Chapter 4
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William Tyndale
was born in 1494. He enrolled at Oxford University in 1505 at the ripe old
age of eleven. During his youthful days at the University he got hold of
Luther's forbidden books and tracts on justification by faith alone. The
king of England and the Church of England were at this time aligned with Rome
and outlawed any teaching contrary to the Catholic faith.
Tyndale, actually
William Hutchins, as he was matriculated through his University days at Oxford
and Cambridge, began to meet in secret with other hungry-hearted students.
He and hundreds of his fellow scholars were converted to Christ during this
time.
In 1517 he began
preaching and teaching from Erasmus' Greek-Latin Bible in English. He
would stand and read the text to himself, then translate it into English and
preach it to his hearers. God burdened his heart to translate Erasmus'
Bible into the language of his beloved English people.
A true scholar as
well as a God-called preacher, Tyndale was hired as a private chaplain to a
wealthy British knight by the name of Sir John Walsh and his wife. He also
tutored the Walsh's children.
He lived in a loft
at Little Sodbury manor House, the palatial home ofhte Walsh family.
Tyndale lived in modest accommodations, with little more than a small room, a
small cot, a desk, a chair and an oil lamp for study, and a window overlooking
the surrounding hill sides and farm land.
He was often
invited to dine with the dignitaries entertained by Sir john Walsh in his
home. He sat across the supper table from...
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King Henry VIII
and his queen, Anne Boleyn.
Walsh respected
Tyndale's great knowledge of the Word of God. He many times would draw him
into a debate over the Scriptures with the local bishops. Based on
Tyndale's knowledge of the Scriptures and the bishops' ignorance, Walsh knew
that a fight was sure to ensue.
On one occasion,
the visiting bishop had had all he could stand of Tyndale's besting him in the
Bible debate. He declared, "We were better to be without God's laws than
the pope's." Tyndale could stand no more. He leaped to his feet,
pointed his finger accross the table at the end of the bishop's nose, and fired
back, "I defy the pope and all his laws. If God be my helper ere many
years, I shall cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the
Scriptures than thou knowest." Erasmus' influence on Tyndale is seen in
this rebuttal of the bishop, for in the preface of the first edition of his
Greek New Testament Erasmus wrote of the hope that "the countryman might sing
the Scriptures at his plough, the weaver chant them at his loom, and the
traveller beguile with them the weariness of his journey."
Tyndale truly
brought this to pass. Any little boy or girl who has ridden a bus to
Sunday School in a Bible-believing church even a few times knows more about the
Word of God than a whole monastery full of priests, bishops and
cardinals.
The Biblical
ignorance of the English people and the audacity of the papists in their efforts
to keep the populace in darkness spurred Tyndale to begin his translation
work.
When news of his
project was spread abroad he became an outlaw with a price on his head.
For eleven years he lived as a fugitive, translating the Scriptures, preaching
the Word of God, and winning souls to Jesus Christ while on the run for his
life.
Tyndale spoke
eight languages so fluently it was said that whatever language he spoke in
was his mother tongue. During his eleven years as a hunted fugitive he was
able to hide from the bounty hunters by hiding in refugee centers across Europe
and mingling with the foreigners. The bounty hunters did not
know...
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what he looked
like. All they knew was they were lookign for an Englishman on the
run.
They would track
him to a Spanish-speaking community, and personally interview him in their
search. Then they would walk away, saying to themselves, "He is no
Englishman. He is a Spaniard." To another area he would be
followed. They would leave him there, thinking, "he is no
Englishman. He is French. Or, "He is not English. He is
Italian," and so forth.
This, by the way,
was the ture Bible practice of tongues, which in no wise resembles the chicanery
practiced by your favorite television evangelist!
The Lollards
helped Tyndale get to germany, where he ended up on Martin Luther's
doorstep. Tyndale pleaded, "Help me do for the English people what you did
for Germany. Help me get the Word of God into the hands of my people in
their language."
Luther aided
Tyndale with his English translation becasue he believed the success of the
reformation depended on the king of England being sympathetic to the Protestant
cause. Tyndale borrowed heavily from Luther's prologues to his New
testament Books and his marginal notes. He used Erasmus' Greek-OLatin New
Testament and Luther's German in his translation work. Tyndale styled the
language of his Bible translation in such a way that would permit the reader to
easily memorize the passages of Scriptures.
Tyndale is well
deserving of the title "Father of the English Bible," but he is equally
deserving though unfairly deprived of the title "Father of the English
language." The English Tyndale used in his Bible translation
revolutionized the language, spoken and written. Tyndale was a master of
the idiom, that is, he worded the Biblical text and used phraseology that
produced a picture in the reader's mind, just as the Hebrew Scriptures created
word pictures in the minds of the Jewish readers.
The first three
thousand copies of Tyndale's New Testament were printed in 1526, in the print
shop of Peter Schoeffer, the son of Johannes Gutenberg's partner. The
first printed English New...
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Testament in the
world was printed by the same family as the first printed Bible in the
world.
The Tyndale Bibles
were smuggled into England in sacks of flour, bales of cloth and barrels of
grain.
The Sovereign hand
of Almighty God is gloriously conspicuous throughout the entire process of
making the Word of God available to the common people in their language. I
am amazed at how frequently we discover that the Lollards seem to disappear and
then resurface to aid in smuggling Bibles and Bible translators into forbidden
territory.
The Lollards, you
will recall, were those country preachers trained for the gospel ministry and
sent out by John Wycliffe, the producer of the first completed English
Bible. Martin Luther was greatly influenced by the work of Wycliffe, and
Wycliffe's Lollards were there to help smuggle Luther's German Bibles into towns
and villages all across Germany and Europe.
William Tyndale
came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ by reading Luther's writings on
justification by faith. When he responded to God's leading to translate
the Word of God into English, it was the Lollards who assisted him in his escape
from England and led him to Martin Luther's doorstep. When Tyndale's
English translation of the New Testament was complete, Luther took him to the
very print shop where the first printed Book in the world, Gutenberg's Latin
Vulgate of 1456, was produced, and there the first printed English Bible in the
history of the world came into being.
Bishop Tonstal
sought to rid England of the dreaded Tyndale New Testament. On October we,
1526, he decreed a prohibition of the New Testament in
Enlglish.
"Many children
of iniquity, blinded through extreme wickedness, wandering from the way of truth
and the catholic faith, craftily have translated the New Testament into our
English tongue, intermeddling therewith many heretical articles and erroneous
opinions, pernicious and offensive, seducing the simple people, attempting by
their...
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wicked and
perverse interpretations to profane the majesty of the Scripture, and craftily
to abuse the most holy Word of God, containing that pestiferous and most
pernicious poison dispersed throughout all our diocese of London in great
number, will without doubt contaminate and infect the flock committed unto us
with most deadly poison and heresy, to the grievous peril and danger of the
souls committed to our charge, and the offence of God's divine majesty.
Wherefore we command that within thirty days under pain of excommunication and
incurring the suspicion of heresy, they do bring in and readily deliver all and
singular such books as contain the translation of the new Testament in the
English tongue."
A supposed
confidante of Tonstal's, but in reality a friend of Tyndale's by the name of
Augustine Pakiston, arranged for the bishop to buy up all the Tyndale Bbiles
that could be had. Tyndale, living in exile in Germany, had spent all his
living on the first printing and desperately needed more money to print more
Bibles. Tonstal desperately wanted to destroy all the Tyndale
Bibles.
Tonstal was
convinced by Pakiston to approach the king and procure the needed funds.
When Pakiston came to Tyndale with his double-cross, he at first objected.
He said, "But he will only burn them." Pakiston replied, "He will only
burn them anyway and the owners with them." Tyndale sold his remaining New
Testaments to the bishop, who burned them at St. Paul's Cross in 1528. But
for every one that he bought and burned, with the money from the sale Tyndale
was able to print three more Bibles in its place. Thus this bitter enemy
of the Word of God greatly aided Wiliam Tyndale in printing his Bibles.
The old saying went something like this: "The bishop had the Books, Pakiston had
the thanks, and Tyndale had the money." George Constantine, an associate
of Tyndale's, confessed to his inquisitor Sir Thomas More many years later when
asked where...
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Tyndale received
his support to flood England with his Bibles, "'Tis the bishop of London who is
our only sustenance."
This same Thomas
More was quoted as saying, "As for heretics such as Tyndale, the clergy doth
denounce them; and, as they be well worthy, the temporality doth burn them; and
after the fire of Smithfield hell doth receive them, where the wretches burn
forever."
Tyndale had met
Erasmus, and had studied Greek under him at Cambridge. Desiderius Erasmus
was born around 1475. He was the son of a Roman Catholic priest who
obviously didn't honor his vow of celibacy.
Erasmus was a
master of Greek and Latin literature. He read nearly every available book
in those languages in his day. He has been described as "the last man on
earth who knew everything."
He printed the
first non-Latin Bible approved by the Church in 1516, his Greek-Latin New
Testament. His ideal was to revive the Christian consciousness of Europe
through the dissemination of the sacred writings, and to that end he first made
available in print the New Testament in the original Greek. Erasmus
throughout his life continued to improve the tools of Biblical
scholarship.
Pope Leo X was in
authority then. Leo was quoted as saying, "The fable of Christ has been
very profitable for me."
Erasmus died of
natural causes in 1536, the same year William Tyndale was burned at the
stake.
Only two copies of
the original printing of Tyndale's New Testament are known to have survived the
confiscation and burning. The Church declared that Tyndale's new
Testaments were burned because they contained thousands of errors; in fact, they
were burned because no errors could be found.
What especially
angered the Church was Tyndale's exclusion of it in his Bible. He refused
to recognize a ruling and reigning Church and all of the authority and pomp
associated with it. The Greek word "ekklesia," a "called out assembly," he
translated as "congregation." Matthew 16:18 he translated, "Upon this rock
I will build my congregation. And the gates of
hell shall not...
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prevail against
it." Acts 20:28 in the Tundale New Testament reads, "Take heed to
therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, whereof the holy Ghost hath
made you overseers, to rule the congregation of
God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." And I Corinthians 1:2 is
translated, "Unto the congregation of God, which is
at Corinth."
Tyndale
successfully pulled the rug out from under the Church, prompting Rome to
willingly be the devil's accomplices seeking to put him to
death.
After Tyndale's
New Testament wa printed, he taught himself Hebrew and began his work on
translating the Old Testament. He invested two years of his life in
translating the Pentateuch, then set sail for Hamburg, Germany to have it
printed.
Enroute the ship
capsized. Tyndale was nearly drowned, and his manuscripts sank to the
bottom of the sea. He returned to England, and enlisting the aid of his
friend and convert ohn Rogers, retranslated the Books of Moses from Hebrew to
English in ten months. The task was completed and William Tyndale's
Pentateuch was printed in 1530.
Persecution
against the Christians was fierce in Tyndale's day. In 1517 John Brown was
condemned by the Archbishop of Canterbury and burnt alive at Ashford.
Before he was chained to the stake, the archbishop caused his feet to be burnt
in a fire until all the flesh came off, even to the bones. This was done
in order to make him recant, but he persisted in his attachment to the truth to
the last.
In 1532 Thomas
Harding was accused of heresy, brought before the bishop of Lincoln, and
condemned for denying the real presence in the sacrament. In other words, he
dared defy the pope and the bishop and the whole Catholic system and refused to
affirm that the bread and wine used in the sacrament, the mass, was literally
the body and blood of Jesus Christ. This heresy is still taught and
practiced in Catholicism today. It is a devilish doctrine known as
"transubstantiation." the priest consecrates the...
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host, that, he
holds up the wafer, representing the bread that Lord Jesus broke with His
disciples at the Last Supper, utters the magic words, "Hocus corpus miem," (or
maybe it is "Hocus Pocus,") meaning in Latin, "This is my body," and that bread
supernaturally transforms itself into the literal flesh, blood and divinity of
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what Catholic people mean when they say
they have "received Christ." They mean they have actually eaten the flesh
of the Son of God. The wine also is magically transformed into the very
blood of Christ, but only the priests get to enjoy it.
Many well-meaning
but ill-informed Christians to this day do not see any difference between the
ordinance of the Lord's Supper and the Catholic "celebration" of the mass.
There is a vast difference. They are diametrically opposed. The
Lord's Supper consists of bread and grape juice, symbolizing the broken body and the shed blood of the Lord
Jesus. It is not flesh and it is not blood. It is a picture, to "shew the Lord's death
till he come." Jesus said, "this do in remembrance of me", not "This do to
receive Me." Participation in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, a
God-given ordinance tot he local church, is for born again baptiazed believers
only. It has nothing to do with salvation.
The mass, on the
other hand, is a sacrament. That means it has everything to do with
salvation. According to the teachings of the Catholic Church, one cannot
go to heaven without receiving the sacrament of the mass and the several other
sacraments that are necessary for salvation. The consecrated host (the
bread transformed in God by the priest) is called the "victim." It is
offered as a sacrifice (recrucified) every time mass is performed, sometimes
every day, sometimes several times in a day. This is blasphemy of the
highest degree. Hebrews 10: 12 - 14 says, "But this man (Jesus Christ),
after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever,
sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be
made his footstool. For by one offering (of His
own...
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body and blood on
Calvary) he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." god
condemns those who "crucify...the Son of God afresh," for they "put him to an
open shame."
Many years ago the
priest would lead a procession through a town or village, hoisting aloft the
"wafer god" in a golden sunburst known as a "monstrance." Maybe that is
where we get our word "monstrosity"! The towns people were summoned to the
procession and were commanded to bow and pay homage to their "god" as he was
paraded by on a stick. Thomas Harding would not bow.
He was chained to
a stake and when fire had been set to the wood, one of the spectators dashed out
his brains with a club. The priests told the people that whoever brought
wood to burn heretics would have an indulgence to commit sins for forty
days.
During this time
there were so many Christians being burned to death at the stake, trees were
literally becoming scarce. One bishop was overheard saying to another
bishop jokingly, "The Christians have no doubt driven up the cost of fuel for
heat this winter."
Tomas Bilney was a
Professor of Law at Cambridge during Tyndale's University days. He is
noted as the first English convert to the Reformation. In 1517 he
purchased Erasmus' Greek-Latin New Testament from a store that traded in
"forbidden books."
Hiding under the
covers in his dormitory room, reading the Words of God by candlelight, he read
with burning heart and hungry soul the words of Paul the apostle in I Timothy
1:15 (translated here from Erasmus' Greek into English), "This a true saying and
worthy of all men to be embraced that Jesus christ came intot he world to save
sinners, of whom I am the chief and principal."
Bilney's own
testimony of his conversion experience is a follows: "This one sentence did so
exhilirate, being before wounded with the guilt of my sins, and being almost in
despair, that even immediately I seemed to feel a marvelous comfort and
quietness, insomuch that my bruised bones leaped for joy."
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Unable to contain
his newfound freedom from years of bondage, he shared his experience with all
who would give him their ears. He may have been the very man who led
Tyndale to Christ.
Bilney continued
preaching and also greatly aided in the distribution of Tyndale's New
Testaments.
He was arrested in
1527 and convicted of heresy by Archbishop Tonstal. He was incarcerated in
the Tower of London. Under torture Bilney recanted. His penance was
to light the fire which would burn the Tyndale Bibles bought up by
Tonstal. He was released and returned to Cambridge.
He became a
recluse, and deep depression set in as he considered himself a traitor to his
friend William Tyndale and the cause of Christ because he had recanted and
burned the Scriptures to preserve his life. His friends at the University
kept constant vigil on him for fear that his melancholia would lead him to try
to take his own life.
After a while he
returned to preaching and distributing Bibles. He was again arrested and
brought before the bishop of London and threatened with the stake and flames if
he would not recant and return to the Holy mother Church. He refused, and
was immediately condenmed to death.
The night before
his scheduled execution he was permitted to meet with friends and spend a last
night of fellowship and prayer. No longer did fear for his life dominate
Thomas Bilney, only love for Christ and resolve to be faithful unto death.
He spoke these words of consolation to those gathered in the room with him:
"Though the fire should be of great heat to my body, yet the comfort of God's
Spirit should cool it to my everlasting refreshing."
He held his hand
in the flame of a candle to the amazement of those with him in the room,
unflinching, apparently without pain, and said, "O, I feel by experience, and
have known it long by philosophy, that fire by God's ordinance is naturally hot,
but yet I am persuaded by God's Holy Word, and by the experience of
some...
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spoken of in the
same, and in the fire they felt no consumption and I constantly believe,
howsoever that the stubble of this my body shall be wasted by it, yet my soul
and spirit shall be purged thereby; a pain for the time, whereon notwithstanding
followeth joy unspeakable."
He then quoted
Isaiah 43: 1 - 3,
"Fear not, for
I have redeemed thee, and called thee by thy name, thou art mine own. When
thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers,
they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not
be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the LORD
God, the holy One of Israel, thy Saviour."
The next
morning he was brought to the Lollard's Pit in Norwich in eastern England, to be
burned to death. While standing with his back to the stake prepared for
his execution he clutched Tyndale's Obedience of a Christian Man to
his bosom. As the bishop's henchmen prepared the wood for his burning and
fastened him to the stake with chains, he smiled and said, "I have had many
storms in this world, but now my vessel will soon be on shore in heaven."
He stood unmoved in the flames, crying out, "Jesus, I believe," and these were
the last words he was heard to utter.
Richard
Byfield had been a monk, but was converted to Christ by reading Tyndale's
English translation of the New Testament. He was shut up in a dungeon,
where he was almost suffocated by the offensive and horrid smell of filth and
stagnant water. He was tied up by the arms until almost all his joints
were dislocated. He was whipped at the post several times until scarcely
any flesh was left on his back. He was taken to the Lollard's Tower in
Lambeth Palace, where he was chained by the neck to the wall, and once everyday
beaten in the most cruel manner by the archbishop's servants. At last he
was relieved of his miseries when he was burnt at Smithfield.
