Luther famously had his Ninety-Five Theses. While not having quite as many, Wycliffe had his own theses (that is, arguments) against the church. One thesis declares, “There is one universal church, and outside of it there is no salvation. Its head is Christ. No pope may say that he is the head.” For this and other ideas, Pope Gregory XI condemned Wycliffe. But Wycliffe had friends in high places, and his condemnation had little effect. The mother of the boy king Richard II favored Wycliffe, as did John of Gaunt, the young king’s uncle, who wielded significant influence. These supporters swayed Parliament against the pope and for Wycliffe. At Oxford, the students and faculty rallied to his support.

He had been dead and buried for a few decades, but the church wanted to make a point. His remains were exhumed and burned, a fitting end for the “heretic” John Wycliffe. Wycliffe once explained what the letters in the title CARDINAL really mean: “Captain of the Apostates of the Realm of the Devil, Impudent and Nefarious Ally of Lucifer.” And with that, Wycliffe was only getting started.
Wycliffe rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation, which states that the elements of the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper become the actual body and blood of Christ. He was against priestly absolution, he spoke out against indulgences, and he denied the doctrine of purgatory. He rejected papal authority. Instead, he asserted that Christ is the head of the church. And he had a profound belief in the inerrancy and absolute authority of Scripture. He fully believed that the church of his day had lost its way. Scripture alone provided the only way back. Now we see why the medieval Roman Church wanted to make a statement against Wycliffe.
John Wycliffe has often been called “the Morning Star of the Reformation.” Jan Hus, another pre-Reformation reformer, felt obliged to express his supreme debt to Wycliffe. And though he lived long after Wycliffe’s death, Martin Luther, too, felt an obligation to recognize the pioneering reforms of John Wycliffe. Luther stood on the shoulders of Hus, who stood on the shoulders of Wycliffe. Hus, Luther, and the other Reformers were indebted to him. So are we. Wycliffe was indeed “the Morning Star of the Reformation.”
The term morning star has been used alternately to refer to either the star Sirius or the planet Venus. It appears brightest in the predawn, the time when darkness still dominates, but also the time of promise—the time of the promise of the dawn and the rising sun. So John Wycliffe is situated historically between the darkness and the morning light.
John Wycliffe was born around 1330 and died on December 30, 1384. His century was one of growing disillusionment with the medieval Roman church. There was disillusionment with the church hierarchy and also with the church’s piety (or lack thereof). These were times of unrest. The long reign of the night, of the darkness, had taken its toll, especially on the laity. They bore the brunt of a wayward church. And perhaps none was more acutely aware of this than John Wycliffe.
Wycliffe’s Studies
Oxford University became Wycliffe’s home in 1346, during his teen years. As soon as Wycliffe arrived at Oxford, he witnessed all the pomp and circumstance of convocation, which included a Mass in honor of the royal family and the scholars at Oxford. Wycliffe then settled into the academic routines of attending lectures and disputations. Wycliffe would sit under and be profoundly influenced by the theologian Thomas Bradwardine and the philosopher William of Ockham. He studied broadly, learning science and mathematics; law and history; and, of course, philosophy. At Oxford, Wycliffe soon moved from the rank of student to that of scholar, later becoming master at Balliol College. Wycliffe’s first writings would be in the field of philosophy.
Biblical studies, and later theology, however, captured his attention and piqued his interest the most. Wycliffe qualified as a doctor of theology, allowing him to lecture on the subject.
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Written by Reuben M. Bredenhof |
Sunday, January 30, 2022
The hymn expresses well Luther’s faith, and not only his faith, but that of the church in his day. Christians back then looked to God Almighty as the one who would fight and also win their fierce battles against falsehood and persecution. For that reason, Ein Feste Burg has been called the “Battle Hymn of the Reformation.” It captured the spirit of the Reformation so aptly that when Protestant martyrs were walking to their death at the scaffold or stake, it was often “A Mighty Fortress” that they chose to sing.

Around Reformation Day—and throughout the year—this hymn is sung by the church with great passion. Often after sermons that celebrate the power and faithfulness of God our Saviour towards his people, the organist will pull out a few extra stops and we’ll belt out this cherished song.
Lord of the Sabbath?
As tends to happen with more of the tried and true psalms and hymns, “A Mighty Fortress” contains some old expressions whose meanings are no longer clear. And though we love to sing familiar lyrics , it’s proper that we know the meaning of what we are singing.
In “A Mighty Fortress,” in its second verse, we find especially one phrase that seems to be widely misunderstood. Speaking of the right Man on our side/ The Man of God’s own choosing, Luther asks and answers a rhetorical question about our Saviour: Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He. And then, to further identify this person, his title is given:
Lord Sabaoth his Name.
What is this title, “Lord Sabaoth?” If asked, someone might think for a moment and tentatively suggest that this could be linked to the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 12:1-8. There Jesus is disputing with the Pharisees concerning what is lawful on the Sabbath. Jesus ends his words to the Pharisees with this definitive statement, “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (v. 8). So we might conclude that in the second verse of “A Mighty Fortress” we celebrate Jesus as the one with authority over the Lord’s day.
Lord of Hosts
But while Matthew 12:8 teaches an important truth, it’s not Jesus’ revelation of his lordship over the Sabbath that is being celebrated in Hymn 53:2. The confusion arises because the word “Sabaoth”—not Sabbath—is an English representation of a Hebrew word, sebaoth.
Of course, Luther didn’t write his hymn (Ein Feste Burg) in Hebrew, but in German. Yet in his original composition too, he simply gave the German representation of that Hebrew word sebaoth. So from Hebrew to German to English, “Sabaoth” has found its way into this favourite hymn.
For what this word “Sabaoth” means then, we must turn to the Hebrew Old Testament. There we regularly find this title for God: “Yahweh Sebaoth.” This title is often translated in English Bibles as “the LORD of hosts.”
Over what kind of hosts is the LORD? This is debated. There are some texts in Scripture that depict God as the head of human armies. For example, in 1 Samuel 17:45 David confronts Goliath with these words: “I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel.”
Other texts suggest that the hosts which God commands are the celestial bodies, like the sun, the moon and the stars. For instance, after God defeats the Canaanites, Deborah sings this: “From the heavens the stars fought, from their courses they fought against Sisera” (Jdg 5:20).
Still other texts say that the LORD’s hosts are heavenly creatures, such as the angels. The prophet Michaiah once described this war-room scene in heaven: “I saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the host of heaven around him” (1 Kgs 22:19).
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There are to be certain characteristics of those within Christ’s Kingdom, and those characteristics stand in stark contrast to the way the world operates in its rebellion against God. Unlike the kingdoms of this world, Christ’s Kingdom does not advance through top-down enforcement, but bottom-up servitude. Christians, the subjects of Christ’s Kingdom, don’t lord over others, but serve from beneath.

Most of us are familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. If we didn’t learn it at school or recite it at church, we’ve undoubtedly heard it in popular films. But there is a danger with being familiar with a thing. Oftentimes, familiarity can be mistaken for understanding. We might be able to say, “Thy Kingdom come,” but that’s not the same thing as being able to explain what that really means or how it’s actually achieved.
The coming of Christ’s Kingdom ought to be the hope and prayer of every Christian. We want God’s will to be done on earth, just as it is in heaven. But how does that happen? How does the Kingdom of Heaven advance on earth? Is it through the power of military conquest? Are we to subdue Christ’s enemies with threats, force, and violence? Or is it achieved another way?
While we are commanded to pray for the advancement of Christ’s Kingdom here on earth, we are never instructed to further that Kingdom with the means through which the kings and rulers of this world advance their own. In fact, the exact opposite is the case.

When the mother of James and John attempted to secure for her sons the second and third most powerful positions in Christ’s Kingdom, Matthew tells us that the other disciples became indignant (Matt. 20:24). So, Jesus gathered them together and informed them that they had the entire system backwards. They weren’t reflecting the nature of Christ’s Kingdom, but rather, that of the non-Christian world.

Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Matthew 20:25-28
There are to be certain characteristics of those within Christ’s Kingdom, and those characteristics stand in stark contrast to the way the world operates in its rebellion against God. Unlike the kingdoms of this world, Christ’s Kingdom does not advance through top-down enforcement, but bottom-up servitude. Christians, the subjects of Christ’s Kingdom, don’t lord over others, but serve from beneath.
In other words, the Kingdom of God does not advance through threats of physical violence. We’re not here talking about self-defence (Ex. 22:2-3), a just war (Ex. 15:3), or the civil authority’s responsibility to wield the sword in restraining evil (Rom. 13:3-4), but whether the church — or specifically, the Christian — grows the kingdom at the edge of a sword.
Now, it’s important at this point that we don’t understand this to mean passivism, or defeatism, or retreatism. This is the repugnant and unbiblical approach of cowards. Christians are “more than conquerors” and as such, we have no business waving the white flag (Rom. 8:37). We don’t forfeit the battle. We don’t flee the fight. Instead, we take up arms, just as the Holy Spirit commands us to.
In Ephesians 6, the Apostle Paul urges Christians to dress for battle, by putting on the “whole armour of God.” We are to do this, not to fight against other people, but in order to withstand the “schemes of the devil.”
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over the present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
Ephesians 6:12
For the Apostle, our chief enemy is spiritual, and as such, our armour ought to be the kind that can withstand his assaults. Paul tells us in the verses that follow, what this “armour of God” looks like.
“Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation…”
Ephesians 6:14-17a
The subjects of Christ’s Kingdom have an obligation to dress for warfare, the most deadly and effective kind.

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