His sovereign love

His sovereign love!

Dear Sir,

I rejoice that the Lord has often refreshed your soul with that great word (Jer. 31:3), "Yes! I have loved you with an everlasting love! therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you."

These words were spoken by the Lord to His Church and people of old, are spoken by Him unto His people now, and unto all who shall be called by grace unto the end of time. And concerning them all, even all His chosen who have been, are, or shall be gathered in to Christ from the beginning of the world to the end of it, as a collective body, and unto every one of them individually, the Lord says, "Yes! I have loved you with an everlasting love! therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you." When the Lord (verse 2) had put His people in mind of the grace which they found in the wilderness, when, though chastised they were not utterly destroyed, as their sins had deserved—the Church, taken with that wonderful grace which was displayed in the wilderness in sparing and preserving such a God-provoking people, who deserved to have been cut off utterly, and not to have had the promise fulfilled gloriously in the land of Canaan, she begins, and says (verse 3), "The Lord has appeared of old unto me," that is, in the wilderness. "Oh," as if she should say, "what miracles of grace did the Lord work for me in the wilderness!"

Upon which the Lord speaks, and leads her to the origin, source, and fountain of grace in His own heart, from whence that glorious flow sprang through His hand which so greatly took her mind—"Yes," says the Lord, "you say truly, I did appear unto you of old gloriously—but behold, my love to you was older than that date! I have loved you with an everlasting love—with a love of eternity, that had its being in my heart towards you before time commenced—and therefore it was that I drew you thus with loving-kindness in the wilderness, and have drawn you likewise into the land of rest."

"Yes," says the Lord, "look forward also unto all that future bliss which I will cause you to possess—not for a day or a time only, but through all time—and unto all eternity. And behold it all secured for you, to flow down upon you in my heart-love to you—for I have loved you with an everlasting love—with a love that will last towards you through all the successive ages of time, and to a never-ending eternity. I have loved you, and therefore with loving-kindness I have drawn you—I do love you, and I will love you, and with loving-kindness will I draw you. The infinite fountain, the immense ocean of My love, shall still flow down upon you in copious streams of loving-kindness, by which I will still allure you and draw you, until I have drawn you up to and into Myself, for a full enjoyment of infinite love unto bliss unknown and ages without end—unto the heights of glory—in and to a vast eternity!"

If God's love to His people was an everlasting love as it respects eternity past, it must needs be a free love, in that it was fixed upon His chosen in Christ before they had done good or evil—yes, even before in God's eternal mind they were beheld as having any goodness in them, for there could be no goodness in any creature but what God resolved to give it from Himself—the infinite ocean of goodness. And His resolving to bestow goodness, special goodness, or special grace, upon one creature and not another, was from His sovereign love to one creature—when He passed by, or did not so love another, according to the good pleasure of His will; not because God's people were better than others, did the Lord set His love upon them and choose them, but because the Lord loved them. He loved them because He would love them, because He would be gracious unto whom He would be gracious, and show mercy on whom He would show mercy.

Oh, how silent would all flesh be before infinite Sovereignty, and how should they adore sovereign free love that are the happy objects of it! And as God's love to His people was free, so it was also distinguishing—I have loved you, says the Lord—and not others—"Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated," though Esau was Jacob's brother. Oh, the distinguishing nature of God's everlasting love when He chose a remnant in His dear Son unto eternal life and glory with Him—and left the rest in a state of fallen creatureship—to enjoy a perfection of natural life for a short time only in Eden's bliss, in their first father Adam; when He appointed His chosen to obtain salvation by Jesus Christ as fore-viewed sinners, and appointed the rest unto wrath righteously for their sins.

Oh, who shall reply against the sovereign Lord of all? "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" And what manner of love is this, that resolved to display the riches of its glory upon thousands of people—an innumerable company though a determinate number—in raising them to eternal glory, when all were equally sunk in the fall of Adam, and by their own sins into the desert of death, in eternal misery? Sovereign love, indeed! And as great as it was sovereign—it was great love that God loved His chosen with, even when dead in sins. And how is its greatness displayed in the great gift of His Son to death for their life, and the gift of the Spirit to them for their quickening!

Again, as God's love is an everlasting love with respect to eternity to come—it appears in this to be an unchangeable love. What is eternal must, with respect to that infinite duration, be unchangeable. And through the whole unbounded space, from eternity through time and to eternity—God's love to His people is immutable according to its own infinity and undiminishable glory—from the immutability of His nature whose name is, I AM THAT I AM!—who is the Lord that changes not.

Oh, dear Sir, God's everlasting love is a free, sovereign, distinguishing, great, and unchangeable love!

It is an inseparable love. The happy objects of it can never, never be separated from it! Neither death nor life, heights nor depths, things present nor things to come, shall ever be able to separate those it fixed upon from the love of God! The love of God to His people is a bottomless, boundless, endless ocean, that swallows up their innumerable and mountainous sins in its infinite depths—that overflows all their great provocations, their vilest ingratitude, their utmost unworthiness—and that ever flows in its triumphant strength, and according to its infinite riches, to the full supply of all their necessities, until it has loved its beloved objects into its own image according to their creature-measure; until it has loved all sin out of them, and all grace into them; until it has freed from all death and misery, and raised them into itself as the element of their life; and then it will be to them, as vessels of mercy, an infinite ocean of joy and glory, where they shall live, and bathe, and dive to the praise of the glory of infinite love to the endless ages of a blessed eternity!

But oh, neither the tongues of men nor angels can express, much less the lispings of a babe set forth, the half—the thousandth part—of the infinite glories of God's everlasting love! Happy, thrice happy, for time and for eternity, are those blessed souls who are savingly interested in this everlasting love of God; who do and shall enjoy it to their ineffable and endless bliss, although a thousandth part of the glories of infinite love can never be expressed.

But who, O! who are those who are the OBJECTS of God's love—the darlings of God's heart, whom He has loved and will delight to love, and to love as God from henceforth and forever? They are all those who are enabled to believe in Jesus— who look, who come, who bow to Christ as the anointed Savior for their own salvation; who desire Christ above all things for their portion, and to give up themselves to the Lord, to be saved in Him with an everlasting salvation, to the praise of the glory of His grace forever. For this everlasting love of God, this free, distinguishing, great, unchangeable and inseparable love of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In Him it was fixed upon the happy objects of it, and in Him it is and shall be enjoyed by them. Not a single one, who is in Christ by faith, who runs in Him, the city of refuge, for its deliverance from the wrath to come—but is an object of God's love, but has an entire and eternal saving interest in God's everlasting love, and shall have the present and everlasting enjoyment thereof, to his present spiritual life in grace, and to his eternal life in glory.

And are you, brother, one of them that believe in Jesus? Are you one of those who desire Him above all things for your portion? Do you run into Christ for refuge from the wrath to come? And do you desire to be saved in the Lord to His present and eternal praise? It is you, you individually, who is an object of God's love. It is you as really as if He had loved none but you! It is you who has an entire and eternal interest in God's everlasting love! Would you give a thousand worlds if you had them, to be assured of your interest in God's unchangeable love? Are you thus athirst for that river, that fountain, that ocean of the water of life? Though you have not a thousand worlds, no, nor one mite of worthiness to give for the manifestation of God's love—Christ Jesus the Lord will give you of this fountain of the water of life freely. Oh, freely! though you may see yourself to be the most unworthy—though your sins and fears are innumerable—though you have done as evil things as you could against the Lord—and though you have dealt treacherously, and are bent to backsliding from Him daily—the Lord, your infinite Lover, will give you His love freely! He will satisfy your soul abundantly in this life with joy—and then—eternal glory! You who are athirst for the love of God, you shall not die for lack of it. No, brother, your soul is formed for love, and made thirsty in order to be filled, and with all the fullness of God, in love, shall you be delighted and eternally satisfied!

In love, then, to the God of love, doubt His love no more. Believe His love, and give up yourself to Him in love, and the God of love and peace shall be with you.

http://gracegems.org/Dutton/his_sovereign_love.htm

1400 years

I’ve been asked twice now in the last week what people believed prior to John Calvin, or more specifically I was asked what happed in the ‘1400 years’ before Calvin instituted his beliefs and influenced the world with them.

 

That, I must admit, was a question I didn’t know the answer to. It was a question that didn’t bring about much interest in me the first time it was asked but the second time…it sent me looking for the answers.

 

Let me first say, that as I understood the question, the person asking it was saying that what I believed was based off what John Calvin taught and that ‘men’ were where my beliefs came from.

 

Before I go into what happened before Calvin I want to explain what happened for me. I’ve written numerous times of how ‘the light was flipped on for me’ so that I was able to see what I was believing, to see what had been hazy before I understood what exactly it was that I was seeing. But let me explain where ‘what I was seeing’ came from.

 

The truth is…if I look only at the world and what’s in it…I have no idea. I wasn’t reading books on Christianity, wasn’t watching movies, wasn’t talking to other people. Truth be told I wasn’t even reading the Bible all that much. I had read it all the way through, cover to cover, but I did it for the sole purpose of being able to say that I had read the entire Bible, and so I simply read it…I studied nothing in it. I did read it from time to time for enjoyment or because I felt the need to do so, did study it sometimes, but I wasn’t doing so daily and I wasn’t doing so to look for any certain thing.

 

Where and how did my beliefs become what they are now?

 

I have no idea…except that they came from the Lord. And Scripture backs that up.

But back to what I used to know and not know…I had no idea who Calvin was before I understood what it was that I believe. I didn’t know anything about the reformation or church history. Not only did I know nothing of those things but I had no interest in them.

 

How then could my beliefs have come from any man?

 

They didn’t.

 

And yet I gained those beliefs anyway. The only explanation I can give is that they came from the Lord and had little, if any, influence from the thoughts, teachings, or theologies of man. In fact I had zero interest in anything labeled as theology. If someone had tried to get me to discuss the subject I would have quickly exited the conversation. I said often that I believed the Bible and only the Bible.

 

I still hold to that belief.

 

I do, however, now understand what it is that I saw in Scripture. As a result I now understand what labels are put on what I believe. Which means I know how to go looking for others that share the same, or similar, beliefs that I have.

 

But knowing all that now only means I know how to find people of similar beliefs if I want to listen to, or read, something by someone that believes as I do. It doesn’t mean that my beliefs came about because of the beliefs of any man (or woman).

 

And it sure meant I couldn’t answer the question of what happened in the 1400 years before Calvin and his beliefs. As I pondered the question I realized that I couldn’t answer it and not just because I didn’t know the information. The thing is I have no interest in knowing what happened before Calvin…be it one year or 1400. The more I thought on the question the more I realized that …for me…the question wasn’t what happened before Calvin but what happened after Paul and the apostles.

 

The question may be the same but…for me…it’s vastly different. Since my beliefs didn’t come from a theory written by any man…even a theory taken straight from Scripture…but from the Bible itself, I don’t want to start with that man and work backwards but start with Scripture and work forward.

 

And so…that’s what I’m going to attempt to do. I don’t mind in the least admitting that it’s a task I feel ill equipped to tackle. But I’m going to try.

 

In so doing I’m going to start with Christ…that is, after all, where all of Christianity should start and end. Around the year 30 Ad Christ instituted a new covenant with His people. This covenant completely overturned the law and the old covenant. The Lord’s people were no longer under the law but under grace…under Christ.

 

This new covenant is the whole of how we are to believe and follow Christ today. Because we live under the new covenant we are no longer bound by the old covenant. Which means the Old Testament holds different meaning for us today than it did before Christ brought in the new covenant.

 

I had someone tell me once that 2 Timothy 2:15…

 

…rightly dividing the word of truth.

 

Is the dividing line between the old covenant and the new covenant. It’s the difference of whether we live under the law of the Old Testament or the grace of the New Testament. We must…as that verse says…rightly divide Scripture. We must know where the line between the two is and we must be able to see the difference. Now, the person that told me that went on to point out exactly when and where that dividing line came into play. I don’t think it’s so important that we understand exactly when it happened so much as we must understand that it did happen and that we are either on one side of that divide or the other.

 

Do we live under the law or do we live under grace? Do we live under the Old covenant or do we live under the new covenant?

 

The line has already been drawn. We need do nothing but understand that it’s there and know that there’s a difference in the Old Testament and the New.

 

That line was drawn by Christ Himself somewhere around the year 30 Ad. With the drawing of that line He instituted a whole new life for all believers.

 

The disciples understood that. The apostles understood it. They lived on one side of the line and referenced to the other side as the need arose.

 

Scripture takes us only so far on the new covenant side of that line. Sadly…it ends with Revelation. Our ability to see life through the words of Scripture ends with the final book of the Bible. From there we are forced to view life…all of history…through the eyes of Scripture as we are able to apply our understanding to time. In other words we cease to be able to look at time as the Lord laid it out for us and we begin to have to look at it through the understanding we gain through reading the Scriptures.

 

We know from Scripture…from Paul that there were men in the Bible days that were ‘peddling’ Christ. They were using the gospel to line their own pockets. They were trading it for what they could get out of it, making it work for them instead of them working for it. In other words they were making Christ serve them instead of them serving Him.

 

For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. 2 Corinthians 2:17

 

That is a very important thing to take note of because it shows us that even in the days when the apostles walked the earth, teaching and preaching of Christ, that there were men that were changing…distorting…the truth to make it what they wanted to make of it. I have a blog post where I wrote on the subject of ‘it preaches good’. Today, so many preachers preach what sounds good, what hits their target audience with the best impact. They are twisting the truth and filling in the holes as they see fit so that it preaches good. Paul told us that men of his time were doing the same thing. We don’t know exactly what they were preaching but we know that they were preaching…peddling…God’s word not out of sincerity as Paul and the others were doing but as a ways of selling it…or making it work for them.

 

So even as the apostles walked the earth earnestly….sincerely…passionately…proclaiming the word of God, there were men that were twisting that very word into something that was insincere. This isn’t a new concept. It didn’t start with the prosperity gospel mega ‘churches’, it didn’t start with the catholic ‘church’, it started with men in Paul’s day.

 

At the last page of the Bible we can no longer look to Scripture to tell us what was happening. We lose the best history text we will ever have and we begin to have to look to history as man has recorded it. The Bible takes us through time until about the year 100 Ad.

 

We know that while the apostles walked the earth we had Christianity as the Lord designed it. And…per Paul…we know we had it as he did not design it.

 

From what I was able to gather we then have a time lapse of about 100 years. I don’t know what happened in those years. If I had to guess I would say that most likely both sides continued to grow and flourish. From my own understanding of how mans minds work I’m inclined to say that the closer we are in time to when Christ was on earth the more likely we are to have the gospel being given…and therefore having people believing…in it’s truth without men’s ideas added into it.

 

It’s like with anything else. Our minds remember things more accurately the closer we are in time to when something happened. Time has a way of fading the details. There’s a popular children’s game that would better explain this. It’s called telephone. A group of kids sits in a circle and one of them whispers something in the next child’s ear. Each child takes a turn whispering to the child beside them until it gets to the last child. Now the first child may have said ‘I love ice cream’ but by the time it makes it down the line to the last child it very well could be ‘I like ivy and dreams.’ The thing is…the more people the story goes through, the greater the chance that it will be distorted from the original version.

 

The Lord retained His word, His truth, through all of that. He has preserved His word through the ages for His people. But how many people handled that word that weren’t His and therefore mangled it to the point that it looks little like the Truth as it was originally spoken.

 

And so…even though I can’t prove it…I would assume that…as with today…the Truth of Christ was passed from person to person, sometimes it stayed Scripturally accurate and sometimes it was probably mangled to the point where we couldn’t recognize truth in it if we tried.

 

I’m not referring to the written Scriptures here but of what was taught from person to person.

 

As Scripture ended and time without Biblical record began I had to look to the records kept by man which took me to what is referred to as the ‘church fathers’. I won’t go into why I believe labeling these men as ‘church fathers’ is wrong. Instead I wish to turn to the beliefs they held. Starting with Augustine.

 

St. Augustine is called, rightly, the Doctor of Grace…Augustine showed very well our total dependence on God…Every good work, even good will, is the work of God:… For not only has God given us our ability and helps it, but He even works [brings about] willing and acting in us; not that we do not will or that we do not act, but that without His help we neither will anything good nor do it"—

 

That is a very brief excerpt on Augustine’s beliefs from…http://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/AUGUSTIN.HTM

 

I read elsewhere that Augustine believed in predestination. For anyone that wishes to say predestination is not in the Bible please look to what Paul teaches in Ephesians 1, particularly verses 4 and 11.

 

There are men that claim to be Calvinists….or reformed…that have said they are Augustinians.

R. C. Sproul is one of these men. He has written that he is in fact an ‘Augustinian.’ I point this out only to show that Augustine would have to have held the same basic beliefs as what is known as Calvinism today.

 

The fact that those beliefs weren’t written out until Calvin did so does not mean that no one believed that way before Calvin, nor does it mean that Calvin invented that way of believing.

 

Clement is another ‘church father’ that lived about the same time as Augustiheld to similar beliefs.

 

Clement (A.D. 80-140): So all of them received honor and greatness, not through themselves or their own deeds or the right things they did, but through his will. And we, therefore, who by his will have been called in Jesus Christ, are not justified of ourselves or by our wisdom or insight of religious devotion or the holy deeds we have done from the heart, but by that faith by which almighty God has justified all men from the very beginning. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Clement, Clement's First Letter, 32.3-4)

 

Now, I understand that there are those that will say that until Augustine there was no such Biblical truth as predestination taught. I have no idea what happened from the end of the Bible to what it written of Augustine. But I would again point anyone that wants to say that there is no predestination in Scripture to Ephesians 1. And just to be on the safe side I’m going to post them here from the Greek text…

 

Vs 4… just as he chose us in him before [the] foundation of [the] world to be for us holy and blameless before him in love

 

Vs 5…having predestined us for divine adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of the will of him

 

Vs 11…in him in whom also we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to [the] purpose of the [one] –all things working according to the counsel of the will of him

 

That is the English wording of the interlinear Bible where it translates those verses from Greek to English. The word predestined is in not only our modern translations but it was in the Greek translations.

 

Let me pause for just a minute to say that in my research on the ‘church’ fathers I’m coming across some differences in times for some of them. I’ve seen dates on Augustine that put him around 100 AD and around 300 AD. I can’t know which is right and since my purpose is to gather together what they believed and not an exact on when they lived I’m not going to delve deeper into their time frames. For that reason I may give a time on someone that may be inaccurate but if I do so it’s because I found that date in an article on that person.

 

As I understand it the early ‘church fathers’ had certain terms that differed from those of the people during the reformation. Those differing terms made them, at times, seem to have different beliefs than the reformers…or those labeled as Calvinists. For instance regeneration to the early ‘church fathers’ meant ‘the entirety of the Christian life’. Whereas today it means the first step of conversion…or salvation.

 

            This difference of terms may make it seem that ‘Calvinism’ wasn’t around until Calvin coined the belief but that isn’t how it worked. As I pointed out above both Augustine and Clement held ‘Calvinist’ beliefs. So much so that today’s Calvinists sometimes claim to be Augustinians.

 

            The fact is that Christ was a ‘Calvinist’ if we must put the term on each person that holds to those beliefs. He said ‘those that the father gives me’. He didn’t say ‘those that choose me’. Paul was a ‘Calvinist’ that openly spoke of predestination. He spoke of the elect. He spoke of the chosen.

 

Even in the old testament we see many times where Scripture talks of ‘my people.’ It’s all laid out there before us if we can only see it.

 

The early ‘church fathers’ saw it and taught it. They taught the same gospel that Christ taught. The same gospel that Paul taught. Whether we’re talking about Augustine, Gottschalk, Luther, Calvin, the Puritans, or those that are labeled as ‘Calvinists’ today.

 

Here are some of the beliefs held by what is called the early ‘church fathers’…

 

Total depravity

 

Barnabas (A.D. 70): “Learn: before we believed in God, the habitation of our heart was corrupt and weak.”


Justin Martyr (A.D. 150): “Mankind by Adam fell under death, and the deception of the serpent; we are born sinners…No good thing dwells in us…For neither by nature, nor by human understanding is it possible for me to acquire the knowledge of things so great and so divine, but by the energy of the Divine Spirit…Of ourselves it is impossible to enter the kingdom of God…He has convicted us of the impossibility of our nature to obtain life…Free will has destroyed us; we who were free are become slaves and for our sin are sold…Being pressed down by our sins, we cannot move upward toward God; we are like birds who have wings, but are unable to fly.”


Origen: “Our free will…or human nature is not sufficient to seek God in any manner.”


Augustine (A.D. 370): “If, therefore, they are servants of sin (2 Cor. 3:17), why do they boast of free will?…O, man! Learn from the precept what you ought to do; learn from correction, that it is your own fault you have not the power…Let human effort, which perished by Adam, here be silent, and let the grace of God reign by Jesus Christ…What God promises, we ourselves do not through free will of human nature, but He Himself does by grace within us…Men labor to find in our own will something that is our own, and not God’s; how can they find it, I know not.”


 


Unconditional election:


Clement Of Rome (A.D. 69): “Let us therefore approach Him in holiness of soul, lifting up pure and undefiled hands unto Him, with love towards our gentle and compassionate Father because He made us an elect portion unto Himself…Seeing then that we are the special elect portion of a Holy God, let us do all things that pertain unto holiness…There was given a declaration of blessedness upon them that have been elected by God through Jesus Christ our Lord…Jesus Christ is the hope of the elect…”


Barnabas (A.D. 70): “We are elected to hope, committed by God unto faith, appointed to salvation.”


Ignatius: “To the predestined ones before all ages, that is, before the world began, united and elect in a true passion, by the eternal will of the Father…”


Justin Martyr: “In all these discourses I have brought all my proofs out of your own holy and prophetic writings, hoping that some of you may be found of the elect number which through the grace that comes from the Lord of Sabaoth, is left or reserved [set apart] for everlasting salvation.”


Irenaeus (A.D. 198): “God hath completed the number which He before determined with Himself, all those who are written, or ordained unto eternal life…Being predestined indeed according to the love of the Father that we would belong to Him forever.”


Clement Of Alexandria (A.D. 190): “Through faith the elect of God are saved. The generation of those who seek God is the elect nation, not [an earthly] place, but the congregation of the elect, which I call the Church…If every person had known the truth, they would all have leaped into the way, and there would have been no election…You are those who are chosen from among men and as those who are predestined from among men, and in His own time called, faithful, and elect, those who before the foundation of the world are known intimately by God unto faith; that is, are appointed by Him to faith, grow beyond babyhood.”


Cyprian (A.D. 250): “This is therefore the predestination which we faithfully and humbly preach.”


Ambrose Of Milan (A.D. 380): “In predestination the Church of God has always existed.”


Augustine (A.D. 380): “Here certainly, there is no place for the vain argument of those who defend the foreknowledge of God against the grace of God, and accordingly maintain that we were elected before the foundation of the world because God foreknew that we would be good, not that He Himself would make us good. This is not the language of Him who said, ‘You did not choose Me, but I chose you’ (John 15:16).”


 


And a few more quotes by a few of the ‘church fathers’…


 


Clement Of Rome (A.D. 69): “It is the will of God that all whom He loves should partake of repentance, and so not perish with the unbelieving and impenitent. He has established it by His almighty will. But if any of those whom God wills should partake of the grace of repentance, should afterwards perish, where is His almighty will? And how is this matter settled and established by such a will of His?”


Clement Of Alexandria (A.D. 190): “Such a soul [of a Christian] shall never at any time be separated from God…Faith, I say, is something divine, which cannot be pulled asunder by any other worldly friendship, nor be dissolved by present fear.”


Tertullian: “God forbid that we should believe that the soul of any saint should be drawn out by the devil…For what is of God is never extinguished.”


Augustine: “Of these believers no one perishes, because they were all elected. And they were elected because they were called according to the purpose–the purpose, however, not their own, but God’s…Obedience then is God’s gift…To this, indeed, we are not able to deny, that perseverance in good, progressing even to the end, is also a great gift of God.”


 


As we can see by the quotes I’ve given the ‘church fathers’ not only believed in predestination and election, they also believed in the Lord’s sovereignty and not in man’s free will.


That brings us to around 350-400 AD…and shows that ‘Calvinism’ did exist before Calvin coined the theory.


 


That brings us to the dark ages when the Roman Catholic church dominated so much of the world’s beliefs. There were pockets of true believers that held to the same beliefs as the ‘church fathers’ and today’s modern ‘Calvinists’.


The Waldensains were a group that held to at least some of those beliefs. They’re the first group I came across specific information on their beliefs after the ‘church fathers’ and before the reformation era. Without going too deep into what they believed (see that here… http://journeyingtochrist.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-waldensains.html) a French man experienced a dramatic conversion…so much so that he gave up his business and threw his money into the street…and began to follow the teachings of Jesus from the Gospels.


 


I was unable to find anything that said for certain whether or not this group was actually ‘Calvinist’ in their beliefs but the fact that they were persecuted and killed for their beliefs would indicate to me that they held something of those beliefs. The Waldensains covered the time between 1100’s and the 1500’s which brings us to the time of the reformers and  to Calvin.


 


That is a quick history of the ‘Calvinists’ beliefs. Calvin didn’t invent the beliefs, he only wrote them out. The beliefs behind Calvin’s doctrines weren’t man-made but Biblical.


 


I went into the time between Scripture and Calvin because I wanted to be able to answer the question of what happened in those ‘1400 years’ but for me…I don’t need to know the answer to that question. I need only to know that John said…


 


But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him. 1 John 2:27


 


 

 

Christ or the preacher?

I saw something today that challenged my ability not to reply to the person that made the statement. It was something written online…a poster of sorts…that said ‘I love my pastor.’ It was made up in an eye catching way, displayed to perfection, and encouraged the reader to respond if they, too, loved their pastor.

If we were talking about a general kind of I love everybody kind of statement it would be okay, if it was an I love this person kind of thing that would be okay. But that wasn’t the message this poster conveyed. Instead of being an I’m-a-Christian-so-I-love kind of thing, this was a my pastor is so great sort of statement. It was one of those statements that made me mentally cringe.

If Paul was your pastor…he’d be great. And you’d love him. But…he’d be the first person to tell you not to place him the he’s-so-great category. He was there to teach about Christ and nothing else.

John the Baptist said…

even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” John 1:27

He essentially said I’m nothing. Christ is the one that you should give all the glory to, not me. I’m merely a man.

And yet today so many people ‘love’ their preacher. A good teacher of Scripture has his place. There are those I enjoy listening to. Certain preachers whose sermons I play online from time to time. But they are men. No higher in Christ’s sight than any other believer. We are to exalt Christ and Christ alone. We are to worship Christ and Christ alone.

Placing posters online…or anywhere…stating how much you like your preacher puts that man in the place of Christ.

How many people take what their preacher says as gospel? How many people follow their preachers teachings over what the Bible teaches, even when they know what he says goes against Scripture.

I remember my grandmother telling stories of the time the preacher came to their house when she was a girl. She was about 12 years old. She spoke of the work her mother put into getting the house clean, just so, for the preacher and his family. She spoke of the meal her mother prepared for their guests. Everything was to be perfect. Wanting to help, to do anything, to be a part of such an important event she asked if she could make a cake. With reluctance her mother allowed her to do so. Apparently the reluctance was due to the worry of how my young grandmother might spoil the house before the preacher arrived.

My great grandmother put such high regard on the preacher, on the fact that he was coming to visit that she went to great lengths to prepare for his arrival. The house was cleaned in his honor. A meal was prepared. Good dishes were set out. The children were told to be on their best behavior.

Because the preacher was coming. A feast was held in his honor. And the honor…it would seem…was that the preacher was taking his time to visit with the family.

In contrast…what was prepared for Christ when He came?

What was done for Christ by the person that posted a poster saying ‘I love my preacher’? Do they die to self to live for Him? Do they put His teachings above those of the preacher they exalt?

Who is their God? Is it Christ…or their preacher?

I don’t know the answer to those questions but I do know the feelings my grandmother conveyed as she told of being visited by the preacher. It was a treat. A blessing. A time of excitement and great anticipation. The preacher was coming!

Who was the God in their house that day? Christ…or the preacher?

Who is the God in your house? Christ…or the preacher?

The Waldensains

The Waldensians

Submitted by admin on Fri, 29/02/2008 - 21:32.

by Stuart Murray Williams
Valdes and the early Waldensians
In 1174, a French businessman in Lyons, Valdes, was challenged by the radical teaching of Jesus in the Gospels and responded by committing himself to a life of voluntary poverty and preaching. He experienced a dramatic conversion, renounced his previous business practices, threw his money out into the street, and after running a soup kitchen during the famine of 1176, began a new life as an itinerant preacher.
There had been other wandering preachers in the Middle Ages who had acted in a similar way. What was different about Valdes, apart from being a layman, was his concern to have the Bible translated into the local dialect, and his success in gathering a group of followers, drawn from different social classes, but sharing a life of poverty and preaching. Their preaching and the provision of a Bible people could understand led the formation of a lay association, known as the ‘Poor in Spirit’. Taking Jesus’ sending out of the Seventy as their pattern, they formed apostolic missionary bands, wore rough clothes and sandals and went around preaching a message of repentance.
They had no intention of separating from the Catholic Church. They simply wanted to live as whole-hearted followers of Jesus. But the challenge of their simple lifestyle, the popularity of this new movement and their unauthorised preaching aroused local opposition. They were in breach of canon law that restricted doctrinal preaching to the clergy. Valdes appealed for permission to preach. The Pope, while approving their motives and vows of poverty, insisted they were not to preach unless invited by local clergy. They must remain within the discipline of the established church. But, as they grew more aware of the corruption of the church, they continued their unauthorised preaching and began to face trouble. The archbishop of Lyons excommunicated the movement in 1181 and expelled them from the area under his jurisdiction. In 1184, they were included in a papal decree against dangerous heretics and became subject to anti-heresy legislation, despite lack of evidence that they were unorthodox. But repression was patchy, depending on the interest of the authorities.
Meanwhile, through planned missions and enforced expulsion, Waldensian groups were established in new areas. They won converts from all social classes, including some wealthy citizens, priests, monks and nuns, and their egalitarian stance towards women attracted many to the movement, as well as further provoking hostility. By 1198 some authorities took firm action, including the imposition of the death penalty on those who refused to recant, though in many places persecution was still sporadic. Furthermore, their missionaries reached Lombardy and began to make common cause with another radical group, the Humiliati, benefiting from the atmosphere of freedom and anti-clerical feeling in that area, and establishing congregations and schools.
Gradually tensions appeared within the movement. Valdes hoped for reconciliation with the Catholic Church and having a reforming influence in it. More radical groups, in Lombardy and elsewhere, were challenging many areas of Catholic teaching and practice. Some seemed determined to form new churches. In 1205, a serious split occurred between the French and Italian branches of the movement. The ‘Poor of Lyons’ followed Valdes. The ‘Poor Lombards’, the group that emerged from the Humiliati and Waldensian groups in Lombardy, gradually separated from them.
Ineffective attempts to deal with Waldensians were replaced in the thirteenth century by a more discerning approach. Innocent III, who became Pope in 1198, distinguished between the genuinely heretical or schismatic, and those whose discontent with the Church had caused them to pull away from Catholicism. The former were pursued vigorously; the latter were wooed back to the Church by making concessions and creating space for their activities within its structures. Some Lyonists were reconciled to the Catholic Church, as were some Humiliati.
Meanwhile, contact between the French and Italian branches continued and there were sporadic attempts to bring about reconciliation. A final attempt was made in 1218. Six representatives from each group met near Bergamo. Disagreements were discussed at length and the conference foundered on the issue of the validity of the sacraments and the role of the celebrant. But the division represented the different perspectives of a group still wanting to see the established church reformed and a group that had given up and was committed to building an alternative church.
Later Waldensians
French Waldensians enjoyed peace and freedom in many areas of the country until the 1230s. Persecution increased then, however, driving the movement underground and detaching its less committed members. Numbers fell steadily during this century, and early in the next century, inquisitors found few traces of the movement in its area of origin. Waldensians survived by retreating into quietism or into the mountains, where they formed communities that were too remote to bother the authorities. In Italy, the Lombards too found themselves under increasing pressure and unable to establish an alternative church. Gradually, they withdrew and took refuge in rural areas in the south of Italy or further north in the Alpine valleys. These losses in the heartlands were more than compensated for numerically by the growth of the movement in other areas. During most of the thirteenth century, both groups of Waldensians spread, into Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, Poland and Spain.
By the start of the fifteenth century, Waldensians in France and Italy seemed to be in terminal decline, a beleaguered minority of Alpine peasants in remote valleys and small communities scattered throughout other parts of France. Only in the Piedmont area did Waldensians experience significant growth. Persecution was less intense than before, but there were periods of severe pressure. The response of the Waldensian communities varied. Usually, they tried to hide and avoid confrontation; occasionally, they resorted to violence. In 1487 a determined campaign against Waldensians was launched, which resulted in executions, emigration and the return of some to the Catholic Church. The survival of the movement into the sixteenth century was the result of the resilience of small groups and the courage and faithfulness of travelling leaders who continued to visit these isolated communities.
In the fifteenth century, German-speaking Waldensians were also an underground movement, surviving through a combination of outward conformity and quiet but tenacious transmission of beliefs within families to subsequent generations. But in Bohemia, and then Moravia, reform ideas were circulating and a new movement was emerging. Influenced by the writings of John Wyclif, but energised also by nationalist stirrings, the movement became associated with Jan Hus, rector of the Bethlehem chapel in Prague. The Hussite reform movement encouraged and breathed new life into the Waldensian groups who came into contact with it.
By the start of the sixteenth century, much of the heat had gone out of the conflict in the Alps. Waldensians had survived, in Italy, France and various German-speaking areas. By the end of this century, the Waldensian movement was absorbed into the Reformation. Exhausted by centuries of repression, it gratefully received the leadership and new energies of Protestantism. From the 1560s the emergence of the Waldensian Church, rather than a loosely linked movement, can be dated, a church which continues to provide an alternative to Catholicism in Italy and elsewhere.
Waldensian beliefs
An 800-year history presents difficulties in trying to set out the beliefs and practices of the Waldensians. These were not uniform everywhere or throughout the centuries, but there are some common features.
(1) Anti-clericalism. Waldensians preached a simple message of repentance, individual responsibility and holy living. They criticised the corruption of the clergy and denied that such men should be trusted. Instead they endorsed lay Bible study. The movement was marked by deep love for the Bible and passionate desire to understand and obey it. They were committed to a ‘believers’ church ecclesiology, where the local congregation ordered its life together, and they were determined to submit to biblical authority alone.
(2) Church structure. There was emphasis on the priesthood of all believers, men and women. The role of the preachers was crucial for the movement, but these leaders were not ordained, nor generally regarded as belonging to a separate class of Christians, nor ranked in any kind of hierarchy. They were committed to a life of celibacy, travelling and poverty, dependent for their support on the gifts of members of the movement. Once trained, they were sent out in pairs to visit scattered groups. Those who were not preachers remained in their homes and jobs, devoting time to Bible study and nurturing their faith in secret. They collected support for the preachers, ran training schools in their homes and, where they could, tried to draw others into the movement.
(3) Ethical integrity. They were not interested in speculative theology or doctrinal issues, but in spirituality and ethics. They called people to follow Jesus and obey his teachings. They advocated personal integrity, simple lifestyle and rejection of greed and excess. They opposed all forms of lying and deception. They also generally rejected the swearing of oaths. And usually they practised what they preached.
(4) Non-violence. Early Waldensians were committed to non-violence, deriving this emphasis from a literal reading of the Gospels. They spoke out against violence: crusades against infidels and warfare in general; killing Jews; execution of thieves who were caught stealing food for their families in times of famine; capital punishment; and coercion in matters of faith. This instinctive non-violence persisted through the centuries, though there are instances of Waldensians resorting to violence. Generally, this was provoked by repression, or the threat presented by defectors who might betray them, and was regarded as necessary to defend homes and family. Occasionally, there seem to have been attempts to use violence for political ends, as a form of revolutionary action.
(5) Rejection of superstition. Waldensians discovered that some familiar Catholic practices had no biblical basis. Gradually they removed these practices from their churches in order to cut back their church life to the simpler pattern they found in the New Testament. They rejected prayers for the dead, regarded indulgences as benefiting greedy priests and challenged the doctrine of purgatory. They rejected official fast days and refused to bow before altars, venerate crosses or treat as special holy bread or water. Somewhat surprisingly, many retained devotion to Mary, despite the teachings of their leaders.
(6) The sacraments. They regarded communion as a remembrance, not a sacrifice, and allowed all to take bread and wine. They rejected the theology of the mass and were dubious about the idea of transubstantiation. Initially many continued to receive communion from the priests, but increasingly communion was celebrated in their homes without clerical involvement. On baptism, there was uncertainty. They were not fully convinced infant baptism was biblical or appropriate, but they seem rarely to have abandoned it.
(7) Confession. The importance of confessing sins, doing penance and receiving absolution was retained throughout the movement. Although some continued to confess to the Catholic priests, in many places their low view of priests precluded these as suitable candidates to hear confession. The natural alternative was the travelling preachers, and they certainly performed this role, but the underlying conviction that all believers were priests allowed the development of the practice of confession to one another.
(8) Mission. A remarkable feature of the movement was its determination to continue pressing ahead despite sustained pressure and opposition. Only in the darkest periods was its energies taken up with survival. At other times missionaries travelled across Europe, risking their lives to spread their convictions. Sometimes new churches were planted. In other places seeds lay dormant for years until watered by similar ideas brought by the Hussites in Bohemia or the Reformers or Anabaptists in central Europe. Much of the evangelism must have been cautious and through quiet conversations, since any form of public witnessing would have incurred severe penalties. There are accounts of evangelists operating as door-to-door salesmen, offering various goods and then referring to more valuable treasures, which could be revealed if the local clergy were not informed about the visit. Where there was a positive response, the gospel would be explained and invitations given to join a study group.


http://www.anabaptistnetwork.com/waldensians