Reflections on the Reformation: Courage, Faith, and Legacy

I think about that moment, that event, so many times. We were there. We've walked it, you know, going out of the Black cloister, down the road to the Castle Church. Of course, the wooden doors Luther would have nailed the Ninety-Five Theses to are long gone. But you just want to recreate that moment, because it was such a crucial moment not only in the history of the church, but for world history. But I don't think Luther had any idea. He wanted to be faithful to what he knew at the time, and he still had a lot to learn. [00:01:42]

He was really trying to be faithful to the teaching of the Word of God. So, he didn't set out to dismantle the church. In fact, Luther really wanted to reform the church. He believed in the church. He saw himself as a son of the church. Even early on, now, very quickly he is going to start calling the pope the antichrist, but early on he says of Leo that he wished he was a pope in a different time because he believed him to have some character and so forth. [00:04:56]

The Reformers actually valued church history. One of the pieces Luther wrote was On the Councils and the Church, and wasn't throwing out sixteen hundred years of church history. He recognized that God worked through church history and that through faithful theologians, faithful pastors, faithful church leaders there was good teaching there that the church could draw upon. I mean, we don't come to this in a vacuum. The Holy Spirit is not a gift to the twenty-first century church. [00:06:56]

It's in bringing such crystallized expression to the doctrines that matter the most and we have this wonderful structure of the solas as a paradigm to get at this, but to say we're talking about the doctrine of the authority of Scripture and then we are talking about the doctrine of salvation which has grace and faith in Christ rightly understood. And that's the central truth of what it means to be a Christian. [00:08:16]

So, there were women who were influential in their own right, and the one was the aforementioned Lady Jane Grey. So, through a series of sort of relatives to the throne, once Edward VI dies the next heir is Mary. The problem is she is Catholic. So, there was a move to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne, and she was England's queen for all of nine days. And then in comes Mary's troops. [00:11:20]

The Reformers come along and give us this wonderful doctrine of vocation, and now all of a sudden being a merchant, being a shipbuilder, being a bricklayer, being a farmer can be done for the glory of God. And this is what Paul says, "As unto the Lord." He is not talking to just pastors there and Ephesians. He is talking about workers, all of us. We do our work as unto the Lord. [00:18:04]

I think it shows God's faithfulness. You know, when we look at the Old Testament we hear about the attributes of God. We hear about His character. We hear that He is faithful. And then what do we see? We see it played out in the narratives of the Old Testament saints. We see it played out in Abraham and in Isaac and in Jacob; even in their unfaithfulness we see God's faithfulness played out. [00:19:30]

Everything. In fact, you know, a few decades in, Calvin is asked to sort of present on the Reformation and basically, you know, why all the fuss? Why do we go to all this trouble? And Calvin makes an interesting comment. It's on the necessity of reforming the church. This is the name of the document if somebody wants to, if Alex was to go and check it out. But he says the whole church from top to bottom was corrupt in its worship. [00:33:05]

The worship service was reformed. Let's say in the Middle Ages you went to church and you were moved by what God had done for you and you just wanted to express your gratitude and sing. You couldn't. There were church choirs that sang. The Reformers re-gave to us congregational worship. Think about that this Sunday Reformation Day when you stand up and you sing hymns in your congregation. Thank God for the Reformers, right. [00:34:38]

I think what we have to remember is— well, I'll go back to Edwards— he wrote a letter. Deborah Hathaway was converted in one of the towns where Edwards preached and that town was without a pastor for a while. So, she writes a letter to Edwards saying that she and some of her basically teenage friends are needing guidance in the Christian life. Would he be of any help? Nathan, he has a congregation of five hundred people. [00:56:24]

I think just helping people understand who God is, understanding Scripture, but I really think where my passions lie, and I think where I've had some gifts, is in helping the church today connect to church history. So, one of the most gratifying moments, or the gratifying moments for me, is at conferences or just bumping into people, of kids who are either, you know, listen to 5 Minutes in Church History or one of the ABC books on church history where, you know, they've been introduced to church history through that. [01:02:42]

I think one of the hardest has been, you know, in our position, sometimes we have to take stands and sometimes those stands are stands really against people that we would count as friends. And so, I have not had a whole lot of those moments. I have not had the "Here I stand" moments of Luther, but I've had slight moments where that has happened. And those are just difficult times, because we care about people and we also care about the truth. [01:01:39]