Which Is True? Restoration, Reformation, or Perpetuity?

Two experiences dovetailed today for me to write this post.  The first, I was working out on an elliptical machine and watching a documentary on Martin Luther.  Does the Reformation represent the truth?  Is the true church a reformed one?

The second, I took my dad to a podiatrist in Layton, Utah.  As a diabetic, he goes in for his feet every three to six months.   My conversation with the LDS doctor took us into the Baptists.  In addition to a short gospel exposition, to him I explained Baptists and the perpetuity of the truth and a true church.  Rather than perpetuity and reformation, the Mormons believe in restoration of a true church gone apostate.

I see six possible historic positions on the truth.  One, we never ever had it.  Two, we received it, lost it, and have never found it since.  Three, it has been corrupted to the degree that we have a portion of it, so it needs reformation, but it has never been reformed.  Four, it was corrupted and now reformed (but not likely to its original state).  Five, it was lost and has since been restored completely.  Six, it was never lost or corrupted.  Those six positions find themselves in restoration, reformation, or perpetuity.  Someone could add total apostasy to the three to take in the six.

Historic positions on the truth relate also to the church.  The preservation of the truth pertains to the preservation of the church.  God gave the truth to the church to preserve (1 Timothy 3:15).  Applying the same views to the church, one, did the true church end?  If it ended, was it restored?  If the church became corrupted, submerging it in various degrees of darkness, was it reformed?  Or, was the church never lost, the truth never lost, but both were preserved?  These viewpoints of truth and of the church can't all be true.  Only one of them can be true, because each of the three or four contradict the others.

Another important facet to this discussion or question is, how do we know which of these four is true?  Only one of them can be true, but how do we know which one?  Philosophy of history revolves around the question, what happened?  Many other questions, however, arise, important of which is whether a person can report on historical events accurately with his personal interpretation.  In this discussion, this is the crux of the issue.  From a biblical perspective, God didn't promise to preserve history.  History can be and is slanted by those recounting.

If perpetuity of the truth and the church is true, that truth and the church were never lost, how do we know?  What is the proof?  Most historical evidence is on the side of corruption and reformation.  Is there proof for perpetuity?

As I listened to the introduction in the Martin Luther documentary, the makers presented a very dark world out of which the reformation began.  That segment began with an illustration of the painting by the Dutchman, Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights.  The producers posited a world as Bosch did.  The church was corrupt with few exceptions, John Wycliffe and John Hus.  Hus apparently means "goose" in Bohemian.  Hus is reported to have said while being attached to the stake for burning, "You can kill the goose, but one day soon a swan will come that no one will be able to silence," and Luther came a hundred years later.  Luther's pulpit had a swan engraved or painted on it, asserting himself the fulfillment of Hus's prophecy.

With the reformation view of history, Luther becomes important.  He becomes the vessel of the Reformation, it's veracity attached to him.  Was that true?  Luther retained many Roman Catholic doctrines, including a state church.  He was better than the Catholics, no doubt.  Based on his own writing, I don't think Luther was converted.  A reformation viewpoint embraces Luther and then adapts him to provide the proof.

This brings us to the philosophy of history.  What is true?  We know the Bible is true.  We know what Jesus said was true.  The reformed view isn't much different than that of the restorationist, whichever ones that might be.  Jesus and the Bible teach perpetuity.  As I watch a Luther documentary, it is easy to see their history as a matter of personal interpretation through a convoluted lens.

The Mormon podiatrist asked me when the Baptists started.  I didn't provide him a hint to ask that question.  It was important enough for him on his own.  How did I answer?  I said that Baptists started with Christ, and I added, "Of course I would say that, right?"  I said, there have always been true churches separate from the state church.  That's what Jesus prophesied and He couldn't be wrong (Matthew 16:18-19). 

I hear the reformed say, "The Reformed doctrine of justification," as if the doctrine of justification had been lost.  I have often asked men, "Do you believe the truth was preserved through Roman Catholicism?"  I have noticed that all of them have a difficult time answering that.  It's easy to see why.  Roman Catholicism was an apostate institution that had departed from the faith, when the Reformation started.  The Reformed or Protestants trace themselves through Roman Catholicism, a viewpoint incompatible with a scriptural position on the truth and the church.

A perpetuity view starts with scripture and then gives the most complete historical evidence that corresponds to what the Bible says.  In every century since Christ and the founding of the church, churches exist separate from the state church that embrace scripture as authority.  With a scriptural presupposition of perpetuity enough historical evidence exists to support that viewpoint.  Many historians vouch for this.

Cardinal Hosius wrote in the 16th century that the Anabaptists have been persecuted by the state church for 1200 years:

For if so be, that as every man is most ready to suffer death for the faith of his sect, so his faith should be judged most perfect and most sure, there shall be no faith more certain and true, than is the Anabaptists', seeing there be none now, or have been before time for the space of these thousand and two hundred years, who have been more cruelly punished, or that have more stoutly, steadfastly, cheerfully taken their punishment, yea or have offered themselves of their own accord to death, were it never so terrible and grievous.

The famed Quaker commentator, Robert Barclay, said (The Inner Life of the Societies of the Commonwealth, London, 1876, pp. 11-12):

We shall afterwards show the rise of the Anabaptists took place prior to the Reformation of the Church of England, and there are also reasons for believing that on the Continent of Europe small hidden Christian societies, who have held many of the opinions of the Anabaptists, have existed from the times of the apostles. In the sense of the direct transmission of Divine Truth, and the true nature of spiritual religion, it seems probable that these churches have a lineage or succession more ancient than that of the Roman Church.

Annaeus Ypeij (1760–1836) and Isaac Johannes Dermout (1777–1867), Dutch Reformed theologians and historians, in their Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Hervormde Kerk wrote:

We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists, and in later times, Mennonites, were the original Waldenses, and who, long in the history of the church, received the honor of that origin. On this account the Baptists may be considered as the only Christian community which has stood since the apostles, and, as a Christian society, has preserved pure the doctrine of the gospel through all ages. The perfectly correct, external and internal economy of the Baptist denomination tends to confirm the truth disputed by the Romish Church, that the Reformation, brought about in the sixteenth century, was in the highest degree necessary; and, at the same time, goes to refute the erroneous notion of the Catholics, that their communion is the most ancient.

I include these only as samples.  There are many more quotes that back the hypothesis that assemblies existed separate from Roman Catholicism, which believed and practiced the Bible.  They long predate the Reformation, substantiating a perpetuity viewpoint.

The modernism of the nineteenth century brought a solely empirical basis for truth.  The nature of knowledge brought the necessity of a rational justification for faith.  Traditional beliefs that proceeded from scripture alone were questioned and criticized.  The empiricist claimed knowledge through the senses alone.  The only reasonable view of the world comes by scientific discovery.  Sufficient evidence for perpetuity could be questioned next to the massive documentation of Roman Catholicism.  This clashes with the doctrine of scripture.

Faith is the basis of pleasing God and faith comes by hearing the Word of God.  Faith isn't contradictory to reason, but it is superior to reason.  I like to say that faith bypasses our lying eyes.  Revelation exceeds, transcends, or eclipses discovery.

At the same time, perpetuity is reasonable.  Scripture is reasonable.  This fits Romans 12:1, "reasonable" (logikos).  Enough history exists either direct or indirect to corroborate the scriptural presupposition of perpetuity.  Saying that the truth was lost and the church ceased as an institution is not reasonable.  It's like saying that the world got here by accident.

From reading this, you get the conclusion.  Restoration is false.  Reformation is false.  Perpetuity is true.  What does that mean for authority, the truth, the church?  It has repercussions that are worth exploring.  If you joined something Protestant, Reformed, or Restorationist, you're in something false.  What does that leave you?  Pleasing God requires living by faith, which means obeying scripture.  This is why I believe in perpetuity and I'm a Baptist.