AP

Celebrating the Reformation

It’s October again and the 31^st is just around the corner. I don’t mean it’s time to get ready for trick-or-treats, unless of course you use this as a time to share the gospel with Reformation themed tricks, treats, or tracts, when a herd of children, looking like ghouls, arrive on your doorstep. Sadly, some ministers are hesitant to celebrate this momentous event in church history. On the one hand, some ministers humbug it as an almost idolatrous celebration because, from their perspective, this period of church history seems to have been elevated and prioritized over other important time periods in church history. On the other hand, other pastors’ views of the ‘regulative principle’ seem to have prohibited them from celebrating the reformation given it’s not a prescribed day in Scripture.

Of course, with anything there are generally legitimate extremes that need to be cautioned against. Church history did not commence when Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses criticizing the sale of indulgences, and there is no requirement to officially celebrate the Reformation. In the end, it depends on motives. No doubt, any Reformation celebration can become divorced from the reality of what was at stake for the Church. Coming from a culturally Reformed heritage does not give us a step-up into heaven.

            What is the point of celebrating the incarnation of Jesus Christ at Christmas, or the substitutionary atoning sacrifice of the cross and resurrection at Easter, if we get the God-ordained means of receiving these truths—faith alone (sola fide)—wrong? The gospel is the good news of the person and work of Christ. That is, who He is (Christmas) and what He did (Easter)—to be a little simplistic. If, after hearing this good news, we trust in Christ—alone, we are saved by God’s grace through that faith in Christ (Eph. 2:8). But, if we get the incarnation wrong or Christ’s work of salvation wrong, then we have no right to the name of ‘Christian.’

            The Reformation restored the true meaning of Christmas and Easter in its rediscovery of the biblical gospel. To varying extents, the old heresy of Pelagianism had made its way back into Roman Catholic theology with the teaching that ‘God would not deny His grace to those who do what is in them.’ That is to say, God has promised to give us grace when we do what we can to move toward Him. In today’s language we might say, ‘God helps those who help themselves’, or even ‘God looks down the corridor of time and chooses those who first choose Him’.

Don’t let the mention of grace fool you. Sure, the Roman Catholic church is not a church which teaches that we are saved by works. But it is a church which says we are saved by grace in addition to works—God’s grace in addition to our works. This still undermines the gospel of grace alone, through faith alone. The wave of the hand ‘Jedi mind-trick’ in saying ‘nothing to see here’ by the Roman Church did not deceive Luther. He smelled a Pelagian rat; he understood that to ‘do what is in us’ was to depend on our ability to do ‘good works’ and, if that wasn’t bad enough, the ‘free will’ story was invented in order to carry out these good works. This means, under this system, we use our ‘free-will’ to do ‘good works’ and then—only then—God gives us His grace.

            Now, if we are fooled by this man-centred way of cooperative (synergistic) salvation we are indeed undermining the person and work of Christ—despite their empty lip service to grace. Luther would later say in his Lectures on Genesis:

This very example refutes that famous dictum of the scholastics: ‘When a man does the best he can, God without fail bestows grace’ for Cicero did the best he could, yet he did not obtain grace….it will also follow that human beings are saved without Christ if they do the best they can. (LW 2:312-314)

We need to ask whether to be graceless also means to be Christless.

In 1518, Luther presided over a disputation in Heidelberg just months after posting the Ninety-five Theses. Here he addressed the roots of the indulgence controversy and the errors behind the synergistic salvation:

1) The law of God, the most salutary doctrine of life, cannot advance man on his way to righteousness, but rather hinders him.

2) Much less can human works, which are done over and over again with the aid of natural precepts, so to speak, lead to that end.

13) Free will, after the fall, exists in name only, and as long as it does what it is able to do, it commits a mortal sin.

25) He is not righteous who does much, but he who, without work, believes much in Christ.

26) The law says, ‘do this,’ and it is never done. Grace says, ‘believe in this,’ and everything is already done. (LW 31:39-41)

            This is what the Reformation was all about: ‘Grace says, “believe in this,” and everything is already done.’ When—by faith—we trust in Christ alone, everything we need to be done for us and our salvation is complete! Without a work of our own! Because Christ has already done it for us. It’s a stark contrast isn’t it to the old ‘do what you can’ deception when all we can actually do is sin, sin, and more sin; because every intention of the thoughts of our hearts are only evil continually (Gen. 6:5).

Moreover, if our ‘righteous deeds’ are like polluted garments (Isa. 64:6), then only the work of Christ—in His active and passive obedience—can save us by imputing to us His righteousness, that is, His ‘pure vestments’ in exchange for our filthy and polluted garments (Zec. 3:3-4). This is what the Apostle Paul means when he says, ‘For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christand be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith^’ (Phil. 3:8–9). Oh, what a wonderful exchange, what wonderful news—not just to celebrate once a year, but every single day!

So, it is the Reformation rediscovery of the gospel that actually makes Christmas and Easter worth celebrating. Sola fide is what takes the amazement of the incarnation, the wisdom of the cross, and the glory of the resurrection, and applies it all to us. It’s what does justice to the person and work of Christ. If we get the gospel wrong, Easter and Christmas mean nothing (and benefit nothing) to the person who seeks to be made right with God.

Thus, there can be no room for soft pedaling the cheap grace of pragmatism here. Snake oil sells but it doesn’t cure. This is black and white; the life and death of Jesus the Messiah is the difference between life and death. This gospel needs to be preached from our pulpits un-filtered and un-watered down. We cannot cater our sermons and worship services for the unsaved because to do so will mean they will never know the gravity of their depravity, nor the greatness of the Saviour. Removing the stumbling block and offense of Christ crucified for our sin—often through well-intended pragmatism—undermines our message and the cross of Christ (1 Cor. 1:23). Catering for the lowest common denominator is like feeding adults milk (1 Cor. 3:2). But we have no need to be ashamed of the gospel ‘for it is the power of God to salvation…’ (Rom. 1:16). Let’s be competent watchmen who blow the trumpet of the gospel to warn the people (Ezek. 33:1-9), and faithful shepherds who feed and protect the sheep for God’s glory and not our own (Ezek. 34:1-10).

If our Saviour died on the hill for His message—so must we also be willing to die on the hill for our message, if indeed the message is the same. Sure, it may mean we never have a big church, nor be a celebrity pastor, nor have our own YouTube channel. So what? Let’s count all this as rubbish in order to gain Christ, the sole ‘founder and perfector of our faith’ (Heb. 12:2).

This is not a call for another party or programme in the church calendar. But that, in the very least, we remember and celebrate afresh the Reformation truths that make Christmas and Easter worth celebrating.

– Nathan Runham