There is one thought which runs through the whole of Tyndale's writings, one theme which binds the whole of his theology together and makes a unity of Christian doctrine. That is the blood of Christ. Every aspect of Christianity and of the Christian life depends on Christ's blood shed once and for all on the cross at Calvary. Often it is linked, as in the Lord's Supper, with his body. Sometimes the body of Christ seems to overshadow the importance of Christ's blood, but even there the blood is in the background and Tyndale has not failed to bring its importance before us. In total Tyndale mentions the blood of Christ over 500 times.
In his criticism of the Church Tyndale was largely concerned with the errors the spirituality had introduced which robbed the blood of Christ and his sacrifice on the cross of their importance putting other things in their place. Even when his criticism seems strongest we can trace back the reason to Tyndale's defence of God, of God's attributes, and of the blood of Christ. It is the truth of God revealed in the scriptures which he is concerned to teach and that meant undoing the false teaching people had been taught in the past.
The sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Communion are important, not because they have any power of themselves, but they signify God's promises to us. And the only promises we need to believe are those God makes to us, for man-made promises are useless for our salvation. Yet the spiritualty have buried God's promises and replaced them with their own.
For both they, and whatsoever they make of their own heads, is more feared and dread than God and his commandments. In them and their deservings put we more trust than in Christ and his merits. To their promises give we more faith than to the promises which God hath sworn in Christ's blood. (Obedience, 1 p246f)
Our faith has to take hold of God's promises, which are 'the anchor that saveth us in all temptations.' Unless it does it is clinging to something false. In a mass the promise has been replaced by a materialistic understanding of the sacrament.
Thou must believe that it is no more bread, but the very body of Christ, flesh, blood and bone, even as he went here on earth. save his coat: for that is here yet: I wot not in how many places. I pray thee, what helpeth all this? here is no promise. (Obed. p278)
Tyndale was not merely being negative and attacking the errors of the church, it was the positive aspects of the blood of Christ which were of value to us as Christians. Throughout his writings we see Tyndale's reliance on the Bible and the promises God has made to man, together with the responsibilities the Christian has to God.
We have a promise that Christ, and his body, and his blood, and all that he did, and suffered, is a sacrifice, a ransom, and a full satisfaction for our sins; that God for his sake will think no more on them, if we have power to repent and believe. (Obed. p278)
Through the promises God has given us we have all the blessings God has prepared for us. Through faith we are set free to serve the Lord.
For faith bringeth pardon and forgiveness freely purchased by Christ's blood, and bringeth also the Spirit; the Spirit looseth the bonds of the devil, and setteth us at liberty. (Mammon, 1 p48)
There are many different kinds of faith; Tyndale speaks of many false faiths which do not lead to our salvation. There is 'a history of faith, as thou believest a gest of Alexander, or of the old Romans (1 John, 2 p154). There is the 'story faith, without feeling in the heart.' Next we have 'the faith wherewith a man doth miracles' which is not a faith 'of a repenting heart.' Again there 'is the devil's faith, and the pope's faith' (Answer 3 p196f).
None of these false faiths are kin unto the faith of them that hate evil, and repent of their misdeeds, and knowledge their sins, and be fled with full hope and trust of mercy unto the blood of Christ. (Answer p197)
This true faith rests in God and not in anything which we can do, because our works can never justify us or earn God's approval.
The faith of the true believers is. that God justifieth or forgiveth; and Christ deserveth it; and the faith or trust in Christ's blood receiveth it, and certifieth the conscience thereof, and saveth and delivereth her from the fear of death and damnation. And this is what we mean, when we say faith justifieth: that faith (I mean in Christ, and not in our own works) certifieth the conscience that our sins are forgiven us for Christ's blood's sake. (Matthew 2 p11)
When Adam disobeyed God and listened to the devil's temptation all mankind was involved in Adam's sin. We cannot get further away from God and the goodness He demands than we have done through the Fall. We are God's enemies, totally separated from God, and we are followers of the devil. Even if we wanted to there is nothing we can do about it.
The fall of Adam hath made us heirs of the vengeance and wrath of God, and heirs of eternal damnation; and hath brought us into captivity and bondage under the devil, and the devil is our lord, and our ruler, our head, our governor, our prince, yea, and our God. (Pathway 1 p17)
This impossibility to think that God is righteous means that man cannot and will not do anything about his salvation. It is only as God has chosen us in Christ, we are the elect people of God, and we come to that new birth which sets us free from the devil's bondage.
Even so goeth it with God's elect. God chooseth them first. and they not God: as thou, readest , John xv. And then he sendeth forth and calleth them, and sheweth them his good will, which he beareth unto them, and maketh them see both their own damnation in the law, and also the mercy that is laid up for them in Christ's blood, and thereto what he will have them do. (Answer p35)
And so what we cannot do for ourselves God has done for us. He has given us His Holy Spirit Who gives us power to be God's children, and through Him we have our salvation which depends on Christ's sacrifice on the Cross, and not our works.
God's Holy Spirit enables us to know that we are following God and Christ's example, and therefore that God has chosen us. This election brings us into fellowship with God and other Christians because we are bound together; we are
elect unto the fellowship of the blood of Christ (Mammon p72)
Everyone belongs to God because He has made us, but the Christian doubly so. We belong to God through creation, and through purchase by the blood of Christ. Tyndale sometimes appears to speak in a universalist way:
Inasmuch as God hath created all, and Christ bought all with his blood, therefore ought all to seek God and Christ in all, and else nothing (Obedience p299)
but his teaching on election restricts this, and often he speaks of the true Christian as the little flock.
Because Christ's blood has purchased us we belong to Him. Our good deeds cannot merit any of God's blessings, for they are our responsibility to God.
whatsoever thou art able to do, to please God withal, is thy duty to do. though thou hadst never sinned. If it be thy duty, how can it then be the deserving of the mercy and grace that went before? Now, that mercy was the benefit of God thy Father through the deserving of the Lord Christ, which hath bought thee with the price of his blood (Tracy 3 p277)
Our salvation is not only through faith in Christ's blood, it is also through Christ's blood shed as a sacrifice for our sins. Tyndale thus takes from man any credit for his salvation, for it was whilst we were sinners, separated from God, dead in sin and without any desire for God that God gave us His mercy.
If a man once felt within his conscience the fierce wrath of God towards sinners ... and then beheld with the eyes of a strong faith the mercy, favour and grace, the taking away of the damnation of the law, and restoring again to life, freely offered us in Christ's blood, he should perceive love, and so much the more, that it was shewed us when we were sinners and enemies of God; and that without all deservings, without our endeavouring, enforcing and preparing ourselves, and without all good motions, qualities and properties of our freewill; but when our hearts were as dead unto all good working as the members of him whose soul is departed. (1 John 2 p199)
Perhaps the most precise definition of faith comes in his exposition of the Sermon on the Mount and it sums up Tyndale's thoughts very clearly.
Faith is the trust in Christ's blood, and is the gift of God; whereunto a man is drawn of the goodness of God, and driven through true knowledge of the law ... and with seeing his own damnation in the glass of the law. (Mat 2 p88f)
Faith is linked to repentance, and without repenting of our sins we are outside the people of God irrespective of our own personal goodness.
Repentance is a continuing process throughout our life. As we return to God after we have fallen into sin, God forgives and blots out our sin.
For sin we through fragility never so oft, yet as soon as we repent and come into the right way again, and unto the testament which God hath made in Christ's blood. our sins vanish away as smoke in the wind, and as darkness at the coming of light. (Obedience p228)
For in Christ all sin has been taken away, but the way to peace with God and a clear conscience towards Him is the way of repentance, and this is the message of the scriptures and of Christ's death on the Cross.
For the scripture testifieth that Christ hath taken away the sin of the world in his flesh; and that at the same hour that he yielded up his spirit into the hands of his Father, he had full purged, and made full satisfaction for all the sins of the world... For if I once sin, the law rebuketh my conscience, and setteth variance between God and me; and I shall never be at peace with God again, until I have heard the voice of his mouth, how that my sin is forgiven me for Christ's blood sake. And as soon as I believe that, I am at peace with God, and love his law again, and of love work. (1 John p196)
This rules out 'that filthy, Priapish confession, which ye spew in the ear; wherewith ye exclude the forgiveness that is in Christ's blood.' (Answer p172) It rules out all the imaginations of man trusting 'in a bald ceremony, or in a lousy friar's coat and merits; or in the prayers of them that devour widows' houses.' (Mammon p122)
What, then, is the position of the sacraments. Their importance in the church lay in that they were efficient in themselves, ex opere operato. But if we are justified in God's sight through faith as we repent of our sins the whole medieval doctrine of the sacraments is undermined.
Thou wilt say: When we first come to the faith, then Christ forgiveth us and blesseth us; but the sins, which we afterward commit, are forgiven us through such things. I answer, if any man repent truly, and come to the faith, and put his trust in Christ, then as oft as he sinneth of frailty, at the sigh of his heart is his sin put away in Christ's blood. (Obed. p284)
However, a sacrament is only a sign to strengthen our faith and to witness to us that Christ died for our sins. A sacrament reminds us of the promises of God, and also of what God has done for our salvation.
TESTAMENT: that is, an appointment made between God and man, and God's promises. And sacrament is a sign representing such appointment and promises; as the rainbow representeth the promise made to Noe, that God will no more drown the world. (Prologues p409)
Because a sacrament is a sign of God's promises which stir up our faith, Tyndale cannot accept either the Roman or Lutheran positions of transubstantiation or con-substantiation. He states the three interpretations of the meaning of Christ's words of institution.
One part say that these words, 'This is my body, This is my blood', compel us to believe, under pain of damnation, that the bread and wine are changed into the very body and blood of Christ really: as the water at Cana Galilee was turned into very wine. The second part saith, 'We be not hound to believe that bread and wine are changed; but only that his body and blood are there presently.' The third say, 'We are bound by these words only to believe that Christ's body was broken, and his blood shed for the remission of our sins; and that there is no other satisfaction for sin than the death and passion of Christ. (Sacraments 1 p366)
According to Tyndale the third of these statements gives the true meaning of the sacrament, for the bread remains bread, and the wine remains wine, and they symbolically represent to us the body of Christ broken and His blood shed for us on the cross; 'the cause of the institution was to be a memorial' (Sac. p365) Those who want to teach otherwise than this have got to prove their point and we can believe them when 'we there feel, see, and taste neither bread nor wine' (Supper 3 p261). For it is not a carnal eating but a spiritual one which is the true partaking of the Lord's Supper. This understanding of the sacrament does not take anything from the meaning, rather it gives a new meaning and relevance, and to partake without faith is disastrous for that person.
since God is searcher of the heart and reins, thoughts and affects; and see that he come not to the holy table of the Lord without that faith which he professed at his baptism, and also that love which the sacrament preacheth and testifieth unto his heart, lest he, now found guilty of the body and blood of the Lord... receive his own damnation (Sup p266)
Baptism is the sign of our new birth and of our being part of God's family, and that we are cleansed from our sin. The faith we professed when we were baptized has to be seen in our lives, showing that we have a true, living faith.
So now if baptism preach me the washing in Christ's blood, so doth the Holy Ghost accompany it; and that deed of preaching through faith doth put away my sins. For the Holy Ghost is no dumb God, nor no God that goeth a mumming. (Prologues p424)
It follows that the significance of baptism is the cleansing of our souls with the blood of Christ and it witnesses to us God's promises and our response to His love
we ... despair not; but remember that we are washed in Christ's blood: which thing our baptism doth represent and signify unto us. (Obed p262)
The profession of our baptism leads to our obedience to God's law: as we love God with our whole being we love our neighbour as ourselves. But our good deeds, however good they may be, can only be done through the power of God, and their goodness depends on the blood of Christ enabling us to do His will.
A Christian hath nought to rejoice in, as concerning his deeds. His rejoicing is that Christ died for him, and that he is washed in Christ's blood. (Mam p97)
Our works of righteousness, our obedience, have no merits of themselves, but only bear witness to the truth of our salvation, and profess our baptism.
Whatsoever is our own. is sin. Whatsoever is above that, is Christ's gift, purchase. doing and working. He bought it of the Father dearly, with his blood, yea, with his most bitter death, and gave his life for it. Whatsoever good thing is in us, that is given freely, without our deserving or merits. for Christ's blood's sake. That we desire to follow the will of God, it is the gift of Christ's blood (Pathway p23)
God has commanded us to love our neighbour as ourself, and we can love him regardless of what our neighbour is like. This love is a love which comes from God, stirring us to keep the commandment of God, to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbour as ourself.
If we felt the love of God in Christ's blood, we could not but love again, not only God and Christ, but also all that are bought with Christ's blood ... them that are good, to continue them in their goodness; and them that are evil, to draw them to good. (1 John p200)
For we are all part of Christ's body, and part of the significance of the Lord's Supper is to proclaim the unity of the church.
He calleth in the same supper the cup of thanksgiving, the fellowship of the blood of Christ': that is to say, the congregation redeemed with Christ's blood. (Supper p264)
For Tyndale every aspect of our life as Christians relates to and depends on the blood of Christ. This is the key to his understanding of scripture and his theology. As we look at it in its various aspects we come to know and understand his mind. Not only his positive statements about the Christian faith and life are referred to the blood of Christ, but also his attacks on the errors of the church of his day are because they deny in some way our total dependence on that blood shed on the cross for our salvation.
All the quotations in this paper are taken from the three volumes of the Parker Society Works of Tyndale. The number of references to the blood of Christ are as follow: Pathway 26; Mammon 43; Obedience 33; Sacrament 106; Prologues 50; Matthew 44; 1 John 61; Practice 14; Answer 81; Supper 66; Tracy 13.