Viva la Reformation!

Five hundred years ago today, October 31, 1517, a German monk named Martin Luther nailed 95 theses, or “propositions” in logical sequence, onto the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church. In these theses, he challenged the sale of indulgences, ecclesiastical writs absolving the buyer of time in purgatory for sins committed. Luther argued that the entire system, abused even as it was, amounted to a rejection of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture. Once the gauntlet was thrown, the whole system of church teaching was suddenly exposed to the piercing light of God’s holy word, and the Protestant Reformation was born.
 
The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was a complex series of events over many decades. Yet at its heart, for all its complexity, the Reformation was driven by a concern for the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ in all areas of the church’s life. That is to say, Protestants then and now confess that God in Christ is aided by no others in his saving work, and that we can add nothing more to his victory over sin and death. We can see this working itself out in three key ways:

1. Christ is supreme and sufficient in the Gospel. The teaching of the church is that God is in Christ reconciling all the world to himself. It is a free gift to the human race, motivated entirely by God’s own gracious disposition toward his creatures, and in no way a consequence of our deserving it. On the contrary, we were hardened enemies of God before he called us into his kingdom of light, the very call itself softening us and empowering us to accept it. Any proclamation of the Gospel must emphasize God’s initiative in salvation. It comes to us by his “grace alone.” Our role is merely to believe in the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ’s work, that is by “faith alone.” Any teaching which adds an “and” to what Christ accomplishes for us on the cross (the cross “and” our merits, the cross “and” our acts of love) amounts to an entirely different gospel than that taught by Bible.
   
   
2. Christ is supreme and sufficient in his Word. The teaching of the church stands entirely on the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. All of the church’s creeds, traditions, and practices stand on this bedrock, and they are supported entirely by it, just as a building depends on its foundation to have integrity. Traditions are important guides for the people of God in reading the Scriptures, to be sure, but they are not equal to Scripture finally, but are sustained and proved by “Scripture alone.” And all of the Scripture’s words serve to reveal to us and direct our attention to Jesus Christ. All of our knowledge of him, all that is necessary to know him and have saving faith in him is contained finally only there.
   
   
3. Christ is supreme and sufficient in his whole church. That is to say, all people who have been baptized into Christ’s death by faith have equal access to God as the Spirit in them cries out “Abba, Father!” The church as such is the assembly of all faithful people, called out of the world by the Word of Christ and set apart for him. The church is not an institution of ordained professionals (the “clergy”) who act as mediators and dispensers of Christ grace to all the little people. All people who call on Christ are made his co-heirs by God’s grace, and God calls some to be “clergy” merely to remind the whole assembly, not least themselves, of that fact. All who confess Christ’s name have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them and stirring them up to faith and good works. All are equally called by God to “approach the throne of grace with boldness.”

 
The Anglican Church descends from the Christian church in England, which was reformed along these lines at the time of the Protestant Reformation. And so all of these things affect our life at Holy Trinity today.

• Our liturgy proclaims the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ (“who made there by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world”).
  
  
• Our doctrine proclaims the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ’s word in Scripture (“whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation”).
  
  
• Our church calls all people to lively faith as a necessary element of life in Christ (“if anyone sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sin,” so “draw near with faith” and “feed on him in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving”).

 
Our common prayer quite intentionally proclaims the Gospel as the sixteenth century Protestants insisted the Bible describes it, supremely, sufficiently, and entirely.
 
We thank God that he has given us reformers in his church to hold us accountable to God’s Word in Scripture. We thank him that he sends us brave teachers to point us only and finally to Jesus Christ. We thank him that he has made each one of us to be his adopted sons and daughters by grace alone, through faith alone, and not on account of our works, so that no one, certainly not clergy, certainly not the “super Christian,” can boast before God. His grace toward us in Jesus Christ is supreme and sufficient for us all.
 
On this 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, let us thank God for giving us the Gospel of Christ, and the freedom of the children of God. 

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