Salute to John Wycliffe

Christians should remember our brothers and sisters of the past and their accomplishments. One good man worthy of remembrance is John Wycliffe, the first man to translate the Bible into our language. This is a speech I delivered at my Worldview class about John Wycliffe:



“Even though there were a hundred popes and though every mendicant monk were a cardinal, they would be entitled to confidence only in so far as they accorded with the Bible.” The idea behind these words that John Wycliffe spoke is foundational to the Protestant Reformation. Although Wycliffe lived 200 years before the Reformation, his teachings are very similar to those of Luther and the other Reformers. He was the first glimpse of the light, the religious truth and the freedom that would soon come.

John Wycliffe was probably born around the year 1324 near Richmond in Yorkshire, England. He studied at Oxford University, and became master of Balliol college in 1361. In 1372 he received the degree of doctor of theology. Wycliffe was well-educated and highly respected even by his enemies as a scholar, philosopher, and theologian.

Wycliffe was critical of the Roman Catholic church of the time. He held that the Roman church had too much power in civil government and that the church was gouging the common people to become too wealthy, and he did not keep quiet about his views; Wycliffe was a vocal critic of what he believed were false, unbiblical doctrines of the Roman church.. Wycliffe translated the Bible into the English language, the common language of England. Most of the church hierarchy did not want the common people to be able to read the Bible for themselves, and they thought English was too rough a language for the Holy Bible, ignoring of course what the Bible itself says that all Christians should know and study Scripture. But Wycliffe wrote in the preface to his translation his disapproval of the immoral lives of Catholic clergymen, a condemnation of the worship of saints, images, and of Transubstantiation, and he also included an assertion that all people read the Bible for themselves.

The Church did not like being crossed and criticized like this at all, and hoped to silence Wycliffe; they often pressured England for his arrest. But he was protected by the respected duke of Lancaster, and they feared his great popularity with the people, so he was able to teach and write in relative safety. Therefore, the Church settled to simply harass Wycliffe all his life. Eventually, Wycliffe died of a stroke in 1384. But Wycliffe’s followers continued his work. They were called Lollards or “poor preachers” as they liked to call themselves because they lived like the common people and did not dress richly like the Catholic priests. Seventeen years after Wycliffe’s death, the Church ordered his books burned and punished all who taught his ideas. They also had his bones dug up and burned.

John Wycliffe’s actions earn him the dubbing by historians, “morning star of the reformation” because of the closeness of his teachings to the Protestant Reformation that ignited Europe 2 centuries later. All of Wycliffe’s criticisms of the Roman church were reiterated in the Reformation. John Wycliffe was not perfect in his teachings, but he was still far ahead of his time during the middle ages in his insights on Biblical Christianity. He believed salvation was not by works, that the pope did not have authority over the Bible, that the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation was false, and that worship should be given to no one except Christ. All of these principles were key components of Protestant theology in the Reformation.

Wycliffe taught that salvation was not by works. The Catholic church taught that Christ died for our sins, but we still had to work to get that applied to us. A person had to partake of Seven Sacraments that were necessary for salvation, such as water Baptism, Holy Eucharist, and Penance; they also taught that a person could buy forgiveness from some sins by indulgences, that is, giving money to the church. So it was man’s merit who was meriting the merit of Christ. This is a works gospel, not the Biblical Gospel of grace, that Christ died for our all sins and rose from the grave, and whosoever believes in Him has everlasting life. Salvation by grace through faith alone, not of works, is a crucial doctrine that both Wycliffe and the Reformers taught.

Wycliffe was the first person to completely translate the Bible into English. Before that, English speakers had to read or hear Latin for the common Bible translation, and no one knew Latin except the priests. This prevented the common people from understanding anything what the Bible said. Wycliffe changed that so people who could read English could read for themselves what the Bible said, and people who were illiterate could listen to Bible readings in their own language. That every man have the opportunity to read the Bible for himself is an attitude that the Protestant Reformation strived to establish.

Wycliffe demanded that the Bible be the main source of authority rather than the pope. The Roman Church considered the pope as equal, if not higher than, the Bible. But the Reformation went back to early Christianity, Jesus and the Apostles; man is fallible but God’s word is infallible, and the supreme authority on all matters regardless of what any man says, whether he be king, pope, or pauper. Authority given to the Bible as priority rather than pope and clergy was Luther’s foundational premise that brought Christianity back to God’s truth, and Wycliffe shared that premise.

Wycliffe himself did not impact Martin Luther, the Father of the Reformation, but Luther was influenced by John Huss of Bohemia who was a student of Wycliffe’s works. Huss read Wycliffe’s writings and came to share many of his views. Wycliffe’s theological and philosophical influence strongly effected Bohemia. Wycliffe’s translation of the Bible into his own language inspired the Bohemians to make a translation of the Bible into their language. And Luther translated the Bible into his German language. Wycliffe’s brave act of translating the Bible into the language of the masses set a precedent for the Reformation.

John Wycliffe was a man of God in a time of spiritual darkness, who bravely stood up against the strong powers of Europe for the sake of Christ. We should salute John Wycliffe for his work to translate the first version of the Bible in our language, and remember the way God used him for his contribution the Protestant Reformation and the return to Biblical Christianity.