Reformation Day 2018

When I was in my early twenties, working as a youth and worship pastor in a mid-sized church in Indiana, my struggle with depression drove me into hours and hours of Bible study. I coupled the personal Bible study with listening to preaching from good teachers and preachers who seemed to be trying to communicate Scripture in a clear way.  As I studied, I came to realize that growing up and even entering Bible college, I was a cultural Christian – Christian by being born in the Midwest, raised in a believing family, and well-connected in the youth group of my home church.  But I had no idea what the Bible actually said.  Instead, I assumed what it said.  And I assumed it said whatever I and all the people around me believed.  While Bible college was full of godly men and women who taught well, I wasn’t listening close, and I eluded the truth then.  Thankfully, the truth was resilient.

I read Scripture not only because I was responsible for Bible lessons for my youth group kids, but also because I just had the conviction that God’s truth was found there. I had never before taken the Bible seriously enough to find out what its message was, if it had one.  But emotional and spiritual concerns drove me into it.  

Finding Truth

As I read, I came to see certain doctrines emerge.  First, the radical fallenness of man.  I saw Moses saying man is evil in his intentions from childhood (Gen. 6:5, 8:21), the Psalmist saying no one apart from God’s grace seeks him (Ps. 14:2-3), Paul saying that the mind set on the flesh hates God and therefore can’t submit to him (Rom. 8:7-8), and Jesus saying that if one is a sinner, and all are, they are a slave to it until He sets them free (Jn. 8:34-36).  

I also saw that even in a rebellious world, God has a remnant, chosen by grace (Rom. 11:5), the remnant being chosen from before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4-5, 2 Tim. 1:9).  Further, when a believer comes to embrace Christ by faith, two things have happened: First, they believe because they have been given to Jesus by the Father (Jn. 6:37, 17:2, 6) as no one comes to him unless the Father grants them to come (Jn. 6:65); and second, they’ve been justified, or declared righteous, in spite of their own fallenness, simply because they embrace Jesus (Ac. 13:39, Rom. 3:24-25).  This justifying is the crediting of God’s righteousness – which is found in Jesus alone, who has the only “A” of any man who’s ever lived in God’s classroom – to the sinner who has no righteousness.  God can work this transaction because the sinner’s sin was punished on Jesus, so that Jesus’ reward would be enjoyed by the sinner. Indeed this is why Jesus went to the cross: the joy of Jesus, the God-man, reconciling God and men together in Himself, though God and men used to be enemies (2 Cor. 5:21, Heb. 12:2).  I saw this as really good news, because all of the other religions in the world, including American Christian Religiosity, teaches that we save ourselves by our good works.  But here I was finding that God saves sinners by Christ’s good works, received by faith.  While we can say Biblically that we’re not saved by good works, we actually are in one sense saved by good works: Christ’s good works, on our behalf: His obedience, His perfect life, His righteousness, received by faith, for the fallen and undeserving in Adam (see Rom. 5:12-21).

Finally, I found that when one embraces Jesus by faith, something has so radically changed inside them that they are going to be secure in Him.  Jesus has become their Savior and Lord, so that while sin still wages war against their soul (1 Pet. 2:11), they, having heard the voice of Jesus the Shepherd (Jn. 10:27), are going to continue to listen to Him.  Therefore, while the warning of the New Testament is to not let sin overtake you so that you make shipwreck of your faith (Rom. 6:12, 1 Tim. 1:19), those who belong to Jesus will hear the warning and endure until the end, promised that, by enduring, they’ll conquer (Rev. 2:7).

A “System” Emerges

As I came to see this set of doctrines emerge from the pages of Scripture, historical study led me to see that the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century labored to articulate these doctrines as the core of Biblical Christianity.  The so-called “Five Solas” of the Reformation (Sola being Latin for “alone”) are: 

-Sola Scriptura– The Bible alone is the ultimate authoritative rule in all matters of life and faith.

-Sola fide (faith alone) – Man is justified before God by faith alone in Jesus.

-Sola Gratia (grace alone) – This justification by faith is by grace alone, apart from one’s own works or goodness – one brings nothing to Jesus except their need for Him to save them.

-Solus Christos– The sinner is saved by grace through faith, because Christ alone has upheld the Law in His own person and work; and therefore, a sinner, united to Christ by faith, can be received by a holy God into the family.  Salvation is only in Jesus, the God-man, alone.

-Soli Deo Gloria– This salvation, being wholly of the Lord (Jonah 2:9), is wholly to the glory of the Lord.

A Historic Faith

Being an American Christian who didn’t know that there was any church history between my day and the first century (Billy Graham's heyday excepted), it was life changing for me to see that the core truths that I saw in Scripture were articulated so clearly by the Protestant Reformers.  I later found that, though there were some doctrinal anomalies, the early church fathers also held to these truths (e.g. for Justification by Faith Alone in the early church, see Nate Busenitz’s Long Before Luther, pp. 165-90; for Salvation by Grace Alone in the early church, see titled sections of Steven Lawson’s Pillars of Grace; and for the authority of the Scripture alone in the early church, see Roger Beckwith’s The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church, pp. 386-90).  A quick perusal of 1 Clement, written by Clement likely in the early second century will yield every one of the Solas above.*  Therefore I was convinced then, and am still convinced now more than ever, that this is "the faith once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).

Without accusing any one person in church history of purposely stirring up doctrinal confusion, it became clear to me that the time leading up to the Reformation was a time where a spirit of worldly pursuits had taken over the church.  And the labors of men like Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, and Bucer were orchestrated and used by God to recover the truth on which the true church has always been built.  As I came to embrace this truth, I saw myself as a recipient of grace like multitudes before, which no man can number.  Even the cultural Christianity which I critiqued earlier was a means of grace, God using it to keep me until He worked true saving faith in my heart.  Then Jesus saved me, and I’m secure in him because He promises to “sustain me until the end” (1 Cor. 1:10) and “keep me” until the day of his return (Jude 24).  

Or to borrow from Karl Barth, when asked to summarize his theology, my testimony became what every Christian's testimony throughout time is: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

Is this your testimony?  I pray it is.  To know Jesus in truth is eternal life.  Embrace Him, now!  He’s willing.

Happy Reformation day! 

*As read in Early Church Fathers, Cyril Richardson, ed., pp. 43-73.  See also Richardson's inclusion of the Letter of Diognetus, written in the second century, where on pp. 220-21 (Diog. 9:1-3), a clear example of justification by faith in Christ's work alone is seen.