Recovering the Gospel: The Ongoing Relevance of the Reformation

And the Reformation really began when he started reading through Paul's letter to the Romans, and particularly chapter 1, where he saw that the gospel does not teach what he thought the gospel was. He saw in the gospel, Romans 1:17, "The grace of God is revealed from faith to faith, and so the righteous shall live by faith." [00:04:00]

And Luther said that that was a moment where he said, "I felt as if I had entered paradise itself through open gates. I felt as if I had been born again," because this revelation of a gracious, all-gracious God who counts sinners to be righteous, not because of how they've done, but because of how Jesus is and His all-sufficient salvation, that was a message that revolutionized his life, and that was the beginning of the Reformation. [00:05:10]

And so, the Reformation gives really the only answer, which is the gospel revealed in Jesus Christ, and that we are justified by faith. But here was the problem, the church was supposed to have that answer for the world, and they didn't. If someone was struggling with their sin and wanting to have peace with God, they wouldn't find it in the church. [00:06:46]

And Luther and the Reformers wanted to say, "No, Scripture must be supreme. The rock on which the church is built is not any man other than Jesus Christ and His words. And if we depart from His words, that's when we're being schismatic." He saw, for example, when Paul writes of what Christian unity looks like, "Unity," says Paul in Philippians 1:27, "is striving together with one mind, side by side for the faith of the gospel. Unity is found in united faithfulness to the gospel, not in an organizational unity." [00:12:30]

And so, it is the reforming message of the gospel that creates the new life that humbles sinners and makes them realize, "I must, if I would have life, turn to the source of life. I cannot find it in myself. I do not summon it up within myself. And therefore, I look out to God's Word, and there light shines into darkness." [00:23:00]

The Reformers believe that they were renovators, not innovators. They were seeking to recover the apostolic faith set out in Scripture that had been covered over by centuries of human tradition. And this was why sola Scriptura was so important for them. Because unlike the Roman Catholic Church, which held that Scripture and tradition were either equal authorities, or perhaps even that the word of the pope could trump what God’s Word said, the Reformers wanted to say, "No, it is God's Word that tells us God's will and God's ways." [00:23:50]

And the other way in which there is an incompatibility between these two messages is the essence of the message itself. So again, let's take the Roman Catholic Catechism, it teaches that justification includes our sanctification. It includes our progress into internal righteousness. So, by becoming more and more righteous in ourselves, we become righteous, more and more righteous in our status before God. [00:38:26]

And there's a word in Scripture that really captures this difference, and was really important for the Reformation in France. It comes up in Hebrews 7:27 talking about the high priest who makes an offering. And the Greek word is hapax, once for all. The Roman Catholic belief had been that priests need to make sacrifices daily to continually atone for sin. [00:40:14]

And therefore, what you saw at the Reformation, the most practical change to happen in churches, was the rise of expository preaching of Scripture. So most of the Reformers, we tend to think of them as theologians, and therefore not pastors or preachers. But in fact, you look at, say, John Calvin's ministry, or Martin Luther's ministry, and you see the bulk of their time is taken up with preaching because they wanted the Word of God to go out. [00:56:49]

And so, all through history, you see times of refreshment in the church have always been marked by that glorying in God, that enjoyment of Him, of saying, "He must increase; I must decrease." [00:58:36]

And then I think the other thing that we also miss sometimes with the Reformers is their emphasis on missions. There were missionaries trained in Geneva that made it to the shores of Brazil in the 1550s. And of course, from Geneva, students would come out of France, come to Geneva, be funded by the citizens of Geneva, study at Calvin's Academy, then be funded to go back into France and plant underground churches. [01:01:07]

And so, the power for the reformation of the church, the power to drive away the darkness and the unbelief and the evil in our world is not found in our abilities, but in the Word of God. The Word of God reformed the church, brought it refreshment 500 years ago, and it's lost none of its power. [01:04:25]