Remodeling Our world talks a lot about reform. It seems that we all want, to one degree or another, reforms. There is health reform and education reform. Agrarian reform and social reform. Tax reform and certainly religious reform.
Reform resembles the idea of progress towards a desired outcome. It’s a word that evokes positive change. With such a diffuse use of the word, however, it tends to lose its virtue and effectiveness, when someone talks about the Protestant Reformation, therefore, planned and celebrated reform can be lost in a sea of synonyms and ambiguities, so that their wealth is diluted and confused.
- The Roman Catholic Church also talks about reform and recognizes its need within the Church.
- His request for reform predess the Protestant Reformation.
- Still suffering the great schism between East and West in 1054.
- The Council of Constance (1414-1418) sought profound reform.
- In the Church.
- This has not changed for several centuries and the Catholic Church continues to call for reforms.
So when we celebrate Reform Day, what exactly do we celebrate?What sets the Protestant Reformation apart from other reforms and reformulations?What sets it apart from the reform that the Catholic Church seeks and seeks?Why do we keep celebrating this more than five hundred years later??
The answers to these questions reveal the true genius of the Protestant Reformation and explain why it persists over the centuries, is still celebrated today and will continue to be celebrated.
What comes to mind when you consider the Protestant Reformation?What are the distinguishing features? Certainly, the Five Alone are at the top of the list, only faith in Christ only by grace, revealed only by the scriptures, and only for the glory of God. These are perhaps the most recognized brands of the Reformation. Protestant Reformation Is that why the Protestant Reformation has been going on for more than five centuries?
Surely, the return to these truths has been extraordinary, it must be celebrated for its clarity and the unequivocal limits that have placed on the faith, there is no confusion between the authority of Scripture versus tradition, salvation is definitely a gift of faith. God’s grace and cannot be attributed to works. They do not allow ambiguity, indifference or neutrality. They are a return to the heart of the biblical faith and the gospel. Is it certainly fair, then, to suggest that the Five Suns explain genius?Protestant Reformation?
Or maybe your genius is in the great reformers, like Martin Luther and John Calvin?Certainly, the Reformation largely owes its success to the brilliity of these men. However, careful reflection on the Reformation reveals that its genius does not lie in the articulation of plants or in the formulation of any doctrinal belief or statement. This goes beyond reformers and even beyond simple return to the scriptures as the ultimate source of authority and truth. Go even further. The genius of the Reformation is rooted in God Himself; it is a return of God’s supremacy over all things; it is a return to God’s primacy in the Church, in history, and in the heart of man; it’s a radical and reforming change. work done by the omnipotent God of the universe.
However, this is not a new revelation. It was no secret to reformers; they knew that no one could carry out such radical reform; it was going to be god’s work. Luther understood that. ” The Church needs reform, but it cannot be the work of a man. Not much. . . rather, should it be God’s work only?
“No sword,” Luther continued, “cannot invoke or help this cause, only God can do it, without any human intervention. “Luther, though a man of great gifts and great spirit, could in no way face a conflict. of this magnitude. ” I freely admit,” he admitted, “that this company was by no means a deliberate action on my part. . . Is it a pure result of God’s sovereign will?
Luther wasn’t the only reformer to share this perception. Calvin also recognized the prodigious meaning of the Reformation and knew that no man could accomplish this feat. In writing to Charles V, Calvin made this clear, telling him that the reform of the Church is the Work of God and that it is independent of the hope and opinions of man, as well as the resurrection of the dead.
In fact, no one, not even an army of men, could confront the Roman Catholic Church, its power and influence; it was going to be god’s work. This required the will and action of the sovereign God of the universe. The gospel was at stake and that is why God worked radically to regain his word and authority. The same was the case in the days of Joshua, Asa, Ezekiel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Apostles. This is what God has done throughout history, and it has happened during the Reformation, God intervened to recover what was his.
The Italian theologian Pietro Bolognesi captured the heart of what was at stake: the Reformation was not a simple conflict between people and ideas, but between God and the Devil himself; in fact, the Protestant Reformation depended entirely on God. He. He’s the real reformer.
Recognition of this is what separated reformers; his greatness lies not in his intellectual brilliingness or theological intuition; his greatness is revealed in his humility by recognizing God’s greatness and his hand working to change history. in the hands of a sovereign and omnipotent God, and they knew it and confessed it freely. It was neither the innovators nor the architects of the Reformation. They were servers.
“The Reformation,” Bolognesi says, “must be understood as an above action; while its counterpart, the Counter-Reformation, was an attempt to restore from below. The former has its roots in man who submits to God, and the second is rooted in the God who submits to man?However, God does not submit to any man. The Protestant Reformation is his work and his only work. Through him, he acted to restore the power and authority of his word. This is the genius of the Reformation.
With the development of ecumenical dialogue and the recent celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Reformation, the question: Did the Reformation end?It is often discussed and debated.
Some Protestants and Catholics claim that the main theological differences that led to the breakdown of Western Christianity have been resolved, such as the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (DCDJ), a document drafted and approved by the Lutheran World Federation. and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity (CPPUC) of the Catholic Church. The document states that the two churches now share a common understanding of the justification for God’s grace through faith in Christ, and this even though the Catholic Church has never renounced anathema?of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), one of which explicitly addresses this doctrine: “If anyone says that it is only by faith that the wicked are justified, be anathema” (Canon IX Justification).
The DCDJ, with much of today’s ecumenical dialogue, reminds us why it is important to ask ourselves regularly whether the Reformation is really over. When we look at the Protestant Reformation and consider what real biblical reform is and what it requires, it is quickly clear. which is not the product of doctrinal statements, ecumenical dialogues or theological discourses. All too often these companies refer God to a place of submission to man and his agenda. They’re bottom-up initiatives.
True reform is the work and intervention of God Himself in history, in the church, and in the heart of man. Reform dethrones man and returns God to his rightful place of supremacy over all things.
Reform, in essence, is not about affirming the Five Suns, it is not about affirming the theology of Martin Luther or John Calvin, it is about affirming and embracing the supremacy of God, it is about seeking a relationship with God. He himself was made possible by the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross. This happened during the Protestant Reformation, is that the genius of reform?And the reason why this will continue until God reigns supreme and man submits fully to his glory, word, and authority. That is why the Reformation is still celebrated today and we will celebrate it until the end of time. .