Thomas Cranmer and Roman Catholicism
Thomas Cranmer was booted from his office as Archbishop of Canterbury on February 14, 1556. Mary was then Queen of England and she wanted to return the Church of England to Roman Catholicism.
Cranmer and all the English reformers began as devout Roman Catholics, but their context exposed them to the “new learning” of Renaissance humanism. This led them directly to the Bible and the early church fathers where they caught the Reformation bug. There were many matters on which Catholics and Protestants in the sixteenth century agreed, like the core doctrinal teachings of the church’s creeds. And there were many other matters in which Protestants considered Catholic teachings unbiblical, like their understanding of the pope’s authority, transubstantiation, the extraordinary place of Mary alongside Jesus as a co-redeemer, and purgatory. But it is when we speak of “the gospel” that the differences appear starkly between Protestants and Catholics. Job’s question is our question and the question of every human heart: how can sinful men and women have fellowship with a holy and righteous God (Job 4:17)? The Reformation’s biggest discovery, after the Bible, was finding and experiencing a way of righteousness and justification that was all but forgotten in the Middle Ages.
When we speak of justification and righteousness, we are speaking about God’s saving actions for sinners - for our salvation. Roman Catholics and, sadly, not a few Protestants, understand justification as salvation-by-incremental-steps: personal transformation that happens over time as someone cooperates with God’s grace and participates in the sacraments. In this understanding, there is no real distinction between justification and sanctification, or worse, sanctification is required before salvation. Sinners are left wondering if they have done enough to heal themselves. This, as they understand it, is a “process” of infused righteousness to make them holy enough for the coming Day of Judgment. They hope to avoid as much time as possible in Purgatory for purgation (cleaning) of the sins that remain in them at death. Sadly, some may reach the end of their lives without confidence that they have been good enough Catholics or righteous enough to be saved. They hope that a final infusion of divine goodness is waiting for them at death’s door to finish the process of making themselves acceptable.
The sixteenth century reformers begin at a totally different place: with the conviction that no one is ever righteous enough and that all fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). With the Reformation, the church recovered a biblical understanding of sin, and because we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves, we are “very far gone from original righteousness” (Article IX). Protestants understand that their only hope is outside of themselves - another righteousness - a perfect righteousness that can somehow relate unholy men and women to a wholly righteous God. This salvation is not based on an internal change which somehow makes someone “okay,” but rather on the righteousness of God himself which he credits to our account by faith. "Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith" (Philippians 3:8), "the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith" (Romans 1:16-17). When sinners trust God’s promise to forgive their sins (because of Christ’s death on their behalf), Protestants believe that God credits to them Christ’s own perfect righteousness.
If all this sounds formulaic, propositional and cold, it wasn’t so for Thomas Cranmer and the reformers, and neither is it for Christians today. It is a life-changer! Dane Ortland reminds us that “the gospel offers us not only legal exoneration - inviolably precious truth! - it also sweeps us into Christ’s very heart.” Saving faith is much more than a legal agreement for adoption signed in some far-away heavenly courtroom; it is adoption! It’s not just about having our sins forgiven; it’s union with the one who created us and loves us for such a relationship. Now that our salvation is “finished,” he is not sitting around waiting to see how we do with it - in heaven he lives to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25). “Intercession is the constant hitting ‘refresh’ of our justification in the court of heaven (Ortland).” In justification, God moves into a Christian’s heart to take up residence in the power of the Holy Spirit - Christ is in you, the hope of glory! Anglicans affirm their belief in God’s abundant grace every time they come to receive Holy Communion, asserting that “we are not worthy so much as to gather the crumbs under thy table, but thou art the same Lord whose property (whose property!) is always to have mercy... that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us."