Believe it or not, October 31 is more than just an opportunity to dress up as a character from Squid Game, or to eat so much candy you never want to see a Snickers again (at least for a few more days anyway). It is the opportunity to reflect on a much more significant occasion… Reformation Day!

For those who might not be too familiar with church history, it was on October 31, 1517, that the great church reformer, Martin Luther, nailed his famous Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg church in Germany. This event came to be seen as a watershed moment for the emergence of what would later be called “Protestantism.”

At the time, Luther intended to ignite a much-needed debate within the church of Rome. He had hoped this would lead to the inward reform of the church in both doctrine and practice. And while Luther was certainly a flawed human being (especially by modern standards), it does not seem to be the case that he was a schismatic bent on dividing the church. And in fact, some prominent Catholics, such as Erasmus of Rotterdam, were in substantial agreement with a number of Luther’s critiques. Nevertheless, history tells us that things didn’t quite work out as he had planned. And, over time, a mass movement emerged, aided by the recent invention of the printing press.

One cannot underestimate the significance the Reformation had for reshaping the cultural landscape of Europe. European countries began breaking away from the Roman church and established their own variations of what came to be known later as “Protestant” churches. And of course, it was members of Protestant churches who first set sail for the New World. And so quite uniquely, the United States was not simply a nation influenced by Christianity in a generic sense, but was uniquely marked from its inception by a Protestant ethos.

So, in light of Reformation Day, I’d like to offer three things we can learn from the Reformation in retrospect:

1. WE MUST ALWAYS KEEP THE BIBLICAL GOSPEL AT THE CENTER OF THE CHURCH.

While I personally lament the rampant divisions so often seen in the church today (a sentiment grounded in Scripture, see 1 Corinthians 1:10-17; 3:1-4), there are in fact times when it is necessary to make hard decisions to separate ourselves from “professing” Christians who in fact deny the Gospel.

While Luther had numerous complaints against the Catholic church, at the heart of the matter was the concern about how, and in what way, sinners were made right with God. This was no secondary issue. And I believe what Luther was defending was the very doctrine of the Apostle Paul who taught, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Though it is true that the newly developed Protestant churches each held various distinctives, they were united by, what one of my professors has called, “mere Protestant Christianity.”¹ In other words, there was a historical, Protestant core that positively set forth the essence of the Gospel. These have also been referred to as the five solas (“Scripture alone,” “Faith alone,” “Grace alone,” “Christ alone,” “to the Glory of God alone”). And I believe it is urgent that we reclaim and celebrate these core beliefs lest our churches be washed out to sea by the seeker-friendly tide.

Moreover, if we do not keep the Gospel at the center of our churches, then something else will take its place. And when the Gospel is de-centered, Christians will more easily join the ranks of other social groups who also don’t have the Gospel as their center. And worse still, many more may sever their ties from genuine Christians with whom they disagree on non-Gospel issues.

But Protestantism should not be an excuse to divide over foolish things, but a clarion call to remain steadfast in the essential things.

2. WE SHOULD RENEW OUR COMMITMENT TO THE LOCAL CHURCH.

Reformation Day reminds us that we wouldn’t be where we are today, if it weren’t for those who long ago fully committed their lives for the spread of the Gospel through the church.

While COVID and the many issues related to it have certainly complicated and challenged local church ministry in numerous ways, yet God’s plan to form disciples in the image of Christ through the church has not changed. But what would it look like for us to renew our commitment to the local church at this particular moment?

For obvious reasons, physical attendance in church was highlighted over the past year and a half. But what about the vital areas of giving and serving? If we are truly committed to the flourishing of the local church, then we must not mislead people into believing that being a church member is reducible to “parking your carcass” (as my high school math teacher would say) in an auditorium once a week.

The word “fellowship” in Greek κοινωνίᾳ refers to “joint participation in a shared pursuit.” It means to be equally invested in something. Think of The Lord of the Rings for a moment. The Fellowship of the Ring didn’t mean Gandalf, Gimli, Legolas, and others sat around and clapped while Frodo went into Mordor by himself. Fellowship meant they gave and served, not merely attended.

Perhaps renewal today would result in a paradigm shift in which churchgoers ask, if I may paraphrase the late President John F. Kennedy, “Ask not what your church can do for you, ask what you can do for your church.”

3. WE SHOULD CULTIVATE A GREATER SENSE OF APPRECIATION FOR CHRISTIAN HISTORY.

As American Christians, it is easy to forget that at one time it was a foregone conclusion that if you lived in the West, and you were a Christian, you could only be a Roman Catholic. At one time, you could not own a Bible or read it in your own language. And there was a time when an individual could not worship according to their conscience, but rather, the forms of worship would be legally prescribed by a state-controlled church for all.

Forgetting the past is the surest way to repeat its errors. I pray our churches would all do a better job of cultivating awareness of, and practicing gratitude for, all those brothers and sisters who have gone before us and made our understanding of the Gospel possible.

So, wherever you are this October 31, take a moment and thank the Lord both that we have had the Gospel of grace preached to us, and for the faithful saints of old who have made our religious freedom possible. And let us also consider what we can do to show our love for Christ by solidifying our commitment to His church today.

_{Article Updated: Originally published on October 31, 2019}

_Notes:

_{¹ Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Biblical Authority After Babel: Retrieving the Solas in the Spirit of Mere Protestant Christianity. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2016.}

If you own a Bible in your own language, it is a direct result of the Protestant Reformation, and the key figure God used to ignite that worldwide movement of returning to the Bible was Martin Luther: a German monk and professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg.

I grew up attending a Lutheran school until eighth grade. During my time there, I learned a lot about Luther, including studying his catechism. Years later, when I put my faith in Jesus and was born again, I started attending a Calvary Chapel church; and over the years, I have grown in appreciation for Martin Luther and the pivotal role he played in God’s work in the world.

The last day of October is celebrated around the world as Reformation Day, because it was on October 31, 1517, that Martin Luther set into motion the movement now known as the Reformation, by mailing a letter. Yes, you read that right: on the eve of All Saints Day (Halloween = “All Hallows Eve”), Luther mailed, not nailed, a letter.^{1 2}

The letter was addressed to the Archbishop of Mainz,³ and Luther sent it because he wanted to alert the archbishop that plenary indulgences were being sold in the archbishop’s name by a man named John Tetzel. Tetzel had been sent from Rome the year before to sell these certificates promising the release of a soul from purgatory in exchange for their purchase, as a fundraising campaign for the building of St. Peter’s Basilica. Luther assumed the archbishop was unaware that this was going on, and that upon receiving his letter, the archbishop would tell Tetzel to cease and desist. That, however, is not what happened.

As a result of the archbishop’s inaction, Luther, as a professor, decided to organize a scholarly debate on the topic of indulgences: whether they were actually effective in procuring the release of a soul from purgatory. To this end, he wrote up what are now known as the 95 Theses, which he titled: A Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences. This paper, which was posted on the door of the All Saints Church in Wittenberg, was an invitation to a scholarly debate, but in it Luther challenged both the selling of indulgences and the doctrine of purgatory as unscriptural. By doing this, Luther was challenging the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching and authority, and insisting that the Bible, not the church, should be the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes correct doctrine.

The posting of the 95 Theses is considered the spark which ignited the Protestant Reformation: a movement which sought to reform the church by shedding man-made traditions and returning to the faith which had been handed to us by God in the Holy Scriptures.

Today, there are nearly 1 billion Protestant Christians in the world.⁴ In the “majority world,” including Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Muslim world⁵, Protestant Christianity is growing faster than any other religious movement by conversion.⁶

Before Luther, there were others who sought to reform the church and bring the Bible to the people. John Wycliffe (1331-1384) published the first English translation of the Bible. Jan Hus (1369-1415) taught the Bible to the common people in Prague. Peter Waldo (1140-1218) commissioned a translation of the New Testament into the local vernacular of southern France. Each of these people were persecuted for trying to put the Scriptures into the hands of the common people.

Over a century before Luther, Hus had protested the sale of plenary indulgences, pointing out that the idea that God’s favor or blessings could be earned in any way, runs contrary to the message of the gospel and the testimony of the Scriptures, and the concept of purgatory is in conflict with the biblical teaching of the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement on the cross.

Martin Luther had long struggled with feelings of condemnation and inadequacy, until his own reading of the Scriptures led him to an epiphany when he read Habakkuk 2:4: “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.” This led Luther to the other places in the Bible where this phrase is repeated: Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11, and Hebrews 10:38 – where the message is clear: It is not by our own works that we are justified before God, but it is God who justifies us sinners as a gift of His grace, and we receive that justification by faith. After all, the Bible explains, this is how Abraham, the father of our faith, became righteous: he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3, 22). We receive God’s righteousness, which he has provided for us in Christ, in the same way.

Luther became convinced that everyone needed to be able to read the Scriptures for themselves, and he took it upon himself to translate the Bible into German, a translation that is still in use to this day. Soon the Bible was translated into other languages, including English, as the Reformation spread.

Martin Luther called people back to a belief that the Scriptures are perspicuous (clear), and can be understood by those who read them. He called us back to a belief in the inspiration and sufficiency of Scripture: that it is the ultimate rule of faith, by which we are to measure both doctrine and our lives.

In April 1521, Luther was brought before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms, at which Luther was commanded to recant his teachings. Luther refused to do so, famously stating:

“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason – for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves – I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant.”⁷

This October, as we celebrate Reformation Day, may we take the opportunity to open the Bible and read it for ourselves, and may we embrace and celebrate the message of the gospel: that Jesus Christ came to save sinners, and that we are justified freely by his grace as we trust in him by faith.

_Notes

_{¹ Marshall, Peter. 1517: Martin Luther and the Invention of the Reformation. OUP Oxford. 2017.}

_{² Little, Becky. “Martin Luther Might Not Have Nailed His 95 Theses to the Church Door.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, October 31, 2017.}

_{³ “Luther’s Letter to the Archbishop of Mainz (1517).” Historyguide.org, 2002.}

_{⁴ “Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population.” PewResearchCenter. Accessed December 2011.}

_{⁵ Miller, Duane A., and Patrick Johnstone. Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census II (2015): 2–19. academia.edu}

_{⁶ Melton, J. Gordon (22 October 2005). Encyclopedia of Protestantism. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 9780816069835 – via Google Books.}

_{⁷ “Here I Stand: Martin Luther’s Reformation at 500.” Abilene Christian University Special Collections, March 11, 2019.}

Have you ever noticed that our society celebrates everything? In September alone, we celebrated “Random Acts of Poetry Day” (September 6), “Video Games Day” (September 12), “White Chocolate Day” (September 22), “Punctuation Day” (September 24), and every parent’s favorite—”Quiet Day” (September 12). Somehow my kids missed that last one.

But October 31–what many people celebrate as Halloween–should be remembered by Protestant Christians as the day we celebrate a huge moment–when a monumental change occurred in the Church.

We call it “Reformation Day“–because on that day, 503 years ago, a German monk, pastor, and seminary professor named Martin Luther published 95 complaints against the Catholic Church practice of selling reductions to the penalty of sin (called indulgences). In a sense, Luther had the boldness to share what the Church should and shouldn’t be.

What Was Wrong

Imagine coming to church, but you don’t learn to lean on the Bible and base your life accordingly. Instead, you had to rely on tradition and opinion and simply follow all the rules someone made up.

Imagine coming to church and never hearing the Gospel preached. Ever.

Imagine coming to church and being able to buy forgiveness. Literally.

Imagine coming to church where getting kicked out meant that you were going to hell. There was no salvation at that point—just the expectation of condemnation.

Imagine coming to church where the leader was also a political ruler who was incredibly corrupt–so that all the church was doing was done to facilitate its main purpose, to generate money, and was wicked to the core.

Such was the Catholic Church’s health when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg.

Martin Luther wasn’t the only one who felt appalled by the condition of the Church. Many others were concerned with where the Church had gone, desiring to come back to a place that honored God and return to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Five Big Ideas

The Reformers believed differently than the Catholic Church. They distilled their core beliefs into what we call the “Five Solas.”

Imagine being asked to sum up your identity in five words. It sounds relatively easy–but try doing it. What if you had to distill your LinkedIn profile down to merely five identity descriptors—what words would you eliminate? How would you adjust your Instagram or Facebook profile, your Match or eHarmony profile (no, I’m not judging), or your Tinder profile? (Ok, now I’m judging ; ) What five words would best characterize you? Imagine having to do that same exercise, but not summing up yourself: imaging summing up all of orthodox Christianity using only five identity words. That’s precisely what the Reformers did when they sought to distinguish themselves from Catholicism.

What are the foundations of the Gospel? What would be the pillars that uphold it?

The Reformers wrestled with this question, in large part, because at the time, the Church was broken. Whatever your thoughts are about it, the Catholic Church was a mess at best, or absolute apostasy and a brainchild of Lucifer at worst. The Catholic Church had departed from the foundations of the faith, believing many things outside the scope of Scripture. They held Church tradition on par with the Bible. They taught that other mediators could forgive sin. They had a different take on how one is justified–made right–with God. The church itself was the dispenser of divine favor–so if you found yourself politically outside of the church for any reason, you were excluded from the divine favor of God.

Enter the Reformers

The Reformers wanted to get back to the basics: back to the pillars of the faith. Thus, we have their Five Solas of the Reformation. “Sola,” of course, means “only.” The idea is that we need these alone for the basics, the pillars, the foundation, of the Gospel.

Christ | Scriptures | Grace | Faith | Glory of God

The message of the Protestant Reformation was that our faith is in Christ alone, revealed through the Scriptures alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, to the glory of God alone.

Think about these statements for a moment.

Christ: the only mediator. Scriptures: the only message. Grace: the only means. Faith: the only method. The glory of God: the greatest meaning.

Let’s consider the Five Solas for a moment:

Christ Alone: Jesus is the only mediator. Because Jesus is the sole meditator between God and man, salvation is possible only by His atoning death and triumphant resurrection. Jesus Christ is not only necessary for salvation but sufficient to save to the uttermost. That means that no amount of human works or merit can contribute to Christ’s finished priestly work. The all-sufficiency of Christ means, by implication, that we are insufficient of ourselves. We can do nothing to save ourselves.

Scripture Alone: The Bible is the only message (or foundation). The Bible alone is the highest authority for governing issues of life and doctrine. We don’t just listen to church tradition or the priest’s opinions. Sola Scriptura doesn’t mean the Bible is our ONLY authority–but it is the highest. Though there are many authorities in our lives, who or what has the greatest authority? Is it Scripture or our experiences? Do we submit the Bible to our business principles, or vice-versa? If the Bible contradicts something we believe, do we abandon the erring belief, or do we neglect the Word of God?

Grace Alone: Grace is the only method. There isn’t a special act or condition that man does to be saved–it is a sovereign act of God on behalf of sinners. It isn’t a birthright, but the grace of God. Grace was spoken about by Paul more than any other biblical writer, about 100x. We can’t understand the essence of Christianity apart from a proper understanding of the grace of God. Pastors who preach sermons from Scripture yet do not understand the grace of God are like pilots who don’t understand the essence of flying. That means they are putting all of the passengers at risk.

Faith alone: Faith is the only means. It isn’t by works that we are saved, or through church attendance, but by faith in Jesus. So the good news of the Gospel is that we do not have to wait for righteousness to be accomplished in us before God counts us righteous before Him. No, God declares us to be justified solely based on Christ’s imputed righteousness.

The glory of God alone: The glory of God is the greatest meaning, the greatest ambition in creation. The reason we exist is to give glory to God. All glory and honor are due to God alone. We don’t give glory to a man, a church, a denomination, a pope, etc. We give glory to God, and everything we do is for Him. The focus–or you could say the win–is that God receives all preference, honor, worship, and adoration in and through our lives.

On October 31, every year, as children are (usually) dressing up in costumes, the Protestant church is praising God for the boldness of Luther and others, for the return to the Gospel and the importance of building our lives and doctrine from the Holy Scriptures. Every year we can celebrate by thanking God for the work of His Holy Spirit in reforming the church to honor Him and to share this message of reconciliation with a lost and needy world.

The Five Solas and Today

We who have been born-again are a part of a great tradition, but the Reformation work isn’t finished. We live in a time when the Church of today is falling into apostasy and compromise. The Church didn’t conquer Rome in the first millennia: Rome conquered the Church. And today, it may not be Rome that seeks to corrupt the Church. The philosophy of this age: secular humanism and postmodern thought, coupled with a feel-good message that appeals to the senses and is soft on doctrine, is working to conquer the Church of our generation.

Scripture alone is no longer sufficient for man. Many are turning to pragmatism and human wisdom for insight. Many modern sermons emphasize a “do better, try harder” moralism rather than the glorious Gospel of Christ’s finished work–and that by His grace through faith, we are saved. We glory in our accomplishments, our attendance, our budgets, our campuses, and our social media influence–rather than delighting in Christ alone for the glory of God.

And yet, with every generation since the incarnation of Christ, it has taken bold men and women of the faith to stand up and be willing to speak the truth even when there is great opposition. For centuries, people were silent as the Church drifted further and further from God’s design, and it took someone like Luther (and others) to stand up and stop it.

May we celebrate the Reformation by being absolutely sold out for the Gospel–being willing to die proclaiming the truth about Christ!

May we be willing to offer our lives to the Lord and worship Him above ourselves or others!

May we have the boldness of Luther to stand up among the people of this generation and speak the truth, living our lives for God’s glory alone, resting in the grace of God, trusting Christ, building our doctrine and life upon the unchangeable Word of God, until we see Him face to face!

“I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.” -Martin Luther