Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 83:2 (Fall 2021)
Article: The Reformers And The Descendit Clause
Author: Joe Mock

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The Reformers And The Descendit Clause

Joe Mock

Joe Mock ministers at Gracepoint Presbyterian Church at Lidcombe, New South Wales, Australia.

A major challenge of the reformers in the sixteenth century was to interpret and apply Scripture in a correct manner in view of the errors that had crept into the received tradition of the medieval church. While some doctrines such as justification by faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone were clear from a careful reading of the biblical texts in the original languages, getting to grips with other doctrines was less straightforward. The danger for the reformers would have been to go to the extreme and jettison everything taught by the medieval church. The secondary standard of the creeds and the major councils had to be evaluated afresh through the lens of the Scriptures. The reformers had to avoid the charge of unorthodoxy.

The descendit clause of the Apostles’ Creed provides a window into how the reformers understood the message of the whole biblical canon, judiciously assessed what was written by the church fathers as well as carefully examined church tradition vis-à-vis Scripture. This article considers the views of the descensus of Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Jud, Bucer, Luther, Calvin, and Bullinger.

This study examines the manner in which some of the continental reformers, especially Bullinger, expressed their understanding of the descendit clause of the Apostles’ Creed. A comparison of their various views provides a window into how they interpreted the whole biblical canon, critically read what was written by the church fathers, and evaluated church tradition.

This clause of the Creed gave rise to differences between the various wings of the Reformation.1 In fact, Calvin’s successor in Geneva, Theodore Beza (1519–1605), removed it from his version of the Creed.2 The differences between

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the Lutherans and the Reformed reformers are reflected in Article 9 of the Lutheran Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord (1577), which focuses on Christ’s descensus. It is not without significance that this article immediately follows the article on the person of Christ and therefore is germane to the ubiquity of Christ’s body.3 Both the Solid Declaration and the Epitome, which was drafted by Jakob Andreae (1528–1590), followed up the Torgau Book (1576), which reflected the principles outlined by the Mansfeld ministerium in their opposition to what the Heidelberg C...