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| When Kenneth MacRae, minister of the Free Church of Scotland congregation in Stornoway, was in Australia on a preaching tour in 1954 he wrote these words in his diary for June 19th. "I sought to make clear that the danger which threatened us was due to a lack of appreciation of the value of the Reformation testimony for which we stand, and which in time would lead, if unchecked, to the abandoning of our whole position. I reminded them that the Reformation witness was that for which martyrs died, and that it was as precious today as then, for truth never changes. This I emphasised was the duty that faced our ministers today, both at home and in Australia, if the church was to survive - the rousing of our people to an appreciation of the value of our Reformation testimony and to a sense of the responsibility the possession of such a testimony conferred upon them." (Diary of Kenneth MacRae, edited by lain Murray, Banner of Truth 1980, p.428).
These words show one man's realisation of the importance of history. That realisation should be common to all Christians. Sadly, it is not. Just as in the 1950s it was necessary to remind people of the past so it is today if we are going to be faithful in handing on the Gospel to succeeding generations. Dr Lloyd-Jones, in his sermons on Isaiah reviewed elsewhere in this issue, said, also in 1954, "If you read your history books, and have eyes to see, you will see the glory of God in history in exactly the same way as you see it in creation" (p.37).
In this utilitarian age the study of history has gone out of fashion. Of what use is it? That is the question people ask. Yet Christians above all others should know and be able to answer that question as Dr Lloyd-Jones does. We claim to be the children of the only true and living God, and if He is all that the Scripture reveals Him to be He is working out His purpose actively in all that occurs in this world, indeed in the whole universe. We can look at the history of past ages and see the hand of God at work.
This is obviously the case from Scripture. There was a point when God spoke to bring everything into being. He created this present world for a purpose.
When Adam sinned against Him He passed judgement on him. At the same time He declared that there would be a Redeemer who would deal with sin. We see this purpose unfolding in the developing story of mankind. God brings judgement on a sinful world, but saves Noah and his family. He calls Abram and makes promises to him that we see being fulfilled in the events that follow across many centuries. The Israelites are delivered from Egypt by God's working through Moses. They eventually enter the promised land of Canaan and conquer it under the leadership of Joshua.
So the Bible record continues, showing the living God at work in His chosen people, but also in dealings with other nations too. Eventually we come to the birth of the Saviour, born at a particular place at a particular time. It was an actual historical event. His is a life lived out in time, a part of history. Here are events and teaching that belong to that time and yet have eternal significance. Christ died for our sins as a once-for-all action in history. It was done in those few but long hours on the cross, and its effect has transformed the lives and hopes of billions of people across the centuries in taking away their sins forever.
The resurrection is no myth but an historical event. A dead man was raised to life, and not just for a few more days or years but for all eternity. This historical event is the guarantee of all that God has promised to those who belong to His Son. We look for yet another great historical event, the coming again of our Lord Jesus. In the meantime we see the hand of God at work in the ongoing history of the Christian Church. The first instances of this are found in Acts, and we also have recorded inspired teaching from the apostles, not only explaining more about Christian doctrine but also how Christians are to behave in the world, making history by their lives.
We must not make the common mistake of ignoring virtually everything that has happened in Christian history between the close of the canon of Scripture and our own generation, as though it were of no importance to us. We are where we are today because of what has gone before. We can only understand our present position if we know at least something of the way in which the Church has grown and developed. We need to be able to spot points where there was divergence from Scripture. We need to identify areas that reflect proper scriptural application.
We have to distinguish between historical facts, though, and the interpretation of those facts. The same events can be seen in very different ways by those who come to them with differing presuppositions. We have to recognise that this is true for us. We must be careful that we do not let those presuppositions or prejudices colour the way we see or describe events. Scripture provides us with a corrective if we are inclined to think of our heroes as spotless. The Bible is absolutely frank in indicating the weaknesses in the greatest saints. Only the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect, and we must never forget that. Once we are clear on this, and accept that truth matters far more than anything else if we are to benefit from a study of history, we are in a position to use it for the glory of God and the good of the Church in our own day.
This is where Mr MacRae's words take on significance for us. We need to know how important is the Reformation for our spiritual standing. This is especially true because of those who would downplay its beneficial effects. There is such a thing as revisionist history. It takes accepted views of the past and presents them in an entirely different light. An example from the world of politics concerns the Communist regime under Stalin. Pictures that once contained the images of early revolutionary heroes were doctored when some of these people were condemned and executed as traitors. They were airbrushed out as non-persons.
The other day we had a phone call from a parent saying that a child in the family had been told at school that Guy Fawkes was a Protestant. Now it is possible that the child didn't hear all that the teacher said, and it is true that Fawkes was born into a Protestant family. However, he became a Roman Catholic, left the country and fought in the King of Spain's army against Protestants in the Low Countries. Was this idea that he was a Protestant part of the revisionist version of the Gunpowder Plot that maintains the conspirators were set-up by the Protestant Secret Service, that it was all designed to discredit Roman Catholics, and that it presented no real threat to the King and Parliament at all? Is not the traditional account far more likely to be true, so that the rejoicing that followed it was a proper recognition of the good hand of God on our country?
There have been other instances of revisionist tendencies in the Roman press recently. At the risk of causing readers to have an apoplectic fit we quote from a recent review of a book setting out the theory that Shakespeare put coded messages into his plays to cheer those who still held to the old religion. "... Catholic historians have destroyed the Protestant myth of Good Queen Bess's golden days, presenting a counter-portrait of Elizabethan government as a Stalinist regime run by grasping men bent on eradicating the old faith in England. If no more than 320-odd Catholics were executed on purely religious grounds during Elizabeth's reign, perhaps as many as 30,000 were forced into exile, while countless others died in prison or were ruined by recusancy fines... the English people remained overwhelmingly Catholic in sentiment."
The review goes on to say that for readers of this Roman paper "it is axiomatic that the Reformation was an unmitigated catastrophe; that under Elizabeth the national Church offered scant spiritual comfort; and that the Queen's ministers - chiefly William and Robert Cecil - were vicious Macchiavellian operators capable of any villainy in their determination to destroy the traditional sacramental religion".
The same paper, in an earlier review of a book by Rowan Williams about the quest for the historical church, speaks about "an elaborate myth of Anglican origins involving a heroic struggle to cast off the corrupt, superstitious and above all unEnglish tyranny of Rome". It takes Dr Williams to task for not reminding "us how the English Reform was actually implemented: by a coterie of extremist clergy, using all the apparatus of state terror (legal disabilities, confiscation of goods, propaganda, torture, judicial murder) to force innovations down the throats of a reluctant and vibrantly Catholic populace". Whatever does that reviewer make of the Inquisition, St Bartholomew's Eve, and, in our own country, the activities of Mary Tudor?
Yet this is what many Roman Catholics read and what they may actually believe. Is it not a scandal, therefore that Evangelical Protestants in this country seem to care so little for the study of history and are in no position to correct these views? It is not our task to whitewash the failings of our Protestant ancestors. It is important we should freely acknowledge where they may have been at fault. Nor are we simply to blackguard every Roman Catholic in the Reformation period. We do have a responsibility, though, to stand up for the truths rediscovered and implemented at the time of the Reformation. Indeed we may want to push those truths harder to bring about further reformation in today's churches.
We have a responsibility to do this for the glory of God. If we believe Protestant doctrine to be true we must also accept that this is because it is God's truth, the truth by which we are saved and guided in the way we are to live. The Reformation marks a wonderful work of God. Man's foolishness may have marred it in sectarianism, but that does nothing to diminish the truth of the gospel of the grace of God. It is that truth on which we must stand and for which we must contend. We shall be able to do it better if we recognise the importance of history and study it for ourselves. |
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