The Reformation Power Of God's Word
Why the Protestant Reformation matters 505 years later.
Reading scripture will always change you. If you are Christ’s, it will edify you and grow you. If you are not belonging to Christ, it will save you or harden you further. For the men who would become the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, it opened their eyes to the forgotten and beautiful doctrines of our Holy Religion.
When the German monk Martin Luther first read about how Christians are justified by faith alone and not works plus faith, his eyes were opened to a truth that he could never close his eyes to. As we come up to the 505th anniversary of the Reformation let’s take a look at some of the beliefs that we may have come to take for granted.
Justification by faith is the truth that got the Protestant Reformation moving. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
This floored Luther and spurred him to think more about the Faith that he was so committed to.
Justification by faith alone is the idea that when we place our faith in Christ, we have the fullness of justification. There is nothing that we can add to make ourselves any more or less justified. The Roman Catholic Church had been and are still teaching that you MUST do penance, you MUST do confession, you MUST partake in the Lord’s Supper, and you MUST do other things to enter Heaven. The Bible and Luther disagreed strongly with these teachings and thus the Protestant Reformation began.
This re-discovery of justification by faith alone by Martin Luther also led to the logical conclusion that the Holy Scriptures have authority over the Church. The Church prior to the Protestant Reformation believed that the Holy Scriptures had authority, but the belief that “Holy Tradition” and the Pope had the authority to create new orders that took priority over the Scriptures in the everyday life of those in the Church. Martin Luther stated that he would never recant his Protestant teachings unless he could be convinced by Holy Scriptures. In Luther’s now famous quote he said, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus, I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one's conscience is neither safe nor sound. Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me.” It is clear here that his entire belief system was being determined by the Word of God.
During the Medieval age of the Church, and even today in the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches, the idea of transubstantiation of the Lord’s Supper was created. This idea is that the wine and the bread that are used in the Eucharist literally and actually become Christ’s literal and actual flesh and blood. This belief led to very strange superstitions about the elements of the Eucharist.
The commoners could never be trusted with the cup that held the actual blood of Christ, so it was held back. Any left-over bread and wine needed to be consumed. After the elements have been transformed into Jesus they cannot simply be left to rot on a shelf. During the Reformation, however, this view was rejected.
Luther held the belief that Christ was present in the Eucharist, but the elements remained wine and bread. Calvin held the belief that Christ was spiritually present in the Eucharist. Zwingli, however, held the belief that many of us hold today. Zwingli in the German area of Switzerland believed that the Eucharist was a memorial of Christ's sacrifice. “This is my body,” was taken as a metaphor that meant “This represents my body." Zwingli believed this because in other places Jesus said things like, “I am the door,” and, “I am the true vine.” Logically, Zwingli concluded that since Jesus wasn’t some wood and thatch door, nor was he a plant, that “This is my body” can just as probably be a metaphor.
The last belief that will be mentioned is the Anabaptist’s view of baptism. Infant baptism is a practice that we find as early as 130AD-220AD, so this is not just a Roman Catholic belief. Many Protestants such as Lutherans and Presbyterians still believe in this practice. Luther, Zwingli, Knox, and Calvin would all have believed that infants born into the Visible Church should be baptized. The Anabaptists however believed that only those who have been converted by faith into the Church should be baptized. This belief went against over a thousand years of church tradition, but they, like Luther, were held captive to Scripture. They did not read anywhere in the Holy Scriptures that said that they should baptize infants. The Scriptures seemed to show that only those who had made profession were baptized. So, the Anabaptists believed that only those who have professed faith in Jesus and have been converted should be baptized.
The Protestant Reformation turned the entire world of Christendom on its head. This movement spurred on by former monks and priests have changed the way people think when they hear the word “Christian.” They introduced the world to biblical truths that many had forgotten. The Reformation led to where we are now. Everything we believe in our modern churches as Protestants were reintroduced to us by a few people who looked into the face of religious tyranny and had the courage to stand on the Word of God instead of bending the knee to the Papacy. For that, we should be grateful.