THE 500TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE REFORMATION

Introduction

-Today is a little bit different in that we are taking a look at one of the most important times in church history. If it were not for this event, we would not be here today preaching the gospel that we do.

-This Tuesday is October 31st. While most of the nation will be dressing up in costume and going door to door to get candy, Christians mark this day as something of greater significance.

-Tuesday marks the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation which ushered in a return to the pure gospel message which had been lost in the shuffle of religion and tradition for over a thousand years.

-It all started with an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther who went through a time of personal spiritual crisis as the religious tradition to which he held went into conflict with the Scripture that he read.

-Martin Luther was very successful at being a monk, giving himself over to religious duties, and doing his best to do various ascetic practices thinking they would make him holy, such as:

going without sleep, enduring bone-chilling cold without a blanket, and whipping himself until he bled.

-Martin would later comment: “If anyone could have earned heaven by the life of a monk, it was I.”

-Yet even though he thought these religious practices were demonstrations of his love for God, he could find no peace whatsoever. And there was one verse of Scripture that disturbed him terribly. I will read the verse that comes before it as well to give some context.

Romans 1:16–17 ESV

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

-In his young years as a monk the word “righteous” in v. 17 plagued him. It reminded him that God was a completely righteous God who had every right to punish unrighteous sinners. And since, according to his early interpretation of the verse, only those who were righteous could live by faith, he knew he was not righteous to live in that way, and was thus judged a sinner.

-When Martin was ordered to get his doctorate and then teach as a professor at Wittenberg University, he thoroughly studied the book of Romans, and the truth of that verse (and how it is the theme of the whole epistle to the Romans) finally broke through. He stated:

-At last meditating day and night, by the mercy of God, I…began to understand that the righteousness of God is that through which the righteous live by a gift of God, namely by faith…. Here I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise itself through the gates that had been flung open.

-So, as these verses are all about the gospel of Jesus Christ, Luther finally understood that the gospel is God giving righteousness as a gift to people through faith in Jesus Christ.

-With this realization, the gospel that has the power to save finally saved Martin Luther. And with that, other new understandings came, especially when it came to certain church practices.

-One church practice that bothered him was the selling of indulgences. The Catholic Church believed in a place called purgatory, where departed souls would go to punishment for temporal sins to be purged before they go to heaven. Priests would tell people that they could shorten the time that they or their loved ones spent in purgatory if they would give money to the church. As one priest would proclaim:

Once the coin into the coffer clings, a soul from purgatory heavenward springs.

-Luther thought that was wrong—so as was common practice of the day, he called for a public debate by writing out the theses of his position and posting them on the door to the Wittenberg Church. On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther posted his 95 theses against indulgences and other church practices, and as news of this spread it really became a question of the authority of the church. Thus began a movement in the church to find the true gospel and the true basis of Christian authority.

-When Luther did what he did, he was aiming for a reformation of the church, not a separation—that is why it is called the reformation. But because of his positions, he was maligned and was threatened many times over. The church would not budge—so Luther had no choice but to separate in protest—thus it was a Protestant Reformation.

-The more Luther wrote and preached and spoke, the more his teachings gained influence, and others joined him in seeking the true gospel, its true power, and the grasp of true righteousness by faith.

-The teachings that were born out of the Protestant Reformation regarding the gospel and Christian authority eventually became summarized in five Latin phrases that became known as the FIVE SOLAS, because each phrase uses a form of the word SOLA which means ONLY, ALONE.

-I think it is vital that we know what these are and why they are important because these are the central tenets to which we as Protestant, Evangelical Christians hold. This is gospel for which Martin Luther and others fought.

I) Sola Gratia (Grace Alone)

-The common belief within the church of Luther’s day, was that salvation comes through doing good works, performing religious rituals, and participating in various sacraments. It was very much a DO, DO, DO religion.

-But as Luther found out for himself, there is not enough that you can do to take away the guilt of your sin. In fact, Luther and the other Reformers found in Scripture that man is totally incapable of saving himself, and nothing in him desires, understands, or believes the things of God. Apart from a work of God Himself, man has no ability of coming to God.

-And what Luther found in the Scripture is expressed in:

7 In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,

8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight

(Eph. 1:7-8 ESV)

-Redemption and forgiveness are not things that can be earned, but are gifts of God alone by grace. Any righteous standing that we could have before God is imputed / accredited to us by grace because of the finished work of Jesus.

-Mankind has no merit of their own, but must be given a supernatural merit in God’s eyes. God Himself gives His merit based on Jesus’ death and resurrection.----Christ did everything necessary for our salvation, and there is nothing that we can add to it.

-The Baptist Confession of 1689 states it this way:

Christ, by His obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are justified; and did, by the sacrifice of Himself in the blood of His cross, undergoing in their stead the penalty due unto them, make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice in their behalf;…their justification is only of a free grace, that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.

-This is why we can sing AMAZING GRACE—there’s not enough that we can do, but thankfully Jesus did all that could be done.

II) Sola Fide (Faith Alone)

-Faith is the only way that we are able to receive the free gift of salvation from God’s hand. It is grace that saves us and nothing else, but faith is the means by which we are able to accept what God freely gives.

-This goes against the whole idea of salvation by works. We are not, and can never be, saved by the actions of any man nor by our own desire. And faith itself is not some meritorious act that somehow forces God to save us. It is merely us sticking our hand out in acceptance of what is being offered.

-I liken it to an illustration of a shipwreck. Suppose that your boat wrecked in the middle of the ocean, fell apart, and that you were clinging to a floating piece of wood that itself was becoming waterlogged and about to sink. Without some sort of outside intervention, you are going to drown (an apt picture of everyone’s life in sin).

~But suppose someone in a rescue boat comes along and throws one of those lifesaving rings to you. He tells you all you have to do is let go of the piece of wood, grab on to the ring, and he will pull you to safety. So (believing that this is the only way your life will be saved) you let go of the wood and grab hold of the gift of salvation offered to you.

~You didn’t save yourself. And your faith in the ability of the ring to keep you afloat didn’t save you. If was the rescuer who saved you by giving you the means of your salvation. And so it is with God through Jesus Christ.

-The sad part of that illustration is that most people in the world think that they can keep clinging to that piece of wood and somehow paddle their way to shore even though it is thousands of miles away.

-So many people think that they can save themselves by doing better, by reforming themselves. But they get nowhere and eventually drown for all of eternity. And yet, until that day, the Rescuer of everyone’s souls calls out to them to stop relying on themselves and their dead works, and by faith let go of their own efforts and grab hold of the gift of grace.

-As Romans 1:17 states:

the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith." (Rom. 1:17 ESV)

-We accept the gift of grace by faith, and we then live according to that same faith.

III) Solo Christo (Christ Alone)

-The Reformation called the church back to faith in Christ as the sole mediator between God and man. As Paul wrote to Timothy: 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. (1 Tim. 2:5-6 ESV)

-Only Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient to atone for the sins of mankind. Moses didn’t die for people. Buddha didn’t die for people. Muhammed didn’t die for people. And even if they did, their sacrifice would have helped no one—not even themselves.

-Only Christ, who is both God and man, died as payment for man’s sins. As Peter said in front of the Sanhedrin:

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12 ESV)

-Therefore, nothing can be added to what Christ accomplished through His death and resurrection. Salvation is never CHRIST PLUS ANYTHING. You are not saved by CHRIST PLUS WORKS. You are not saved by CHRIST PLUS RELIGIOUS TRADITION. It is Christ alone.

-And because of what Christ accomplished, every Christian is able to approach the throne of God with Christ as his only Intercessor and Advocate. The thick veil that separated mankind from God was torn only by Christ, and it is only by Christ that we are able to approach God.

-Jesus Christ alone is the sole focus and object of our faith and is the only source of truth. He is the One upon whom we are absolutely dependent for everything. Therefore, Christ says: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (Jn. 14:6 ESV)

IV) Soli Deo Gloria (To the Glory of God Alone)

-For the centuries leading up to the Reformation, the Church emphasized a great division in life—the sacred vs. the secular. This included who was exalted. During the middle ages, officers of the church received exaltation because they were called to be sacred, and everything and everybody else was secular (that is, they were common and inferior). Therefore, the officers of the church were exalted above all else.

-With Luther’s breakthroughs came the teachings of God’s sovereignty over every area of life, and the priesthood of all believers. Meaning, that anything that was done in life was to be done faithfully as unto the Lord, and that all believers had access to God for worship and prayer and service.

-Therefore, whether you were in the pulpit, the home, the schoolhouse, or the field, everything was to be done by faith so as to give glory to God. Every human activity of the Christian was sanctified and able to give God glory.

-As Peter explained:

10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace:

11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies-- in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Pet. 4:10-11 ESV)

V) Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone)

-This means that Scripture alone is the final and infallible authority for faith and practice—not a pope, a church council, tradition, or anything else.

-As one commentator explains: This does not mean that the Bible is the only place where truth can be found. It does not mean that the Bible is equally clear to all people….Nor does it imply that we may be our own teachers, rejecting all other instruction by those gifted to be teachers.

-However, all other authorities, even if what they teach is valid, are fallible; therefore their instruction must always be subordinate to the teaching of the Scriptures which alone are our authority.

-When Luther was interrogated at the Council of Worms, he declared that his conscience was captive to the Word of God, saying:

I am overcome by the Scripture texts which I have adduced, and my conscience is bound by God’s Words.

-For it is only of the Bible that it is said:

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16-17 ESV)

Conclusion

-This is why we mark this particular anniversary this year. If Martin Luther had not been touched by the Word of God to see where true salvation lies, the pure gospel would have remained muddled, and people would have been left in their sin, and we would be lost.

-But the Word of God got hold of a man of God so that the gospel of God would shine bright.----Martin Luther suffered terribly from the power that be because of what he discovered and then taught—but once he understood the gospel, he had no choice but to stand by what he found in Scripture.

-When interrogated at the Council of Worms, the Council tried to force him to recant his beliefs and get in line with everybody else. But he stated in reply:

“Unless I can be instructed and convinced with evidence from the Holy Scriptures or with open, clear, and distinct grounds of reasoning…then I cannot and will not recant because it is neither safe nor wise to act against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me! Amen”

-That this would be where we stand as well. Many people have fought and died for the gospel of Jesus Christ. May we honor God and honor the memory of the Reformers by believing that for which they fought so hard.

-If you have never trusted in Christ in this way, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, according to the Scripture alone, then may today be that day.