Some books have a strange and unanticipated ability to capture people’s attention and exceed all expectations in the number of copies they sell. That has certainly been the case with The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions. Over the almost fifty years since it was first printed, demand for this little resource has not only steadily increased but has often come from some unlikely quarters.

Given that the label “Puritan” often has pejorative connotations — even in some Christian circles — why has this anthology of Puritan prayers managed to bless such a broad cross section of the church for so many decades?

Puritan Rediscovery

The answer lies in some measure with the story of how the Banner of Truth came into existence. In the postwar years in Britain, largely through the influence of men like D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and J.I. Packer, many rediscovered the Puritans and their writings with a fresh appreciation of what Packer once described as “Christianity of an older, deeper, richer, riper sort.”

During the seventeenth century in England, the Puritans served as heirs of the Protestant Reformation. They both preserved and built on the theological legacy of men like Calvin, Luther, and Zwingli. They also maintained the rich piety that marked that crucial era in church history — a piety rooted in the conviction that, as Paul says in Titus, “knowledge of the truth . . . leads to godliness” (Titus 1:1 NIV).

The Puritans were first and foremost pastor-teachers who sought not merely to educate and inform their congregations but to see their lives transformed by God’s word and Spirit. They were Bible men through and through, and the impact of their ministries was plain to see in the congregations they served. They wrote prolifically, and much of their writing simply offered in print what they taught and proclaimed from their pulpits week by week. This multipronged ministry led to the penetrating application of great Bible truths worked out in the everyday experience of their people.

It was hardly surprising, then, that the legacy of these men lived on through their books in the centuries that followed, with notable figures like George Whitefield being influenced by them and, in turn, being used by God in significant measure in their own days. However, with the dilution of evangelical convictions and the rise of liberal theology in the nineteenth century, the influence of the Puritans began to wane — that is, until their works were rediscovered in the aftermath of the Second World War.

In that surprising context, a new generation of preachers began to benefit from these classic works. Iain Murray was one of those young men, and he, along with like-minded friends, helped stir up fresh interest in the Puritan legacy.

Roots of a Classic

This was the soil into which The Valley of Vision sunk its roots. Through Murray’s contacts at that time and his early work with what would become The Banner of Truth, he encountered Arthur Bennett, an Episcopalian minister. When he came across Bennett’s writings on the life and work of David Brainerd (a close friend of Jonathan Edwards and missionary to the Delaware Indians in New Jersey during the eighteenth century), Murray sent Bennett some examples of Puritan prayers and suggested not only that he might find them helpful, but also that he might consider editing and abridging some of them to bring them back into circulation for the church.

The outcome of these interactions was an effort not merely to republish these prayers from the past but also to use them as a template for a book more suited to a new generation of Christians. In Murray’s words, they planned to use these Puritan prayers as “a source for a book in more modern form, taking thoughts, petitions, and, at times, even language, recast, and all more natural to [our] own prayer life today.” They hoped to create not only a record of the past but even “more a devotional work to aid Christians in their communion with God in the present day” (as the preface to the 1975 edition says).

In God’s providence, Bennett’s predecessor in his parish in Hertfordshire was Rev. E. Bickersteth, a gifted evangelical Anglican poet and hymn writer. Bickersteth clearly influenced Bennett and his work in compiling his devotional anthology.

Prayers for Every Season

The beauty of this collection of prayers is multifaceted, traversing the entire scope of the Christian journey from the depths to the heights. The prayers express the deep desires of the heart and the perplexities of our Christian experience in language full of deep reverence for God on the one hand and, on the other hand, a down-to-earth sense of our needs, longings, and failings. Through them all, there is the rich gospel realization that, despite our manifold sins and transgressions — through omission as much as commission — the grace of God in Christ is more than sufficient for our guilt, and the aid of the Holy Spirit is more than equal to our human weakness.

The prayers are organized topically. They begin, quite appropriately, with an acknowledgment of the Holy Trinity — eternally one God in three persons. What follows is a sequence of prayers that both savor God’s triune glory and celebrate the benefits that belong to us through our union and communion with God in Christ. From there, the prayers cover the nature of our salvation — its grounds and benefits — and our communion with God as we grow in grace.

An entire section of prayers expresses our daily need of penitence as one of the hallmarks of genuine conversion. In addition, other sections offer prayers for our spiritual needs and prayers to remind us of the various privileges we enjoy: our access to God in prayer, the gifts God lavishes upon us as his children (which we so easily undervalue), and the calling we have as disciples of Christ. Another section relates to the work of the ministry (but which can be prayed by all Christians for their own pastors). The closing section takes a heaven’s-eye view of the challenges and struggles we face in daily life. This little volume contains, quite literally, “a prayer for all seasons of life.”

Awake to God

Those of us who belong to this present era — some fifty years after this rich devotional resource was compiled — might find its language and form somewhat alien to what we are used to. Whether we try using the prayers in our own personal prayer life or in public prayer, their style and tone may sound quaint. Even still, we should not allow this impression to put us off.

The very fact that their style, tone, and content take us out of our often-thoughtless comfort zones should give us pause for thought. Not least because, when we reflect on the tone as much as the content of these expressions of praise and petition, we realize they convey an affectionate regard for God’s glory, holiness, and beauty too often absent in our own day.

In that sense, this collection of prayers from a different era in the church’s history reflects a depth of communion with God and an awareness of his glory and attributes that many churches of our time lack. The Valley of Vision, then, may become for us what it has become for so many: a time-honored aid to cultivating our daily appreciation of God and our moment-to-moment need of him.

ABSTRACT: Throughout church history, some theologians have followed Aristotle’s description of woman as a “deformed” or “malformed” man. The Reformers, however, celebrated woman as “a most excellent work” of God, equally capable of virtue and worthy of love, respect, and justice. Together with their doctrine of male headship, the Reformers’ defense of woman offers a position close to what many call “complementarity” today.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Steven Wedgeworth (MDiv, Reformed Theological Seminary), pastor of Christ Church in South Bend, Indiana, to investigate the Reformers’ defense of woman.

As a whole, the tradition of the Christian church stands opposed to the modern commitment to sexual egalitarianism, especially when it comes to ministerial ordination and headship within marriage. This testimony, however, is frequently rejected on the grounds that the Christian church throughout history was misogynistic. Indeed, various statements that seem harsh or unfair toward the female sex are not hard to find. Perhaps the most notorious of these is Aristotle’s assertion that women are “misbegotten” or improperly formed, an assertion reaffirmed by Thomas Aquinas in several places.

While we should be willing to acknowledge gross errors and blind biases in church history, we also find a contrary testimony on this point. The normative Protestant tradition rejected the “traditional” definition of woman as malformed. More than this, in the history of Reformed theology, we also find the assertion that women are capable of true virtue and even political rule. Indeed, the Reformers and their heirs freely acknowledged that individual women often excel particular men in character and intellect, even their own husbands. They also condemned domestic abuse in the strongest of terms.

This fuller view of history is important because it shows the way in which a Christian tradition can maintain the scriptural doctrine of male headship while rejecting a philosophical notion of female deficiency. What emerges is a position similar to what we now refer to as complementarity. The theologians of the Reformation maintained that both men and women fully bear the image of God, are equally capable of virtue and spiritual graces, and yet are differently ordered in God’s good design. Due to the creation order, men and women have certain specific vocational directions and also make unique and essential contributions to both marriage and society. Instead of defining woman as a necessary evil, the Reformers defend woman as a most excellent work.

Against the ‘Deformed Man’

If you read Reformation commentaries on the book of Genesis or other treatments of the constitution of men and women, you will notice a peculiar line of argument that repeatedly shows up. When dealing with the creation of the woman, Protestant theologians go out of their way to show how the Scriptures refute the “pagan” and “vulgar” conception of the female sex. For instance, Martin Luther (1483–1546) writes,

This tale fits Aristotle’s designation of woman as a “maimed man”; others declare that she is a monster. But let them themselves be monsters and sons of monsters — these men who make malicious statements and ridicule a creature of God in which God Himself took delight as in a most excellent work, moreover, one which we see created by a special counsel of God. These pagan ideas show that reason cannot establish anything sure about God and the works of God but only thinks up reasons against reasons and teaches nothing in a perfect and sound manner.1

In his typically colorful prose, Luther is interacting with a longstanding conversation in classical biology and anthropology. Aristotle, as noted, had claimed that the woman was a “maimed” or deformed man. What he meant by this description strikes us as bizarre, as it has to do with the way he understood the mechanics of human reproduction and embryonic development. In short, Aristotle believed that all human life begins in one state of existence but possesses potential to develop into a more perfect state of existence. Those humans who activate this potency and move into the fully developed stage Aristotle classified as males, while those who remain in the initial stage were females. Various translations and restatements of Aristotle render his description of the woman as maimed, deformed, malformed, mutilated, or misbegotten.2

While contemporary readers will quickly reject Aristotle’s argument as based on an entirely false understanding of human physiology, Christian theologians in earlier times often gave Aristotle the benefit of the doubt. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) is perhaps the chief example. Though he qualifies and relativizes the Aristotelian view to a point, Aquinas still considers it to be basically correct.3

The Reformers had no time for this discussion. Martin Luther finds Aristotle’s claim offensive and impious, an affront to the very majesty of God. In his treatise The Estate of Marriage, he attacks the ancient statement that woman is a “necessary evil”: “These are the words of blind heathen, who are ignorant of the fact that man and woman are God’s creation. They blaspheme his work, as if man and woman just came into being spontaneously!”4 John Calvin (1509–1564) also rejects the description of the female sex as a “necessary evil,” arguing, “The vulgar proverb, indeed, is, that she is a necessary evil; but the voice of God is rather to be heard, which declares that woman is given as a companion and an associate to the man, to assist him to live well.”5

While the later Reformed scholastics were frequently more friendly toward the Thomistic and Aristotelian heritage, they too stood firm on the question of the origin and constitution of woman. Andrew Willet (1562–1621) attacks “the Philosopher” (i.e., Aristotle) as “heathenish” and “profane” for asserting that women cannot possess virtue in the full and “proper” sense.6 Writing in 1676, Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676) says the notion that woman is an “error of nature” or an “imperfect male” is a “monstrous opinion that is refuted by Scripture and reason.”7 The overwhelming majority of Protestant theologians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries directly rejected the ancient position that the woman was deficient or malformed.

Upholding Hierarchy

While Reformation theologians rejected the notion that women were lesser creatures than men, they did not hesitate to use the language of hierarchy. In the relationship of marriage, the husband was said to be “superior” to the wife. To modern ears, this language may seem to parallel the position just rejected. But closer attention to the particulars reveals something different.

For example, John Davenant (1572–1641) writes, “The wife acknowledges in her mind, that her husband is and ought to be her head and governor, and that she is the inferior on the mere ground that she is a wife, although in birth, riches, virtue, and prudence, she excel her husband.”8 Notice that Davenant says that a wife might indeed “excel her husband” in birth, riches, virtue, and prudence. That is to say, she may be of nobler birth than her husband, she may come from greater riches than her husband, and she may be more virtuous and more prudent than her husband. (Davenant surely had met many such women in his career as a professor, priest, and bishop.)

The “inferiority” of the wife does not necessarily render her lesser in any of those areas. Instead, her inferiority is simply with regard to the marital relationship itself (“the mere ground that she is a wife”). The relationship of wife is like a rank or office, akin to that within an army or administration. Just a few sentences earlier, Davenant had compared this sort of hierarchy to that of magistrates or soldiers. The superiority and inferiority in view have to do with an order of authority in the specific organization, not with a difference of value, capability, or essence.

Another testimony to this perspective is Robert Leighton (1611–1684), a Reformed Scottish bishop writing in the late seventeenth century. He writes,

It is possible, that the wife may sometimes have the advantage of knowledge, either natural wit and judgment, or a great measure of understanding of spiritual things; but this still holds, that the husband is bound to improve the measure both of natural and of spiritual gifts, that he hath, or can attain to, and to apply them usefully to the ordering of his conjugal carriage, and that he understand himself obliged somewhat the more, in the very notion of a husband, both to seek after and to use that prudence which is peculiarly required for his due deportment. And a Christian wife, who is more largely endowed, yet will show all due respect to the measure of wisdom, though it be less, which is bestowed upon her husband.9

“Instead of defining woman as a necessary evil, the Reformers defend woman as a most excellent work.”

Again, we see that the wife is not presumed to be inferior to the husband in “natural wit and judgment,” nor even in the “understanding of spiritual things.” But the calling of authoritative leader nonetheless belongs to the husband because he is the husband. The authority is located within the “office” of husband; the duty to submit belongs to the wife because she is the wife.

Such a perspective is not substantially different from what we now call complementarity. The husband’s duty to lead and the wife’s duty to submit are based not upon an innate hierarchy of ability, capacity, or skill but rather upon the divine arrangement of husband and wife grounded in the creation order.

For the Regiment of Women

The magisterial Reformers were, on the whole, not revolutionary in their political thought. They did not promote a doctrine of liberation nor even the sort of social equality that we commonly understand today. Indeed, they frequently had to repel charges of promoting “radicalism” or political upheaval. Even arguments for political resistance were grounded in longstanding debates from classical antiquity, not any new breakthroughs in biblical exegesis.

Concerning women’s roles in public, the Reformers tended to assert traditional views. Women, for them, would generally hold a domestic position. But the controversy over England’s Queen Elizabeth gave occasion to reflect on the possibility of women holding the highest political offices. John Knox’s (c. 1514–1572) negative views on this topic are more well-known, but what several other Reformed thinkers had to say might be surprising.

John Calvin is usually considered to be a friendly associate (if not an ally) of Knox. Knox certainly wanted to maintain this impression, and it is likely that Calvin did indeed lend his support from time to time. Still, Calvin recognized the inconvenience that Knox could bring. In a 1559 letter to Sir William Cecil, the chief adviser of Queen Elizabeth, Calvin writes,

Two years ago, John Knox in a private conversation, asked my opinion respecting female government. I frankly answered that because it was a deviation from the primitive and established order of nature, it ought to be held as a judgment on man for his dereliction of his rights just like slavery.

Calvin is clearly not a progressive thinker on this question. “Nevertheless,” Calvin goes on, he also told Knox that

certain women had sometimes been so gifted that the singular blessing of God was conspicuous in them, and made it manifest that they had been raised up by the providence of God, either because he willed by such examples to condemn the inactivity of men, or thus show more distinctly his own glory. I here instanced Huldah and Deborah. I added to the same effect that God promised by the mouth of Isaiah that queens should be the nursing mothers of the church, which clearly distinguished such persons from private women.10

This section of the letter is not exactly inspirational prose. Calvin does not muster any kind of “trumpet blast” of his own, and he was wholly unsuccessful in his attempt to move into the queen’s good favor. Still, his admission is important. For him, while female magistrates are a “deviation from the order of nature,” they are not so unnatural as to be illegitimate in their rule. Indeed, in God’s providence, certain women rulers had been successful. In fact, Calvin argues that Isaiah had prophesied that women would be godly rulers (Isaiah 49:23), implying that Elizabeth is one of their number.

Voetius also offers a moderate perspective on female government, writing that “in the case of extreme necessity,” and upon the discovery of a woman possessing the necessary prudence, bravery, and spirit, “I think that such should be employed for a time.”11 Willet is even more supportive, writing in defense of “the regiment of women”:

The spirit of God can plant grace and virtue in the hearts of women, as well as of men: nay often the Lord chooses the weak things of this world to confound the mighty things, 1. Cor. 1.27. And the examples of so many virtuous and good women in the Scriptures, of Sara, Rebecca, Anna, the Shunamite, and the rest in the old: of Marie, Anna, Martha, Lydia, Dorcas, and many other in the New Testament, do evidently confute that prophane paradox of the Philosopher.

He adds a personal reflection regarding England’s own experience:

This country and nation of ours, as is hath found the government of a woman the worst, in the late Marian persecutions, when more good men and women, Saints of God, were put to death, than in any three Kings reign beside: so have we seen it in the next change, the best of all other Princes reigns that went before: famous Queene Elizabeth’s government, as for flourishing peace, honourable fame and name, enriching of the Land, subduing of foreign enemies, enacting of good laws, may be compared with the reign of any former Kings. So for the advancing of true religion, increasing of learning, propagating the Gospel, none of her predecessors came near her: That as the refining of coin, being reduced from base money to pure silver and gold, was her honour in the Civil State: so the purging of religion, according to the purity of the word of God, in the Church shall bee her everlasting fame in the world, and is her eternal reward with God.12

A final example is Johannes Althusius (1563–1638), one of the most important political thinkers of the post-Reformation era and a key forerunner to modern politics as we know it. In his 1614 work Politica, Althusius endorses the rule of women in provincial government, citing Deborah from the book of Judges, Nitocris of Babylon, Zenobia of Palmyra, Amalasuintha of the Goths, and “Elizabeth of the Britons.” He writes, “In this matter, the female sex does not stand in the way.”13 Althusius is especially noteworthy for his stature in political theory and in the fact that he does not use the typical qualification of extreme necessity, but merely “when the function is appropriate.”

The Grave Sin of Domestic Abuse

Another important area where the Reformation combatted misogynistic behavior was in its condemnation of domestic abuse. The second Anglican Book of Homilies has a homily titled “Of the State of Matrimony,” which contains an extended discussion of spousal abuse. It says that for a man to beat his wife is “the greatest shame that can be, not so much to her that is beaten, as to him that does the deed.” It even refers to classical “pagan” law to argue that domestic abuse can be a ground for ending a marriage:

This thing may be well understood by the laws which the Panims have made, which does discharge her any longer to dwell with such an husband, as unworthy to have any further company with her that does smite her. For it is an extreme point, thus so vilely to entreat her like a slave, that is fellow to thee of thy life, and so joined unto thee before time in the necessary matters of thy living. And therefore a man may well liken such a man (if he may be called a man, rather then a wild beast) to a killer of his father or his mother.14

Davenant echoes this same argument in his commentary on Colossians, where he writes,

It is the height of this bitter tyranny to act cruelly towards the wife by stripes or blows, which we do not read that any one among the heathen did unless he was drunk or mad. Hence the civil law permits the wife to avail herself of a divorce if she can prove that her husband has beaten her: and it gives as a reason that blows are foreign to a state of freedom. For no superiority whatever gives the power of coercing the inferior by blows.

He adds:

For although parents often chastise their children from love; yet both the experience and conscience of everyone will testify that no one proceeds to beat his wife except from anger, bitterness or hatred; all which are unlawful things and diametrically opposite to the matrimonial state.

Davenant explains that the husband does not have the authority to use physical violence against his wife because the marriage is not a master-slave relationship but instead “a certain amicable fellowship in life.” The wife is “subject to her husband and directed by him; but as a companion, not as a slave; by advice, not by stripes.”15

In the same vein, Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) says, “A husband’s power over his wife is paternal and friendly, not magisterial and despotick.” He explains that the husband must lead by love through counsel, instruction, and nurture. “The power a man hath is founded in the understanding, not in the will or force; it is not a power of coercion, but a power of advice.”16 To be an effective leader, the husband must actually lead. He must assume responsibility and carry out the duties of a loving and friendly family leader. On this point, Taylor gives a sort of proverb: “It is a sign of impotency and weakness to force the camels to kneel for their load because thou has not spirit and strength enough to climb.”

Against physical violence in the marriage, Taylor cites Marcus Aurelius, Basil the Great, and John Chrysostom. The husband, he asserts, should never strike his wife. “The Marital Love is infinitely removed from all possibility of such rudeness.”17

Perfectly Complementary

These observations do not establish any sort of proto-feminism or egalitarianism within the Reformation tradition. Rather, a fundamental human equality was said to coexist within a stipulated hierarchy — the husband’s loving governance over his wife, which established the basic paradigm for relationships of authority and submission. Still, the Reformers were well aware of areas of historic abuse and error in the tradition. Based upon Scripture and reason, they maintained the woman’s full integrity as a good creature of God, capable of virtue and even public rule. They argued that the woman’s strength could shine in and through her relative temporal weakness, all to the manifest power, wisdom, and glory of God.

What is commonly referred to as complementarity is sometimes opposed to the older “patriarchal” tradition. At times, this is done by complementarians themselves; at other times, their opponents insist on the discontinuity so as to deny the authority of the historic Christian witness. But the difference is not a fundamental or essential one. While certain terminology has changed and particular categories have become more or less familiar, the basic structure remains. While God has ordered men and women differently, in such a way as to complement and perfect one another according to his calling, both men and women are equally human, originally good according to God’s design, and worthy of love, respect, and justice.

A few years ago, while I was leading a group of Christians touring various Reformation sites along the Rhine in Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands, our tour group took a day trip to Marburger Schloss, or Marburg Castle, to see the famous site of the encounter between the two titanic Reformers Martin Luther (1483–1546) and Huldreich Zwingli (1484–1531).

To reach the castle was a stiff climb through medieval streets dotted with houses that dated from the very time when the two German Reformers also passed through the town on their way to the castle. Both men were remarkable Christians whom God had used in spectacular ways to bring genuine reform to their respective lands of Saxony and Switzerland. Yet they were also both men, with the failings common to their kind.

When we think of the issues debated during the German Reformation, we think of matters such as justification and the authority of the Scriptures. But as contentious as these primary issues were, the nature of the Lord’s Supper was also heavily debated. Is Christ present at the Table? And if so, how? That’s what Luther and Zwingli came to debate.

How Is Christ Present?

The medieval Church had defined the nature of Christ’s presence with regard to the elements of the bread and wine in 1215 through the dogma of transubstantiation. According to this doctrine, at a certain moment in the church’s celebration of the Table, when the priest prayed for the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the bread and the wine, they were transformed into the very body and very blood of Christ. They ceased to be bread and wine, even though to all of one’s human senses that is what they seemed to be.

Not surprisingly, this dogma led to all kinds of superstitions, such as the worship of the elements themselves and deep anxiety about the reception of the Table. What was meant to be a place of comfort and a means of grace — both strengthening the believer and giving assurance of salvation — became an entanglement of ignorance and fear.

All of the Reformers clearly rejected the medieval dogma of transubstantiation, but they were deeply divided over the answer to the question “How then is Christ present at the Table?”

Protestant Dispute

In the view of Luther, Christ’s body and blood are present “in, with, and under” the bread and the wine. Just as when an iron poker becomes red-hot if left in the fire long enough, so the bread and the wine actually contain Christ’s body after the prayer of consecration. Contrary to the Roman dogma of transubstantiation, the bread remains bread and the wine remains wine. But they now contain the body and blood of Christ. How this takes place, Luther was quite content to leave in the realm of what we today call mystery.

For Zwingli, participation in the Lord’s Supper was a community event in which the people of God came together to be nourished by Christ through his Spirit. In fact, to Zwingli’s way of thinking, the Lord’s Supper is “no true meal if Christ is not present.” The bread and the wine are “the means by which an almost mystical union with Christ is achieved.”1 It is indeed ironic that Zwingli would have ardently repudiated what has come to be called the “Zwinglian” position on the presence of Christ at his Table — namely, that the Lord’s Supper is simply a memorial. Yet Zwingli rejected Luther’s idea of the presence of Christ in the elements since he could not agree with Luther’s conviction that Christ’s human body was ubiquitous (that is, able to be present everywhere).

Meeting at Marburg

The German ruler Philip of Hesse (1504–1567), who had embraced the convictions of the Reformation, was deeply concerned that division among the Reformers would jeopardize the political future of the Reformation. He was concerned that Roman Catholic princes would seek to exploit this division to politically roll back the advance of the reform.

Philip thus arranged for a colloquy to take place at his castle in Marburg in the fall of 1529, which he hoped would heal the division between the two Reformation giants. Luther, it needs to be noted, went unwillingly to the meeting, though Zwingli was eager to end their disagreement. Along with Luther and Zwingli, other key figures were invited, including the irenic Martin Bucer (1491–1551), Luther’s trusted coworker Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), and the Basel Reformer Johann Oecolampadius (1482–1531).

On the first day of the conference, October 1, Philip arranged for Melanchthon to meet with Zwingli, and for Oecolampadius to confer with Luther. He rightly gauged that having the two principal figures meet immediately after their respective journeys — including that hard trudge up to Marburger Schloss — might not be wise. The following day, however, Zwingli and Luther met. It was an explosive meeting that failed to unite the two Christian leaders.

Accord and Discord

Luther insisted that “This is my body” means simply that: the word is needs to be taken literally — the bread is the body of Christ. Zwingli, convinced that the risen body of Christ had ascended to heaven and could not be literally present in every locale where the Lord’s Supper was being celebrated, insisted as vehemently that the elements must therefore be vehicles through which God met with those who came to the Table with faith.

As in every theological disagreement, however, more than theology divided them. The fact that Luther’s Saxon dialect was virtually incomprehensible to a speaker of Swiss German like Zwingli has been seen by Bruce Gordon as a parable of their mutual inability to understand one another and their differing visions of the Christian life. In sum, their “views of God and humanity, their differences as Swiss and German” — though both men were uncompromising — and “their self-understandings as prophets rendered agreement impossible.”2

And yet, they were able to draft a statement about the Eucharist. The following article, article 15, comes after fourteen points about which there was full agreement between the two German Reformers:

Fifteenth, we all believe and hold concerning the Supper of our dear Lord Jesus Christ that both kinds [bread and wine] should be used according to the institution by Christ; also that the Sacrament of the Altar is a sacrament of the true body and blood of Jesus Christ and that the spiritual partaking of the same body and blood is especially necessary for every Christian. Similarly, that the use of the sacrament, like the word, has been given and ordained by God Almighty in order that weak consciences may thereby be excited to faith by the Holy Spirit. And although at this time, we have not reached an agreement as to whether the true body and blood of Christ are bodily present in the bread and wine, nevertheless, each side should show Christian love to the other side insofar as conscience will permit and both sides should diligently pray to Almighty God that through his Spirit he might confirm us in the right understanding.3

Here we see Zwingli, as well as Luther, affirming that the Lord’s Supper is vital for the Christian life, for it is a means by which the Holy Spirit strengthens believers’ faith. Sadly, the final remark regarding the demonstration of Christian love failed to materialize.

Legacy of Division

Ultimately, Luther refused to recognize the Swiss Reformer as a genuine Christian, and thus their division remained unhealed. After the colloquy, Luther concluded that Zwingli was a “perverted” man who had no part of Christ and was “seven times worse than when he was a papist”!4

As Philip of Hesse feared, Roman Catholic princes took advantage of this division. Two years later, in October of 1531, some seven thousand Roman Catholic soldiers attacked the canton of Zurich. Zwingli marched out to meet them at Kappel, where he and around five hundred other Protestants were slain on the battlefield. The Roman Catholic troops had been confident that the German Lutheran princes would not support Zwingli, and thus the boldness of their attack on Zurich. When Luther heard of Zwingli’s end, he was his blunt self: Zwingli had died “in great sin and blasphemy.”5

The division between these two German-speaking men of God and its sad legacy is a sobering reminder of the danger of dividing over issues that cannot be biblically demonstrated as being primary. When facing Christian division — and our day is equally filled with vitriol and misunderstanding between believers — we all still need to pray the prayer that Zwingli uttered before the beginning of that famous colloquy at Marburger Schloss:

Fill us, O Lord and Father of us all, we beseech Thee, with thy gentle Spirit, and dispel on both sides all the clouds of misunderstanding and passion.