1 of 7

For Anabaptists, as for all other Christians in the sixteenth century, Christian faith had been revealed to men by God. God was the author of it; the mediator of it was Jesus Christ.

By Jesus’ death, which was an expression of the love and mercy of God, sin is removed and man is forgiven. Man’s own merit achieves nothing for he has none before God. Life in Christ is a gift of God’s grace. Jesus Christ is the saviour of man, and man is saved by faith in him.

But to accept him as Saviour is only the beginning of faith. Obedience to Christ the Lord is an integral part. As Hans Denck affirmed in his first public statement:

This obedience must be genuine, that is, that heart, mouth, and deed coincide together. For there can be no true heart where neither mouth nor deed is visible.

Christ’s life served as the model of a God-pleasing life. “Let Christ Jesus with His Spirit and Word be your teacher and example, your way and your mirror.” In thousands of passages in Anabaptist writings, there is a call for a concrete following of the example of Christ.

Anabaptists made a great deal of the new commandment of love in John 13:34; the fulfillment of which was a mark of “genuine faith and true Christianity.” They insisted that the commandment of love was concrete and had to do with specifics in human life and experience. It meant forgiveness for injury, refusal to retaliate, refusal to injure, refusal to coerce. It meant aiding, supporting and defending the needy, comforting the sorrowing, preaching the Gospel to the poor. The commandment to love had content, they believed, usually identified as the ethical injunctions of Jesus and the apostles. And it was not a casual matter; it must be deliberately and consciously fulfilled. It is a commitment that every disciple takes upon himself at baptism, and which he makes regularly every time he shares in the Supper.

Since God gave the commandment to love all men, to live the truth, and to do it in a community, the Anabaptists straightforwardly assumed that it was possible, and that God would give his power and Spirit to those who asked him. They believed that the person who has faith is gradually changed into the holiness of God after the image of Jesus by the action of the Holy Spirit; this sanctification then becomes visible by the life that is lived. Good works are both the consequence and the evidence of being made holy.

Because of their emphasis on Christ-like living, Anabaptists have repeatedly been subject to the charge of legalism. Luther was one of the first. When Anabaptists emphasized that faith is visible and genuine only if expressed in action, Luther saw nothing but a new system of righteousness by works.

The Anabaptists were very sensitive to this charge and regularly replied to and rejected it. As Menno Simons explained:

Because we teach from the mouth of the Lord that if we would enter into life, we must keep the commandments; that the love of God is that we keep his commandments, the preachers call us heaven-stormers and meritmen, saying that we want to be saved by our own merits even though we have always confessed that we cannot be saved by means of anything other than by the merits, intercession, death, and blood of Christ.

Luther emphasized salvation by grace through faith alone. He did not discount good works but rather insisted that they will follow faith even as the good tree bears good fruit. But some of Luther’s statements convinced the Anabaptists that he was not serious about a Christlike life. When he said “Sin bravely,” what were people to think? Many readily concluded that such a statement cancelled out his call for a good life. In reverse, while Luther and others undoubtedly heard Anabaptist assurances of an evangelical position, these assurances were in turn cancelled out by their constant references to “the new law” and the “law of Christ.” Law was for Luther the opposite of Gospel; there could be no joining of the two.

next page... |  1 of 7

share this page

RSS Feed   RSS Help