How God Gave Us the Bible and Purified It (1/?)
No care was taken about how the people were led as long as the priests were fed. Instead of God’s Word, man’s word was obeyed; instead of Christ’s testament, the pope’s canon. The law of God was seldom read and never understood, so Christ’s saving work and the effect on man’s faith were not examined. Because of this ignorance, errors and sects crept into the church, for there was no foundation for the truth that Christ willingly died to free us from our sins — not bargaining with us but giving to us. [1]
The Morning Star of the English Reformation
of the English Reformation
From his position of influence at Oxford University during the 14th century as a seminary professor and a priest within the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), the Lord provoked Wycliffe with the greed, vice, abuse, and excesses of a religion that owned one third of the wealth of England while its clergy made up only two percent of the population. Monasteries that originally had served as spiritual sanctuaries had turned into swamps of material gratification. Opportunists within the RCC used the Roman religion to amass power, fortunes and land holdings while shielding themselves from prosecution and taxes. Disgusted and angered, he began expressing his dissident views through his books and tracts, setting the stage for the Reformation that would kindle 150 years later, eventually giving a pure English Bible to every man.
In the years that followed, as Wycliffe was attacking the RCC with his writings, God protected his life with the crucial support of the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt (Ghent – Belgium through his mother), who also became his ally. Gaunt, the Earl Marshal Henry Percy, and a number of other friends always accompanied Wycliffe whenever the Roman clergy summoned him. Gaunt had political power through the Crown and sometimes threatened the clergy that he would humble their pride, hinting at the intent to secularize the possessions of their Church.
Wycliffe and Gaunt had a two-way relationship. Wycliffe needed Gaunt to protect him so he could reform the RCC. [2] Gaunt needed Wycliffe, the leading scholar of the leading university in England, to marshal support for seizing the church’s assets to finance his ambitions of making England a world power.
Accountability in Stewardship
Wycliffe wrote essays “On Divine Dominion” and “On Civil Dominion” where he taught accountability in stewardship. A leader may legitimately lose his office and privileges if oversight found him faithless.
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Men held whatever they had received from God as stewards, and if found faithless could justly be deprived of it. [3]
- Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed:
- And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.
- His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:
- Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.
- Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.
- For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
- And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Needing funds to prosecute the on-going Hundred Years War with France, Gaunt asked Wycliffe to present his ideas on dominion before Parliament in 1371. Gaunt had hoped that Parliament would feel justified to pillage RCC assets. In the matter of tithe payments or church tax, the king’s council asked Wycliffe his opinion on whether it was lawful to withhold them to Rome and he responded that it was. [4]
The King Is Supreme
In his De ecclesia (“On the Church”), Wycliffe clearly proclaimed the supremacy of the king over the priesthood [5] in that the king is above the pope in temporal things.
- This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.
- ¶ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
- Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
- For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
- For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
- Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?
- Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.
Christ is the Head of the Church
At this time, the king was under the power of the pope where he had to ask permission to do anything or risk excommunication and damnation in Hell. Wycliffe attacked the Pope and the clergy for their worldly wealth and dominion, luxury and pomp, and for claiming the Headship of the Church.
- And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
- For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.
- For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
- Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Transubstantiation Is a Fraud
In 1379-80, he boldly published his tracts On Apostasy and On the Eucharist. He opposed the idolatry and superstition of the Mass, saying that no one can recreate the literal body of the Lord Jesus in the Mass (transubstantiation). Rather, independent of what the priest says, the reception of Christ is spiritual through faith in the Eucharist. [6] Referring to Berengarius of Tours’ statement of 1059, Wycliffe interpreted this to mean that the bread remained bread even after the consecration.
The doctrine of transubstantiation is a satanic doctrine. Known as the spirit of bondage, transubstantiation gives the RCC the perceived power over death and Hell, even power over the body of Jesus Christ Himself. To that end, people will obey the RCC to escape damnation.
- And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.
- And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves:
- For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.
- And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
- Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
Satan desires bodies, especially the body of Moses. Considering that he has deceived and enslaved billions of people over the centuries with the pretended change of the bread and wine into the physical body and blood of Jesus Christ, what could he do if he had possession of the real physical body of Moses? Fortunately, only God knows where the body of Moses lies. Satan also knows that God is going to use the body of Moses during the tribulations.
- Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
- ¶ And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
- These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
- And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.
- These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.
Crimes and Frauds of the RCC
He attacked the very idea of indulgences, of a gratuitous quid pro quo forgiveness that nullifies God’s gift of forgiveness.
Wycliffe accused the clergy of simony [9] (selling of church offices) when they collected annates [10] (the first year’s consecrated profits of a benefice) and indulgences (reducing time spent in Purgatory). He also rejected the doctrine of Purgatory because the Pope is a mere man who has no power over death, even of his own.
The Scriptures teach that only the blood of Jesus Christ, not Purgatory, can cleanse away sin.
- But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
- ¶ And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
- And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
- And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
- And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
- And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Wycliffe also disapproved of clerical celibacy, pilgrimages, and praying to saints. [2] Even the Apostle Peter, claimed by the RCC to be its first Pope, had a wife.
- ¶ And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever.
- And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them.
- A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
- Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;
- One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
- (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)
- Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.
- What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
- Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.
- How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?
Wycliffe rejected the Requiem or Requiem Mass because it is a fraud. A Requiem is a Mass in the RCC offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons. [12] However, death is final and there is no changing of its outcome. Either God wrote a person’s name in the Book of Life or He didn’t. If the deceased rejected God during his lifetime, he has then chosen to spend eternity without God, Mass or no Mass.
The RCC Attempts to Silence Wycliffe
On 22 May 1377, Pope Gregory XI issued five papal bulls against Wycliffe, denouncing 18 theses of his as erroneous and dangerous to Church and State. The RCC will stop at nothing to suppress any threats to its power over the people and their wealth. The next year, the RCC summoned him to appear in Rome where he faced martyrdom if not for the protection of John of Gaunt and the Great Schism of 1378. It was at this time that there were two Popes competing for Head of the RCC—a French and a Roman Pope. While the Roman church in England remained loyal to the Roman pope, the Roman pope meanwhile caused the monarch of Bohemia to break its alliance with France and ally with England, France’s nemesis, ending the Schism.
In 1382, two years before Wycliffe’s death, the Romanist Archbishop of Canterbury, William Courtenay, lodged heresy charges against the Oxford scholar. The Blackfriars Synod convened to judge 24 of Wycliffe’s teachings. Ten of them were condemned as heresy and the rest labeled as errors. The bishops received temporal power to restrain the power of Lollardy at Oxford where the bishops ordered Wycliffe’s writings burned. In the prevailing hostile mood, some of his followers recanted in order to avoid death. Wycliffe himself escaped imprisonment and death because of his connections to the English court. Condemned as a heretic and banished from Oxford, he spent his last years at his Lutterworth parish. [13]
Courtenay was quick to seize the initiative obtained at Blackfriars and urged Parliament to pass a Statute of the Realm outlawing dissent.
The three doctrines that Wycliffe expounded which upset the Roman Catholic Church the most as being subversive were:
- His opposition to emphasis on good works;
- His opposition to the Sacraments as vitally important to salvation.
- His work upon an English translation of the Bible as the best guide to a moral life.
The Crowning Work of the Bible
It was not until the twilight years of his life that he came to a fully developed position on the authority of the Scriptures. He believed that it is the right of every Christian to study the Bible, which emphasizes the need to know the importance of Christ alone as the only way to salvation through grace and not of pilgrimages, works and the Mass.
Wycliffe had come to regard the scriptures as the only reliable guide to the truth about God, and maintained that all Christians should rely on the Bible rather than on the teachings of popes and clerics. In fact, he even said that there was no scriptural justification for the papacy. [15]
Publishing Wycliffe’s Bible in 1382, he translated the Latin Vulgate into Middle English.
Though banishment prevented him from appearing in public outside of Lutterworth, John Wycliffe still had many disciples, students from Oxford, itinerant preachers and others who hungered and thirsted after righteousness. They spread the gospel truth through England and Scotland. Called “Lollards” by their enemies, he properly referred to these itinerants as “evangelical men” because of their message, or “apostolic men” because of their love for Bible basics.
His associates completed the translation of the Old Testament by 1384, the same year he suffered a second stroke, and died at age 60 while he was at Mass in the parish church on Holy Innocents’ Day, 28 December 1384. His assistant, John Purvey, chose Midland English, the dialect of London, which came to dominate the entire country when he updated additional versions in 1388 and 1395.
Final Thoughts
God had first raised up Wycliffe, and then many others, to break the terrible terroristic power of Satan’s sun worshippers [20] which eventually resulted in the RCC losing their grip over the temporal power over most countries. This has been termed “The Reformation.” With the loss of their control over temporal rulers, the RCC changed its tactics to good works in order to regain its majority in the populations. When it regains temporal control, terrorism will repeat.
God’s word—the Bible—only made the Reformation possible when Wycliffe inspired other holy men to provide the life-changing Bible to the masses in their mother tongue. Out of the English courts’ Norman French and three English dialects, the English of Wycliffe, Oxford, and Chaucer, became the universal language of the world.
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