Reformation Sunday & Slogans

Bach’s Cantata 79 for Reformation Day

“God, our Lord, is Sun and Shield”

Friends in Christ, this Sunday we celebrate Reformation Sunday (including Bach's cantata 79, written for the occasion, as part of the 10:30am service). 

The Reformation began as a series of protests (hence 'Protestant') against abuses of the mediaeval Roman Catholic Church, perhaps most notably the sale of indulgences. By the way, in this context, an indulgence is not something to do with giving into luxury, one too many chocolates or wines. Nor is it the collective noun for grandparents, as in an ‘indulgence of grandparents’! 

The word had and still has a special meaning for Roman Catholics. That Church taught that God forgives believers the eternal punishment for our sins. But we must also purify ourselves from the “temporal punishment” due to every sin, either in this life, or after death in Purgatory. Purification takes place through prayer, acts of charity, patiently bearing suffering, and so on – or via gaining an indulgence. The Catholic Catechism teaches that indulgences draw on the Church’s "treasury of merit" acquired by Jesus’ sacrifice and by “the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary [and] the prayers and good works of all the saints.”  An indulgence may be used either for yourself or for souls who have gone to purgatory, to speed the purification process before heaven. [CCC.1471-79] 

Today Rome still says they can be earned by religious good deeds or self-denial. Back in the 16th century, unscrupulous priests actually enriched themselves and the institutional church, by selling indulgences to gullible believers to spring their dead relatives out of the sufferings of Purgatory. 

Luther Martin rejected this abuse, and in many ways it was the spark that started the Reformation fireworks!

Other presenting issues included the understanding of justification (right standing before God), the authority of Scripture, and whether priests were allowed to marry – prohibited by Rome, notwithstanding that the Apostle Peter was married (1 Corinthians 9:5) and Paul had taught that the forbidding of marriage was demonic (1 Timothy 4:1-5)!

Martin Luther, by Lucas Cranach (1528)

But the Reformation was fuelled by Martin Luther, in Germany, going back to the primary sources, in particular the New Testament documents. He was followed by other in Europe like Martin Bucer and John Calvin, and Thomas Cranmer in England. In this recovery of scriptural truth, they saw so much more clearly again the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, which had been obsecured by dominant Roman church traditions.

Today we often summarise what distinguished the Reformers from the teachings of Rome, by the slogans "Scripture alone" (sola scriptura), in "Christ alone" (solus Christus), by "faith alone" (sola fide), and "grace alone" (sola gratia). Although this can be simplistic if you go no further, it is one helpful way of remembering the clarity Protestant Christianity brings to the gospel of Jesus.

Scripture Alone

This is the belief that “Scripture alone" is our only infallible, sufficient and final authority for knowing God's will for salvation and for Christian teaching and living. Although none of these slogans rely on single Bible verses alone, 2 Timothy 3:15-17 is a good starting point for this one...

"...you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

We all may be instructed, and sometimes quite truly in part or whole, by what reason or experience seems to teach, or what church or other traditions urge upon us. But 'Scripture alone' means all other sources of authority are all trumped by what God says in the Bible. 

Christ Alone

This is the belief that salvation comes to us completely and solely through the risen Lord Jesus Christ and his atoning work on the cross. God would have been perfectly just and holy to leave us in our sin and condemnation. But in his great love for us, he sent his Son, Jesus, to become one of us, live the life of obedience we ought to have lived, and to die the death we deserved, as a perfect sacrifice in our place.

That's why we are saved through the merits of Christ alone, and not from any additional supposed merits earned by certain "super-Christian" saints. In a section that also has implications for how we think about Holy Communion, Hebrews 10:14 says

For by one sacrifice he [i.e. Jesus] has made perfect for ever those who are being made holy.

Likewise, we can pray to God directly, through Jesus Christ alone, without any need to pray to or through other saints, like Mary or Joseph or Saint Christopher (about whom I know next to nothing!) As 1 Timothy 2:4-5 says:

 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. 

Faith Alone

But how does the believer receive the redemption Christ has accomplished? By faith and faith alone. Rather than trusting in ourselves, we trust in another: Jesus Christ. This is how we are justified, that is accounted righteous, rather than guilty, before God. Galatians 2:16 couldn't be clearer:

[We] know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

Thomas Cranmer, by Gerlach Flicke

The 39 Articles of Religion are the Anglican Church's denominational 'statement of faith', and their initial form dates back to Thomas Cranmer's English Reformation in the mid-1500s. Article 11 expresses "faith alone" clearly and makes this point:

... that we are justified by Faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort.

This is because we realise that there's no good deed we can do to convince God to love us any more than he already did in sending Christ to die for us as sinners. And likewise there's no sin we can commit that cannot be forgiven through his perfect sacrifice. 

Grace Alone

This slogan is the topic of my sermon this Sunday morning, from Ephesians 2, especially verses, 8-10:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Grace is not the girl's name nor the prayer before meals, but generosity, or as we sometimes say, underserved kindness. It's not conditional on us making an effort, even a tiny bit... because it comes to us who were "dead in transgressions" (Eph 2:1; 2:5).

"Grace alone", however, is not limited to our justification, but spans all of salvation from start to finish. As Paul says earlier in Ephesians, God “chose us in him [Christ] before the creation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). Likewise even the good works we manage to do were prepared for us in advance by God. So we have nothing to boast about. 

There's so much more we could say about the Reformation, but I've already written enough here. For now, Scripture alone, Christ alone, faith alone and grace alone are very good starting points. 

Warmly in Christ,

Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney