10/28/56

Scripture: I Peter 3: 8-21 [RSV]

Text: I Peter 3: 15; “But in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you.” [Read]

These words were written by one who was giving counsel to early Christians. They were part of the homely advice and encouragement which Peter was giving to Christian folk who were trying to live their faith. They are gentle, persuasive words. And yet they are also a command to Peter’s readers and listeners. They are a command to us Christians of a much later date. It is as though Peter were saying to them, and to us, “Don’t stand there stammering and hesitating. Get up on your feet and speak up for your convictions. Don’t apologize for your faith. Witness to it!”

A man should get acquainted with his heritage, and be able to commend it to others. There are some religious groups whose members give specific reply when asked what they believe. Mormon teams of two young men each go far and wide into communities as missionaries of their way. And they will go from house to house, for a whole season, witnessing to their manner of worship and faith.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are informed and insistent on their tenets of faith. Ask a Seventh Day Adventist to talk about his faith, as compared to yours, and he may offer to bring his Bible and show you, verse by verse, where he thinks you are wrong and he is right.

Many Roman Catholics have definite answers to specific questions about their faith, in part because they are taught both the questions and answers in their catechetical training.

Should not we of the Protestant Churches, such as this Congregational Christian Church, know what we believe, and witness our faith? And I do not mean that we do so by merely attacking what we understand to be the weak or erroneous elements in others’ manner of belief. But I mean a positive understanding and testimony as to what we do believe.

Whenever we review the great Reformation, we can rejoice that the reformers broke away from Roman Catholicism. We can point to the spiritual corruption that brought revolt into the souls not only of those who broke away, but of many who stayed in, that church, at that time. We can emphasize the differences between our Roman Catholic neighbors and ourselves in 1956.

We can even respect the zeal of those who differ from us at this point, and we can enjoy a degree of tolerance that characterizes some of the members of various churches like that of the genial Roman Catholic priest who was asked if he thought Protestants would get to heaven, and who replied, “I think they have as good a chance as some of our popes!” And there was the Methodist leader who, when the Angelus rang in the Roman Church tower, would remove his hat and say, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”

But we do need to put the “pro” into our Protestantism. For that great word is not alone, or even chiefly, a negative expression of rebellion or dissent. The word “Protestant” derives from two word roots: “pro”, meaning “for”, and “testate”, meaning “to be a witness.” That is to say, it has the positive meaning, “witness for.” The evangelical Protestant witnesses for the faith that he holds. His is a positive avowal of something God has graciously done.

Suppose we set in array some of the distinctive beliefs that make us Protestant, not alone by heritage, but by training and conviction.

(1) We are Protestant because we take the Scriptures as the sole and dependable guide in matters of faith. And we reserve the right of interpretation of those Scriptures not to the trained clergy alone, but to each worshipper. There is some danger that fantastic and foolish beliefs will arise out of misunderstandings and misinterpretations of Scripture. But it is a risk that we gladly assume in the cause of personal, responsible, freedom.

One who had not been reared in the Protestant tradition heard a radio sermon by a New York City preacher. The sermon stressed the positive teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Christ, once and for all, made an offering of himself that each might know the forgiveness of his sins. [Hebrews 10: 12]. The minister pointed out that this mighty sacrifice does not require repetition on the part of human intermediaries. It was accomplished once and for all by Jesus Christ, our great High Priest. There is such remission of sins that every one who is truly penitent before God can lay hold of the assurance that his sin will be forgiven, with the further admonition: “Go, and sin no more.”

And that listener to the radio sermon became a glad convert to the gospel of free access to grace as expounded by the preacher, from the holy Scriptures.

In our own day of searching responsibility, we should all be able to give reason for the hope that is in us, to those who may be groping for life-giving faith.

We should know our great text-book. We should be able to point men to the joyous and hopeful words of Saint Paul: “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” [Romans 10: 9]. We should know Jesus’ clear teaching to Nicodemus: “I say to you unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. -- You must be born anew.” [John 3: 5, 7].

There is power in knowledge of the Bible, the power of a great faith. We believe that we are saved, redeemed, made whole by our trust in Christ rather than by anything that we can do or by any merit that we can manage to pile up in heaven.

But there is a real peril in depending on this kind of power. It is the peril of accepting Protestant liberty without being held to deep Protestant Loyalties. It is the peril of accepting Protestant principles with practicing them.

A young leader taught in the summer youth camp of his denomination. His course was on Protestant beliefs. And he wrote of his experience this way, saying: “I found that most of that class had no idea whatsoever about what Protestants believe. I began to talk with them about the Protestant claim that the Bible is the authority for our religion, rather than the Church. I stressed that, as Protestants, we hold that people have a right to interpret the Bible according to their best lights. I contrasted that with the idea of the Roman Church that it is not important for people to read the Bible, and even if they do, they must accept the Roman interpretation of it.”

“Then,” he said, “I made a serious mistake. I asked how many in that class of church youth had read the Book of Acts. Not a single hand was raised.”

“I said I made a mistake in asking whether they had read the Book of Acts, for in my class was one girl who was a Roman Catholic. After the class was over, she said to me, ‘That is just what the priests have always told me. They say that Protestants do a lot of talking about how they respect the Bible and how they let each other interpret it as he pleases. But what actually happens is that most Protestants do not read the Bible, much less try to interpret it.’”

And the young teacher concludes the sorrowful record of his experience by saying, “All I could do was stand there and swallow hard.”

There is power in Protestantism. But it is not in the neglect of Scripture. Rather it comes to us in acquaintance with, and study of the Word of God as given in Scripture. That is where Martin Luther found it. The day came when he stood on trial for his life, facing a demand that he recant the statements for which he had been excommunicated. A hundred years earlier John Huss had been similarly tried and had been burned at the stake for his testimony. Luther replied in word now famous:

“Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason -- I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other -- my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.”

This witnessing Protestantism is, in essence, the rediscovery of the early Christian Church and the simplicity of its spiritual faith.

Frequently we are asked by our Roman Catholic friends what is meant to be an embarrassing question, “Where did the Protestant churches come from?” “Did they not come from the Roman Catholic Church?” And in an apparently logical sequence, the next question follows, “If then the Roman Catholic Church is the first church, then isn’t it the true church?”

From one point of view it may be said that the Protestant churches sprang from the Roman Catholic Church. But it is hardly accurate to maintain that Protestantism grew out of, or was founded upon, Roman Catholicism. Rather, Protestantism sprang away from Catholicism, back to the primitive church that existed before Roman Catholicism took shape. It was a return to the simple, vital faith of the early Christian Church that was the first church long before the development of elaborate ritual, masses, saints, veneration of Mary, or a hierarchical clergy set apart from the common layman.

One of the strengths of Protestantism is its rediscovery of the simpler, earlier faith of the primitive Christian church. And it is in this faith that we ought to be prepared to testify.

(2) Here is another good reason why a lot of us are Protestant: Protestantism at its best always exalts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of the human heart, and as the only head of his church. In the light of this tenet of faith it is quite impossible to believe in the infallibility of one supreme bishop, be he in Rome, or anywhere else.

The Protestant turns with joyous relief to the New Testament, and reads therein: “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” [I Timothy 2: 5].

Much of this joyous discovery is found in the hymns of the church. A gospel hymn shouts:

On Christ, the sold rock, I stand;

All other ground is sinking sand.

In Topladys famous hymn, Rock of Ages, referring to Christ, we sing:

“Thou must save, and thou alone.”

And the great faith-laden hymn of Martin Luther, A Mighty Fortress, affirms:

Did we in our strength confide,

Our striving would be losing;

Were not the right man on our side,

The man of God’s own choosing;

Dost ask who that may be?

Christ Jesus, it is he.

It is the Christ who lives in our hearts and experience who brings inward release, and peace that passes all understanding. And Protestantism, at its best, exalts this Christ as Lord.

(3) Then, too, we Protestants believe in the Biblical conception of the church as a priesthood of all believers. The same man who urges us to make a clear witness to our faith also reminds us that we are “a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

This belief in a spiritual democracy went into the founding of our American nation. Men who had been dictated to in matters of faith, and were so sick and tired of it as to be willing to risk their lives to be freed from that dictation, came to these shores to have responsible liberty. Before disembarking from the ship, they signed the Mayflower Compact with each other as a “priesthood of believers” in God. The basic conception of “government of the people, by the people and for the people” sprang from that root.

The affirmation of both Protestantism and the earliest Christian church is greatly different from that of the authoritative church. To the question: “How can I have dealings with God?” the answer is: “You can come directly to Him. As a believer you are, for this purpose, a priest in your own right.”

There is, therefore, no need of any intermediary. No priest, no clergyman stands between your soul and God. It may bring relief, in some instances, to unburden your troubled soul to a trusted minister, or other counselor. But you may still make your own confession directly to God, and be just as directly assured of His forgiveness. And no church, nor other ecclesiastical power can shut you away from His grace. In the words of the New Testament, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Strangely enough, we need to remind ourselves constantly, in Protestantism, that this is true. No top-heavy brass, please! No big or little dictators among either clergy or laity! Let the church be the church - the gathered company of believers!

The directive of the church’s founder, Jesus Christ, was this: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.” [Matthew 16: 18]. Founded on what? Upon a human Peter thereby turned into a first bishop? No! But upon Peter’s confession as a redeemed and surrendered and humble follower of the Christ.

The Church’s one foundation

Is Jesus Christ her Lord.

That is conclusive for the evangelical Protestant.

The place of the minister in our fellowship is one of honor and respect, of consecrated training and endeavor, to be sure; but always that of a man among mankind, a brother amongst brethren. And Christ has “made us a kingdom” together.

(1) The Bible as our guide in faith and belief, studied and beloved as the Word of God to us; (2) the preeminence of Jesus Christ; and (3) the priesthood of all believers making our religion relevant to all of life --- there is the “faith of our fathers” and our faith. May God help us to know it, to live it; and to pass it on to our children and to generations yet unborn.

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Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, October 28, 1956

Wisconsin Rapids, July 29, 1962