Long Before Luther: Tracing the Heart of the Gospel From Christ to the Reformation

By Nathan Busenitz and John MacArthur

Where was the gospel before the Reformation?

Contemporary evangelicals often struggle to answer that question. As a result, many Roman Catholics are quick to allege that the Reformation understanding of the gospel simply did not exist before the 1500s. They assert that key Reformation doctrines, like sola fide, were nonexistent in the first fifteen centuries of church history. Rather, they were invented by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others.

That is a serious charge, and one that evangelicals must be ready to answer. If an evangelical understanding of the gospel is only 500 years old, we are in major trouble. However, if it can be demonstrated that Reformers were not inventing something new, but instead were recovering something old, then key tenets of the Protestant faith are greatly affirmed. Hence, the need for this book.

After reading Long Before Luther, readers will:

• Possess a greater understanding of church history and the role it plays in the church today.
• Have a deeper appreciation for the hard-won victories of the Reformation.
• Be equipped to dialogue with Catholic friends about the presence of Reformed doctrines throughout church history.
• Feel renewed gratefulness for the unearned nature of grace and the power of the gospel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Moody Publishers
• Release date: Oct 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9780802496355

Nathan Busenitz

Nathan Busenitz (PhD, The Master's Seminary) is assistant professor of theology at the Master's Seminary. He previously served on the pastoral staff of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. He is the author of numerous books and a regular contributor to the blog Preacher & Preaching.

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Praise for Long before Luther

We hear far too often that the doctrine of forensic justification through faith was an invention of the Protestant Reformers, as if the church had never before heard of any such thing. This unbalanced judgment has been challenged strongly, and in my opinion very successfully, by Nathan Busenitz in this well-researched and accessible contribution to Reformation scholarship. I commend it to Protestants and Roman Catholics alike. No future conversations or polemics between the two should ignore what Busenitz has here achieved.

NICK NEEDHAM

Church History Tutor, Highland Theological College 

Author of 2000 Years of Christ’s Power

In this carefully researched and well-written book, Busenitz deconstructs the myth that salvation by faith alone through grace alone was invented by the Reformers. Here we see how the true gospel has been the faithful church’s central proclamation through the centuries. Yet this is not merely history. This is a clarion call for the church today to get the gospel right.

STEPHEN J. NICHOLS

President, Reformation Bible College, and Chief Academic Officer, Ligonier Ministries

Author of The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World

One question that Protestants are often asked—and that, if they are honest, they probably ask themselves—is where was the gospel before the Reformation? Did the church merely languish in darkness for over a millennium while nobody truly understood the apostle Paul? Answering this, of course, requires careful study of the great theologians of the early church and the Middle Ages, something that few of us have the time to do for ourselves. Therefore, we should be grateful that Busenitz has made available the fruits of his doctoral research in such an accessible and helpful form. Readers of this book will find that question answered and their own confidence in the Protestant tradition on salvation strengthened.

CARL R. TRUEMAN

William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and Public Life, Princeton University

Author of Grace Alone—Salvation as a Gift of God: What the Reformers Taught and Why It Still Matters

This book is a balanced, winsome, easy-to-read, biblical and historical defense of the Reformation doctrine of sola fide. With meticulous documentation from primary patristic and medieval sources, Nathan Busenitz has convincingly debunked the notion that the Reformation teaching of justification by faith alone was a sixteenth-century novelty unknown to the prior 1500 years of church history.

WILLIAM WEBSTER

Pastor, Grace Bible Church, Battleground, WA

Author of The Church of Rome at the Bar of History

We have long needed a book that helps us clearly understand who held to the essential gospel truths, recovered in the Reformation, before the Reformation exploded onto the scene. We now have such a book, Long before Luther by Nathan Busenitz. In every generation, God has had a remnant of faithful believers that held to the core doctrine of justification by faith alone. Here is a book—carefully researched, precisely documented, and skillfully written—that will help you discover who laid this theological landmark from the second to the fifteenth centuries. You need to know what is contained in these pages.

STEVEN J. LAWSON

President, OnePassion Ministries, Dallas, TX

Author of Pillars of Grace: AD 100–1564

© 2017 by

NATHAN BUSENITZ

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Edited by Kevin P. Emmert

Author photo: Kevin Ford

Interior and Cover design: Erik M. Peterson

Cover photo of gold frame copyright © 2017 by LiliGraphie / Shutterstock (123809647). All rights reserved.

Cover painting Portrait of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach der Ältere (1528). Public domain.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Busenitz, Nathan, author.

Title: Long before Luther : tracing the heart of the Gospel from Christ to the Reformation / Nathan Busenitz.

Description: Chicago : Moody Publishers, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2017028668 (print) | LCCN 2017035114 (ebook) | ISBN 9780802496355 () | ISBN 9780802418029

Subjects: LCSH: Justification (Christian theology)--History of doctrines--Early church, ca. 30-600. | Justification (Christian theology)--History of doctrines--Middle Ages, 600-1500. | Theology, Doctrinal--History--Early church, ca. 30-600. | Theology, Doctrinal--History--Middle Ages, 600-1500. | Catholic Church--Doctrines. | Reformation. | Reformed Church--Doctrines.

Classification: LCC BT764.3 (ebook) | LCC BT764.3 .B87 2017 (print) | DDC 234/.709--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017028668

ISBN: 978-0-8024-1802-9

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CONTENTS 

Foreword

Introduction

Part 1: The Reformers and Justification

1. An Invention or a Recovery?

2. Regaining Biblical Clarity

3. Clothed in Christ’s Righteousness

Part 2: The Church before Augustine

4. Saved by Grace

5. Justification: A Divine Declaration

6. The Great Exchange

Part 3: Augustine and Justification

7. A Forerunner to the Reformers?

8. The Doctor of Grace

Part 4: The Church after Augustine

9. Pardoned from Sin

10. Reckoned as Righteous

11. Coming Full Circle

Appendix: Voices from History

Abbreviations

Notes

Acknowledgments

What Really Happened after Acts?

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FOREWORD

Along with all those who have been gathered up by the power of Scripture and the Spirit into the recovery of Reformation theology, I have been shaped by the Reformers. I understand the massive spiritual transformation that they launched, but I have long been curious about a nagging question: where was the witness to the true gospel during the dark centuries before the Reformation? Nathan Busenitz has provided the answer to this crucial matter of church history.

Nothing is more important than a right understanding of the gospel. It is the difference between truth and error, life and death, heaven and hell. The issue is so critical, in fact, that the Bible pronounces a curse on anyone who would preach a false version of it. The apostle Paul told his readers, If any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed (Gal. 1:9).

That is severe language. It is as harsh as the Word of God ever gets, pronouncing eternal condemnation on anyone who distorts the gospel. In a day of postmodern tolerance, those words may sound disturbing or divisive. But they are critically necessary because salvation is at stake. If sinners are to be forgiven and reconciled to God, they must have the true gospel preached to them. The good news of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is the only way anyone can escape hell and enter heaven.

In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther and his fellow Reformers rallied against the corruption that dominated Roman Catholicism. Chief among their concerns was Rome’s distortion of the gospel. Roman Catholicism had subverted the gospel of grace by setting up a sacramental system of works-righteousness in its place. Luther’s study of the New Testament, and especially the phrase the just shall live by faith (Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38; see Hab. 2:4) NKJV, launched his understanding of the gospel and emboldened his stand against the false system of his day. And God used Luther as a key part of the great recovery of the gospel known as the Reformation.

But before Luther was a clear-headed theologian, he was a confused monk. Before he was a powerful force for gospel advancement, he was a tormented failure who lived in constant spiritual pain. Even after joining a monastery, he was profoundly depressed and overwrought with so much guilt that he lived in constant anxiety and fear.

Like many in the sixteenth century, Luther believed the road to salvation depended on his own self-effort. He found that road to be impossibly difficult. No matter what he did, he could not overcome the reality of his own sinfulness. Convinced that he had to reach a certain point of worthiness to receive God’s grace, Luther went to extremes—starvation, asceticism, sleeplessness. He punished himself in an effort to pay for his sins and appease God’s wrath. Even so, he had no peace—and no salvation.

Because he understood the reality of divine judgment, he desperately wanted to be right with God. The fear of God drove him to seek reconciliation and forgiveness. He longed for a way to escape hell and enter heaven. Yet even as a monk doing everything he could possibly do, he could not find relief for his fear and guilt. How can I be right before God? That was the question that tormented Luther. It is a question that every sinner must ask. But it is a question to which only the gospel provides the true answer.

False religion invariably gives the wrong answer: Be good. Work harder. Go about to establish your own righteousness. The apostle Paul critiqued that perspective in Romans 10:3–4: For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. False religion emphasizes human effort and establishes its own superficial standard of righteousness.

By contrast, the true gospel emphasizes the bankruptcy of human effort. Salvation comes only by believing in the Lord Jesus, who puts an end to the tyranny of the law. Sinners, therefore, are saved by grace through faith, apart from their own works. They are forgiven, not because of what they have achieved, but only because of what God accomplished through Christ—once for all.

That is Paul’s gospel, and that is what Luther found when he began teaching through Romans and Galatians. When the gospel of grace broke on Luther’s soul, the Holy Spirit gave him life, and peace and joy flooded his heart. He was forgiven, accepted, reconciled, converted, adopted, and justified—solely by grace through faith. The truth of God’s Word illuminated his mind, and the chains of guilt and fear fell off him.

Luther was saved the same way any sinner is saved. Like the tax collector in Luke 18, he recognized his utter unworthiness and cried out to God for mercy. Like the thief on the cross, his sins were forgiven apart from any works he had done. Like the former Pharisee named Paul, he abandoned his reliance on self-righteous efforts, resting instead on the perfect righteousness of Christ. Like every true believer, he embraced the person and work of the Lord Jesus in saving faith. And having been justified by faith, for the first time in his life, he enjoyed peace with God.

Importantly, the issue of the gospel was not settled 500 years ago in church history. It was settled long before Luther. The Reformers were responding to the clarion truth of Scripture, submitting to the gospel message articulated on the pages of the New Testament. Following in the footsteps of Christ and the apostles, they proclaimed the biblical gospel with courage and conviction.

But were Luther and his fellow Reformers the first in church history to understand the biblical gospel accurately? The answer is no, as Nathan Busenitz demonstrates with resounding clarity in this thoroughly researched volume.

For those who have ever wondered where the gospel was before the Reformation, this book provides a welcome answer. More importantly, in a day when the church is in danger of compromising the purity of the biblical message, this book serves as a timely reminder of the gospel that true believers in every generation have cherished, proclaimed, and fought to defend.

My prayer for you, as you read this book, is that your heart would resonate with the words of Paul in Romans 1:16–17: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’

JOHN MACARTHUR

The Master’s Seminary

INTRODUCTION

It was Mother’s Day 2007. I remember it well because of what happened a few days earlier. On May 5, Francis Beckwith, then-president of the Evangelical Theological Society, officially resigned his presidency and publicly announced that he was leaving evangelicalism to become a Roman Catholic. By going home to Rome, he claimed, he was returning to the mother church.

Beckwith’s reasons, as he explained them, were largely due to his belief that the early church was more Roman Catholic than Protestant. Specifically, he claimed the Roman Catholic understanding of salvation—and the doctrine of justification in particular—was closer to the church’s historical understanding of salvation prior to the Reformation all the way back to the ancient church of the first few centuries.¹ To return to the Roman Catholic Church was, in his estimation, to return to the church of history.

Beckwith’s announcement sent shockwaves through the evangelical world, due both to its suddenness and the rationale behind it. In response, a few days before Mother’s Day, my colleague Jesse Johnson published a critical assessment of Beckwith’s statement. The article—titled Mother Church?—took Beckwith to task. Though it was only a short blog post, its publication would change the course of my studies.

As provocative blog posts often do, Johnson’s response generated numerous comments from a wide variety of perspectives. But one commenter stands out in my memory. A staunch defender of Roman Catholic teaching, he identified himself only as Gerry. He entered the online conversation with one primary assertion—that the key doctrines of the sixteenth-century Reformation were entirely without historical warrant. He put it this way: As far as ‘Protestant Christianity’ goes it did not exist until the 1500s. I challenge anyone to find the current Protestant beliefs and practices before the 1500s. When asked what beliefs and practices he had in mind, Gerry narrowed his focus to the Reformation doctrines of sola Scriptura (that Scripture alone is the church’s highest authority) and sola fide (that sinners are justified by God’s grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ).²

Having just begun my doctoral studies in church history, I felt compelled to respond to Gerry’s challenge. For the next seven days, using the comments section of the blog as our forum, we discussed the pre-Reformation evidence for these core Protestant doctrines. The conversation was direct, but gracious. It was also fairly expansive. The combined comments, when pasted into a Word document, came out to more than 300 pages single-spaced. When it was over, I knew this was a topic I wanted to continue studying, both to satisfy my own curiosity and to help evangelicals answer similar questions.

It might seem odd to write an entire book in response to a challenge issued by a solitary blog commenter. But Gerry’s perspective represents a popular Roman Catholic assertion—that the Reformers’ understanding of the gospel was novel, absent from the first 1,500 years of church history. For evangelicals, that allegation constitutes a serious charge and is one we need to be able to answer.

As I write this, many Protestants are celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Like them, I am grateful for the courage and faithfulness of the sixteenth-century Reformers. Yet our enthusiasm for this transformational period of church history can have an unintended effect: Protestants can unwittingly give the impression that our theological heritage is only 500 years old. Such an impression is neither helpful nor accurate, as the following pages will demonstrate.

Join me in exploring how the cherished Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone—which is at the heart of the gospel—can be traced all the way back to Christ, our Lord and Savior.

CHAPTER ONE

AN INVENTION OR A RECOVERY? 

The doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone (expressed by the Latin phrase sola fide) is central to a right understanding of the gospel. Stated negatively, it denies any notion that forgiveness for sin and a right standing before God can be attained through human effort or moral virtue on the part of the sinner. Stated positively, it affirms that God’s gift of salvation is based completely on the finished work of Christ, which is received solely by grace through faith in Him. Salvation is not predicated, even in part, on the sinner’s good works. That is why when the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas, "What must I do to be saved, the appropriate response was simply, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (Acts 16:30–31, emphasis added).

Faith alone was one of the main rallying cries of the Protestant Reformation. The Reformers recognized that it stands at the heart of the gospel, which is why Martin Luther famously said of this doctrine, If this article [of justification] stands, the church stands; if this article collapses, the church collapses.¹ Along with grace alone (sola gratia), Christ alone (solus Christus), and for the glory of God alone (soli Deo Gloria), sola fide expressed the Reformers’ conviction that salvation is entirely by God’s grace through faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Through faith in Him, believers receive both pardon from sin (because He bore their punishment on the cross) and justifying righteousness (because His righteousness is credited to their account). As a result, they can take no credit for their salvation. All the glory goes to God.

It is important to note that in their emphasis on faith alone, the Reformers did not deny the importance of good works in the lives of believers. They taught that saving faith is a repentant faith and they stressed obedience to the commands of Christ. Nonetheless, they insisted that good works ought to be viewed only as the fruit or consequence of salvation, rather than the root or cause of it. Thus, they could assert that although believers are saved by grace through faith alone, saving faith is never alone. True faith always gives evidence of itself through fruits of repentance and obedience.²

In the sixteenth century, the Protestant understanding of sola fide stood in contrast to the Roman Catholic emphasis on sacramental works and good deeds as being necessary for justification. Catholicism viewed justification as a lifelong process that depended, at least in part, on how a person lived. Reformers

Reviews for Long Before Luther

[mattjim · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

When writing such a short book that proposes to cover both a vast historical period and also the thoughts of so many different people, there are likely to be some places where the result is shallow and based on weak arguments. That certainly seems to apply to Busenitz’s book.

Some of the quotes feel like prooftexts that have been taken out of context to prove the author’s point. For example, when speaking about Origen, Busenitz quotes from Thomas P. Scheck that “Origen recognizes that sometimes Scripture says that human beings are justified by faith alone.” (pg. 69) He does not give examples of other times when Origen believes that Scripture supports justification by means other than faith, and nor does he give a theory why Origen only sometimes believed that Scripture said that justification was by faith alone. When talking about Augustine, he says, “These examples suggest that, at least in places, Augustine understood justification to be transformative.” (pg. 107) Again, he does not show us quotes from Augustine showing the other times when Augustine showed a different conclusion. For quotes like these, instead of saying that they show that the writers supported the view of the Reformers, it should be said that they _could_ be used to support the ideas of the Reformers.

Busenitz’s conclusion that “A primary reason” that Augustine defined the word _justification_ as “to make righteous” was because of Augustine’s access to the Latin Bible instead of Greek seems shaky, at best. (pg. 106) Would he not have been able to consult some of the same earlier examples of the church fathers that Busenitz gave to see how justification was used in a forensic way? I ask this question without deeply probing myself into what access Augustine had to earlier church fathers, but it is something that the author should have given better attention to show why and how he came to this conclusion.

Overall, the book does prove the thesis that there are some places where writers before the Reformation used some wording that is similar to the wording used by the Reformers, and that parts of the Reformer’s doctrine had been active throughout church history. That being said, it is certainly not a definitive work on the idea. This book could be a good starting place for people curious about the subject, but since it does not go into details about the specific beliefs of any of the writers that are quoted, I would recommend searching through the bibliography to find works that deal with parts of the subject in greater depth.