One of the most disturbing trends among avowedly Reformed leaders of our day is the intellectualizing of our most holy faith. By this I mean two things:

1. Thinking in philosophical rather than Biblical terms;

2. Writing and speaking in scholarly rather than plain terms.

From many available examples, I quote only one: “If the ontological view is given to hyper-immanence, the critical approach embraces a hyper-transcendence in which the reality of God can be neither affirmed nor denied, but can serve only as a place-holder for things like the ‘universal religion of morality’ in contrast to an ‘ecclesiastical faith’ (Kant) or Derrida’s equivalent contrast of a ‘universal messianic structure’ over against the actual arrival of any particular messiah . . . If univocity fits with ‘overcoming estrangement’ and analogy with ‘meeting a stranger’, then equivocity is the epistemology of choice for post-modern skepticism.” [Taken from a recent Reformed theological journal.]

In view of the wondrous simplicity of Holy Scripture and Luther’s reminder that “it is very dangerous to speak of divine things in a different way from that which God Himself uses”, such jargon should be banned from all Christian writing. Shedd’s ideal of plain-ness, force and beauty should always guide us when speaking or writing of Him of whom it is written: “the common people heard Him gladly.” (Mark 12.37) Your editor is not likely to forget an early Puritan Conference in which there was much proud vying for victory in debate. When his turn came to preach, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones announced his text: “knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth” (1 Cor 8.1) and proceeded to preach with such point, unction and power that several heads that were only a short while before lifted up in pride were now bowed low in shame and repentance (I trust). Dear friends, what is more plain, heart-piercing and beautiful than the words of our Saviour: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt 11.28)? Let us speak and write to the heart and conscience if we would be useful in the kingdom of God.

Introduction

In an appendix to his work on the atonement the distinguished Free Church of Scotland theologian Hugh Martin (1822-85) expresses his thoughts on Psalm 119.12 - “Blessed art Thou, O Lord; teach me Thy statutes.” At a time in our history when God is not in all our thoughts, Martin’s exposition is most relevant. Let us accompany him, “depending on the blessed God Himself to teach us.”

The Blessedness of God

At the outset, Martin acknowledges just how much his subject is beyond him. “The blessedness of God! It is a great deep, it is a dazzling bright abyss. We can look into it only as with shaded eyes; we can speak of it only as with lisping tongue, like children. Yet if with childlike spirit we look, and listen, and meditate, our exercise may neither be unacceptable to the blessed God nor destitute of blessing to ourselves.”

The blessedness of God, he now claims, springs from four sources: His perfections, His natural supremacy, His moral sovereignty and His inter-Trinitarian fellowship.

His Perfections

Such ‘positive’ perfections as His infinite wisdom, power, love and intelligence, in their harmonious fulness, make God supremely blessed. His ‘negative’ perfections do no less: “In Him is no darkness, no gloom, no shadow; no variableness, or shadow of turning. In Him is no malevolence; no pleasure even in the death of the vilest or most wicked of the wicked. In Him is no unrighteousness, no inequality . . . no excess, no defect; no incongruity, no conflicting element, no discord; no stain, no blemish, no shade, no spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing. In all the boundless fulness of His Being He is right, and only right - right, righteous, upright; even as one of His adoring servants hath sung: ‘To show that the Lord is upright: He is my Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.’ (Psa 92.15) How then can we think of Him as other than ‘the blessed God’?”

His Natural Supremacy

God’s natural supremacy, or “absolute independence and superiority over all that exists”, clearly forms part of His blessedness according to Romans 9.5 - ‘God over all, blessed for ever.’ Not only does everything exist “by His will and at His pleasure”, but also His “omnipotent and self-sufficient Godhead sits enthroned above all being . . . exalted above all circumstances, above all creatures, above all changes, above all influences.” No alien influence or creaturely will can ever cross, invade, affect or control His blessedness or disturb its serenity.

His Moral Sovereignty

God’s moral sovereignty forms no small part of His blessedness. As Judge, Lawgiver and King, He saves His people - sovereignly, judicially, morally - in such a way that they willingly recognize, welcome and glorify Him for their salvation. Indeed, the more they see it to be “the pure and simple expression of His sheer and absolute will, so much the more” will they see that “it is blessed, and be disposed to acquiesce and rejoice in it.” For nothing in it can contradict either His loving nature or His sovereign, moral righteousness. So, Martin infers, “it concerns me much, if I am to be His subject and His servant, to see His sovereignty as ruled by nothing but His nature, His will controlled by nothing but His perfections, His reign worthy of His absolute supremacy . . . Let Him do what seemeth good in His own sight alone. Let me rejoice that He taketh counsel with none . . . ‘Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.’ Thy sovereign rule is blessed as Thy nature is blessed. Thou art the blessed and only Potentate. Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.”

Inter-Trinitarian Fellowship

The blessedness of God springs too from “fellowship in the everlasting relations of the ever-blessed Three in One . . . the doctrine of the Trinity enters indispensably into the blessedness of God”, for it provides fellowship adequate to God’s capacity for it. Unitarianism is cold, silent, barren of all divine fellowship, but the terms ‘I am’ and ‘Thou art’ express a rich eternal relationship within the Godhead. This ineffable fellowship completes the blessedness of God.

God’s Law is Statute Law

From the word ‘statutes’ in his text, Martin next asserts that “the law of God is statute law . . . moral law . . . commandment . . . judicial, authoritative, peremptory.” It always says: ‘Thou shalt’ or ‘Thou shalt not.’

Martin now refutes two errors:

First, the notion that we are ruled by natural law, acting impersonally by power alone. No, he counters vigorously; we are morally responsible agents. God shows me, he testifies, “that I am under law; I personally under law to Him, a living Person, sovereign, and giving me commandment. He shows me that I have broken that commandment, and He is justified in thence condemning me. He shows me also a glorious One to whom He gave commandment also - a very different commandment - a commandment to lay down His life for the sheep; and He accepted the commandment and the responsibility; and not at the loss of the sinner’s life, but the surrender of His own. He brings deliverance to the captive, and quells the sinner’s pride, and maketh him the ward and pupil . . of the everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace.” Now “I am under law to Him; He is always saying to me: ‘Thou shalt.’ He is my Lord, my Sovereign, my Lawgiver, my King.” What an honour it is to offer “free and willing obedience to His sovereign word and will.” This is far better than being a star or planet under natural law. “Yes, blessed art Thou, O Lord, my Lawgiver and King; teach me Thy statutes.”

The second error Martin refutes is Antinomianism, the notion that the moral law of God is not binding on the believer. Antinomians teach that, being regenerated by the Spirit of God, the believer has the law “in his heart as the law of his heart”, so that he now has no need of an outward commandment “to rule, and bind, and obligate him.” Moved spontaneously by this inward principle, he has no need of “external imperative law.”

To this falsehood Martin opposes three facts:

1. External law was given to the first Adam, even when he had God’s law in his heart.

2. External law was meat and drink to the second Adam, even when He had God’s law in his heart. (Psa 40.8) “Every word He uttered, every work He did, was by commandment: ‘The Father which sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say.’ (John 12.49)” And so, both “His willing priestly act of laying down His life” and “His kingly act of taking it again” were incomparable acts of obedience to strict, imperative statute. ‘I lay it down of myself . . and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.’ (John 10.18) Indeed, His present pleas as our Advocate at the throne of God, His willingness to receive the vilest sinner, and His future subjection to the Father, that God may be all in all, are all acts of obedience to divine, moral law.

3. Even with the Spirit and law of God within them, believers are not exempt from that law whose commandment is holy, and just, and good, as Paul teaches. (Rom 7.12) David too rejoiced to confess: ‘Thou hast COMMANDED us to keep Thy precepts diligently. O that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes. Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect to all Thy commandments.’ (Psa 119.4-6)

The Relationship between God’s Blessedness and His Statutes

To show how God’s blessedness and His statutes are related, Martin simply explains:

1. If we would learn God’s statutes, we must contemplate His blessedness. Just as a pupil readily obeys the teacher who has all the qualities that inspire him to learn, and just as every Christian is ready to serve the minister whose face radiates his inner love and joy, so we will readily place ourselves under God’s law when we see the glory of His blessedness. So, may ‘God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us.’ (Psa 67.1) The statutes of a God so blessed cannot possibly be grievous to us.

2. If we would safely contemplate His blessedness, we must obey His statutes. Martin adds the word ‘safely’ because if we refuse to obey Him, it will be because we ourselves want to be independent and free of all restraint. The Antinomian mind is a carnal mind, full of enmity against God, and not subject to His statute law.

By contrast, never are believers made more willing to be “subject to the law of God than in being justified freely by His grace”; for in “the very act of receiving forgiveness and acceptance in the Beloved”, we both submit ourselves to the righteousness of God (Rom 10.3) and become partakers of His blessedness. ‘Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.’ (Psa 32.1-2) Our justification is “a legal act, a sovereign deed.” It takes place in heaven’s court of law, “where all is statute and ordained.”

It is therefore good for us to be under law to God. This is how we give a “personal, practical acknowledgment of . . His absolute sovereignty”, of the fact that He reigns over us, that we are in His kingdom, hearkening, like the angels, to the voice of His commandment. “That, and that alone, will keep me safe, as I gaze into the bright and fathomless abyss of the blessedness of God.” Indeed, we never truly acknowledge His sovereignty until we live in subjection to Him - “subjection absolute, unconditional, unqualified, even as His sovereignty is absolute, unqualified, unconditional . . . and the more I learn, and the more I am subject, the more do I see, and the more deeply do I rejoice in seeing, that He is the blessed and only Potentate. I can safely see His blessedness then. Blessed art Thou, O Lord; teach me Thy statutes.”

Concluding Application

To bring home to our hearts and consciences this profound exposition, Martin makes two brief appeals:

First, “cherish a deep sense of God’s statutes as authoritative, imperative, of absolute and unchangeable obligation . . . They are His commandments, for ever binding all men, regenerate and unregenerate alike; and they are enforced by authority most absolute, from which there is and can be no appeal.”

This is why Antinomianism is a fundamental error - “fundamental, all-pervasive, and fatal.” Unless we see God’s law as eternally binding, we can never understand sin, for sin is transgression of the law. Furthermore, we shall remain “incapable of conviction of sin; incapable of self-condemnation; incapable of contrition or repentance unto life; incapable of faith in Jesus Christ, who magnified the law”; and “incapable of receiving the sprinkling of His blood.” Moreover, we shall remain incapable of being sanctified, “for a man is sanctified in so far as, and no further than, he is obedient to the law of God. I know of no spirituality”, says Martin emphatically, “that is not unqualified, unconditional obedience to God’s unconditional, sovereign authority.” Let all, therefore, heed the apostolic warning: ‘If any man think himself to be . . spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.’ (1 Cor 14.37)

Martin’s final appeal is to “ascribe blessedness to our God.” The text, he reminds us, “is not a cold, didactic assertion of the proposition that God is a blessed Being. It is the warm, adoring, direct ascription of blessedness to Him by a soul in communion with Him, rejoicing in His blessedness: ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord.’

Therefore, brethren, join with me in thus ascribing blessedness unto our God. Bless ye God in the congregations, even the Lord from the fountain of Israel. Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Yea, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David. And blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead. And blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who keepeth not His blessedness unto Himself, but hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. His name shall endure for ever; His name shall be continued as long as the sun; and man shall be blessed in Him — all nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things; and blessed be His glorious name for ever. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting, and let all the people say, Amen. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy. From every voice upon the crowded battlements of Zion let the joyful shout ascend, and let it be echoed back from all that are around the throne. Bless the Lord, ye His angels that excel in strength, and do His COMMANDMENTS, hearkening unto the voice of His word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye His hosts; ye ministers of His that do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, all His works, in all places of His dominions. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Amen and Amen.”

This year marks the 450th anniversary of the martyrdoms of three outstanding men of the English Protestant Reformation - John Hooper, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. May we give thanks to God for their noble stand for truth and never forget the imperishable words of Latimer to Ridley as the Satanically-forged flames consumed them: “Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man, for we shall this day light such a candle in England as I trust by God’s grace shall never be put out.”

Some Reformation Theologians:
Menno Simons (1496-1561)

Introduction

In Menno Simons we have a figure quite different to other Reformers. Regarded as both “the greatest Anabaptist of the Reformation era” and “one of the greatest religious leaders of the 16th century” (N.Needham), Menno represents the gentler aspects of the ‘Radical Reformation’ (the movement that sought not only the correction of Catholicism but also the reform of the Reformation).

His Life

Born at Witmarsum in the Netherlands in 1496, Menno, after some education in either a local Latin or a monastery school, spent the first years of his adult life as a “well paid parish priest” within the Roman system at Pingjum, the site of his father’s ancestral home. (1524-31) Here he dissipated his time in “frivolous activities, such as drinking and playing cards.” But in 1526 he began the “independent” study of Scripture, prompted by doubts about the alleged miracle of transubstantiation. “It occurred to me,” he later recalled, “as often as I handled the bread and wine in the mass, that they were not the flesh and blood of the Lord.” By 1529 his doubts had spread to the practice of infant baptism, a second pillar of established tradition. Two years later he had definitely concluded that “all were deceived about infant baptism.”

After searching the writings of Origen, Cyprian, Augustine, Cyril and Tertullian, and comparing his ‘findings’ with those of his contemporaries Zwingli, Luther, Bucer and Bullinger, Menno abandoned his faith in both the mass and infant baptism, but concealed his new beliefs and continued in the priesthood. Later, on hearing of the beheading of a fellow Frieslander for being publicly ‘re-baptised,’ and (more decisively) of the butchering of three hundred violent Anabaptists at Bolsward, including his brother Peter, he bitterly reproached himself for his duplicity, and began openly to proclaim “the living and sanctifying word of the holy gospel of Jesus Christ.” Gaining for himself the reputation of being an “evangelical preacher,” Menno later viewed this expression of inexperienced zeal as being “without spirit and love.” (1535-36)

It was during this turbulent period that he sought pardon from God “through the merits of the crimson blood of Christ,” with the result that early in 1536 he made his “exodus from Popedom.” Thereafter, his comfortable benefice at Witmarsum, to which he had been transferred five years earlier, was exchanged for the dangerous and uncertain existence of a persecuted dissident.

Following a brief pastorate among a handful of Anabaptists in Groningen (1537), Menno was forced to seek refuge wherever God opened the door. From now on, he was a hunted man. With special compassion for the “poor misguided sheep” who had no spiritual shepherd, he preached by night to secret gatherings in woods, fields and barns, accompanied everywhere by his wife and three children.

A disputation with the Polish Reformer John a Lasco at Emden constrained him to seek a new sphere for his message in the Cologne diocese of its reforming bishop, Hermann van Wied. (1544-47) Under the intolerant rule of the bishop’s ‘replacement,’ however, he fled to the Hanseatic towns of Lubeck and Wismar. These Baltic sea-ports became bases for his itinerant ministry until 1554, when he found shelter on the estate of the lord of Oldesloe. Here Menno set up a printing shop to serve his writings. Poor, yet loved by a few, he ended his pilgrimage of suffering in 1561 at Wustenfeld, and was buried in his own cabbage garden.

His Theology: Formative Influences

We may trace several formative influences on Menno’s theology.

On the negative side stand his rejection of the ‘Church Fathers’ as reliable teachers of doctrine; his conviction that the ‘magisterial Reformers’ reached their views more through speculation than from the Scriptures; his strong aversion to the anarchical violence of the Munster Anabaptists; and his rejection of Luther’s teaching on Christian liberty as encouraging licentiousness.

Positively, he was convinced by the teaching of Wessel Gansford and others against transubstantiation; the writings of Melchior Hoffman (“the father of Dutch Anabaptism”) against infant baptism; Sebastian Franck’s historical and theological studies; Luther, whose forceful separation of “the Word of God” from “the doctrines of men” assured him that he would not lose his salvation for ignoring the latter; Erasmus, whose moralistic humanism pointed him along the path of non-violent, non-separatist reform; and his own “common sense” understanding of sola scriptura.

The Authority of Holy Scripture

While nowhere expressly stating his views on the authority of Holy Scripture, Menno saturated his mind with its contents, taught its decisive role in conversion and claimed to base his entire programme of reform on its authority. “Behold, my worthy brethren,” he writes, “against the doctrines, sacraments . . life . . imperial decrees, papal bulls, councils of the learned, human philosophy, Origen, Augustine, Luther, Bucer, imprisonment, banishment or murder mean nothing; for it is the eternal, imperishable Word of God.” This indiscriminate disdain for all human authority constituted no small part of Menno’s radicalism.

Certainly, he claimed from the Parable of the Sower, conversion takes place only when the spiritual seed of the Word is germinated by the Holy Spirit to produce a new life of faith and repentance. Just as certainly, he taught that the Scriptures say nothing of popish “anointing, crosses, caps, togas, unclean purifications, cloisters, chapels, bells, organs, choral music, masses, offerings, ancient usages, etc.” Yet Menno’s simplistic literalism, focus on the moral injunctions of Christ and very imperfect grasp of other aspects of truth led him to reject all oaths and encourage wholesale non-resistance to wrong-doing and violence.

Timothy George isolates three respects in which Menno’s view of Scripture differed from that of the other Reformers:

1. He charged them with tempering their appeal to Scripture with “human traditions” and “vain learning.” Here, however, Menno shows considerable misunderstanding of their lawful use of subordinate authorities, whose understanding they subjected to the supreme authority of Scripture.

2. He made a radical disjunction between the Old Testament and the New, whereas the other Reformers stressed the continuity of the two testaments, the one covenant of grace being administered differently in its two dispensations.

3. He accepted the apocryphal writings as canonical. Protestant theologians rejected the apocrypha as either spurious or inferior to inspired Scripture. Menno here is in line with Rome, which in the Council of Trent gave canonical status to the apocrypha.

There is, in fact, a distinctly subjective emphasis in Menno’s views of Biblical authority. That is, he placed the alleged guidance of the Spirit above the objective teachings of Scripture. “Faith is revealed in the power of the Spirit and in the power of truth, not in the telling of the Biblical story, nor in the story of the miracles of the apostles and prophets, nor in the corporeal proof of the outer cross of Christ, nor in His incarnation, His death or His resurrection, nor in His second coming.” While campaigning against all private revelations - “I am no Enoch, I am no Elijah, I am not one who sees visions” - nevertheless by stressing the ‘spiritual’ understanding of Scripture, he departs from the grammatico-historical interpretation of Calvin, who rightly insists that this is the true meaning of the Spirit. Here, then, is a fundamental reason for not grouping Menno with the other Reformers.

The Word

Menno’s doctrine of the Word differs significantly from His doctrine of Scripture. In his quest for a pure, unadulterated word from God, he finds it in Christ, the Word made flesh. Since only this Word became flesh, only this Word can be the foundation on which a “penitent faith” and a pure church can be laid.

This teaching carries the most serious implications. In order to safeguard Christ from the least charge of sin, Menno felt the need to deny that the Word took flesh from Mary. He was in her, but not of her. As the eternal Word, He was a heavenly creation implanted in Mary’s womb, not the natural fruit of her womb. God does not reconcile the world to Himself through sinful flesh, but through His Holy Word. Only this Word can produce holy disciples. Consequently, the lack of holiness in other Reformation groups, and especially in their ministers, is due to their failure to grasp the Incarnation of the Word!

The root of this “heavenly flesh” Christology lies in Menno’s literalistic view of the Vulgate of John 1.14 - Verbum caro factum est = The Word became flesh. Yet it is merely an endorsement of the view of his fellow Anabaptists, Melchior Hofmann in particular. While Menno’s effusive language (following Hofmann’s) echoes that of mediaeval popish imagery, his sober statements of the doctrine unmistakably teach an ancient heresy. “The heavenly Seed, namely, the Word of God, was sown in Mary, and by her faith . . became flesh . . and thus it is called the fruit of her womb.” Yet “Christ Jesus, as to His origin, is no earthly man . . He is a heavenly fruit or man. For His beginning or origin is of the Father.” A further statement unequivocally asserts: “The entire Christ Jesus, both God and man, man and God, has His origin in heaven and not on earth.” Such a denial of Christ’s real humanity, embodied in the orthodox formula ‘two natures in one person,’ spells disaster for any hope of holiness. Modern Mennonites are apparently embarrassed by their revered founder’s view.

By contrast, the Reformed teach that the Holy Spirit purified the substance of Mary in such a way that Christ possessed a perfect human nature, perfectly free from sin.

The Atonement

Menno’s view of Christ’s atoning death is distinctly semi-Pelagian. Being universal in scope, it puts all men in a state of acceptance with God, until they expressly repudiate it.

Sin

In his view of sin, Menno departs radically from both Roman and Protestant teaching. Expressly rejecting the Biblical and Augustinian doctrine of original sin, he unequivocally states that “like Adam and Eve before the Fall,” all children are “innocent and blameless.” True, the seed of sin is in their nature, but they do not become sinners until they reach the age of discretion and sin deliberately. In short, we do not sin because we are sinners, but we are sinners because we sin. This is sheer Pelagianism!

Menno’s denial of original sin undergirds his denial of infant baptism. Since infants are guiltless, he argues, they do not need baptism for the remission of sins.

Presdestination

Along with almost all the other ‘Radical Reformers,’ Menno rejects the Biblical doctrine of predestination completely. God’s prime attribute being mercy, He extends the hope of salvation to all.

Grace and Free Will

Given Menno’s denial of Augustine’s doctrine of original sin, it is no surprise to find him denying Augustine’s doctrine of grace and free will. To him, “human free will, in the sense of an ultimately self-generated choice to cooperate with God’s grace, was essential.” (N.Needham) Both Lutheran and Reformed teaching on the bondage of the will he regarded as sheer excuses for wickedness.

Faith

Menno’s concept of faith lies at the heart of his whole scheme of salvation. Certainly, he is Biblical in making it the gift and power of God. But he is less Biblical in giving it the dual function of accepting God’s promise of pardon and precept to live by His law. Despite his claim that Christ is not the Saviour of habitually impenitent sinners, he makes no mention of faith receiving the imputed righteousness of Christ for our justification. For him, faith consists more in the willing submission to Gospel precepts as the new law of Christ. One particular summary of its main work is that it produces love, willingly fulfils all righteousness, eradicates fallen human nature [!], crucifies lust, glories in the cross, grants assurance of salvation, renews the soul, causing it to be ‘reborn.’ [Menno’s understanding of this term is decidedly non-theological!] In sum, “it makes the believer alive, willing, obedient and peaceful in Jesus Christ.” (Voolstra) Such a view of faith places all its emphasis on its effectiveness, not on Christ its object.

Justification

With his over-riding emphasis on holiness and moral purity, Menno repudiates the doctrine of forensic justification through faith alone. Such teaching, he wrongly claims, hinders the new life of obedience in Christ. Tragically, he lets his scornful pen run away with him when he castigates Lutherans for teaching and believing “that faith alone saves, without any contribution from works . . . They stand up with a psalm,” he mocks, “while the beer and wine come pouring out of their mouths and noses.”

Confused as ever, he advocates a doctrine of double justification that remarkably resembles that of Rome! The first, he claims, obtained by the death of Christ, contains the pardon of all original and pre-conversion sin. The second is with-held until the believer personally accepts this offer of universal grace and perseveres in showing identification with Christ! Though the believer may continue to be troubled by his sinful nature after repentance and baptism, he is capable of avoiding deliberate and public sin! Such a near perfectionist view of the believer’s capabilities fails to square at all either with Holy Scripture or apostolic experience.

Sanctification

Menno’s mingling of justification and sanctification is hardly relieved of its difficulties by his teaching on the Christian life. While going beyond his mentor Erasmus’s moral reformation or “betterment of life,” it comes far too near to a mystical “identification with the disposition, defencelessness and sinlessness of Christ” as “preconditional to the full receipt of grace.” (Voolstra) The frequency of his references to Romans 8.13 - “If ye by the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live” - clearly indicates Menno’s profound earnestness to obtain eternal life. Indeed, in line with the entire Anabaptist movement, he “makes the doctrine of sanctification the very heart of his theology.” Yet for all that, his version of sanctified life stems from the Word within rather than from grace drawn from the fulness of Christ in heaven.

The Church

The leading outward feature of Menno’s ideal church is its visible separation both from every false church and from society at large. Ignoring Christ’s command to be in the world but not of it, he blueprints a kind of evangelical monasticism. With the Last Judgment imminent, he believes, such a church could never be a mixed body in which the godly and ungodly cannot be visibly recognized. All its members must be regenerate and visibly penitent. They will anticipate the Last Great Purge by purifying both themselves and their community.

Many of Menno’s writings, however, are devoted not merely to glowing descriptions of the true church. They pour vitriol on the legally-recognized and state-supported “Antichristian” bodies - Romanists, Lutherans, Zwinglians - these “great and comfortable sects,” similar to the old Arians and Circumcellions and the modern Munsterites. These, he does not hesitate to pronounce, are “outside of Christ and His Word,” while their leaders are “hypocritical liars . . . slander mouths . . [and] . . devil’s preachers.”

Positively speaking, Menno’s “church of the narrow way” lives solely on Biblical doctrine unpolluted by learning and tradition, administers Baptism and the Lord’s Supper only to penitent adult believers, obeys faith rather than “cheap grace,” practices sincere brotherly love, bears bold public witness to Christ, and is ready to suffer for the faith rather than persecute others.

Church Discipline

Menno insists on church discipline as an indispensable mark of the true church. Claiming to derive his notions from Matthew 16 and 18, he invests church elders with almost arbitrary authority over their flocks. The strictness of his church polity is seen both in his detailed delineation of the areas of public and private life to which discipline must be applied and in the guidelines according to which it must be exercised. His “ban” or “evangelical separation,” debars offenders from all social contact with the congregation. Among punishable offences are drunkenness, adultery, heavy drinking, oath-taking, marriage to an unbeliever, teaching false doctrine, unrelieved domestic quarrelling and embezzling other people’s money. The complete shunning of sinning spouses indicates the extreme radicalism of his ‘reforms.’ Strangely enough, it springs from his belief that the spiritual should never yield to the carnal, and that heavenly marriages are infinitely superior to earthly ones!

Menno’s wavering over the precise application of the ban earned him the epithet “weathercock,” and led to divisions between himself and hard-line excommunicators. For the sake of unity, he fell in line with his more rigorous brethren, and wrote in favour of immediate excommunication. [ie. without prior admonition or debarring from church privileges] It may clearly be seen that in several of these areas, Menno predated the Strict Brethren and some Charismatics.

Baptism

Menno’s teaching on baptism may be summarized under three headings:

1. Faith does not follow baptism, but baptism follows faith. Being no sacrament, water baptism is only an outward sign of inward faith.

2. Infants, being incapable of faith and penitence, should not be baptized. By a strange neglect of the cases of Jeremiah and John the Baptist, he states dogmatically that “infants . . cannot be born again.” By an equally strange disregard of our ignorance of other men’s hearts, he insists on personal faith that may be discerned by others as an absolute prerequisite to baptism. One of his main arguments against infant baptism is the lack of any positive command from Jesus or His apostles for it. Yet he fails to apply the same rule to women partaking of the Lord’s Supper. Menno also insists that those adults who fail to bear faith’s visible fruits, both in thought and deed, should not be baptized.

3. Baptism is the public initiation of the believer into a life of radical discipleship. It is therefore not a sign and seal of God’s covenant of grace, but an obedient response to the Gospel.

Menno bemoaned the fact that “for the sake of baptism we are so miserably abused, slandered and persecuted by all men.” The drownings, beheadings and vilification heaped upon the Anabaptists, whether violent or not, is a shameful indictment of their persecutors, both Roman and Protestant.

The Lord's Supper

Menno’s eucharistic theology contains four main points:

1. The Supper is a memorial feast commemorating Christ’s death on the cross and His bringing believers into the kingdom.

2. It is a proof and pledge of His love to His people, who are to recall their experiences of it at His table. Menno writes enthusiastically of the joy and peace that flooded the hearts of persecuted Anabaptists at their communion gatherings.

3. It is a bond of Christian unity, love and peace. In this connection he urged all communicants to put away every vestige of mutual resentment and quarrelling, to forgive each other and to express their willingness to die for one another, if necessary. Only those who have travelled far to the communion are to have their feet washed by local brethren and sisters.

4. It is a communion with Christ that renews their souls with grace.

The State

Originally Menno advocated the total separation of church and state, but later adjusted his view to agree more with Romans 13, even recommending that godly men seek state office. Indeed, like John Wycliffe, he teaches that the state is responsible for religious and moral teaching in accordance with the rule of Christ. Accordingly, he calls on monarchs of his day to remove all false teachers, but not with the sword!

This view marks the major difference between Menno and the Munsterites. His consistent advocacy of non-violence applies to both rulers and ruled. For this reason he rejects the death penalty. If civil rulers follow the teachings of Christ, he truly but unrealistically argues, neither armies nor wars would be needed. Yet he allows for defensive wars. In protecting his fellow men, even the pacifist believer cannot avoid participation in violence.

Fully in keeping with his literalistic and moral interpretation of the gospels, he denounces the swearing of public oaths and all forms of usury, and sternly reproves employers for abusive dismissal and sexual intimidation of their employees.

In short, Menno envisages a new society directly practicing divine righteousness through following Christ and eagerly awaiting the arrival of the heavenly Bridegroom.

Antichrist

Menno agrees with all Protestant Reformers in denouncing the Pope as Antichrist. Yet he does not stop here. He adds the entire Roman communion, plus all rival Protestant groups. This reflects an extremist mentality, pressurized by persecution and conscious of its own lack of classical education. Menno’s scant learning led him to denounce “the learned ones” [namely, the Church Fathers and Orthodox Reformers] as guilty of “subtle deceit, blasphemous falsehood and blood tyranny.”

The Last Things

Most Anabaptist “dreamers indulged in Apocalyptic visions of an immediate purification of the world.” (A.F.Pollard) Menno only partially shared their delusions. Steering well clear of the Munsterite notions of a visible kingdom, polygamy and the use of violence, he teaches that the age of grace has already dawned in Christ, and that no other kingdom of peace than what He sets up in the heart will precede His Second Coming. Yet that Coming, he repeatedly warns, is near, for “the time is short.” Sadly, Menno’s simplistic and myopic view leaves him with an earnest but distorted message.

Conclusion

Menno Simons’s work as a “peaceful” Anabaptist, a “radical Reformer in exile,” offered a programme of reform in faith and morals that would prepare souls for the Day of Judgment. His life-long “struggle for radical piety and newness of life” sprang out of his vision for “the restoration of the original Christian Church, consisting of believers who possessed the disposition of Christ.” (Voolstra) While rejecting the distorted apocalyptic views of an earthly messianic reign held by the Munster Anabaptists, his ideal was a far cry from the goal of the majority of Reformers, which produced genuinely reformed societies in Switzerland, Scotland and, to a lesser extent, in England, Hungary, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. For all the sincerity that lay behind his avowed desire to “extend the kingdom of God, reveal the truth, reprove sin, teach righteousness, feed hungry souls . . lead the straying sheep . . and gain many souls to the Lord through His Spirit, power and grace,” Menno’s theological mish-mash could not fail to produce an inward-looking, isolationist mentality and community wherever it was adopted. For his sola scriptura was in practice a ‘sola New Testament,’ his solo Christo a severe curtailment of the Saviour’s full-orbed work, his sola fide a narrow confinement of faith to certain Gospel promises and precepts, his sola gratia a sad rejection of our total dependence on grace, and his soli Deo gloria a concentration on a very truncated view of personal and church holiness. His sweeping and scathing denunciations of all other 16th century Reformers mark him as a proud and greatly misguided man. J.C.Wenger’s assessment, therefore, that Menno was “an evangelical who held to the major doctrines of the Christian faith,” cannot be sustained.