Ulrich Zwingli: God Reveals Himself in the Scriptures

5 min

Our God seems to take special delight in shepherds and the keeping of sheep. A number of the “heroes of the faith” listed in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews were shepherds. The first man to die in the history of the world was Abel, a shepherd, a man of whom the Bible says, “he being dead yet speaketh” (Hebrews 11:4).

Abel was only the first in a long line of Godly shepherds. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs of the Hebrew people, were all shepherds. Moses was called by God at the burning bush while he was tending the sheep of his father-in-law, Jethro. David, the “man after mine [God’s] own heart” (Acts 13:22; see also I Samuel 13:14), was anointed to be king while he was in the fields keeping his father’s sheep.

When Christ was born, it was to the lowly shepherds that the angels appeared with their words of hope. Yes, God seems to have a special love for the shepherd. Jesus drew from a rich and deep Hebrew heritage when He said of Himself, “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11).

But God was not finished with shepherds at the close of the New Testament. At the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, the Lord revealed Himself to a Swiss shepherd named Ulrich Zwingli and made him the instrument of blessing to many.

On New Year’s Day, 1484, a boy was born to a family of shepherds in the Wildhaus Valley in the Swiss Alps. In a small chalet on a mountain side, this infant boy was born into a world in transition. The superstitions of popery, which had held the world entranced for so long, were beginning to lose their charms. The people of Europe, sickened by the debauchery of monastic life, tired of the pomp of the papacy, and weary of unintelligible Latin chants, began to hunger and thirst after the Word of God.

The Good News message given to shepherds long ago on the hillside near Bethlehem had become distorted through the years. A new shepherd was needed to preach the simplicity of the Word of Life. The Alps in southern Europe were uniquely prepared by God to further that clarifying effort. For centuries, the Waldenses of the Alpine villages had resisted the false teachings of the Romish church. This influence prepared the Swiss people to receive the Word of God.

The life of this young Zwingli baby was probably much like the life of Abel or Isaac or David. When he was old enough to be entrusted with such responsibility, young Ulrich became a Swiss shepherd boy. Every spring, as the glacial ice and snow retreated, the mountain streams would swell, and the shepherds would lead their flocks out of their winter shelters and take them to higher pastures in the high Alpine meadows. Through the changing seasons of the passing years, Ulrich learned to shepherd the sheep, protecting them and leading them to safe pastures.

God stirred the heart of this young shepherd to detest falsehood and to love the truth of His holy Word. While he was still a young man, it became evident to his family that their son was destined by God to be a scholar. His father was a well-respected and pious man who dedicated his boy to the service of the church. Much like the shepherd who offered his lamb upon the altar, Papa Zwingli sent ten-year-old Ulrich to the city of Basel to be educated for service to the Lord. At that same time, Erasmus was a teacher at Basel. The shepherd boy learned Greek and then undertook a study of Hebrew. Young Ulrich became acquainted with eloquent, learned men; however, he was also exposed more and more to the superstitions of the Roman church.

Strange stories were then circulating throughout Switzerland of monks and nuns in the city of Berne who had seen an apparition of a soul escaping from purgatory. Others claimed to have had a visit from the Virgin Mary. These stories excited the minds of the populace. But soon, these miraculous reports were proven to be hoaxes, and the monks and nuns were publicly disgraced.

Meanwhile, the heart of the young shepherd was turned more and more toward the fountain of truth, the Word of God. He was made a priest in the Roman church, but after acquiring more knowledge and traveling to Italy to study, young Zwingli became more and more disenchanted with the Greek and Roman classics and with the philosophy of the Roman scholastics. He wrote to a friend, “Philosophy and divinity were always raising objections. I must neglect all these matters, and look for God’s will in the Word alone.”

Zwingli’s reputation began to grow, and soon he was invited to become the pastor of a mountain congregation in the Swiss village of Einsiedeln. There he commenced a project that was to have immense results not only for himself but, also in God’s providence, for all of Christian civilization. He began memorizing one by one the epistles of Paul. The fruits of this work were so beneficial to him that he eagerly thirsted for more and more. This former shepherd of sheep eventually learned by heart the entire New Testament and much of the Old Testament.

Ulrich Zwingli is perhaps the most obscure and forgotten of the early Reformers. Zwingli became pastor in the cathedral of Zurich in 1518. Under his faithful preaching, the hearts of the people of Zurich turned from idolatry to the living God as revealed in the Scripture. In 1523, the city magistrates called for a public disputation between Zwingli and the popish prelates. In the debate, Zwingli brought his Greek and Hebrew Bible and laid it on the table. After several days of intense debate, the Roman party was thoroughly humiliated, and Zwingli had decisively won the day.

This faithful shepherd of God’s people was an earnest student of the original languages. A historian of the Reformation, J. H. Merle d’Aubigné said of him, “To know Greek, to study the Gospel in the original language, was, in Zwingli’s opinion, the basis of the Reformation.”

Zwingli’s Roman opponents feared his knowledge of Scripture. The Reformer would sometimes win debates simply by opening his Greek or Hebrew testament and reading a few verses. A Swiss papist said in contempt, “If the Greek and Hebrew languages had never entered our country, there would have been fewer heresies.”

Thorough Biblical reform followed quickly upon these disputations. Idolatry was forbidden in Zurich. Images of apostles and saints were publicly destroyed. Monasteries were emptied. The mass was abolished. The Lord’s Supper was instituted in place of Romish forms. Zwingli advocated simple expository preaching, and his method was preaching through entire books of the Bible, verse by verse and chapter by chapter. Departing from the Roman practice of celibate clergy, Zwingli married a Godly lady named Anna Reinhart and set the pattern for married Reformed pastors.

In 1531, Zwingli died in battle in a civil war that was resisting the invasion of the Roman Catholic cantons. Having committed his wife and family to the care of the Lord, he mounted his warhorse and rode to the field at the head of the Protestant Swiss army. Zwingli died with his battle-ax in his hand, defending with his arm the Protestant faith that he had so long preached with his lips.

Martin Luther proclaimed “Sola Fide,” the doctrine that justification is by faith alone. Similarly, Zwingli proclaimed “Sola Scriptura,” the doctrine that God reveals Himself to man through the Scripture alone and that the Word of God is sufficient for all faith and practice.

Sources and Further Reference:

D’Aubigné, J. H. Merle. History of the Reformation. Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 2003.

This article is from our Matters of Life & Death teaching series.

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