John Wycliff - Morning Star of the Reformation

7/26/2019 John Wycliff - Morning Star of the Reformation

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Title: John Wycliffe, Morning Star of the Reformation - 1Text: Acts 4:1-22, 5:12-16

Title: John Wycliffe: Morning Star of the ReformationText: Acts 4:1-22, 5:12-16Speaker: Pastor Chad Richard Bresson, 10-31-10

Acts 5:12-16 And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonderswere done among the people. And they were all with one accord in SolomonsPorch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed themhighly. And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of bothmen and women, so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall onsome of them. Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities toJerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by uncleanspirits, and they were all healed.

John Wycliffe, or as the historian Robert Vaughan records of him, John of Wycliffe, isconsidered the morning star of the Reformation. He is ca lled the morning star of theReformation because even though he predates the Reformation by about 150 years, his

protest against the Roman Catholic church in England, and his insistence that GodsWord be accessible in the English language, were disarming ideas that later foundexpression in a radical shift in Christianity. His lasting legacy is his contribution bothin his writings and in his life to the idea that would come to be known in theReformation as Sola Scriptura.

As we gather on this Reformation Day 2010, 493 years after Martin Luther posted his95 theses on the door of the All Saints Church in Wittenberg, it is our purposes thismorning to consider, briefly, not simply Wycliffes legacy in relation to theReformation, but our indebtedness to him as children of the Reformers.

Who was Wycliffe?While we know him as the morning star of the Reformation, he was known to hisfriends in his day as Dr. Evangelicus. He was born in or around the year 1324 about200 miles north of London in a small village named Wycliffe along the Tees River.

Not much is known about his childhood or his parents. What we do know was that hisfather was the head of the Wycliffe estate. And they were good Roman Catholics, long

before such a designation was necessitated by divisions with the Anglican church and protestantism. Some have speculated one of the reasons we know little aboutWycliffes family either from his pen or anyone elses, is because a family whoseaffections lie with Rome would not have found pride in a son whose teaching had beendeclared heretical by Rome.

By the time Wycliffe was a teenager, he was walking the halls at Oxford and by hismid 20s, he not only was teaching in those halls, he was ordained a priest. In his early40s, he entered Englands national consciousness when he helped Parliament thumbits nose at the Pope. This also put him on the Vaticans radar, and he spent the rest ofhis life, more or less, as an enemy of the Holy Roman Empire. Wycliffe was aRenaissance man, had there been such a designation. As a scholar, he excelled in thesciences, mathematics, law, philosophy, logic, politics and diplomacy, rhetoric and thelanguages, and of course, theology. He is considered the last of the great medievelscholastics.

oduction


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to subject itself to and confine its belief to within the Holy Scriptures. For those of uswho grew up as children of the Protestant Reformation, such a thought is as commonas air, or at least it should be. But in the dark ages of the church, Rome hadsufficiently subjected kings and kingdoms to its man-made, man-derived notions ofdivine favor. Rome rightly understood Wycliffes assertions on the authority ofScripture to be a usurpation of its earthly and material power. For Wycliffe, nothing

less than the authority of Christ was at stake in this issue. For he says, the authority ofHoly Scripture, with respect ot the authority of the Head of the church (insert Jesushere), is of infinitely greater authority than any foreign writing Christ surpassesevery one of his brothers . Thus, Wycliffe rightly understands that Christs authorityis mediated through the Scriptures, not the writings or edicts of corrupt men whodemand money in return for hours or days reduced in purgatory.

Vernacular

But even these claims about the authority of Scripture and the denunciation of thePope, as timely and as damaging as they might be in that day, did not in and ofthemselves make Wycliffe such a danger to the church that he would gain the personal

attention of the Pope. What made Wycliffe dangerous was the unadulterated gospel inthe common tongue of the people. Wycliffe s legacy, as it is typically explained today,is the translation of the Bible into English. And yes, such a project was controversialin that day; so much so that the church in that day, as it did in the days of Tyndale,attempted to eradicate copies of the Word into English. But if we stop there withWycliffe, we miss the bigger point and the bigger picture. The reason why theScriptures in the common tongue were important to Wycliffe was because Wycliffewas convinced that the gospel itself must be communicated in the common tongue.

It should be readily apparent why Rome would view the Scriptures in Middle Englisha threat to their comfortable status quo. Much of Romes doctri ne could not be foundwithin the pages of Scripture, and Rome knew it. But for almost 500 years, theScriptures had not been produced in the common tongue. And more than 120 years

prior, Rome had even gone to the lengths of codifying a Scripture ban that made it ano-no for the Scriptures to be written in the tongue of the common man. Scripture waseffectively walled off in an inaccessible Latin.

But it wasnt simply the scriptures that were confined and imprisoned in Latin. So toowas the preaching of the Word. The Mass and its homilies were all in Latin. And bydesign it was that way. Nothing of theological substance was in the vernacular. [Forthose of you kids who are wondering what that big word vernacular is, Ill let youlook it up on KidRex when you get home. When we speak of vernacular, we aretalking about a language that all of us speak and understand every day. Yourvernacular is English. Or better, your vernacular is American English. And if we reallywanted to get specific, for most of you, your vernacular is Midwestern AmericanEnglish, the kind of English that is the official language of television and radio

journalism. Thats what we mean by vernacular; our everyday language.] The practice of religion was relegated to an elite few; the doctrines and dogmas of thechurch were off limits to the common man. The doctrines of the church were soclosely guarded some were so bold as to claim that making those hidden things known(such as the question as to just how the bread and the wine become the very real bodyof Christ), those holy mysteries in the language of the common man simplycheapened those mysterious doctrines. Wycliffe saw through this. He was convinced,and vindicated for the most part, that most priests and theologians in the Catholic


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church perpetuated this blindness among the people, because they themselves, evenknowing Latin, could not explain or understand those doctrines and dogmasthemselves. The Scriptures, theology, and preaching in the vernacular would notsimply expose the charade of a lack of evidence for many Catholic doctrines, it wouldexpose the theological ignorance of the Catholic clergy.

As Wycliffe comes on to the scene in the mid- 1300s, he is confronted with aChristianity that requires of its adherent blind, irrational faith. Hearing, they do nothear. Seeing, they do not understand. The churchs people are going through themotions, closed off from the very life-blood of their eternal souls. Being baptized inthe font and partaking of the table, the medieval church were eating and drinkingwithout understanding; they were simply told, this is Christs real body and blood,

but we do not have to tell you how or why that is so. In the end, the people were being cut off from Christ himself, the Living Manna from heaven who invests HisWord with himself. The gospel goes missing from the very events that exist to

proclaim the gospel, namely the preaching of the Word and the participation in the bread and the wine.

Acts 4This church in the dark ages is reminiscent of an event we find in the pages ofScripture. In fact, this event became what some call, the charter for Wycliffe and hisfollowers. They reveled in this text because they saw themselves in this text. Acts 4:1-22.

I dont know if you make it a habit to write in your Bibles. I do. And in this section, Ihave highlighted the following phrase: the people. Notice how many times this occursas I read this episode from Acts 4 beginning with verse 8 .

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, Rulers of the people andelders of Israel: If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom youcrucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here beforeyou whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which hasbecome the chief cornerstone. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there isno other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that theywere uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that theyhad been with Jesus. And seeing the man who had been healed standing with

them, they could say nothing against it. But when they had commanded them togo aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves, saying, Whatshall we do to these men? For, indeed, that a notable miracle has been donethrough them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But so that it spreads no further among the people , let us severely threaten them,that from now on they speak to no man in this name. So they called them andcommanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peterand John answered and said to them, Whether it is right in the sight of God tolisten to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the thingswhich we have seen and heard. So when they had further threatened them, theylet them go, finding no way of punishing them, because of the people , since they


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all glorified God for what had been done. For the man was over forty years oldon whom this miracle of healing had been performed.

For our purposes this morning we are not going to unpack all that is going on here inthis passage. What I want us to see this morning is a few of the details of the contextof this story. This story, of course, occurs in the months following Christs d eath,resurrection, ascension, and exaltation. Christ has been vindicated. He has ascendedhis throne and in his ascent is the descent of the Spirit who, in a blaze of shekinahglory, breathes life into the visible church at Pentecost. And now, in the wake of thisdual glorious event of Christs exaltation and the descent of the Spirit on the churchthe apostles begin, in the words of Acts, to turn their world upside down with thegospel of Jesus Christ. Through the preaching and teaching of the Word, and theregenerating work of the Spirit, Christ expands his kingdom in the book of Actsfrom Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth. And as Christ expands hiskingdom in the proclamation of the Word, those who felt threatened by His

proclamation of the gospel are again, increasingly feeling threatened by the gospel proclamation of the apostles.

And just as many of the controversies of Christs life arose in the aftermath of anobvious divine miracle of healing meant to be a sign to the Jews, once again, Peter andJohn have stepped in it, bringing healing to a man who had been crippled from birth.In the wake of the healing and the subsequent amazement of the people, Peter

preaches another sermon, a version of the sermon that he preached days or weeksearlier at Pentecost. While some gladly received the Word preached, the sermon

brings Peter and John into the crosshairs of the same people who put Jesus on trial andhad him crucified. On the witness stand, Peter opens his mouth with another version ofthe sermon, this one aimed at the Jewish leaders.

The first thing we want to see in the passage this morning for our purposes is thatJesus is the real issue here. It isnt simply the apostles who threaten life as theSanhedrin knows it. It is Jesus. Again. If they thought that they had rid themselves ofJesus, they were mistaken. And in the tension between the powers that be and Jesus,the proclamation of the gospel is at stake, and Jesus life, death, resurrection, andexaltation continues to make both disciples and enemies. Verse 10: this Jesus, whom*you* crucified, is the reason this man was healed. This very same Jesus who washere in this courtroom only weeks ago is the stone you have rejected and he has

become the cornerstone. There is salvation in no one else, no other than this very sameJesus. Verse 13: the Jewish leaders recognized that Peter and John and the apostleshad been with Jesus. So much meaning and history and salvation, for them and forus, is invested in that phrase they had bee n with Jesus. What makes these mendangerous isnt simply the healing of a lame man, or accusations of crucifying themessiah. What makes them dangerous is that they have been with Jesus. Jesus makesthem dangerous, investing himself in the proclamation of His Word. Its not whatthese men know its who they know that make them dangerous. And at the end ofthis episode, the verdict of the council isnt simply stop preaching your message. Theverdict is, stop preaching Jesus.

The second thing we need to s ee is the people. The people play a central role inthis episode. The Jewish leaders are fearful of the people. This represents a developingand ongoing power shift in the wake of the proclamation of the gospel. The religiousupheaval that began with Christs proclamation of the inauguration of his kingdomcontinues in the preaching and teaching of his followers. Christs intrusion into their


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status quo culminates in a seismic shift, literally in the tearing of the temple veilinto two. And this intrusion is dramatically altering the landscape, liberating the

people, at least 5000 to this point, from a spiritual darkness and imprisonment adarkness and imprisonment facilitated in part by those who have dragged Peter andJohn into the courtroom. Christ s exaltation spells the end of the world as they knowit. Christ is building his kingdom in bringing to life the dead bones of Israel at these

leaders expense. This kingdom message, the gospel proclamation wasnt simply forthe educated elite. It was for *the people*. It was for the common man. Just as Christcame eating and drinking with the sinners, the common man, so too, his apostles whoare preaching Christ crucified, resurrected and exalted, are feeding Christ to thecommon man in the proclamation of the gospel. And the common man, Joe Israelite, isfinding relief from the blindness and the chains that imprisoned him.

The third thing we need to see is the reason Wycliffe and his followers, the Lollards,saw this passage as their charter: verse 13: when they (the Jewish leaders) saw the

boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men,they were astonished. This seismic shift due to Christs life, death, resurrection, andexaltation is turning the religious order on its head. No longer is religion confined tothe ivory tower. No longer is religion for the elite and the well-classed in the peckingorder of an ancient religious institution. In fact, weve already been given a hint thatthis is happening because the scene for Peters sermon in the wake of the healing ofthe lame man is Solomons portico, not only the largest religious venue of the day, andnot only a gathering spot at the temple for the common man and the nations, but alsothe prized territory for the Jewish r eligious leaders. Christs kingdom expansion, in thesalvation of more than 5-thousand added to a visible church that has sprung to life, isimpingeing on their turf. Christs gospel plays no favorites. More importantly Christsgospel, in radically altering the status quo brought on by the effects of sin, gives lifeand meaning to the common man. Dont read this here as if the disciples wereilliterate. Or even uneducated in the sense that they had no education. What is meanthere is that these men lacked the formal education of those in front of whom theystand. Just as Christ had done in the temple as a twelve year old boy, they speak infront of this Jewish council as peers as if they had the formal training and in fact,speaking of things that are beyond the grasp of many in that room. Peter is

proclaiming Joel 2 as if it has already occurred. That kind of hermeneutic doesntcompute with this audience.

Wycliffe and the Lollards took solace in this passage. In it they saw themselves, thecommon men (even though many of them were formally trained) teaching and

preaching the Word to the common man. And certainly they took solace in the effectthat the proclamation of this gospel was having in kingdom expansion. Go to chapter 5

where we began this morning, verse 12. This paragraph occurs in the aftermath ofAnanias and Sapphira. Thematically it is linked to chapter 4, but instead of occurringin the wake of healing and blessing and the bringing of the church to life, this

paragraph is in the wake of judgment and death. What Luke intends for his audience isto see that both the blessings and cursings of the New Covenant accompany theexpansion of the kingdom through the proclamation of the gospel. But in highlightingthe continuing expansion of the kingdom even in the wake of judgment, he goes backto a recurring theme. Once again, take notice of the phrase, the people, which linksthis paragraph with the event in chapter 4:


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Acts 5:12-16 And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonderswere done among the people . And they were all with one accord in SolomonsPorch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed themhighly. And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of bothmen and women, so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on

some of them. Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities toJerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by uncleanspirits, and they were all healed.

There is hope for all of us in these verses. Again, I wish we had the time to unpackthese verses. But what I want us to see this morning is the work of the apostles and theresponse of the people. The proclamation of the gospel and the accompanying signswere proclaimed *among* the people. There is a cognitive effort by the apostles toembed the good news of Jesus Christ with the common man in the venue of thecommon man. Christ is using the proclamation of the gospel, and in this instance,signs and wonders that accompany the gospel, to expand his kingdom. And Christintentionally is expanding his kingdom with the common man.

There is, chronicled here, a two-fold result of the upheaval facilitated by a gospel thatknows no boundaries. The first is that the people held the apostles and their messagein high esteem. Ironically, the next verse says multitudes of men and women wereadded to the church. Christ is expanding his kingdom in the proclamation of the gospelnot to the elites and the scholars, but to commoners who were considered persona nongrata even by their own religious leaders. This statement added to the Lord occurs ina series of statements like this throughout the entire book of Acts. In fact, Luke usesthis phrase to link the various events of Acts together. What we need to see is that it isthrough the proclamation of the Jesus who has been crucified that the common man isincluded in the participation of salvation history. The common man comes to be

included in Gods great plan of salvation in Jesus. The people embracing the gospel inActs is in contrast to those who thought of themselves as the inheritors of divine blessing because of their Jewish heritage. Instead, it is the common man who enjoysthe blessings from heaven in the person of Jesus Christ.

And that leads to the second response of the people here. The people gathered.While this is a different word than ekklesia, this still conveys the sense of a gatheringor assembly. Christ uses the proclamation of the gospel to assemble for himself, togather for himself a visible people on earth a people made up of commoners. Theexpansion of the kingdom, the adding to the Lord has a visible, tangible effect ofgathering and by extension this passage, healing. Christ brings healing to thenations in the gathering of his people, a people constituted of the common man andin this way, the world of the apostles and the religious establishment (not to mentionthe Roman Empire) is being turned upside down. The preaching and the teaching ofthe Word to the people is Christs means of expanding His kingdom from Jerusalemto the ends of the earth.

Why is Wycliffe important? Preaching in the vernacular. (Preaching)

In reading this section of Acts, Wycliffe and the Lollards understood that in order forkingdom expansion to take place, and in order for the common man to lay hold of thegood news of Jesus Christ, the message must be understood. Not only must Christ be


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preached, Christ must be preached in a form that is understandable to the people. Thatwas not happening as the 13-hundreds rolled around. The message of the gospel, andeven the Word itself, was in a language that was inaccessible to the common man.Latin was the noose by which the church kept a stranglehold on the gospel. Latinwas the dark veil used by the church to keep the common man in the dark. The gospel,at least as it was proclaimed in the church, if it was at all, was unavailable in the

vernacular.Wycliffe and the Lollards changed much of thisand its interesting. If you read the

backstory on the impact of Wycliffe on his time, Wycliffe was savvy enough to usethe vernacular as a technological improvement in an attempt to undermine theCatholic church and it was only after his death that the Vatican really understoodthe magnitude of which Wycliffe was able to propagate Christian doctrine through thevernacular.

Wycliffe once said that the highest service man may attain on earth is to preachGods Word. And one should add, preach Gods Word in the vernacular. Along thoselines he said, if the soul be not in tune with the words, how can the words have

power? Wycliffe understood that our God is the God of communication. In HisWord, Christ, the ever-Living WORD, has revealed God to us. As Jesus ate with publicans and sinners, so too he has invested His Word with himself as food for thecommon man food that is only accessible in the vernacular. Wycliffe and theLollards turned their world upside down and brought the Inquisition down on theirheads (quite literally, in some instances), via the vernacular. And they did so in threeways. The first, is that long before Wycliffe began translating the Bible into MiddleEnglish, he was preaching in the common language, a practice that was sternlyfrowned upon in Rome. Wycliffe understood that the recovery of the gospel that wasinaccessible to the common man meant delivering the Word to the people in a tonguethat they could understand. This practice drew the wrath of Rome, especially when it

was learned that he was attacking Romes views of the Lords Table in his vernacularsermons.

Writing in the vernacular. (Teaching)

Second, Wycliffe understood, even before Rome did, the power of the vernacular pen.Wycliffe once commented that preaching involves words that soon dissipate into theair. Which is why he eventually began putting his thoughts on paper. While a sermonwas once and done, pen and paper allowed ideas to live from generation to generation.And if that pen and paper were in the vernacular, the power of preaching in thevernacular was exponentially increased. Using the language of the common man (andin fact, enhancing the language of the common man along the way.. Wycliffe and theLollards had a significant impact on the common tongue of the day), Wycliffe

propagated the gospel beyond the bounds of his church, beyond the walls of Oxford.Their books and tracts spread even beyond Englands boundaries, impactin g John Husand others who gave their lives in the recovery of the gospel from the dark ages and achurch intent on hiding its doctrines and dogma from the people.

Translation of the scriptures. (Word)

And last, Wycliffes passion to make the gospel access ible to the common man via thecommon tongue fueled his desire and his effort to get the Bible out of the Latin andinto the English. I think most of us are familiar with this part of Wycliffes story. Wycliffe believed the Bible to be inherently vernacular. The idea of the language of


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the common man is embedded in Scripture. The Greek of the New Testament is predominantly the Greek of the common man.

But even this view of Wycliffe needs a bit of adjustment in our thinking, especially aswe consider Acts 4 and 5 and the role that passage had on Wycliffe and his followers.We tend to think of Wycliffes translation efforts as being motivated by a desire tomake sure that the common man understood the lines he was being fed from thechurch at Rome. And inde ed this is true. This is what made Wycliffes early

postulation of the Reformation doctrine Sola Scriptura a dangerous yet contagiousthreat to the establishment. It is one thing to claim the Scriptures as the sole authorityof faith and practice. It is another to energize that idea by placing such an authoritativeweapon in the hands of the common man. Place the living and active word in thehands of the people and watch the institutions power crumble.

And in our day, we even give the effort to translate into the common tongue anindividualistic twist when we say that Wycliffe (and Tyndale) desired for every man tohave the Bible not simply the elites in the church hierarchy as if Wycliffe wasdriven by a sense of class warfare. While all of those things are true, Wycliffe was

acutely aware that the Word was life- giving. Life transforming, or in his words, theWord is life- seed, begetting regeneration, and spiritual life. Wycliffe was consumedwith the idea that the Word was manna from heaven. Christ feeds himself in theunderstandable, vernacular Word, and if that Word is to do its work of kingdomexpansion through the gospel, it must be understood by the common man. Place theliving and active Christ, who is invested in his word, in the hands of the people andwatch the church spring to life out of the dark ages.

ConclusionThose questions that confront Wycliffe sometimes are lost on us today. We must askthem. Can there be life from the heavens if there is no understanding? Is it enough to

partake of the table and not know its meaning?Do we appreciate our English Bibles? Do we realize the importance of English to our

participation in redemptive history?

Do we realize how important the vernacular is to our salvation? Do we realize howimportant the vernacular is to our very existence as a living and breathing organism inthe new creation? Do we recognize the importance of the vernacular to our

participation in the very thing we call church and its one -anothering community. Ithink we as Baptists in America, tend to either forget or downplay the sustenance theWord provides to the corporate body. And in doing so, we also forget the necessity ofthe vernacular to that life sustenance. If the Word cannot be understood, the Word

cannot feed us Christ. Were all too familiar with how shall they hear without a preacher, but not cognizant enough that hearing involves understanding andunderstanding necessitates vernacular communication.

We live in an era in which the Bible is the most common book in many of our houses.How many of us, at some time this week, were somewhere and we realized we left ourBible on the seat of the car? On the kitchen counter at home? On the stack of books?The point here isnt to make us feel guilty, but to reco gnize that we enjoy an immense

benefit at this stage in redemptive history. For most of us, our entire Christianexperience has been lived in the vernacular. We dont know what its like to have tosit week in and week out under preaching in a tongue we do nt understand, reading a


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Word that is unintelligible to us. And in this era, if that is occurring it isnt a secondthought for us to do the due diligence of learning that tongue so that we canunderstand the sermon and read the Word. Even our mentality in bridging that kind oflinguistic gap is different than it was 700 years ago. If we have a vernacular problem,we simply bridge it. In fact, it doesnt even take due diligence these days; we simplycut and paste into Google Translate, and voila, we comprehend, we understand in

tongues foreign to us.More importantly, do we understand that without the vernacular, we are cut off fromJesus, the Manna from Heaven? Christ does not feed us of his life giving and lifetransforming self in a vacuum. If Christ is going to feed us that which is moreimportant than the bread on our tables, that which proceeds from the mouth of God, itmust be intelligible, it must be understandable. As we pause this Reformation Day2010 to remember those who have recovered the gospel and delivered to us downthrough the ages the faith once for all delivered to the saints, let us remember Wycliffeand the Lollards and Tyndale who understood that this gospel is inherently tied to thevernacular. Let us gaze in wonder at the Christ who, through the efforts of those likeWycliffe and Tyndale, feeds us of himself week in and week out in the preaching andteaching of the Word in proclamation and the Lords Table in the English language.All over the earth today, the gospel is being preached and understood, the Word is

being read and comprehended in hundreds and thousands of languages. Christ, isfeeding himself to His people, in the vernacular.

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John Wycliff - Morning Star of the Reformation