Chapter 33: The Kingdom Banner Arises Anew. The Swiss Reformers had managed to destroy the Kingdom Witness of the Waldensians, but they could not prevent others from lifting the Kingdom Banner anew. One of the very good things that came out of the Reformation was that it fueled the printing and distribution of the Bible throughout Europe. Various Reformation scholars translated the Bible into the vernacular, and the printing press made these translations affordable to the average person.
Europeans who read the Bible for themselves, free of the Augustinian influence of the Reformers, frequently came to embrace the Gospel of the Kingdom. And so a whole new Kingdom movement sprang up spontaneously all across northern Europe. In Zurich, Switzerland, this new Kingdom movement first flowered during the time when Zwingli was preaching. Some of Zwingli's associates were not blinded by the influence of Augustine, and they clearly saw the Gospel of the Kingdom in Jesus' teaching.
They wanted to restore apostolic Christianity, but Zwingli was not willing to go any further with his Reformation than what the city council would allow. So these Kingdom Christians began meeting in homes by themselves. In addition to restoring Jesus' Kingdom teachings, these new Kingdom Christians also taught the need for a holy, disciplined church, not a state church that included everyone who lived within the state. They also rejected predestination.
However, Zwingli proved to be as intolerant and iron-fisted as Calvin later would be. With Zwingli's approval, the civil authorities quickly instituted laws against these Kingdom Christians, whom they called Anabaptists (rebaptizers).
One of these laws reads as follows: "In order that the dangerous, wicked, turbulent, and seditious sect of the Anabaptists may be eradicated, we have thus decreed: If anyone is suspected of rebaptism, he is to be warned by the Magistracy to leave the territory under penalty of the designated punishment. Every person is obliged to report those favorable to rebaptism. Whoever shall not comply with this ordinance is liable to punishment according to the sentence of the Magistracy.
Teachers of rebaptism, baptizing preachers, and leaders of irregular meetings are to be drowned. Those previously released from prison who have sworn to desist from such things shall incur the same penalty. Foreign Anabaptists are to be driven out. If they return, they shall be drowned. No one is allowed to secede from the state church and to absent himself from the Holy Supper.
Whoever flees from one jurisdiction to another shall be banished or extradited upon demand." Zwingli and his civil magistrates quickly arrested any Anabaptist teachers or leaders they could find. They threw these Christians into bleak dungeons and fed them only bread and water. If these imprisoned Christians refused to recant their errors, they were bound with their hands behind them and then drowned in the river, a baptism of death.
In Germany and the Netherlands, other leaders and groups of Kingdom Christians sprouted up independently of the Anabaptists in Switzerland. These other Kingdom groups invariably discovered the same Gospel of the Kingdom, and soon they were all in touch with each other. The Reformers and Catholics labeled all of these Kingdom Christians with the name of Anabaptists. All of the mainline Reformers believed that the primary problem with Rome was its theology.
That's because all of these Reformers thought that the essence of Christianity itself was theology. However, the Anabaptists correctly saw that the essence of Christianity is relationship, not theology. We first have to be born again so that we can enter the Kingdom of God, and then we can grow as a branch on the vine of Jesus. Yes, Rome held to many unbiblical practices and doctrines, all of which needed to be corrected. But just making theological corrections wasn't going to solve the underlying problem.
The basic problem was that Roman Catholicism had largely become a mechanistic religion. Everything worked automatically. If a person held to the creed of the Church, partook of the sacraments, and died faithful to the Church (not in mortal sin), he was saved. If a person committed a serious sin, he could mechanically have it expiated by performing the stated penance. This might be a matter of giving alms, going on a pilgrimage or crusade, paying for an indulgence, or viewing relics of the saints.
No change of heart was required, and so his relationship with Christ never changed. Now, I want to make it clear that the Roman Catholic Church itself did not officially teach that Christianity was nothing more than a matter of mechanically going through a list of steps. The Church certainly taught that love of God and genuine repentance from sin were essential.
The problem was, and still is, that there was a considerable gulf between what Rome officially said and what was actually practiced and preached in the typical Catholic community. In practice, Roman Catholicism had largely become a machine-like religion, preaching cheap grace. It is commonly thought that the Reformation changed all of that. But instead, the Reformation largely replaced one form of cheap grace (sacraments, indulgences, etc.) with another form of cheap grace: easy believism.
Just believe that Jesus died for your sins and that your own obedience plays no role in your salvation, and voilà, your eternal life in heaven is assured. The truth is that German Lutherans were little different than German Catholics, except as to theology and forms of worship. To be sure, the Reformed churches in Switzerland did require a much stricter form of Christian living, which they enforced through the civil authorities.
Yet these churches still taught the ultimate form of mechanical Christianity: God arbitrarily predestined everyone before they were even born. Neither Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, or the Roman Catholics put much emphasis on the new birth. In their systems, the new birth was simply part of the whole mechanical process. Before the Anabaptists, it was quite different. A person had to start with the new birth, including a personal commitment to the Kingdom of Christ.
It wasn't just a matter of believing in Jesus as one's Savior; he also had to be one's Lord, not just theologically, but as lived out in a person's actual life. As one Anabaptist expressed it: "Now perhaps some may answer: Our belief is that Christ is the Son of God, that his word is truth, and that he purchased us with his blood and truth. We were regenerated in baptism and we received the Holy Spirit.
Therefore we are the true Church and congregation of Christ." We reply: "If your faith is as you say, why do you not do the things which he has commanded you in his word?
His commandment is: Repent and keep the commandments." Faithful reader, reflect that if it had so happened to you as you say, you would have to acknowledge besides that the aforementioned birth and the received Spirit are altogether without effect: wisdom, power, and fruits in you (yes, vain and dead) that you live neither after the Spirit nor in the power of the new birth. The same writer described the type of faith that the Kingdom Gospel demands: "True, evangelical faith cannot lie dormant.
It clothes the naked, it feeds the hungry, it comforts the sorrowful, it shelters the destitute, it serves those who harm it, it binds up that which is wounded, it has become all things to all men." As another Anabaptist leader expressed it: "No man can truly know Christ unless he follows him in life." As Paul put it: "The Kingdom of God is not in word but in power. The essence of the Kingdom isn't words, theology, but power." And Paul wasn't speaking in that passage about the power to perform wonders.
Wonders are like words. They can be part of the Kingdom, but they aren't the essence of the Kingdom. By themselves, they prove nothing. Jesus knew our inclination would be to follow wonders, so he warned us in advance: "Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name?" And then I will declare to them: "I never knew you.
Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness." If Jesus never knew these wonder-workers, then it means they were never even on his vine. They lived their entire Christian life in a fantasy world, prophesying and casting out demons in Jesus' name. They thought they had power, but whatever power they had didn't come from him. What was their problem? Was it that they trusted in their own works? No. Jesus said their problem was that they practiced lawlessness.
His Kingdom has laws, and if we don't obey his laws, then we practice lawlessness. This is the very point that the Anabaptists made to their hearers: it doesn't matter how much theology you've figured out correctly, and it doesn't matter what formal steps you've taken to be born again. If you're not living under the power of the Spirit, it's all worthless. Either you never were on Jesus' vine or you've been lopped off. Someone growing on Christ's vine doesn't practice lawlessness.
He doesn't live in disobedience to Christ's laws. An Anabaptist writer gave this description of the Anabaptists in his day: "In baptism, they bury their sins in the Lord's death and rise with him to a new life. They circumcise their hearts with the word of the Lord. They are baptized with the Holy Spirit into the spotless, holy body of Christ as obedient members of his church, according to the true ordinance and word of the Lord. They put on Christ and manifest his spirit, nature, and power in all their conduct.
They fear God with the heart and seek in all their thoughts, words, and works nothing but the praise of God and the salvation of their beloved brethren. Hatred and vengeance they do not know, for they love those who hate them, they do good to those who despitefully use them, and pray for those who persecute them. These regenerated people have a spiritual King over them who rules them by the unbroken scepter of his mouth, namely, with his Holy Spirit and word.
He clothes them with the garment of righteousness, of pure white silk. He refreshes them with the living water of his Holy Spirit and feeds them with the bread of life. His name is Christ Jesus. They are the children of peace who have beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and know war no more.
They give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's." These new Kingdom Christians quickly found each other and formed local congregations and continent-wide alliances. The Anabaptist movement spread so rapidly that it appeared that it would become a larger movement than the mainstream Reformation. The Anabaptists had no organized mission system. Instead, like the early Christians, all Anabaptists were missionaries, sharing the Gospel of the Kingdom with everyone they could.
Once again, the Gospel of the Kingdom was turning the world upside down. But the response from the world was quite swift. It had no desire to be turned upside down. The Reformers feared that if too many people joined this new Kingdom movement, they would have insufficient troops to fight the Catholics or the Turks. Both the Reformers and the Catholics wanted a society built within the confines of the Constantinian hybrid.
They had come to believe that if church and state were not joined, all of society would collapse. Therefore, the Anabaptists must die. Both the Roman Catholic and Reformation churches subjected these new Kingdom Christians to the same inhumane tortures that the pagan Romans had once inflicted on the Christians of their day, other than throwing them to the lions.
For example, the German authorities executed the following sentence against the Anabaptist leader, Michael Sattler: "Judgment is passed that Michael Sattler shall be delivered to the executioner, who shall lead him to the place of execution and cut out his tongue. Then they shall fasten him to a wagon and twice tear pieces of flesh from his body with red-hot tongs. After he has been taken outside the city gates, they shall tear his body five more times in the same manner.
After this, he shall be burned to ashes." And what terrible crimes did Michael Sattler commit to incur such cruel punishment? He simply had taught Kingdom Christianity to others. Two of the nine articles of indictment against him were that he taught against oaths and that he preached non-resistance. I wonder if those same Christian authorities would have torn Christ's flesh with red-hot tongs and then burned him alive. After all, he too preached non-resistance and told his disciples not to take oaths.
The persecution against the Anabaptists was actually worse than what the early Christians had faced from Rome. That's because it was far more thorough and relentless. Yet even with this intense persecution, the Reformers and Catholics were unable to obliterate this new Kingdom movement entirely. A faithful remnant of them is still with us. At the same time, the Anabaptists have had their share of shortcomings.
For example, as a result of the horrendous persecution from other so-called Christians, most of them eventually lost their zeal to witness to others. The Anabaptist movement was one of the most important movements in the history of Christianity. Not only did the Anabaptists restore the Gospel of the Kingdom in the 16th century, a remnant of them have kept the banner aloft for nearly 500 years. Yet, the Anabaptists have by no means been the only Kingdom Christians during the past 500 years.
Even though Reformation churches have typically labeled Kingdom Christianity as works Christianity, individual Kingdom Christians have still sprouted in the soil of these churches. Nor have Kingdom Christians been absent from the Roman Catholic Church either. It's just that it's much more difficult to practice Kingdom Christianity in a Catholic or Reformation setting. In fact, no lasting Kingdom movements have ever come out of any church that's attached to Reformation theology.
Although some Anabaptists reached England, they were never able to establish a permanent foothold there. However, in 1647, a native English Kingdom movement arose independently of the Anabaptists. Typical of most Kingdom movements, this fresh new movement was started by an unlearned Weaver's son named George Fox. From reading the Bible on his own, without any theological training, he discovered the Gospel of the Kingdom.
With excitement and joy, Fox began enthusiastically preaching Kingdom Christianity throughout England. He was so bold in his preaching that sometimes he would interrupt the sermon in the state church and begin preaching to the congregation. On one occasion after doing this, an angry mob of churchgoers lynched him. When Fox survived the hanging, they clubbed him until he was unconscious.
When he finally regained his consciousness, he stood up, looked at the mob, and said in a loud voice: "Strike me again if you like. Here are my arms, my head, and my cheeks." Bewildered, the crowd melted away. George Fox made many disciples through his preaching, and they called themselves the Society of Friends. Others called them Quakers, the name by which they're best known. Throughout England and later in the Americas, the Quakers preached Kingdom values everywhere they went.
Although the church authorities whipped and imprisoned the Quakers, nothing could silence them. In the New World, the Puritans forbade any Quakers to set foot in Massachusetts on pain of death. But the Quakers continued to witness in Massachusetts, so the Puritans hanged a number of them. Unlike the Anabaptists and Waldensians, the Quakers emphasized the inner witness of the Spirit over the teaching of Scripture.
Believing they had entered a new age of the Spirit, they erroneously taught that baptism and communion are no longer necessary. Over the centuries, their emphasis on the inner lights of the Spirit led them to greater and greater social activism and less reliance on the Scriptures. Today, the Quakers are an extremely liberal body that focuses primarily on social activism. Only a small remnant of Quakers today hold to the biblical Kingdom Gospel.
While the Quaker movement was flourishing in England, a new spiritual movement was sweeping across Germany and northern Europe: Pietism. Hungering for authentic spiritual life, Christians who belonged to the state churches began meeting in small groups to study the Bible and pray. Like the Quakers, the Pietists strongly emphasized the inner work of the Holy Spirit. And like the Quakers, the Pietists generally viewed baptism and communion as unessential, minor aspects of the Christian life.
Unfortunately, unlike the Quakers, most Pietists did not teach a literal obedience to Jesus' Kingdom teachings. In the Palatinate area of Germany in the early 1700s, a young Christian named Alexander Mack had been spiritually awakened by the Pietist movement. Now, most Pietists remained in the state churches (Lutheran, Reformed, or Catholic) and held their prayer meetings at times that did not conflict with the state services.
However, Mack and his spiritual companions saw the need to separate from the state churches and to return to primitive Christianity. From their Bible reading, Mack and his companions came to see the clear Gospel of the Kingdom. They rejected oaths, war, the accumulation of wealth, lawsuits, and other such things that conflicted with Christ's teaching. Calling themselves simply by the name of brethren, these new Kingdom Christians came to be known as the German Baptists or Dunkards.
They enthusiastically spread the Gospel of the Kingdom throughout the towns where they lived. Persecution from the authorities forced them to move from town to town and eventually to Germantown, Pennsylvania. In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin describes his encounter with the Dunkards: "I think a more prudent conduct is in another sect among us, that of the Dunkards. I was acquainted with one of its founders, Michael Welfare, soon after it appeared.
He complained to me that they were viciously calumniated by the zealots of other persuasions and charged with abominable principles and practices to which they were utter strangers. I told him this had always been the case with new sects, and that to put a stop to such abuse, I imagined it might be well to publish the articles of their belief and the rules of their discipline. He said it had been proposed among them but not agreed to for this reason.
When we were first drawn together as a society," says he, "it had pleased God to enlighten our minds so far as to see that some things, which we once esteemed truths, were errors, and others, which we had esteemed errors, were real truths. From time to time, he has been pleased to afford us further lights, and our principles have been improving and our errors diminishing. Now, we are not sure that we have arrived at the end of this progression and at the perfection of spiritual or theological knowledge.
We fear that, if we should once print our confession of faith, we should feel ourselves as if bound and confined by it, and perhaps be unwilling to receive further improvements, and our successors, still more so, will conceive what we their elders and founders had done to be something sacred, never to be departed from." This modesty in a sect is perhaps a singular instance in the history of mankind. Every other sect supposed itself in possession of all truth.
Actually, the Dunkards' non-dogmatic approach to theology, beyond the basics, is quite characteristic of new Kingdom movements. When believers first discover the Kingdom, their joy for this hidden treasure is so great that they focus primarily on the Kingdom and its King. They don't worry much about intricate issues of theology.
In 18th-century Switzerland, after the Anabaptists had virtually disappeared from that country, Samuel Fröhlich, a young seminary student, organized Christian fellowships based largely upon a literal interpretation of God's Word. Not surprisingly, this led him to the familiar basics of the Kingdom Gospel: non-resistance, simple theology, a recognition of the role that obedience plays in salvation, and the rejection of oaths and materialism.
Like all other new Kingdom Christians, Fröhlich and his fellow believers witnessed enthusiastically and their new Kingdom movement spread rapidly throughout Europe. These Kingdom Christians are still with us today, being known in Europe as the Nazarenes and in America as the Apostolic Christian Church.
Most people who read the Scriptures unfettered by prior indoctrination generally come to a knowledge of the Kingdom Gospel, so it's not surprising to find that new house churches and small fellowships often teach the Gospel of the Kingdom. In fact, some of the established conventional churches that are familiar today actually embraced non-resistance and preached more of a Kingdom Gospel in their infancy.
Some examples are the Church of Christ, the Christian Church, the Moravians, and some of the Wesleyan Holiness and Pentecostal churches. However, as those movements grew, they established seminaries, acquired respectability, and usually lost most of their Kingdom teachings. Before leaving our discussion of the various Kingdom movements through history, I want to make it clear that these Kingdom groups didn't hold to the same minute theological beliefs.
They all held to the Apostles' Creed and the Gospel of the Kingdom, including the lifestyle teachings of Jesus Christ. That's what's important to Jesus.