In our age, 43,000 separate schisms call themselves “Christian”. When asked “Who were the first Protestants?” many say “Martin Luther and the Lutherans”. It is true that Luther was a Protestant, but that was one thousand and five hundred years after Jesus.
Were there Protestants before Luther?
There were many of them. They included Arians, Donatists, Monophysites. There were dozens known, and hundreds more that came and went, wisps of theological smoke that left little trace. Most of the Protestants accepted some Christian teachings and combined them with their own marketing plans. “Want more than one wife? Want to receive Communion without Confession? Want to be able to tell little lies and still get to Heaven? Want to use artificial birth control? Want to divorce and remarry?
But, who were the first Protestants? Which Protestants came before Luther, before the Arians, before any? Of all who disagreed with Jesus’ teaching, which ones were the first Protestants?
The first Protestants were an unnamed group of Jewish people. They are described in the Sixth Chapter of John. A very few verses tell us what it was that the first Protestants protested.
Jesus had said in Verse 51, “I am the living bread that came down from Heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever: and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
The first Protestants began to protest in the very next Verse, 52: “Then the Jews started arguing with one another: ‘How can this man give us His flesh to eat?'”
Jesus did not back down, but went farther in verse 53: “I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of The Son of Man and drink His blood, you will not have life in you.” He repeats that four times so that no one will have an excuse for saying “I didn’t know He said that.”
Then, the first Protestant protests increased in intensity. By Verse 60, the original Protestants were saying “This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?”
Then, those first Protestants did what Protestants of every age have done: John 6:66 “After this, many of His disciples left Him and stopped going with Him.”
Thus it is, in every age. Those who think they know more than Jesus “stop going with Him.” There are, at last count, over 43,000 schisms eager and willing to accept money from those who enjoy being praised for their “independent thinking”.
It occurs to few of them that they have violated The First Commandment by worshiping their own view of the world instead of God. They rarely consider that. Why? As Jesus said of those who refuse to follow His instruction: “they do not have life” in them.
Catholic Fundamentalism suggests that one meaning of this may be that those who disobey Him have “little dead places in the brain”. Our duty is to help them bring their “little dead places in the brain” back to life. He was clear: the only way to “have life in you” is by receiving Communion in The Only Church He Founded.
