Truth Is Unkillable

Luther.  Calvin.  Hubmaier?  The former two you probably know; the latter you probably don’t.  The former two are perhaps the most recognizable names in the last five hundred years of church life.  The latter sounds like the name of a good schnitzel place in Germantown.  But far from obscure, Balthasar Hubmaier deserves a place right alongside these giants of the Reformation, and for the free church tradition, a place of higher honor.

Understand that I do not advocate the worship, veneration, or even acknowledgement of a man outside of what Christ was able to do in and through him.  As the writer of Hebrews said:

Therefore, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Those who have gone on before us are not the focus of our energies, but learning of their witness, their struggles, helps us to run our race.  We see men like Hubmaier in the periphery, for our gaze is always fixed on Christ.

Balthasar Hubmaier, Catholic priest turned Anabaptist, was among the seminal theologians of the Anabaptist movement and easily their most accomplished debater.  Beginning in 1524, even before the birth of Swiss Anabaptism, he was adding the postscript “Truth Is Unkillable” to all of his formal letters and publications.  So the question is set before us.  What on earth was he talking about?

In his Second Appeal to the Honorable Council of Schaffhausen (in which Hubmaier was pleading for his life) he writes:

Do not be afraid of me, nor will I be afraid, for divine truth is unkillable.  Even if it may for a time be imprisoned, scourged, crowned, crucified, and laid into a grave, it would nevertheless arise again victorious on the third day and reign and triumph forever.

For Hubmaier, Christ was truth personified.  And just as He suffered and died, just as He could not be held by the grave, the divine truth of Christ’s teachings is also unkillable.  Christ is sovereign; therefore, His truth is sovereign.  The pages and entries I post here are dedicated to this very proposition.  You will see much church history, some apologetics, a few book reviews from time to time, doctrine of various sorts; but none of them mundane.  For even in our view of history we seek to glorify Christ and edify His body.  And if the study of church history, particularly that of the Free Church, cannot accomplish this task, then it is a useless endeavor not even fit for this meager blog.