The Sixty-Seven Articles

Overview

On January 29, 1523, Huldrych Zwingli presented sixty-seven theses before the Zurich city council at what is now called the First Zurich Disputation. The council had convened the meeting to determine whether Zwingli’s reform preaching, which had been drawing crowds and controversy since 1519 , was faithful to Scripture or deserving of censure. Zwingli submitted his sixty-seven articles as a summary of what he had been preaching and as a challenge to anyone, including the Bishop of Constance’s representative, to refute any article from Scripture.

No one was able to refute them. The city council declared that Zwingli should continue preaching as he had been. It was a decisive moment: civil authority had weighed in on the side of the Reformation, giving it legal protection in Zurich. The First Zurich Disputation was the formal inauguration of the Swiss Reformation.

The Argument

The sixty-seven articles move through the major points of Zwingli’s reform agenda, each grounded in the principle stated in his preamble: “I, Ulrich Zwingli, confess that I have preached in the worthy city of Zurich these articles and propositions based on Scripture.”

• Articles 1–6: Christ and the Gospel. The gospel is the true, divine word, Christ is its content, and He alone is our salvation, way, truth, and life. No human authority can add to or subtract from what Christ has done.
• Articles 7–17: Scripture and the papacy. Christ is the head of the church; the papacy has no scriptural warrant. The laws of the Pope bind only insofar as they accord with Scripture. What Scripture does not command is not binding on the conscience.
• Articles 18–28: Tradition and ordinances. Fasting, feast days, pilgrimages, and monastic vows have no saving merit. The church’s traditions that cannot be grounded in Scripture are human inventions and do not bind the conscience before God.
• Articles 29–39: The mass and intercession. The mass is not a sacrifice; Christ offered Himself once for all. The sacrifice of the mass is therefore a denial of that once-for-all offering. Prayers to the saints have no scriptural basis; Christ alone is our mediator.
• Articles 40–67: Sin, penance, church authority, and civil government. Auricular confession to a priest is not required. Excommunication is the church’s proper discipline but belongs to the congregation, not to the bishop alone. Civil authority is ordained by God and Christians must obey it in lawful things.

Significance

Zwingli’s articles are to the Swiss Reformation what Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses are to the German, a public declaration of the Reformation’s principles before an authority that had the power to suppress them. Where Luther posted his theses and waited for scholarly debate, Zwingli submitted his articles to a civil tribunal and won their backing.

The theological center of the articles is sola scriptura applied comprehensively. Zwingli does not merely assert that Scripture is authoritative, he uses it as the measuring rod by which every existing church practice is evaluated. What Scripture does not warrant, the church has no right to require. This hermeneutical principle, applied consistently, dismantles the entire medieval sacramental and hierarchical system article by article.

Zwingli represents the Reformed tradition’s distinctive application of the regulative principle, not merely correcting abuses but measuring everything by the positive warrant of Scripture. This instinct runs directly through Calvin, through the Westminster Confession’s treatment of worship, and into the 1689.

Key Articles

Full Text

The full text of the Sixty-Seven Articles is available at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.