In October, especially on the last Sunday, Christians commemorate the Reformation. However, not all seem to understand the significance of that great spiritual awakening of the 16th century. In an age when people often dismiss doctrinal fidelity and fervour for the sake of outward unity, we must remember that biblical truths are at stake in our generation. We risk forgetting the very truths that earlier generations died to uphold.
In this article and in the coming weeks, we will examine why the Reformers could not remain silent and why the church today must continue to uphold Scripture and its authority and the Gospel of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
The late medieval Catholic Church restricted ordinary believers’ access to Scripture and faced widespread criticism for corruption. The sale of indulgences and clerical abuses prompted calls for theological and ecclesiastical reform across Europe. The following issues contributed to the events of the early 16th century that became known as the Reformation.
The ready access to Scripture that we enjoy today was not available to many Christians in medieval Europe. From the 13th century onwards, ordinary believers’ access to Scripture had been severely restricted in various places, and those who possessed, translated, or distributed translations of the Bible faced harsh punishment, even death.
In Western Europe, the church used the Latin Vulgate, which most people could not understand. Limited literacy and the expense of handwritten copies of the Bible made it even harder for many people to know Scripture. Furthermore, the church authorities’ condemnation of vernacular Bible translations as heretical greatly hindered access to the truths of God’s Word.
Many ordinary people had little opportunity to read and examine Scripture for themselves. They depended heavily upon what the clergy communicated through preaching and instruction. The Reformers therefore laboured to translate, publish, and teach the Bible in the languages of the people. They upheld the congregation’s responsibility to hear and understand God’s Word and to test the religious teaching by it.
In the Bible, the Bereans were commended because they “received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11). Access to Scripture was essential to the church’s spiritual welfare. God’s people needed His Word to instruct their faith, expose error, and guide their lives.
Efforts to make Scripture available in ordinary people’s languages often met severe persecution. For example, William Tyndale, whose English translation helped bring God’s Word to countless readers in England, was arrested in 1535, imprisoned, condemned for heresy, and executed in 1536 near Brussels. He was strangled, and his body was burned. His work of translating and circulating Scripture brought about fierce opposition against him. Tyndale was not alone in suffering for his efforts to bring Scripture to ordinary people. Richard Bayfield, who helped circulate Tyndale’s English New Testament and other Reformation writings, was condemned as a heretic and was burned in 1531.
On 16 October 1555, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, bishops who refused to accept Roman Catholic doctrines, were chained to a stake near Balliol College, Oxford, and burned for opposing the wrong teachings of the Church. As the flames rose, Latimer encouraged Ridley, declaring that, by God’s grace, they would light a candle in England that would never be extinguished. Many witnesses wept as these faithful preachers perished. Just over five months later, Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1533 to 1555, who played a major role in introducing Protestant teaching into the Church of England, suffered the same death at that site. These three men are sometimes known as the Oxford Martyrs. Today, a stone cross in Broad Street marks their execution site, while the nearby Martyrs’ Memorial commemorates their courageous testimony to biblical truth and their steadfast faithfulness unto death.
Such sacrifices made by saints of the Reformation period give believers access to the Bible today. Their sacrifice should stir us to treasure Scripture and diligently read His Word, which is now so freely available to us.
The Roman Catholic Church held that church tradition and the teachings of the Church Fathers were as authoritative as Scripture in determining the church’s doctrines and practices. However, the Reformers rejected the Catholic Church’s view that tradition was as authoritative as Scripture, and declared Scripture alone is authoritative and sufficient for all matters of faith and practice.
The Reformers objected to ecclesiastical authorities imposing doctrines and practices that lacked biblical warrant on believers. They challenged the claim that ecclesiastical traditions and authoritative church pronouncements (papal decrees) could bind the consciences of believers. Many of the church’s teachings and practices at that time could not stand the test of Scripture.
Reformers therefore affirmed Sola Scriptura: Scripture alone is the supreme and final standard by which all traditions, councils, and papal pronouncements must be tested. The Church should always be subordinate to God’s written Word and must remain subject to its correction.
A central conviction of the Protestant Reformation was that Scripture alone has supreme and final authority in matters of faith and practice. The Reformers maintained that the church must receive, teach, and obey God’s Word. Its authority to instruct believers does not give it the right to establish doctrines contrary to Scripture or impose requirements that God has not commanded.
This conviction rests on Scripture’s divine origin. Paul declares, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). Because Scripture is God’s Word, it possesses authority that no human teacher or institution can claim independently. Through its teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, “that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (v. 17). The church therefore needs to continually submit to the written Word which God has provided.
The Reformation’s insistence on Scripture alone thus called the church back to humble obedience to His Word. The church does not govern God’s Word; God’s Word governs the church. Consequently, every doctrine, practice, and claim must be tested against Scripture. As Isaiah 8:20 declares, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them”.
