirred the thinking of Christians in all of Europe, and both North and South America, preparing the way for the preaching of William Miller of the Second Advent movement. Although he lived in the 18th century, it wasn’t until 1826 that his book was translated into English—just in time to prepare the world for the work of Miller. Ben-Ezra revived the early church view of the millennium—the “thousand years” of Revelation. He also asserted that the antichrist was not an individual, but rather a church in apostasy.
Those of the Adventist tradition, who look forward to Christ’s literal second coming, also look back with appreciation to the pioneer work of this Chilean priest, who died in 1801.
Whereas the principal Reformers taught a doctrine of predestination, in which a select few only are to be saved, it was Luis de Molina, another Jesuit priest, who challenged their thinking. In1588, in Lisbon, Portugal, he published a treatise titled The Agreement of Free Will With the Gifts of Grace. It caused a firestorm of opposition—and caused people to think.
The Dutch priest Desiderius Erasmus and the Anabaptists also taught soul freedom. Jacobus Arminius dug still more deeply into the subject, and the preaching of John Wesley gave it wide publicity. “Whosoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life” (Revelation 22:17) is the basis of a doctrine held by millions today, because a few earnest Christians dared to dig deeper into the Word.
Protestantism owes a huge amount to Martin Luther, the German priest who so powerfully taught the salvation doctrine of justification by faith alone, and not by works. However, two other German priests—they later became Anabaptists—decided to dig deeper into the subject of law and grace. What they found sparked violent resistance.
Oswald Glait was drowned in the Danube. Andreas Fischer suffered for his faith in Moravia. After returning to Slovakia, he was taken prisoner by the robber knight Franz Bebek, who ordered him thrown from the wall of the Castle of Horka. Thus ended the fruitful lives of two Sabbath-keeping Anabaptists.
From their digging the two priests discovered an almost forgotten truth hidden deep within the Ten Commandments. The command was to “remember the Sabbath day [the seventh day of the week, Saturday] by keeping it holy” in honour of the Creator. They insisted Christians must either keep all 10 as given by God at Sinai, or reject them all.
Even at that early time in church history, Glait and Fischer had recognised the close relationship between the Old and New Testaments and how they both showed the validity of the Ten Commandments. Christ, the apostles and all the early church bishops kept the seventh day as the Sabbath. Sabbath-keepers today are grateful for the sacrifices of those pioneers.
The poet Dante weaved the horrors of hell into verse. Reformers John Wyclif, Martin Luther and William Tyndale made some attempt to find biblical answers to what happens to a person when they die. Discarding the doctrine of purgatory, they began to see light in soul sleep. Luther spoke of the immortal soul concept, as derived from the “Roman dunghill of decretals.”
In sharp contrast, John Calvin, in Psychopannychia, bitterly attacked the doctrine of soul sleep, claiming that the soul is immortal.
In the centuries that followed, this debate has continued. One of the best-known advocates of soul sleep was another poet, Englishman John Milton (1608-74). In his Treatise on Christian doctrine, he insisted that a human being is a unit—“a living soul.” At death, he proposed, the whole person suffers privation of life. The soul doesn’t dwell in heaven (or in hell) during death, but rests in the grave until the resurrection. These thoughts, which he mined from Scripture, he wove into the verses of his famous Paradise Lost.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, this doctrinal debate continued on both sides of the Atlantic. George Storrs (1796-1867) stands out for his contribution on the subject. Raised as a Calvinist and taught the doctrine of eternal torment, he came to see it as a blot on the character of God and inconsistent with it. As a result of his Bible study, he concluded human beings are not naturally immortal, but receive it as a gift from God through Christ—at the resurrection.
As a companion truth, he likewise came to the conclusion that after they receive their dues, along with Satan whom they serve, God will utterly exterminate the wicked through fire, at a second death. These concepts, Storrs felt, solved the age-old conflict of man’s nature and destiny in harmony with God’s character of love and His need to demonstrate justice to the universe. Today members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (publishers of Signs of the Times) and the Advent Christian Church look back with appreciation to the revelations made by Storrs.
This reflection was sparked by my visit to Zwingli’s city of Zurich. It’s one of the world’s great financial centres, a hub of the international gold trade. As a precious metal, gold isn’t found scattered on the earth’s surface; rather, you dig for it. And the same applies to the search for truth in God’s Word, the Bible. It’s there, but you have to extract it at great cost and, as history reveals, often your peril.
In the Reformation era and beyond, each of these major beliefs was established as the result of the work of earnest Christians, many of whom even sacrificed their lives in standing for truth.
It’s a challenge to us: there are veins of truth still to be mined from Scripture.
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