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We continue in our Reformation Survey this week with a look at a sometimes forgotten reformer: Ulrich Zwingli. Who was Zwingli? What did the Lord use him to accomplish in Switzerland? What legacy has Zwingli left us? And why did Zwingli come into such conflict with those practicing believer’s baptism in Zurich? We’ll consider these questions and more.
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we continue we continue in our summer Reformation survey last week we learned about the man who accidentally sparked a massive Reform movement in 1517 with his posting of 95 Theses or assertions on indulgences and that man was Martin Luther but while Luther was leading reform and holy Roman Germany another man was independently leading reform in Switzerland and that’s the man that we’re going to learn about today a man named Ulrich zwingli and someone once characterized that three main figures of the Reformation as follows Martin Luther was the great prophet a courageous denouncer of evil and a proclaimer of god-saving gospel Ulrich zwingley was the great Expositor a careful verse by verse exegete who unveiled for his people what God’s word actually says John Calvin was the great Theologian an eloquent summarizer and systematizer of God’s truth though our practice of expository preaching ultimately goes back to the Bible itself but nonetheless are indebted to and can be greatly encouraged by the ministry of the great Expositor ulric zwingling but who was swingling some of you may have never even heard of him let’s find out just who he was one point of clarification before we proceed I mentioned to you last lesson that the Lutheran Church was challenged by its loss of land and lost the financial support but you may have wondered why did the church have land in the first place well let me explain in the Middle Ages the Catholic Church as a whole and various churches and monasteries within Christendom specifically became quite wealthy and soon quite corrupt but this is not because people simply gave money to the church or because the church sold indulgences another great factor in this wealth was land ownership you see when a church or a monastery was established it received an endowment of land usually from the local ruler and not only did the church building reside on this land but the church also received income from this land this income was meant to provide for church maintenance charity to the poor and the sustenance of the ministering clergy and even the papacy back in Rome now this certainly is not the new testament’s design for the church but is it really so bad for a church to support itself in this way well the problem was the Catholic Church kept gaining more and more land Pious medieval Christians concerned for their own souls and wanting to do good works before God often gifted part or all of their land to the church either the local church or to a monastery or something like that also less Pious Nobles would often gift land to a church or to a monastery in exchange for that institution appointing the nobleman’s son to the head position of that establishment either the bishop or the Abbot so he gives the land in exchange for having his son rule over that Monastery or church in this way over time certain churches and monasteries started to have huge swaths of land and the heads of those churches and monasteries had to start acting like worldly counts in Dukes to manage all the land and the people on the land that they now controlled some of these churchmen soon even raised and maintained whole armies and by the way the church did not pay taxes on their land which gave them a great financial advantage over other landowners in the medieval period and you can see why practices like simony and pluralism occurred becoming a bishop or Abbott was a great way to make money and to live a cushy lifestyle though you probably wouldn’t have time for any real Ministry because of all the land and people you would need to manage by the time of the Reformation the Catholic Church owned a lot of land and various local rulers often coveted Church land and church wealth and this made these rulers more sympathetic to Reformation ideas and when Reformation came into a certain region one of the things that would happen is that the churches would be the Catholic churches would be divested of their wealth and their land but of course then you have to ask then you have to find a new way to support those churches so that’s just a point of clarification so that we have a little bit understanding of some of the things that we hear in these lectures or in these lessons back to swingley let’s talk about swingly today rather than split the discussion of zwingily into different topics like I did with Luther we’re going to Simply move chronologically through zwingli’s life and zwingli’s life can be broken down into three main phases we’ll first see how zwingly came to embrace the Bible the true gospel and Reformation then we’ll see how zwingli promoted Reformation in Zurich that’s his main city of ministry and then we’ll see how Zing zwingli dealt with Catholic and anabaptist opposition toward the end of his life single with the great man used of God but like Martin Luther still an imperfect man and we have much to learn from zwingli’s life let’s pray before we continue my God our God we thank you for these men who came before us men and women okay God you help us to learn and be encouraged by their examples learn from their mistakes and I pray that you’d help me in being able to teach today in Jesus name amen all right swingly Ulrich zwingling there we go zwingley was born in vild house a small town in the eastern part of Switzerland on January 1st 1484. less than two months after Luther was born these two were pretty similar in many ways he was born in Switzerland he’s born to a sex successful farming family his father was a chief Town official that is he was in the local government now note that connection because this government Connection in the family would be influential or could have been influential on swingly’s later beliefs speaking of government Switzerland at the time is wingly and in a time of reformation is a isn’t a unique political situation well officially part of the Holy Roman Empire Switzerland was essentially independent of the emperor sometimes working with the Holy Roman Emperor and sometimes allying allying against him with France or the Papal States and Switzerland was not a United Kingdom Switzerland is one country today with a strong central government but back then Switzerland was actually a confederation oh here’s a little picture of 13 many countries called cantons and you can see the different cantons the different uh divisions of Switzerland each Canton could ally with whomever it wished and cantons could also go to war with one another it’s kind of like you can imagine the different counties of New Jersey and each county has its own independent government makes its own alliances and maintains its own Army that’s kind of like the situation in Switzerland zwingli was born into the Canton of saint gallin which is all the way the Northeast side over here and his parents groomed him to become a priest let me go back to my other slot his wingley received his Early Education from his uncle a Catholic clergyman and he later studied at schools at basil and Barron both in Switzerland and then the universities of Vienna and then back to Basil again and it’s cool swingly displayed great learning ability and while at University zwingly studied under the humanists remember those humanists and he began these humanists began to instill in him a desire to know classical texts and biblical text and also to see the abuses of the Catholic Church exposed and reformed he’s wingly graduated from basil in 1506 and became a priest in Glarus a city near his hometown now as a priest zwingley continued humanistic study he read the ancient Classics and the writings of some of the church fathers they studied the works of the humanists also especially or the like the works of Erasmus and he even began to correspond with many of the noted humanists so we also learned how to read Greek but his heart was not yet at peace with God he’s a priest he’s learning all these things he’s encountered the humanist but he still is not reconciled to God he wrote later of his early years as a priest quote though I was young ecclesiastical duties inspired me more fear than Joy because I knew and remained convinced that I would give an account of the blood of the sheep which would perish as a consequence of my carelessness unquote sound a little familiar also while a young priest zwingli actually had an affair with one of his parishioners yet God was drawing zwingly well priest another thing that zwingley did is that he served twice as a Chaplain to Swiss mercenaries fighting for the Pope in Italy Swiss mercenaries you see were valued fighting men for various European powers even today the soldiers that protect the Pope in Vatican City are known as The Swiss guard that goes back to this period this mercenary system seemed to work out well for both sides foreign powers got more well-trained soldiers and swiss cantons got more money but as chaplain to these mercenaries these Swiss mercenaries zwingly witnessed the Dark Side of mercenary service they saw his countrymen mercilessly looting conquered regions he watched some of his flock killed in Wars that had nothing to do with the Swiss and he even witnessed Swiss soldiers fighting against their fellow Swiss because they were mercenaries hired by both sides zwingley’s view on the papacy and on mercenary service therefore began to change he wrote two Works explaining why mercenary service was terrible for Swiss society and how France the Holy Roman Empire and even the papacy were actually exploiting the Swiss people in 1516 zwingli got his hands on erasmus’s Greek New Testament and he immersed himself in it remember that that critical Edition that very important version before long zwingli like Luther from studying the Greek text came to understand the Bible’s true teaching of salvation by faith and swingly was transformed and immediately he began to preach this gospel in galaris where he was serving as priest and all of this came about without Martin Luther’s influence zwingley actually wrote once later quote I began to preach the gospel of Christ in 1516. I started preaching the gospel before I had even heard Luther’s name Luther whose name I did not know for at least another two years had definitely not instructed me I followed Holy Scripture alone unquote so then here is another example of God’s salvation mercy God regenerated zwingly by his word and filled swingly with a passion for the gospel and for reform to be sure zwingley would later encounter Luther’s writings and greatly appreciate them because zwingley was always Keen to note that zwingli followed the Bible not Luther because of his anti-mersonary Publications zwingly had to leave Glarus in 1516 and instead became a priest at a Benedictine Abbey in einsey down which was the resort Town famed for its special Shrine to marry many European Christians came from all over Europe to the shrine on pilgrimage swingily is looking at all these Christian pilgrims coming to the shrine and what does he do well he preaches on the vanity of pilgrimages explains that there’s nothing in the New Testament that shows that pilgrimages have any effect on one’s spiritual condition actually zwingli’s position at imz down was perfect he had much fewer duties as priests at the Abbey and so they gave him more time to study the Bible and the writing to the church fathers moreover the constant influx of pilgrims to einsey down also allowed zwingli to preach to many different people each week and tell them the true gospel this is what zwingli did it kept on preaching there and he gained a respected reputation throughout Switzerland as a reformer as a preacher and as one who exposed the abuses in the Catholic Church especially indulgences now like Erasmus and Luther though zwingli did not initially Envision a radical break with Roma as wingly had in mind moral reform he wasn’t ready to get rid of the Pope or even change official church doctrine but he was as he preached gaining more and more confidence in the Bible and a change in church posts for swingly in 1519 would only strengthen the reformers confidence even more 1518 if it opened up at the gross Munster that is the great Cathedral Church in Zurich Zurich is another Canton in Switzerland position opened up for a preaching priest this was quite a prestigious post Zurich was the lead city of the Canton of Zurich also in Northeast Switzerland and this was a large and important Church moreover the leaders in Zurich appreciated zwingli’s Pro Swiss pro-humanist preaching and writing and so they invited him to take the job zwingily accepted now on January 1st 1519 he preached his first sermon at the gross Munster Church decided to do something a little uncustomary that day normally preachers in the Catholic Church preached according to the church calendar one week there was a certain topic or text and the next week a different topic or text and always according to the calendar you weren’t supposed to deviate from the traditional sermon for that week of the calendar but swingly with his humanist background thought it would be helpful if the people had some context to the way that they were hearing so starting that first Sunday in Zurich was wingly opened to the beginning of the New Testament The Book of Matthew and he began to read it and he began to explain it to his listeners verse by verse this is expository preaching and this is what he continued to do verse by verse passes by passage each week moving through the scriptures explaining it to the people in a language that they can understand the people we’re delighted they had never heard anything like this before the whole new testament read and explained to them in a way that they could understand and as they moved verse by verse zwingly sometimes encountered texts that obviously went against official Catholic dogma but zwingly remained true to the text if the text conflicted with Catholic teaching so be it one must be faithful to the Bible because the Bible is the ultimate Authority as people heard these contradictions of Catholic teaching reform was not far behind later that year in 1519 another development came that would have an impact on zwingley’s Ministry and that was the plague the plague came to Zurich many people fell sick two thousand died in the city but unlike most Nobles and most of the Catholic clergy zwingly did not flee Zurich he decided to stay and to continue to minister to his people during the plague he himself became sick and nearly died in this period but God was gracious to the people of Zurich and he didn’t take swingily home yet moreover zwingley’s decision to stay in Zurich with his flock won him the great favor of the people it’s one thing to preach a message it’s another thing to live it out to show True affection and love from God for people as wingley was doing just that zwingli recovered from his illness strengthened by God’s deliverance and he continued to preach in Zurich it took swingley six years to go through the New Testament verse by verse I know that’s actually a little bit quicker than some expositors today but as he did this radical reform broke out in Zurich in 1522 there was the famous Affair of the sausages you may have heard of this it was March during the time of Lent and as you know lent is a time of official fasting in the Catholic church and in the Middle Ages this most specifically meant fasting from meat during Lent you didn’t eat any meat in the Middle Ages but by this time in Zurich zwing Lee and many of his listeners have come to see the centrality of the word of God and on March 5th 1522 zwingley preached a sermon on how Christians are not obligated to keep fasts rather fasts are only voluntary four days later on March 9th Christophe froshauer a printer in Zurich a supporter of zwingli decided to grill up some sausages and he invited zwingly and 11 others to come partake of these sausages the group cut and ate two smoked sausages during Lent though swingly himself didn’t eat anything he was just present yeah why was this a big deal well you see froze shower with zwingly support was making a statement the Bible is the Christian’s true Authority not the Catholic church not the pope therefore I don’t have to follow lent and I can eat sausages if I want to and this event was no secret people heard about it I’m sure the neighbors smell the delicious sausages that we’re cooking and there was a bit of a public outcry as a result the printer was even arrested but zwingly defended froshauer’s actions in a subsequent sermon here’s an excerpt from that sermon what something really said quote just sum up briefly if you want to fast do so if you do not want to eat meat don’t eat it but allow Christians a free choice if you would be a Christian at heart act in this way if the spirit of your belief teaches you thus then fast but Grant also your neighbor the privilege of Christian Liberty and fear God greatly if you have transgressed his laws nor make what man has invented greater before God than what God himself has commanded unquote the swingly sermon persuaded the people and froshower was released the Catholic Church most specifically the bishop of constance who had oversight of Zurich however wanted to stop this teaching that zwingli was spreading from Zurich but it was too late swingily had the support of the people and Reformation was just beginning later in 1522 zwingli petitioned the Archbishop of constance to allow clerical marriage in Zurich arguing that mandated celibacy which had become the dogma of the church was not scriptural priests should be allowed to marry but the Archbishop responded with a big fat no you may not get married priests may not get married but swingly got married anyways secretly there’s actually some debate as to whether he got married before he sent this position petition to the Archbishop or after Prince either way this secret marriage may not have been the best idea or at least the way that zwingly went about it as you’ll see in just a moment married the Widow Anna Reinhard in 1522 but he announced this marriage publicly only two years later but by then Anna was obviously pregnant this caused a bit of a scandal it was one thing for a priest to get married especially without permission from the bishop but to have had a secret wife for two years and not tell the church about it uh this started all sorts of rumors the Revelation almost ended zwingli’s Ministry but God was gracious he brought swingly through it and he was allowed to continue to preach his marriage to Anna was actually a good one the two of them had four children together and had already had three children from her former marriage Anna reidhorn was a beautiful and godly woman a crucial help made to zwingly just as Catherine was to Luther she was called the apostolic dorkus referring to the righteous woman from the New Testament due to Anna’s care for others especially the poor and the sick she not only managed those wingly household but she continually encouraged her husband and helped ensure his protection in a city that presented increasing dangers to one leading reform she wanted she pretty much made sure that he never walked alone at night or in dangerous areas Shane’s wingley remain married until their marriage was cut short by zwingley’s death in 1531.
Anna died peacefully later due to ill health in 1538.
but back to reform in 1523 zwingly with his fellow reformers in Zurich wrote the 67 articles an explanation of reformed protestantism as they had understood it and an attack on many unbiblical practices of the Catholic Church presumingly presented these articles before the city council in Zurich understands Zurich as a republic it’s ruled by a city council rather than a duke or a king so he presents these to the city council and defends them before a representative from the bishop of constance this event is known as the first disputation now the Catholic representative from the bishop was pretty unprepared for the debate he’s his mode of um attack was basically to say this Doctrine stuff is a matter for Bishops not Layman so I refuse even to discuss it well it wasn’t very hard for zwingley to win the debate because he was quite willing to discuss it and the council was persuaded by swinging these arguments and approved the articles and they also let zwingli keep preaching in Zurich despite the Catholic Church’s demand for him to stop let me show you a few excerpts from these 67 articles these 67 statements of belief you’ll notice as we read through some of them some of the Reformation Solas those five Solas implied in these assertions so 67 articles number one all who say that the gospel is invalid without the confirmation of the church Heir and slander God assertion 19. Christ is the only mediator between God and ourselves number 20 God will always give everything in Christ’s name once it follows that for our part after this life we need no mediator except him 22 Christ is our justification from which follows that are from which follows that our good works I’m sorry let me say that again from which follows that our good works if they are of Christ are good but if ours they are neither right nor good 24. no Christian is bound to do those which God has not decreed hence one may eat at all times all food 27. all Christian men are Brethren of Christ and brothers to one another and the title of Father should not be assumed by anyone on Earth this includes orders sex and factions 28. all that God has allowed or not forbidden is right hence marriage is permitted to all human beings 34. there is no ground in the teachings of Christ for the pretensions of the so-called Spiritual Authority that is the Pope 35 where is the jurisdiction and authority of the secular power is based on the teachings and actions of Christ 36 all the rights and protection that the so-called Spiritual Authority claims belong to secular governments provided they are Christian 37 to them likewise all Christians oh obedience without exception man noticed in these last couple articles that while denigrating people Authority notice the authority that zwickley does promote as biblically supported the secular government which would be much to the liking of the city council who is a secular government notice though that zwingley says that this government must be Christian to deserve obedience from Christians so zwingley sees a strong connection between church and state really this whole disputation is an example of that connection the city government is sitting in judgment on religious matters and this close Church State connection is going to lead to problems later on as we’ll see later in today’s lesson one more article 63 to sum up that realm is best and most stable which is ruled in accordance with God’s will alone and the worst is and weakest is that which is ruled arbitrarily in other words the best thing for Zurich to do is to follow Reformation not the Pope and as we saw the council accepted these articles and Reformation just kept coming later in 1523 there’s a second disputation before the council regarding the mass and religious icons the results of this disputation took a little while to take effect but by 1524 1525 we have full zwingling Reformation in effect in Zurich all according to the regulative principle of worship remember what the regulative principle means unless the New Testament expressly commands you to do it you cannot do it in the church so this means lots of changes in Zurich especially in the church icons are removed the sacrificial Mass was abolished and the memorial of the Lord’s Supper is put in its place the altar for the the altar in the church was removed and tables were brought in to simulate a meal swingly got rid of the Chalice normally used in communion and instead used wooden cups now unlike Luther zwingli saw the preaching of the Bible rather than the Eucharist at the center of the worship service in fact zwingly may have overcompensated and Zurich as a whole and following swingly they de-emphasized the Eucharist so much that they only took communion about four times a year but he did Elevate preaching other reforms the bones of saints were buried so that it couldn’t be venerated anymore and the gold and silver of relics was melted down there were no more prayers for the dead monasteries were turned into hospitals and schools their wealth seized by the government creatures no longer dressed in Priestly robes they instead dressed up as professors and academics Catholic fasts and holidays are no longer celebrated church organs were dismantled and choirs were abolished no on this last one you say wait wait what are we doing now why get rid of those well this is the regular principle there’s no organ in the New Testament there’s no mention of choirs in the New Testament so you get rid of them this isn’t because wingley was anti-music he actually was a skilled musician himself a violin player but in church worship he didn’t see a place for instruments or choirs now you may ask what about the Old Testament they’re clearly instruments and choirs there well don’t know how swingley would have answered that but probably he would have said oh that’s that’s the Old Testament that’s just a shadow of what was to come it’s not prescriptive for the New Testament Church we stick to the New Testament so if you’re in Zurich no instruments to the New Testament in 1524 zwingli and some colleagues finished a translation of the New Testament into Swiss and they also finished a translation of the whole Bible in 1530. actually a couple years before Luther and his colleagues did the same in Germany so unfettered gospel declaration has been Unleashed in Zurich and is spreading into the surrounding Canyons by 1525.
but opposition was also building like with Luther conflict came as reform moved forward Not only would the Catholics but also just like with Luther with Protestants who felt like reform was not going far enough now I know that seems surprising because it’s like we asked you mean there are reformers more radical than zwingli he’s getting rid of the organ he’s smashing the icons Yes actually there were more radical reformers and this is where we run into somewhat unfortunate part of zwingley’s ministry we must now look at his interaction with the anabaptists now I mentioned that term before what’s an anabaptist well the name literally means re-baptizer it along with the term catabaptist refers to really those in the Reformation period who practiced Believers baptism that is you get baptized only actually only after you actually become saved and believe in Jesus in the eyes of infant Baptists those who practice Believers baptism were actually re-baptizing people they want to re-baptize everybody who’s already been baptized as an infant really these terms anabaptist or catabaptist were pejorative terms oh those are re-baptizers but really it seems to seems to be the case that pejorative terms always become the actual labels of various people in in religious movements they became the terms at stick and that we call them today in a mattress in different parts of Europe believed pretty different things when I say anabaptist that could refer to really radical people who want to upset the social order and rise up in Rebellion but we can refer to people who are a little more right on and it’s that latter group that we see a rise in Zurich in many ways this group of anabaptists who called themselves the brethren they were pretty Orthodox they were actually students of zwingli who learned to Value the Bible as he did and they were firmly committed to their regulative principle of worship they felt though that as zwingly pursued reform in Zurich that he was actually compromising the Bible for the sake of government favor and support zwingly they felt would not proceed with Reformation even though he knew it to be biblical if the government would not support him for example back in 1523 when the mass was being discussed in the second disputation before the city council some of the Brethren thought that zwingli should abolish the mass with or without the council’s approval they asserted that after all the Bible does not make civil government authoritative in spiritual matters so who cares what they think let’s just do what’s biblical because wingly however really wants to get the council’s approval before taking such a serious step of abolishing the mass so observing this in swingly these students of swingling the Swiss Brethren they began to distance themselves from their former mentor until a showdown arose between zwingling and the anabaptists in 1524 and 1525.
when the city council decreed that all people in Zurich should have their infants baptized now what precisely zwingley believed about infant baptism is a little difficult to determine at one point he did say that infants who were not baptized did not go to hell that was one of the reasons that you had to have your infant baptized in the Catholic Church without that they’re not going to heaven so he rejected that so it’s not as if zwingly saw infant baptism as critical for salvation furthermore when the council wanted to enforce infant baptism in Zurich zwingily consulted with some of the Brethren about the issue he wanted their opinion the Brethren said essentially look the New Testament supports Believers baptism not infant baptism if you’re going to be faithful to the scriptures zwingly like you say you are committed to being then you’ve got to go against the city council in this but the city council became aware of the Brethren’s teaching on baptism Believers baptism and so they called for a public debate the third disputation which centered on baptism what are the two sides of this debate what would end up being zwingly versus the anabaptists zwingley took the side of the city council that is the side of infant baptism and you argued against the brethren why did zwingley do this did he really believe in infant baptism or was this about submitting to the government with zwingly convinced that even if Credo baptism were true that the council will never would never approve of it or was not ready for it yet it’s hard to say hard to say what swingley was thinking many have noted that infant baptism was very entrenched in the society at this time it’s not simply a matter of what does the Bible say or at least it wouldn’t have appeared so to them you actually became a citizen in Zurich or really in any place in Europe at your infant baptism at your christening so was zwingly concerned that such a reform and baptism would overthrow the social