What is the relevance of the Reformation for the 21st century Christian?

Now that we have an overview of what the Reformation is and what a Christian is, we can now answer what relevance does the Reformation have for the 21st century Christian.

It was said that the hinge that the door of Christianity swings is on the doctrine of justification by faith, such is what was fought for at the time of the reformation by the reformers prior to Luther and by those who went after him.

Contrary though to popular belief the issue did not merely hang on justification by faith as if to assert that Rome never affirmed such a thing. Rome and every other religious cult glazing itself with Christian teaching and doctrine openly affirm that salvation is by faith and by grace. It’s interesting to me that many of those who would call themselves protestants do not know that point. Rather the main issue of the reformation and that which was defended and contended even centuries upon centuries before Luther’s time is that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone.

Sadly, even today many would say that it’s not that serious of an issue to discuss or debate about. Many evangelicals would say that the doctrines recovered at the time of the Reformation are not things worthy of discussion anymore in our day and age. “It’s all the same”, people would say. One camp says salvation is 98% God and 2% man, or 99% God and 1% man. Another camp says that man just initiates salvation as if giving it a kick of sorts but he really contributes so little, God does so much still! No matter what it may be the main issue is: if God saves, and saves sufficiently or not. Monergism or synergism. Whether salvation is by grace alone, through the empty hand of faith alone, a work of God alone, or something where man contributes something in order to be saved.

What is the relevance of the reformation to you and me today?

Firstly, we wouldn’t be here if wasn’t because of the Reformation. If not for the Reformation we would still be trapped in the sacramental system of Rome. Secondly, we would be in an inescapable cycle of moral corruption and unending despair as we will be trapped by a gospel that can never save.

A Gospel that Can Never Save

Some would use this sacramental system as a license for unending sin, a disregard for holiness and godliness. As long as a person works the sacraments he believes the lie that he will eventually be accepted into the Kingdom of God. Others, in their sincerity, would drop in the never ending pit of hopelessness, in that no matter how much or how well they work the sacraments, they can never really attain peace with God.

You become a Christian through the sacrament of baptism and enter the state of grace. You fall into sin and destroy that state of grace. You work the sacraments, do penance, priestly confessions and all these things to go back to the state of grace. Commit sin again and destroy that state of grace.

So you have this system where you have peace and lose it over and over and over again. A love, hate relationship with God. One moment you have peace with God, the next moment His wrath fully burns and abides on you again.

That is not a state of peace.

In Israel there is no peace. Even when there’s a truce between Israel and the Islamic nations across Israel’s borders, there is no peace. Did you know that it is an absolute rarity for robberies to occur in Israel? Why? Because even a 16 year old teenager has an M-16.

In Israel there’s always a constant threat of war even in a supposed time of truce.But what does the Bible say? In Romans 5:1, it clearly says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

That word “peace” there does not simply mean an absence of againstness. The Hebrew word that Paul had in mind there is the Hebrew word “Shalom.” Shalom is a different type of peace. Shalom means a fullness of relationship.

This peace is not merely an absence of war, but it is a presence of love, a fullness of relationship as with a husband and his wife.

That, is something Rome’s Gospel can never give. Rome’s Gospel cannot and can never save. Just the same with the false Gospel preached by every other false religion, even if they profess to be Christian.

All it brings is hopelessness.

What is the relevance of the reformation for you and me today?

Simply put, if it wasn’t for God’s grace and mercy to bring about the time of the Reformation there would be no Gospel to be believed today.

The Reformation was not an experiment in abstract theological debate. It was a life or death struggle to get the Gospel right.

—Albert Mohler

Are You a Christian?

The question left now to be asked is, are you a Christian? If not, then, why not? Why aren’t you a Christian?

It is a very easy thing to agree to Christian doctrines and not be a Christian. It is not a hard thing to pay lip-service to Christian truths and yet have your soul still wedded and in bondage to sin.

Many, many, many thousands upon thousands of people today attend their churches religiously, professing themselves to be Christian, and yet they still are dead in trespasses and sins.

Are you a Christian? I’m laboring this question because it’s a very frightening thing to open our eyes before the judgment seat of God and be awakened to the fact that we were merely deceived in this life of being Christian when we truly were not. In that in fact, we are in the hands of an angry God.

Scripture gives us the sober admonishment,

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith.

—2 Corinthians 13:5a

Jesus Himself tells us of this great danger of presumption:

Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

—Matthew 7:13-23

Indeed, what a fearful and frightening thing it is to be in the hands of an angry and wrathful holy and infinite God.

Are you a Christian today? Or are you not? Or are you still depending and looking to self for your salvation? Yes, you pay lip-service to Christ and His substitutionary atoning work on the Cross, but you say alongside with that, “Hey, look at all the good things I do, and try to do. I am a good person.” In the same breathe of professing faith in Christ you say, “I have done well, and deserve eternal life because of all I have done.” Or perhaps you are saying, “If only I can do enough, believe enough, do enough, perhaps I will be saved.”

Are you looking to deserve Heaven? Beloved, if there’s any one thing you would and must not want, it’s that, what you deserve. Because the only thing we truly deserve is not Heaven, but eternity in Hell, the pouring out of the fury of the wrath of God against us as sinners and against us because of our sin.

If you are not a Christian, then I command you by Scripture, look to Christ, cling to His Cross, repent from your sins and by faith and faith alone believe in Jesus the Lord, He is a perfect Savior!

And if indeed you are a Christian, it is my sincere hope and prayer that through this short discourse, God would grant you a renewed vision and deeper appreciation and gratitude of God’s grace as it is enacted through History and God’s grace for you personally.

In closing, listen to the words of the early Church Father who is known by the name Mathetes in his epistle to one name Diognetus:

But when our wickedness had reached its height, and it had been clearly shown that its reward, punishment and death, was impending over us; and when the time had come which God had before appointed for manifesting His own kindness and power, how the one love of God, through exceeding regard for men, did not regard us with hatred, nor thrust us away, nor remember our iniquity against us, but showed great long-suffering, and bore with us, He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal.

For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!

Having therefore convinced us in the former time that our nature was unable to attain to life, and having now revealed the Savior who is able to save even those things which it was [formerly] impossible to save, by both these facts He desired to lead us to trust in His kindness, to esteem Him our Nourisher, Father, Teacher, Counselor, Healer, our Wisdom, Light, Honor, Glory, Power, and Life, so that we should not be anxious concerning clothing and food.

—Schaff, Philip: The Ante-Nicene Fathers. electronic ed. Garland, TX : Galaxie Software, 2000, S. 1

Is the Reformation relevant to you and me today? Yes, I believe it is, very, very relevant. Because, dear beloved, as in the time of Martin Luther, that same Gospel that he and the reformers rediscovered, rescued and was persecuted and martyred for; that same Gospel is being attacked on all fronts today (by Atheism, Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, even by main-line Evangelicalism that preaches cheap grace).

The question now left for us to consider today is, if indeed you are a Christian, are you willing to fight for and preach that same Gospel?

Relevance of the Reformation for the 21st Century Christian

I. What is the Reformation?
II. What is a Christian?
III. Relevance of the Reformation for the 21st Century Christian