The Reformation: Post Tenebras Lux

Post Tenebras Lux - this was the Latin phrase that became the rallying cry of the Reformation.  Its meaning:

"After the Darkness, Light"

The Middle Ages were a dark period of time, filled with despair and disease.  It was a time when an illness could ravage an entire village in a week’s time, and almost a third of all children born would die before reaching the age of five.  In this bleak world, there was only one thing the people could look to for comfort: the Church, with its promise of heaven.  But the “Church” that the people looked to for hope and consolation was not the true Church, but was instead a powerful political and military institution based in Rome that had grown steadily in wealth and power, and now controlled every facet of life.  This “Church,” while having an appearance of being Christian, was instead an apostate, counterfeit Church…..the Roman Catholic Church.

Christ had lived centuries before, bringing the gospel message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and reconciliation with a holy God.  But this message was no longer being taught or preached.

Severe persecution of Christians by Rome had forced Christians to go underground.  By God’s providence, God’s Word, the Bible, had survived this persecution, but was now kept locked in monasteries, with only the most educated priests having access to its life-giving message.

During this period of time, from the 4th century and into the 16th century, the Roman Catholic Church had grown to have a stranglehold over all of Europe.  Those courageous enough to refuse to bend to Rome’s authority were cruelly persecuted, often to the point of death. Under the iron fist of Rome, the people were purposefully kept ignorant, enslaved to superstition and tradition.  This was when the particularly wicked tradition of “Papal Indulgences” was born, a practice in which monks encouraged people to "buy salvation," both for themselves and for loved ones who had already died.  Dying people were also convinced to deed their land and other assets to abbeys and monasteries, in order to “atone” for their earthly sins, and ensure an entrance into heaven.  Not coincidentally, it was during this time that the Roman Catholic Church grew wealthy beyond imagining.

It was into this dark, despairing time that God started a revolution.  It started quietly at first, with the providential invention, of all things, of the printing press.  In Germany during the 1400s, Johannes Gutenberg had invented a printing press which greatly increased the speed of printing books…and produced them in prices that people could afford.  Courageous early reformers – called “Protest-ants” because they were protesting against Rome - paid with their life’s blood for the crime of translating the Bible into other languages.  Other reformers spent their lives smuggling and distributing these Bibles all over Europe.  People could now read for themselves what God’s Word said.  The “light” was beginning to dawn all over Europe.

Through the providential invention of the printing press, and with the courageous actions of the  reformers who translated the Bible into the languages of the people, the Roman Catholic Church was beginning to lose its control over the will of the people.  The common people no longer had to rely on monks and priests to “explain” the way of salvation to them.  They could now read for themselves.

Some of the best known figures of the Reformation:

John Wycliffe (1320-1384) was best known for working with a colleague to translate the Bible into English.  He also stated that the monks had no power to forgive sins, and that to claim such was fraudulent and unbiblical. "Who can forgive sins?" Wycliffe taught: "God alone!"

John Huss (1369-1415) translated Wycliffe’s works into Czech, and also exposed superstitions, fraudulent "miracles" and papal indulgences. He paid for his “crimes” against Rome by being burned at the stake.

William Tyndale (1494 - 1536) was also burned at the stake.  His crime: translating the Bible into English and smuggling copies into England in bales of cotton.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a monk who yearned for peace with God….he found it in studying the book of Romans. After realizing that Rome was keeping the people enslaved through superstitions and tradition, he wrote a famous document entitled the 95 Theses, and on October 31, 1517, nailed this document to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany.  This action became known as the spark that lit the fuse that ignited the Reformation.

The Latin phrase “Post Tenebras Lux” (After Darkness, Light), then, was used to sum up what had happened during the Reformation: Truth, in the form of God’s Word, was being widely read by the common people.  And into this dark world of pagan superstition, mysticism and religious tradition, people were understanding for themselves the way to salvation, which was through faith in Christ.

But if Post Tenebras Lux was the rallying cry of the Reformation, it was the Five Solas that came to stand for the core theological beliefs of the Reformers:

Sola Fide 

Sola Scriptura 

Sola Gratia 

Solus Christus 

Soli Deo Gloria

In our next article, we'll go into the Five Solas and discuss specifically how the Solas challenged and corrected the false theology of the Roman Catholic church which had taught salvation through one’s own merit, mystical practices and the sacraments.