Who was Thomas Cranmer?
We now have a Cranmer room… but who was he? Thomas Cranmer was Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and briefly Mary I, when he was burned at the stake for his Protestant views. He was the architect of the Book of Common Prayer, so it is to him that we owe the distinctive doctrine and liturgy of the Church of England. Let me highlight three things we can learn from him:
He put the Bible at the centre of church life. His services of Morning and Evening Prayer are essentially structured around reading and responding to Scripture. He also ensured the publication of ‘The Great Bible’, so that every church had the Bible in English for the first time – chained to the pulpit so that it could not be removed!
He articulated the vital doctrine of justification by faith alone: we are saved not by what we do, nor even by co-operating with God, but solely by trusting in what God has already done for us in the death of his Son. His service of Holy Communion makes it clear that Christ “made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.”
His martyrdom reminds us that it can be costly following Christ, and that there are some things worth dying for… being ‘chained’ to God’s word and trusting in Christ alone.