Part 1: Restoring Biblical Authority
The watchword cry of the reformers throughout Europe was Sola Scriptura – Scripture alone as the authority for belief and practice, rather than the authority of the Vatican. This was the very heart of the Reformation in Scotland too. The reformers were convinced that every belief and practice in the church should line up with the Bible, which was the true measuring line. For example, it was understandable that Christians should respect and honour the memory of believers who had gone before them. Their examples should stir up Christians for every generation, and Scripture encourages this in Hebrews chapter 11. However, praying to Mary and the saints was seen as pagan idolatry because ‘there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus’ (1 Timothy 2:5, NKJV). Likewise, we cannot possibly earn eternal life through our good works, but through trusting in Christ alone, ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast’ (Ephesians 2:8-9). The Roman Catholic transubstantiation belief, that the priest could just say some words in Latin and the communion would literally turn into the body and blood of Christ, was seen as blasphemy. The reformers reminded their persecutors that Jesus had clearly explained that eating Christ’s flesh and drinking his blood had a spiritual, not literal meaning (John 6:48-64).
The hierarchy which had been built up in the church reflected more that of the Roman Empire than the New Testament church. It was clear to the reformers that either this whole structure would have to be pulled down and rebuilt, or that true believers would have to leave the system and start again. In Scotland we were more rigorous than England in our zeal for reformation. Celibacy and special priests were rejected as being unbiblical because every Christian is a royal priest (1 Peter 2:9), and leaders of the church should be married (1 Timothy 3:1-6). The idea of popes, bishops, and abbots living like princes in palaces was horrific, for they should be servant-leaders of God’s people, following Christ’s example who washed the disciples’ feet and laid down his life for us. Thus, in Scotland, when the reformers rejected Romanism in favour of the Bible, they replaced this pyramid power structure with Presbyterianism – the rule of a team of godly elders, chosen by the vote of the people.
It is not surprising that the Romanist hierarchy fought tooth and nail to oppose this movement because it threatened their existence and their control over the people. They knew that if the Bible was made public for everyone to read, the church could split into different factions, but more than that, their system would be exposed as being fraudulent and contrary to the God they claimed to worship. Much is made of the Scottish reforming zeal when the crowds smashed down statues of the saints, destroyed stained-glass windows, and in some cases pulled down whole church buildings, but only one known Romanist priest was possibly executed. This has to be compared with the wholescale massacres of Protestants in Europe by Romanists. As such the Scottish Reformation, by comparison, was surprisingly subdued.
‘Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path’ (Psalm 119:105, NKJV).
Image: Magdalen Chapel, the Cowgate, Edinburgh. In this chapel the reformers met to establish the Protestant church in Scotland, Paul James-Griffiths