‘‘Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as shall never be put out’
Bishop Hugh Latimer
***
Visiting the UK several years ago I stayed with a friend in Oxford, England and while we were there, I remember visiting Broad Street in the city. Along that street there are many plaques and memorials to the ‘Oxford martyrs’. These marked the places where many extremely brave Christian men and women were burned at the stake for their adherence to, and proclamation of, the protestant faith in opposition to the official state religion at the time of the Catholic Queen Mary, often referred to as ‘Bloody Mary’ for obvious reasons.
Most famous of these martyrs were Anglican Bishops Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer executed for ‘heresy’ in October 1555, and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer the following year.
I was reminded of those men when I read news reports of the current English King Charles the 3rd praying together with the current Pope Leo. This was an event that had not taken place for the 500 years since the English church split away from the Catholic church under Henry the 8th in the early 16th century.
Most of the recent news reports, as well as many people I have spoken to, see this as a ‘good thing’, as a step towards healing a centuries old division in the Christian church. However, there is a reason for those 500 years, it is not about the repairing of an ancient denominal rift. Those men as well as thousands of other Christian men and women weren’t prepared to die for such a relatively trivial thing as a denominational rift, tragic as the multitude of them is.
No, it is about theology. There were many issues that brought about the European and English Reformations, inspired by the Catholic monk Martin Luther, but the main one of which was-
‘The means by which a person is saved from God’s judgment on their sins, and how the gates of heaven are opened.
Luther’s problem was that he was fully aware (correctly) that he was a sinner and under the judgment of a God he thought to be an unmerciful Judge. He was terrified by this, for (ironically as a teacher of theology!) he could not see (again correctly) any hope of God accepting him. A graphic illustration of his terror (although no doubt Hollywood-ized to some extent) can be seen in the movie ‘Luther’.
It was in the course of his studies and teaching, particularly on the Book of Romans, that God opened his eyes to the essential biblical Truth that salvation is by Grace, received by Faith, a gift of God. In effect Luther retrieved the apostle Paul’s doctrine of salvation which the Catholic church of his time had replaced by a doctrine of ‘works’, that is I am saved by my efforts: these included, Paying Penance, making Confession to a Priest, taking part in the Mass, going on Pilgrimages, buying ‘Indulgences’. which would allegedly reduce the time spent in the, non-biblical, Purgatory where it was alleged that we could work-off our sins) among others.
Luther came to see that he was correct in understanding that he could never by his own efforts (as nor can we) be good enough for God, and that the means of salvation can be summed up with-
‘By Grace alone, through Faith alone, in Christ alone’
As far as I know the issue that brought about the Reformation 500 years ago has not been resolved and will not be so just by an English monarch meeting up with the Pope for a prayer time.
The means of salvation is not a trivial issue. There is no more important one, the matter of what decides a person’s eternal destiny, whether am I saved by ‘what I do’ or by ‘what Jesus did’ (past tense, complete) on the Cross. Luther came to understand the latter to be the answer, and this is what we proclaim, that-
Salvation is ‘By Grace alone, through Faith alone, in Christ alone’
We cannot, we must not, take for granted what those Oxford martyrs, as well as thousands of other men and women across the country and across time, did for us that we might be freed from ‘Luther’s terror’ at God’s judgment to rejoice in the free gift of salvation totally paid for us by Jesus on the Cross.
Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer could have saved their lives by recanting their belief in the true Gospel and by returning to the false theology of the medieval church. That they did not, even as the flames leapt around them, should fill us with a deep gratitude.
As he died, Hugh Latimer is reported as crying out-
‘Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as shall never be put out’
It is a great tragedy that the Candle of the true Gospel is now barely flickering in the western world. We should not contribute to it being snuffed out completely by fudging primary theological issues, such as Salvation by Grace alone, for the sake of a false reconciliation.
When it comes to Eternity, Theology Matters!
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