What is the Goal of Reformation?

Posted on February 28, 2019 by John Samson

What is the goal of reformation? From the Ligonier 2017 National Conference, Sinclair Ferguson, W. Robert Godfrey, Steven Lawson, Stephen Nichols, Burk Parsons, and Derek Thomas explain that reform focuses on one goal: to glorify God.

Transcript:

FERGUSON: Both in Calvin and in the Westminster Confession and its subordinate standards the answer to the first question, “What is our chief end?,” must be the same as to the question, “What is the goal of Reformation?”: “To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”

To be able to do both of these things simultaneously is what I think at the end of the day is going to make an impact on our contemporary world that is so interested in enjoyment. It’s very rare to hear non-Christians say, “See how these Christians enjoy the glory of God.” But once that begins to happen in a church fellowship, then I think it inevitably makes an impact on the society around it in all kinds of different ways.

LAWSON: The quick answer would be Romans 11:36: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To God be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”

The goal is that this theology would produce this doxology—that the theology of Romans 1-11 and all that’s contained in that would produce God-centered worship and giving glory to God.

So the intrinsic glory of God, the first part of that verse, should produce ascribed glory to God, the second half of that verse. Obviously twenty other things can be said under that.

PARSONS: Absolutely it’s the glory of God, and I think if Dr. Sproul were here he would start with that and finish with that.

I think it’s significant to point out, as the Reformers did in the solas of the Reformation, not to forget that qualifier. In speaking not only of the glory of God but of the Reformation, Christian worship, our lives, we remember that everything we do is for the glory of God and for the glory of God alone. And so in Psalm 115:1, at the outset, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory.”

I think that’s what is so significant. We speak so often of the glory of God, but we don’t speak of it as often as we should, in contradiction to our own glory, our own kingdoms, our own fame—that we are here, that this conference exists, we worship, we serve, we live, we preach, we train up, we make disciples, we evangelize not to get the applause of men, not to get notches on our belt, not to wear a certain badge. We do it for the glory of God and for God’s glory alone.

NICHOLS: I’d agree with all of these. The ultimate and eternal goal of the Reformation is the glory of God. If you were to ask “What is the intermediate goal?” or “What is the immediate goal of the Reformation?” it was to reform the church and to reform the church from top to bottom. It was about preaching, it was about music, it was about education, it was about the centrality of Scripture. It was about missions: Geneva was very interested in missions and sending missionaries to the shores of Brazil in the 1550s.

So the immediate task-at-hand goal of the Reformers was to have all pistons firing on a church that is obedient to her calling and to how she is ordained to function according to the Word of God.

THOMAS: Of course I agree with everything. But when I heard the question my mind went in two directions. First of all it went to my first encounter with R.C. forty years ago in a book, Chosen by God, and a vision of the sovereignty of God. And that surely is at the heart of the Reformation: a sovereign, omnipotent, all-powerful God in whom we may trust. And as Sinclair began his prayer, that all of providence, even this event this afternoon in which we grieve that R.C. is not preaching to us, is in the hands of a sovereign, loving, gracious God.

The other direction that my mind went was to the debate about what’s at the heart of the Reformation: is it justification or is it the doctrine of scripture? And I think that the call is once again upon us, as R.C. has signaled in the last number of years, to believe and preach and proclaim the inerrancy of Scripture, and our confidence in Scripture alone. That the answers to all of our questions lie in the written Word of God.

So five hundred years later we still need that Reformation now as much as then.

GODFREY: These answers, I think, point to something of the breadth and depth and glory of the Reformation. So much can be said.

Since this go-round began with a quotation from a catechism, I’d like to quote from the catechism.

Part of what stands at the heart of the Reformation is vital religion: “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” And my only comfort in life and in death is, “that I am not my own, but belong body and soul … to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q.1). And I think it’s so important to keep that gospel of Jesus at the center of things.

What has Joy got to do with the Protestant Reformation?

Posted on November 11, 2018 by John Samson

By Tim Chester (PhD), a faculty member of Crosslands Training and the pastor of Grace Church Boroughbridge in England. He is the author of Reforming Joy: A Conversation between Paul, the Reformers, and the Church Today (Crossway). (original source here)

I’m writing a book on joy and the Reformation.” His raised eyebrows were enough to tell me he was skeptical. “What’s joy got to do with the Reformation?” It was one of those questions that is really a statement.

Joy is not something many people readily associate with the Protestant Reformation. Courage, yes. Controversy, yes. Truth, maybe. But not joy. Joy is a long way down the list when it comes to most people’s perception of John Calvin.

A Belly Laugh
Yet consider this from William Tyndale, one of the key figures in the English Reformation. In 1526 Tyndale published the New Testament in English. It was his second attempt to do so. The first time around, he had to flee when the authorities raided the press on which it was being printed. He was living in exile and would eventually be martyred for his passion to make an English Bible available to every ploughboy in the land. He included a preface (much of it ripped from Martin Luther) to that first edition which he later expanded into A Pathway into the Holy Scripture. Here’s what he said about the gospel and the Bible.

What we call “the gospel” is a Greek word that signifies good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that make a man’s heart glad, and make him sing, dance, and leap for joy … Now the wretched man (who is wrapped in sin, and is in danger to death and hell) can hear nothing more joyous then such glad and comforting tidings of Christ. As a result, he cannot but be glad and laugh from the low bottom of his heart, if he believes that these tidings are true.

For Tyndale, the Reformation brought news that makes people sing and dance and leap for joy. It is a message that makes a man laugh from “the low bottom of his heart.” I guess today we might say “a belly laugh.” What is this good news? Tyndale says it is “[Christ’s] life, through which he swallowed and devoured up death; his righteousness, through which he banished sin; his salvation, through which he overcame eternal damnation.”[1]

The Reformation as a Rediscovery of Gospel Joy
There’s a sense in which the young Luther was the one person who took Medieval Catholic theology seriously. He really believed it and it crushed him. He would spend hours confessing to his superior in the Augustinian order, and then come rushing back with some new misdemeanor he had remembered. At one point his superior said: “Look here, Brother Martin. If you’re going to confess so much, why don’t you go do something worth confessing? Kill your mother or father! Commit adultery! Stop coming in here with such flummery and fake sins!”[2]

But Luther could find no rest for his soul in the theology he had been taught by the church. It spoke of faith and grace. But faith was understood more like our word “fidelity.” Faith was our loyalty to God that might perhaps earn his favor. And grace was like a shot of adrenalin, a kind of spiritual boost to help us live the Christian life, that you received through the sacraments. But still, it was down to you to earn enough merit before God. No one could have hope or peace before God. The very idea was errant presumption. Continue reading →

The Very Heart of the Reformation

Posted on November 1, 2018 by John Samson

This excerpt is taken from Are We Together? by R.C. Sproul and has its online source here.

At the very heart of the controversy in the sixteenth century was the question of the ground by which God declares anyone righteous in His sight. The psalmist asked, “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” (Ps. 130:3). In other words, if we have to stand before God and face His perfect justice and perfect judgment of our performance, none of us would be able to pass review. We all would fall, because as Paul reiterates, all of us have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). So, the pressing question of justification is how can an unjust person ever be justified in the presence of a righteous and holy God?

The Roman Catholic view is known as analytical justification. This means that God will declare a person just only when, under His perfect analysis, He finds that he is just, that righteousness is inherent in him. The person cannot have that righteousness without faith, without grace, and without the assistance of Christ. Nevertheless, in the final analysis, true righteousness must be present in the soul of a person before God will ever declare him just.

Whereas the Roman view is analytical, the Reformation view is that justification is synthetic. A synthetic statement is one in which something new is added in the predicate that is not contained in the subject. If I said to you, “The bachelor was a poor man,” I have told you something new in the second part of the sentence that was not already contained in the word bachelor. All bachelors are men by definition, but not all bachelors are poor men. There are many wealthy bachelors. Poverty and wealth are concepts that are not inherent in the idea of bachelorhood. So, when we say, “The bachelor was a poor man,” there is a synthesis, as it were.

When we say that the Reformation view of justification is synthetic, we mean that when God declares a person to be just in His sight, it is not because of what He finds in that person under His analysis. Rather, it is on the basis of something that is added to the person. That something that is added, of course, is the righteousness of Christ. This is why Luther said that the righteousness by which we are justified is extra nos, meaning “apart from us” or “outside of us.” He also called it an “alien righteousness,” not a righteousness that properly belongs to us, but a righteousness that is foreign to us, alien to us. It comes from outside the sphere of our own behavior. With both of these terms, Luther was speaking about the righteousness of Christ.

If any word was at the center of the firestorm of the Reformation controversy and remains central to the debate even in our day, it is imputation. Numerous meetings were held between Protestants and Roman Catholics to try to repair the schism that was taking place in the sixteenth century. Theologians from Rome met with the magisterial Reformers, trying to resolve the difficulties and preserve the unity of the church. There was a longing for such unity on both sides. But the one concept that was always a sticking point, the idea that was so precious to the Protestants and such a stumbling block for the Roman Catholics, was imputation. We cannot really understand what the Reformation was about without understanding the central importance of this concept. Continue reading →

Why the Reformation Isn’t Over

Posted on October 31, 2018 by John Samson

Dr. Michael Reeves

(1) Why the Reformation Isn’t Over

(original source here)

More Than History
People might think that the Reformation is irrelevant today—just a feature on the pages of history. And they may not like history so they might not find that at all interesting. People might think that the Reformation was mainly a reaction to a historical issue 500 years ago that we’ve moved on from and therefore that reaction is no longer relevant.

But the Reformation was not merely a reaction to some problem that was in the church 500 years ago. The Reformation was, at its heart, a project to move ever closer to the gospel—that we might be ever more purified and reformed as believers and the church by the word of God.

That was how it all began for Martin Luther—with him digging into Scripture and seeing how Scripture could confront and overturn the teachings of his day, and it went on as that.

Change in the Church
The whole Puritan movement started in the 1560s in England—a generation or so after Luther—and was a movement that was dedicated to what John Milton called the reforming of the Reformation, because the Puritans were people who saw we cannot settle with any level of change that God has brought about in our life or in our church.

Therefore, we need to be constantly searching in his Word to see how further reformation needs to work itself out and what it looks like in our lives. And so, the reformation movement was a movement of constant change, constant purification by the word of God. And if the Puritans were right in that, that’s what the Reformation is: a project of being ever more purified by the word of God. If that’s true, and I believe they are absolutely right in that, then the Reformation cannot be over.

Here are principles that we need to hold onto. Let’s be constantly purified by the word of God. The central principles of the Reformation still apply because they’re ever-relevant. The matter of justification hasn’t gone away and so the issues of the Reformation cannot have gone away.

(2) Justification: The Heart of the Reformation by Dr. Michael Reeves (original source here)

Internal vs. External Transformation
The issue at the heart of the Reformation was without a doubt the question of justification. When Luther was growing up, the understanding of justification that he was taught (and which really drove him to despair) was an understanding of justification inherited from Augustine who had thought that Romans 5:5 was the clearest single text to articulate justification. It says that “God has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit he’s given us.”

So with that understanding, God pours his love, by the Holy Spirit, into my heart so that in my heart, I am transformed to become more and more loving, more and more holy, more and more justified. It is an internal transformative process and that’s simply not what Romans 5:5 is actually about. But that understanding of justification as the transformative process meant that you could not be sure that you’d been internally transformed enough to be worthy of heaven.

And the answer to that question should normally, according to the Catholic Church be no. They would have said that most of us, bar a few exceptions, will spend a good time in Purgatory having remaining sins purged from us. What Luther saw as he turned to Romans chapter 1 was that justification is not an internal transformative process, it’s a declaratory act of God.

Divine Declaration
God declares by his word that a sinner, not on the basis of any internal transformation but by his own promise, is righteous as he is clothed with the righteousness of Christ. That meant that the sinner can be still a sinner in themselves and yet clothed with the righteousness of Christ— therefore confident before God in the face of death.

That was really the dividing line between a transformative understanding of justification and a declarative understanding of justification—one which has works as a cause of justification that contribute to justification, and one which has works as a consequence or an overflow of the transformation that happens when we find ourselves united with Christ and so clothed with his righteousness.

(3) Why You Can’t Have Justification without Sanctification

The Other Reformers

Posted on February 28, 2018 by John Samson

Dr. Ligon Duncan, in a Gospel Coalition address entitled “The Reformed Tradition Beyond Calvin” discusses some of the lesser known but nonetheless major movers and shakers in the 16th century Protestant Reformation.

[Session 7] Ligon Duncan – “The Reformed Tradition Beyond Calvin” from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Applying the Reformation

Posted on January 6, 2018 by John Samson

Dr. Michael Reeves: The Reformation applied to life and ministry today.

Interaction – The Reformation and Rome

Posted on November 3, 2017 by John Samson

Pastor Rick Phillips recounts his recent interaction about the Protestant Reformation with local Roman Catholic scholars in Greenville, SC (original source here):

Probably the most interesting Reformation celebration that I had the privilege of participating in last month took place in a Roman Catholic Church. The Center for Evangelical Catholicism here in Greenville, SC graciously invited me to join with two other Protestants and three Roman Catholic scholars to discuss the Reformation. I was grateful for the warmth of my reception and for the valuable interaction.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this event was the panel discussion, in which the host priest asked a number of insightful questions. For instance, he asked us to consider how things might have been different if the Roman Catholic establishment had been more patient and accommodating with Martin Luther. The idea was that Leo X (nobody’s favorite pope) handled Luther with such clumsy arrogance that he provoked the great schism that resulted. Might there have been a Lutheran order within the Roman church, he wondered, if the pope was more sophisticated and skillful?

My answer–which provoked a fair amount of unhappiness–was that it was inconceivable that the movement of the Protestant Reformation should have accommodated Rome simply because of the irreconcilable stances towards the Bible. Christians who adhered to sola scriptura – the authority of Scripture alone – could never endure a papacy that demanded that its tradition stood beside (and in practice above) the plain meaning of Scripture. Moreover, by study of the Bible, the Protestants came to the conclusion that the papacy was an utterly illegitimate and usurping office. In fact, wherever the Bible was embraced as supreme, the denunciation of the pope soon followed, a situation quite unlikely to permit a Lutheran movement inside the Roman tent. Furthermore, Roman Catholicism was just as opposed to the authority of Scripture as the Reformers were opposed to the papacy. It was for this reason that Rome so vigorously suppressed the spread of the Bible, going so far as to burn at the stake those who made it available to the common people.

As you can imagine, the warmth of my reception began to chill during this discourse. Especially my claim that Rome had suppressed the spread of Scripture was denounced as a false and tired canard! The host priest protested: “Why, Rome has done more for Bible translation than any other Christian body! Only in England was Bible translation suppressed, and that was done by the secular authority and not the church!”

This claim incited me to go back and study the evidence for Rome’s suppression of Scripture. To say the least, it is extensive! Consider the following:

Pope Gregory VII: forbade access of common people to the Bible in 1079, since it would “be so misunderstood by people of limited intelligence as to lead them into error.”

Pope Innocent III: compared Bible teaching in church to casting “pearls before swine” (1199).

The Council of Toulouse (France, 1229): suppressed the Albigensians and forbade the laity to read vernacular translations of the Bible.

The Second Council of Tarragon (Spain, 1234) declared, “No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments, and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over. . . that they may be burned.”

In response to the labors of John Wyclif, the English Parliament (under Roman Catholic influence) banned the translation of Scripture into English, unless approved by the church (1408).

The Council of Constance (Germany/ Bohemia, 1415) condemned John Hus and the writings of Wyclif because of their doctrine of Scripture and subsequent teachings. Hus answerd: “If anyone can instruct me by the sacred Scriptures. . . , I am willing to follow him.” He was burned at the stake.

Archbishop Berthold of Mainz threatened to excommunicate anyone who translated the Bible (1486).

Pope Pius IV expressed the conviction that Bible reading did the common people more harm than good (1564).

It is true that in many cases, the papacy suppressed Scripture because it was being used to teach against the church. But this is exactly the point the Reformers argued: Rome would not allow the Scripture to speak with authority and for that reason suppressed it.

Wyclif wrote: “where the Bible and the Church do not agree, we must obey the Bible, and, where conscience and human authority are in conflict, we must follow conscience.”

For this doctrine and its further implications, his body was exhumed and burned, his ashes scattered in a nearby river, and his Bible translation banned.

So much for the Protestant “canard” regarding the Roman Catholic attitude to Bible translation, teaching, and distribution!

The record shows that if there was a single conviction that motivated and guided the Protestant Reformation, it was the authority of Scripture alone to speak for God in matters of faith and life. On this vital matter, the great John Wyclif and his martyr-disciple John Hus spoke with all the clarity that would burst forth through Martin Luther and others in the 16th century.

Wyclif did not live to see a widespread Reformation, but died under harassment and scorn. Yet by wonderful providences, his writings spread far away to Bohemia where John Hus advocated them with zeal and power. Hus, too, did not live to see a Reformation, but died in solitary disgrace amidst the flames of a scornful church. Yet his influence endured, through the spread of Scripture, so that Martin Luther exclaimed, “We are all Hussites!”

The Protestant Reformation, which we have been celebrating these past weeks, was above all a Reformation of and by the Word of God. What compelling evidence Wyclif, Hus, and Luther gave to Isaiah’s claim that God’s Word will not go forth in vain but shall succeed by God’s power (Isa. 55:11)! It is for this reason that accommodation with Rome would have been unthinkable to Luther and his followers, since sola scriptura compelled them to stand against false teaching with the Word of truth. Their courageous stance, blessed by God’s mighty aid, reminds us that we also will never send forth God’s Word in vain. If we will stand within the secular church of America, and yes, of evangelicalism, and hold forth the Word of God, he will not fail to bless it with the saving and reforming power our generation so greatly needs.

Why the Reformation Still Matters

Posted on October 24, 2017 by John Samson

Dr. Michael Reeves is president and professor of theology at Union School of Theology. He is author of many books, including Delighting in the Trinity. In an article in Tabletalk magazine (available here) he writes:

Last year, on October 31, Pope Francis announced that after five hundred years, Protestants and Catholics now “have the opportunity to mend a critical moment of our history by moving beyond the controversies and disagreements that have often prevented us from understanding one another.” From that, it sounds as if the Reformation was an unfortunate and unnecessary squabble over trifles, a childish outburst that we can all put behind us now that we have grown up.

But tell that to Martin Luther, who felt such liberation and joy at his rediscovery of justification by faith alone that he wrote, “I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.” Tell that to William Tyndale, who found it such “merry, glad and joyful tidings” that it made him “sing, dance, and leap for joy.” Tell it to Thomas Bilney, who found it gave him “a marvellous comfort and quietness, insomuch that my bruised bones leaped for joy.” Clearly, those first Reformers didn’t think they were picking a juvenile fight; as they saw it, they had discovered glad tidings of great joy.

GOOD NEWS IN 1517
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Europe had been without a Bible the people could read for something like a thousand years. Thomas Bilney had thus never encountered the words “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). Instead of the Word of God, they were left to the understanding that God is a God who enables people to earn their own salvation. As one of the teachers of the day liked to put it, “God will not deny grace to those who do their best.” Yet what were meant as cheering words left a very sour taste for everyone who took them seriously. How could you be sure you really had done your best? How could you tell if you had become the sort of just person who merited salvation?

Martin Luther certainly tried. “I was a good monk,” he wrote, “and kept my order so strictly that I could say that if ever a monk could get to heaven through monastic discipline, I should have entered in.” And yet, he found:

My conscience would not give me certainty, but I always doubted and said, “You didn’t do that right. You weren’t contrite enough. You left that out of your confession.” The more I tried to remedy an uncertain, weak and troubled conscience with human traditions, the more daily I found it more uncertain, weaker and more troubled.

According to Roman Catholicism, Luther was quite right to be unsure of heaven. Confidence of a place in heaven was considered errant presumption and was one of the charges made against Joan of Arc at her trial in 1431. There, the judges proclaimed, Continue reading →

Ten Lasting Fruits of the Reformation

Posted on October 5, 2017 by John Samson

Article by Dr. Joel Beeke (original source here)

God sent forth the power of his Word in the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The Reformation served as a dynamic motivation and catalyst for change and progress wherever its influence reached. Many would credit Martin Luther as the driving engine that propelled the Reformation, but Luther said, “I did nothing; the Word did everything.” John Knox said, “God did so multiply our number that it appeared as if men had rained from the clouds.” How did the Reformation change the church and the world? Here are ten lasting fruits in which the Reformation made a significant difference.

1. The Word of God
The Reformers recognized the Bible as God’s written Word, and the supreme rule of faith and life for both the individual believer and for the life of the church. Here is the great starting point for understanding the aims, dynamism, and achievements of the Reformation. As part of the revival of learning connected with the Renaissance, the Western church recovered the knowledge of the original languages of the Bible. For the first time in many centuries, her scholars and teachers were able to read the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament, and examine the extant Latin translations of the Bible in the light of the original. If you want to call yourself an heir of the Reformation, then you must be a student of the Bible. Read the Word of God and meditate on it daily. Cultivate a systematic understanding of the Bible’s teachings. Compare Scripture with Scripture. Never walk away from private devotions, family worship, or a sermon without taking hold of some particular truth and applying it to your soul.

2. The Gospel of Grace
The Reformers recovered the authentic gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, and proclaiming it to the ends of the earth through zealous evangelism. They taught that sinners are saved as Christ graciously works in them by His Word and Holy Spirit, convincing them of their sin and misery, and leading them to faith in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, offered once for all, as the only ground of their salvation. Justification from the guilt of sin is not the distant goal, but the beginning of life in Christ. Good works are fruits that accompany justification, and only serve to confirm it. Justification is by faith alone, through Christ alone. Salvation is the gracious, free gift of God, “not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:9). What Luther and the other Reformers discovered was that Rome had exchanged the true gospel for a false one. According to Rome, salvation was achieved by slow degrees and hard work, by receiving the sacraments and by doing such good works as the church required or directed. Sinners must atone for their sins by doing penance in this life and suffering the fires of purgatory in the next, calling on saints and angels for help, and cherishing the hope of full salvation only in the far distant future. Some degree of comfort was afforded to the faithful by the sale of “indulgences,” promissory notes issued by the church forgiving or “indulging” some part of the debt of sin owed to God. This “gospel according to Rome” was a message to inspire fear of wrath, not faith in Christ.

3. Experiential Piety
The Reformers enlivened the church worldwide with a deep conviction of the fatherly sovereignty of God through Christ, which results in a deep, warm, sanctifying, experiential piety or godliness that moves believers to commit their entire lives to His praise. One of the most compelling proofs of this assertion is the Heidelberg Catechism. Nothing is stated in an abstract or purely theoretical way. The very first question is intensely personal and experiential: “What is thy only comfort in live and in death?” Time and again the practical use or personal benefit is pressed: “What doth it profit thee now that thou believest all this?” (Q. 59).

This pressure persists to the last sentence of the Catechism: “Amen”––that is, the “Amen” of the Lord’s Prayer—“signifies that it shall truly and certainly be, for my prayer is more assuredly heard of God than I feel in my heart that I desire these things of Him” (Q. 129).

Subsequent generations of Reformed pastors and teachers took up this concern and developed it, as Christian experience and the strengths and weaknesses connected with it, received close scrutiny, careful analysis, and thorough exposition.

4. Old Paths
The Reformers preserved, exposited, and defended the ancient Christian faith through preaching and sound literature as the system of doctrine taught in God’s Word. The Reformers found support for their formulations of the Christian faith in the writings of the ancient church fathers. They saw themselves as the true heirs of historic Christianity. The Roman church had added to the biblical faith and obscured the gospel of justification, but there remained many essential truths of true Christianity as summarized in the Ecumenical Creeds. Though mired in layers of corruption, the gold of apostolic Christianity had not been utterly lost.

The Reformed faith was given to the world not as something new, but only a return of the faith, worship, and order of the apostolic church. It is popular today to cast off all tradition in order to cultivate a religion based on “me and my Bible.” Much contemporary Christianity is superficial and without deep foundations, and so very unstable. However, this is not the Reformation principle of Scripture alone, but a corruption of it. We do not reject tradition in itself, but tradition that is not subordinate to the Bible.

5. The Head of the Church
The Reformers reasserted the crown rights of Christ as King over the nations and the only Head of the church. This resulted in a church where all is done in subjection to God’s Word and in relation to the triune God rather than in subjection to man’s desires. The Reformers soon found themselves at odds with the hierarchy of the church, and in particular with the Pope. Over the centuries, the Papacy had advanced its claim to dominion over the worldwide church and over the kings and princes of Christian Europe. In a similar way, these kings and princes often claimed dominion over the church within their realms. Not infrequently, these divergent views led to fierce and bloody conflicts.

The Reformers found themselves fighting a two-front war, as the Pope used all his power to suppress the Reformation, and hostile kings and princes resisted and punished attempts to reform the church in their territories. Against both, the Reformers exalted Christ as the only Head of the church in heaven and on earth. Where they prevailed, the church was delivered from the twofold tyranny of the Papacy and the state.

6. Christian Freedom
The Reformers established the freedom of the Christian from tyranny in the church, the rights of citizens under the rule of law, curbing the powers of kings and nobles, and enabling the rise of representative democracy in the form of constitutional monarchies and republics. Upholding the supreme authority of Scripture, they dealt a deathblow to the medieval theory of the divine right of kings. All estates of the nation, including the king, are subject to the law of God and the laws of the state. Each citizen lives under the law’s protection, enjoying the liberty secured by subjection to God and to Christ. None but God has power over the conscience, and the calling of magistrates is to “do justice for the helpless, the orphan’s cause maintain; defend the poor and needy, oppressed and wronged for gain.”

This idea of kingship broke upon sixteenth century Europe as a revolutionary thunderbolt. A long struggle ensued to curb the excesses and abuses of kings, free the church from interference by the state, and establish the rule of law in Protestant Europe. It is no coincidence that representative democracy flourished best in lands and nations where the Reformed faith was most deeply rooted. The habits of democratic self-government were acquired by many citizens in meetings of congregations, consistories, classes, sessions, presbyteries, and synods.

The modern deliberative assembly is the brainchild of Presbyterianism. We should cherish our political freedoms and use all lawful means to preserve them. The rule of law, rights of all human beings, and covenantal accountability of leaders to God and the people are precious biblical principles. However, we should also remember that no political freedom has a stable foundation unless the church remains grounded in its freedom in Christ. Unless Christians walk in our blood-bought freedom from the dominion of sin, we cannot expect society around us to preserve civil liberty. Moral degeneration corrupts political freedom into a mask for any tyranny that promises to gratify a people’s passions.

7. Vocations for the Common Good
The Reformers recast the state as a commonwealth, promoting the dignity of labor, encouraging commerce, and increasing wealth among all classes, while curbing the excesses of unregulated capitalism and providing for the care of the sick and the poor. In the view of the Reformers, a well-regulated state ought to provide for the common good. All should thrive together, walking agreeably in decency and good order. Everyone has a stake in the life and well-being of the nation. No man is granted freedom to do as he pleases, without regard to the laws of God and the state. Such is the idea of the state as a commonwealth.

Reformed Christianity played a major role in the eradication of serfdom and the abolition of slavery, though, sadly, for some Reformed Christians these measures seemed too radical to be endorsed. According to the Reformed idea of vocation or calling, the common laborer came into his own as an image-bearing servant of God. Reformed doctrine sanctifies all of life, and resists attempts both ancient and modern to draw a line between the sacred and the secular. Men of wealth are called to use their wealth for the good of others and for the cause of Christ.

The restoration of the office of deacon meant that measures were taken in hand to care for the sick and lighten the burden of poverty on the poor. The communion of saints, each one employing his gifts for the advantage and salvation of the others, welded Reformed communities together as forces for benevolence, civic improvement and social progress.

8. Marriage and Child-rearing
The Reformers established the Christian home on the principles of Scripture, in which marriage is understood as a reflection of the Christ/church relationship; where husband and wife covenant with each other to walk in God’s ways; and parents, to rear their children, who are loaned to them by God. Casting out the medieval cult of celibacy, the Reformers embraced and exalted marriage in the Lord as the norm for the Christian life.

The Christian family is counted as the basic unit of the church and the foundation of society. In no better way can the mystery of Christ and His church be honored and enacted before the world. The children of believers once more became the heritage of the Lord, loved and nurtured, called to faith and repentance, confronted with Christ’s claims upon their faith and obedience, and schooled in the “true and perfect doctrine of salvation” taught in the Reformed churches.

9. Arts and Sciences
The Reformers rekindled the spirit of inquiry, founding schools, academies, and universities; disseminating knowledge; encouraging research and exploration; enabling many discoveries and producing many valuable inventions. Exalting God as Maker of heaven and earth, believing that man was created in God’s image, and valuing the creation as God’s handiwork, Reformed Christians have been stirred to seek out the laws of the universe and to realize much of the great potential built into the world as God created it. Believing that knowledge is essential to life and happiness, Reformed Christianity fostered the development of universal education.

A large chapter in the history of Reformed Christianity in the United States is the history of the founding of schools, school systems, and institutions of higher learning wherever Presbyterian and Reformed immigrants and settlers established their new homes and churches. The need for a well-educated ministry lay at the heart of this enterprise, but side by side lay the concern for an educated laity, that all might profit from the ministry of the Word.

10. The True Worship of God
Perhaps, above all, the Reformation promoted true worship. For them to worship God, whether privately or publicly, was to bow down before His majestic glory, and in spirit and in truth to bring Him, in and through Jesus Christ and in accord with Scripture, the honor and praise that belong to Him alone. Calvin said that the Christian faith turns on two main hinges: how we are saved, and how we should worship God.

Reformation worship turns away from the saints as heavenly mediators and encourages people to draw near to God the Father through the sole mediation of God the Son by the power of God the Holy Spirit. It simplifies the sacraments (from seven to two), purges the service of unbiblical rituals and imagined sacred objects, and restores the people to their function as a holy priesthood. It makes the Holy Scriptures both the rule of worship and its content as the church reads the Word, prays the Word, sings the Word, preaches the Word, and sees the Word in baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Conclusion: Soli Deo Gloria
Here then, we have ten crucial ways that the Reformation—contra Rome—has blessed our world. What is the one great reality that all these things reflect? The diamond of the Reformation is the glory of God. The Reformation was about the centrality of God—the supremacy, sovereignty, holiness, goodness, and mercy of God in His triune being. The spirit of the Reformation, if you boil it down to its distilled essence, is to love God by faith in the grace of Christ, as He is revealed in the Scriptures.