ZWINGLI’S INDEPENDENCE OF LUTHER

Despite claims that Zwingli was influenced by Luther in developing his reformed ideas, look at what Zwingli declares in Article 18 of “The Defense of the Reformed Faith”:

“Before anyone in this area had even heard of Luther, I began to preach the gospel of Christ in 1516 so that I never entered the pulpit without looking up the words which were to be read in the mass that day and expounding them on the basis of scripture…

When I began to preach in Zurich in 1519 I indicated to the honourable gentlemen of the Chapter hos I intended to preach on the gospel of Matthew, God willing, without any human addenda and without any hesitancy or wavering because of counter arguments. At the beginning of that same year (for I reached Zurich on St John the Evangelist day), no one in our midst knew anything of Luther, except that he had said something concerning indulgences, which did not teach me anything new since I had been informed earlier that indulgences were a fraud and false appearance. I had learned this from a disputation with Thomas Wyttenbach of Biel, mylord and faithful teacher had engaged in Basel some time ago, though I was not present at the time. Consequently Luther’s writing at the time did little to help me in my preaching on Matthew. Nonetheless, everyone eager to hear the word of God came hurrying to my expositions so that I was quite surprised myself…

For who has equipped me to preach the gospel and to preach from the writing of one evangelist from beginning to end? Did Luther? I started preaching the gospel before I had ever heard Luther’s name mentioned and in order to prepare for the same time I started to learn Greek some ten years ago so that I might learn the teaching of Christ from its original sources. How well I have mastered Greek, I let others judge. However, Luther, whose name I did not know for another two years, had definitely not instructed me. I followed holy scripture alone. But the papists burden me and others with such names from sheer malice, as I have stated earlier, saying, ‘You must be Lutheran for you preach just as Luther writes.’ My answer is: ‘I preach the word of Christ: why do you not take me to be a Christian as well?’ They practice sheer malice…

By the same token, I do not wish the papists to call me Lutheran; for I did not learn the teachings of Christ from Luther but from the very word of God. If Luther preaches Christ he does the same thing as I do, though, God be praised, through him a far greater number of people are led to God than through me and others (whose measure God increases and diminishes as he pleases). So far I do not wish to bear no other name than that of my captain Christ: whose foot soldier I am. He shall give me the orders and pay, as he sees fit. I hope that some will understand by now why I do not wish to be called Lutheran even though I esteem Luther as highly as any other person. Accordingly I testify before God and all people that all my life I have not written a single word to him nor has he written to me.”

BULLINGER'S UNDERSTANDING OF COVENANT AND TESTAMENT

It has been a real joy to read through again (but this time in greater depth) Aurelio Garcia's "The Theology of History and Apologetic Historiography in Heinrich Bullinger: Truth in History." Having met him at a recent conference in Zurich adds to the joy of rereading through this seminal work.

I was struck by footnote 40 on pages 50,51.

"There is yet another crucial point lacking in Wayne Baker's discussion of the covenant. any notion that the human partner in the covenant stands on an equal footing to give a quid pro quo obedience to God in exchange for salvation, misses this cardinal point. God's offering of the covenant is already a might act of grace, for he has the right as creator to demand all obedience, yet he condescends to pact with us, accepting our obedience - which is Christ's obedience in us, through the Holy Spirit - in exchange for his love for us. We do not stand in equal footing with God; rather God adapts himself to us in the form of covenant, graciously making up for our creatureliness and our sinfulness. We could even describe this adaptation as as sort of make-belief by God, except, and this is the beauty of it all, that the ultimate accommodation of God to us is his incarnation in Jesus Christ. And again we are back to Christ as the testament. Remember too that Christ is both in a sense the divine and the human partner. Thus Bullinger's constant stress on the two natures of the Lord. Therefore once more the equivalency between testament and covenant shows up. Christ is God's promise to us, he is the fulfillment of that promise. Christ is also God offering the covenant, he is too humanity fulfilling the covenant."

Reformation Day

Today is Reformation Day, so it was sad to read this foonote in Douglas A. Campbell’s “The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul.”

Footnote 49 on page 999 reads: “Many of the Protestant lesser lights also arguable follow the two leading Reformers in their endorsement of their theory. Zwingli simply accepts Luther’s early work (up to 1519) and so he can be safely viewed as endorsing justification as well. Bullinger is highly conditional, although he does not articulate the full federal scheme: see J. Wayne baker, Heinrich Bullinger and the Covenant: The Other Reformed Tradition (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1980). Bullinger asserted the conditionality of the covenant in an unpublished treatise on baptism as early as 1525; however, he maintained the existence of only one covenant, in contradistinction to the federalists (etc). Weir suggested that Calvin and the Geneva theologians were less conditional than Zwingli,  Bullinger, and the Rhineland theologians as a whole: see David A. Weir, The Origins of Federal theology in Sixteenth Century Reformation Thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990); see also Steinmetz, Reformers in the Wings, 93-99, esp 94-97.”

It is so sad to see scholars write about Zwingli and Bullinger without having made a serious study of their works. This is especially the case when the Zurich reformers are considered “lesser lights.”

CALVIN’S LETTER TO BULLINGER RE LUTHER

The following is part of a letter that Calvin wrote to Bullinger in November 1544:

“I hear that Luther has at length broken forth in fierce invective, not so much against you as against the whole of us. On the present occasion, I dare venture to ask you to keep silence, because it is neither just that innocent persons should thus be harassed, nor that they should be denied the opportunity of clearing themselves; neither, on the one hand, is it easy to determine whether it would be prudent for them to do so. But of this I do earnestly desire to put you in mind, in the first place, that you would consider how eminent a man Luther is, and the excellent endowments wherewith he is gifted, with what strength of mind and resolute constancy, with how great skill, with what efficiency and power of doctrinal statement, he had hitherto devoted his whole energy to overthrow the reign of Antichrist, and at the same time to diffuse far and near the doctrine of salvation. Often I have been wont to declare, that even though he were to call me a devil, I should still not the less hold him in such honour that I must acknowledge him to be an illustrious srvant of God. But while he is endued with rare and excellent virtues, he labours at the same time under serious faults. Would that he had rather studied to curb this this restless, uneasy temperament which is so apt to boil over in every direction. I wish, moreover, that he had always bestowed the fruits of that vehemence of natural temperament upon the enemies of the truth, and that he had not flash his lightning sometimes also upon the servants of the Lord. Would that he had been more observant and careful in the acknowledgement of his own vices. Flatterers have done him much mischief, since his is naturally prone to be over-indulgent to himself. It is our part, however, so to reprove whatsoever evil qualities may beset him, as that we may make some allowance for him at the same time on the score of these remarkable endowments with which he has been gifted. This, therefore, I would beseech you to consider first of all, along with your colleagues, that you have to do with a most distinguished servant of Christ, to whom we area ll of us largely indebted …”

This illustrates well how Calvin encouraged the pastors in Zurich to be patient with Luther.

BULLINGER’S SERMON NOTES ON GENESIS

At the recent 11^th International Congress on Calvin Research held 24-27 August 2014 at Zurich Pierre Hildebrand presented a paper comparing Bullinger and Calvin on Genesis 17.


 

Hildebrand presented some of Bullinger’s unpublished sermon notes on Genesis. The manuscripts are kept in the Zentralbibliothek Zürich. Those who were present were not surprised to learn that in these handwritten notes he links together the themes of election, justification and sanctification which is not clearly evident in De testamento but expounded in his other works.

The relevant section of the sermon notes (dated somewhere between April 1536 and November 1537) reads as follows:

“We should be holy and irreproachable before God. (According to) Ephesians 1 (we are) elected before (the creation of) the world to be unblamable. The foundation of the covenant is the gracious admission into the covenant. It requires faith, so that we become perfect by faith. We should understand (here) the absolute perfection of Christ, which is imputed to us. Thereupn we are regenerated into integrity through the whole of life.”

CALVIN PROUD TO BE CALLED A ‘ZWINGLIAN’

In his opposition to the teaching of Osiander, Calvin was proud to be called a ‘Zwinglian.”
“But Osiander, by spurning this spiritual bond, forces a gross mingling of Christ with believers. And for this reason, he maliciously called ‘Zwinglian’ all those who do not subscribe to his mad error of ‘essential righteousness’ because they do not hold the view that Christ is eaten in substance in the Lord’s Supper. I consider it the highest glory to be thus insulted by a proud man …” (Institutes III.11.10)