Continuous Reformation: Embracing the Gospel's Transformative Power

Reformation is primarily a positive movement about purifying the church by the Word of God. And because of the nature of what Reformation is, that means the Reformation cannot be over. There have been people today who have used the language of asking, "Is the Reformation over?" And that's something we could possibly talk about what they might mean by that, but the very nature of reformation means, no, it's not a process that will stop because reformation needs to be continuous. The church needs to be continually ongoingly purified, reformed, refreshed by the Word of God. [00:01:02]

So, under that salvation, you are saved by grace; if you don't have the Red Bull, you don't have the energy to go and do the good works. The grace was the Red Bull that enabled you to do the works, but it's the works that earn you heaven, right? So, you couldn't get to heaven without grace but it is your works that earned it. And what people like Marjorie Kemp struggled with is, "Have I done enough to be worthy of heaven? So, I've received grace, this, this enabling to be better, but have I done enough?" [00:04:23]

And so, you get to see his smart use of what was a very new technology, Gutenberg's movable type printing press. So that was the new technology of the day. And I think what we've been given with the Internet and social media, with technological advances of the last thirty years or so, we've been given another Gutenberg moment; a chance to seize the new technology. And it's interesting, back then, you could see people looking at the new technology saying, "This new technology is dangerous, look at all the ways it can be abused." And you can see Luther and others soon after, you could see them saying, "Yes, it can be, but we can use this for the glory of Christ." [00:12:33]

But what they meant by that was, "Hey, look, we all know there are priests who get drunk before Mass, and there are popes who...," so, for example, Pope Alexander VI, was known for poisoning his cardinals and holding orgies in the Vatican. It was just known this happens. And everyone would snigger a bit and think, "This isn't good that popes behave like that, and the local parish priest behaves like that," but we all know it happens. And so, there will be a sense of, "Well, couldn't we do better." And so, there will be attempts at Reformation. But what Reformation meant was, "Let's be better Roman Catholics." [00:14:09]

If we are to see a true Reformation of the church in our day, it's got to be by recovering the central truths of the gospel, which were the truths that were trumpeted at the Reformation. So, justification by faith alone, the supremacy of Scripture, the need for sinners to be born again, Christ as a completely sufficient Savior, we don't need to add anything to what He's done, those are the truths that will change lives. But a hundred years after the Reformation got going, Richard Sibbes, a Puritan, wrote, "Of these last hundred years of Reformation, there has been more lightsomeness and comfort. Why? For Christ hath been better known." [00:15:45]

And so, the great practical change in churches at the time of the Reformation was now we start to see regular expository preaching of Scripture, so that people are hearing this gospel rather than a priest intoning incoherent words in Latin, and saying hocus-pocus, which was hoc est corpus meum, "This is My body," misunderstood. So, it became hocus-pocus is just some magical words that holy men say. It was preaching that brought about the last Reformation. It's preaching, the preaching of Christ from Scripture that will bring about a reformation of the church in our day. [00:18:37]

So, grace enables me." Whereas, Luther's marriage illustration says, "No, Christ clothes you with a righteousness that is not your own." He doesn't merely enable people to become righteous in themselves; Christ clothes sinners with His own unrighteousness. And so, I find that this is ongoingly a pastoral problem in churches today. There is a lack of clarity on what salvation is. Is grace an enabling help? That God really is only helping people save themselves, so it's down to you to do a good job, in which case, you'll be nervous if you take that seriously. Or can you have the boldness of depending entirely, entirely upon Christ? [00:21:05]

I think clarity on who Christ is needs to be recovered again today. We need to be clear that when we talk about Christ, we are not talking about someone who is a spiritual guru or butler who can merely help us along a little bit. As if, really, salvation is down to us but Jesus, very kindly, just gives us a helping hand. You see, the Christ of Scripture is so totally sufficient that without Him, there is no salvation, but with Him, we can rejoice. With Him, we can have boldness because He's achieved it all. [00:22:56]

C.S. Lewis talked about the Protestant faith brought a buoyant humility that he saw almost as a litmus test of faithfulness to being Protestant. That if there isn't a sense of a rejoicing in who Christ is, you've not quite grasped how great and sufficient a Savior He His. And if you're not humbled, if there is some pride in yourself, again, you're thinking you're contributing, you're not depending entirely upon Christ. So, buoyant humility is the tone of Reformation spirituality. [00:24:15]

I think we can learn the lesson of Luther. Luther personally struggled to the point where he said, "I did not love, but I hated God." And if you find yourself or someone you know in that position, feeling either lukewarm, disinterested, couldn't care less about God, or actually worse, "I really hate God," as Luther said, you can know that there is great hope and transformation as Luther found by pressing into the gospel made known in Scripture. [00:25:24]

That in Scripture Luther found a God so gracious, he'd not dreamed such a being could exist, and it turned him around. Now, there's a lesson of hope for us today that for those of us who have family who seem bored or hostile to the faith, if we can open up to them, make available to them the Christ of Scripture, the gospel of justification by faith alone of a sufficient Savior who dies in the place of sinners, then the bored and the hostile can be turned to a buoyant humility, to a happy boldness. [00:26:14]

And what that did for Luther was change a scared, nervous, anxious, deeply depressed young man into a boldly happy man who knew he could be confident because of Christ and not because of his own performance. He became so boldly confident that he could stand in front of the emperor and the whole church and refuse to back down on his teaching. So, you get to see through this teaching of justification by faith alone, sorry it is a long answer, Nathan, through this teaching on justification by faith alone, nervous cowards, and scared, depressed, confused young Christians became joyful, bold Reformers, lions in the cause of the gospel, and taught many others the same. [00:08:20]