Disarmed

Halloween approaches when people make a mockery of the devil, demons and all sorts of evil. Personally, I tend to think it would be a good thing for Christians to participate in, but not non-Christians (much like the Lord's Supper).

For Christians the devil and demons are no kind of threat because they have been 'disarmed' (Col 2:15). The devil's only power is because he is Satan (trans. "the accuser"), and his only weapon is the law with which stands against us. But the debt to the law has been nailed to the cross and cannot be taken down and used again on those in Christ (2:14). So death and the devil have lost their sting because Christ takes the victory that would otherwise be theirs.

So when the devil, or those who join in his game of judging us or accusing us (even our own consciences) need never be taken seriously (Col 2:16). We are free from all judgment of sin and measurement of performance. That message is why Halloween and Reformation Day actually belong together.

[Not quite the same, but do check out Peter Dray and Jim Jordan's thoughts on Halloween, or Justin Holcomb].

Why read about the Reformation?

Sunday is the 493rd anniversary of Martin Luther nailing 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. So why should we care? And more particularly why should we bother reading about the events of the Reformation and the writings of the Reformers?

1. It is OUR history

The church historian, Owen Chadwick once said: "Nothing is sadder than someone who has lost his memory, and the church which has lost its memory is in the same state of senility."

Reading about the Reformation is an act of remembering our history, and particularly the history of God's works in us. We can see the Reformation is OUR history because it shaped the church we are today more than anything else. For example:

• Songs we've sung - congregational singing because the Reformers taught every Christian is a priest
• Language we speak - English rather than Latin because they taught we cannot exercise faith in something we don't understand
• Prominence of the sermon in our service - because they taught faith comes by hearing the Word of God
• Our prayers addressed to our Father directly - because they taught we can approach him directly through Christ.

All these developments were based on a conviction about what the Gospel was, and it was this conviction that drove the Reformation.

But this wasn't ivory tower thinking. The Reformers were also working in a period of enormous political turmoil, which was often reflected in their personal lives.  Wars were fought because of the teachings and practices of the church.  Almost all the major Reformers were exiled from their homes, many lived under the shadow of death, and a considerable number paid the ultimate price for confessing the 'discoveries' they had made.  Most lost children and many suffered with long-standing and painful medical conditions.  It is not surprising that many believed they were living in the very last days.

Interesting times demanded characters to match, and there was no one type of Reformer.  Luther brewed his own beer and Calvin restricted himself to little more than one meal a day.

By any standards it is one of the most fascinating times to read about, packed with wonderful characters.

But the Reformation is not just history.  The actions and writings of the Reformers speak powerfully to us now, and we need to hear their voice.

2. Radical criticism for us

The German theologian Bonhoeffer was executed by Nazis supported by many people within the church.  He once famously commented that American Christianity was “Protestantism without the Reformation” - a phrase calculated to cause some head-scratching!  What the American church was missing in his eyes was a grounding in Jesus Christ who brought “radical judgment” and “radical forgiveness” to the church. He thought the Reformation was what offered that.

So what is the “radical judgment” that the Reformation offers us?

The US company Enron, and more recently the UK banks have shown the need for us to question whether things are always as good as we think they are.  When the shiny facade was stripped away in the financial crisis, what was left behind was not a pretty sight.  At the midweek meeting this week we looked at Ezekiel where God revealed that behind Israel's religiosity was idolatry.  In this evening’s reading from Galatians 2, Peter’s sensitivity to the concerns of the Circumcision Party are revealed to be motivated by fear of man.

Bonhoeffer believed that in the Reformation we learn “that God’s ‘criticism’ touches even religion, the Christianity of the churches and the sanctification of Christians, and that God has founded his church beyond religion and beyond ethics”.

The Reformers believed that God’s word calls into question the church itself and called the church itself to repent even of it’s ‘good works’.  They had a penetrating vision able to see things for what they were which, if we want to avoid being an individuals and a church that is beyond criticism, we would do well to appropriate for ourselves. 

3. Radical forgiveness and joy to share with us

When Luther plumbed the depths of his own sin in the monastery he found that it went so deep that he had to spend hours a day confessing to his mentor, but he still knew he hadn’t reached the bottom.

But almost like the Psalmist in Psalm 139 he found that Jesus Christ could be found even there! In fact, that was the only place that the one who died the shameful death of a condemned man could be found.

That is why it would be wrong to read the Reformers and stop with their blistering condemnations of sin, because the destination they had in mind was never hell, but heaven with Jesus.

The people of Geneva re-minted their coins following the Reformation of their city with the motto “After darkness, light”, such was the contrast they saw between their former faith and that which they now enjoyed. CS Lewis compared the Reformers' experience to waking from a “nightmare into ecstasy” and Martin Luther described his experience as “entering paradise itself through open gates”.

To read about their lives, and read their words is a little window into a kind of weighty joy that I long to taste more of. In knowing that they are utterly free from any hold over them by the devil or the penalty of sin, they had a confidence in the face of persecution, but more than that, a confidence in the face of God.

Once Luther, along with many others, feared to approach God directly and only prayed to saints to intercede on his behalf. But having rediscovered the doctrine of justification by faith, he and those that followed after him boldly lived lives of familiarity with God through Christ.

So ultimately we should read about the Reformation to share in their joy by knowing more deeply the grace of the Gospel God and our Lord Jesus Christ as it is found in the Scriptures.

What was all the fuss about?

"All our controversies concerning doctrine relate either to the legitimate worship of God, or to the ground of salvation.”

(John Calvin, The Necessity of Reforming the Church, HT Shane Lems)

I was so pleased to find this quote. I have long thought that if I was ever to explain the differences between the Lutheran and Reformed Reformations it would be to explain the Lutherans were concerned with salvation, and the Reformed with both salvation and right worship.

I think the distinction between their heirs today may be different.

Luther on the marks of the church

Luther argues that the church is best understood by the words "holy Christian people" (p.335-336). They are people who "truly believe in Christ" and "have the Holy Spirit against sin" (p.336). The Holy Spirit "sanctifies them daily, not only through the forgiveness of sin acquired by Christ (as the Antinomians foolishly believe), but also through the abolition, and purging, and the mortification of sins, on the basis of which they are called a holy people" (p.335-336 [surprised to read that by Luther?]).

The church is a people "in whom Christ lives, works and rules" and in whom the Holy Spirit "gives people faith in Christ and thus sanctifies them" (p. 336-337). This sanctification is the renewal of the whole person, soul and body, by the inscription of both tables of "the commandments of God not on table of stone, but in hearts of flesh" (p.337).

Luther criticises the Antinomians for making much of the first table and their knowledge of God by preaching "much about the grace of Christ", but displaying that they don't really understand Christ or the Holy Spirit by not not "practic[ing] the works of the Holy Spirit in the second table" (p.339). The Catholics he criticises for doing many holy works "of an external, bodily, transitory nature" but living "without faith, fear of God, hope, love and whatever the Holy Spirit, according to the first table, effects" (although actually he doesn't even think they teach the second table correctly, p.339).

Luther believes that Christians should be marked by the Holy Spirit sanctifying them (note the continuous tense) in both tables of the law, coram Deo and coram mundo, soul and body. Schaeffer was right that the position of the Reformation was that "God made the whole man and he is interested in the whole man" (p. 38, Escape from Reason).

We can recognize the church then by their possession of certain "external signs" through which the work of sanctification is performed by the Holy Spirit. There should be external signs of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit according to both tables of the law. However as we cannot see the hearts of people and many non-Christians practice works from the second table "and indeed at times appears holier than Christians", so it is not as "reliable" to look for the external signs of the Spirit's work according to the second table (p.359). Therefore the principal signs relate to the first table, although the signs relating to the second table have a secondary role.

Luther identifies "seven principal parts of the great holy possession whereby the Holy Spirit effects in us a daily sanctification and vivification in Christ, according to the first table of Moses" (pp. 357-358):

1. the "possession of the holy word of God" (p.340);
2. "the holy sacrament of baptism, wherever it is taught, believed, and administered correctly according to Christ's ordinance" (p.343);
3. "the holy sacrament of the altar, wherever it is rightly administered, believed, and received according to Christ's institution" (p.344);
4. "the office of the keys exercised publicly... where you see sins forgiven or reproved in some persons" (p.345);
5. men consecrated, called or having offices to "administer, and use the aforementioned four things or holy possessions in behalf of and in the name of the church, or rather by reason of their institution by Christ" (p. 346);
6. "prayer, public praise, and thanksgiving to God" (p. 356);
7. "the holy possession of the sacred cross [of enduring] misfortune and persecution, all kinds of trials and evil from the devil, the world, and the flesh [...] in order to become like their head, Christ" (p.356).

None of these things are in the first instance things we have done, or possess intrinsically, but all are gifts by which we are sanctified not the fruit of our sanctification (although sanctification always leads to the desire to be further sanctified and so more searching for the means by which that comes).

[Quotations from "On the Councils and the Church, 1539" in ed. Theodore G. Tappert, Selected Writings of Martin Luther, Vol.4]

Reformation recommendations?

I'm toying with the idea of some kind of crash course on Reformation theology. The idea to give a taste of what the Reformation was all about; the excitement, the spirituality, and the big ideas. The plan is to read about 4-6 short original works (e.g. Luther's The Freedom of the Christian), perhaps with Reeves' The Unquenchable Flame as a secondary source.

I've got a few ideas, but would be interested if you have any recommendations. In particular I'm trying to work out a section of Calvin's Institutes to include. What's your favourite 40ish pages of the Institutes?

Two rules:

• Short, but enough to get your teeth into (about 40 pages?)
• Exciting, challenging and heart-warming. Not boring!

More general criteria:

• public domain if possible
• self-contained pieces
• representative range of authors (anything by Cramner or other minor Reformers I may not have read? Anything by a Catholic you can think of? [I can only think of Sadoleto's letter to Geneva])
• representative range of topics (not just justification)

The roots of Evangelicalism

Colin Gunton mentions in passing that:

Evangelicalism arises out of: (a) the Reformation and (b) Pietism.

I've heard that before but cannot remember where. The question is do we know our own history? How far are we aware of where we have come from.

I would say we are doing better at remembering one of our parents (the Reformation) and less good at remembering the other. I would even go so far as to say that Evangelicalism may be suffering for it.... but that may just be from my limited view in the corner I inhabit. But there is room for us to remember all our history much more than we do.

Once we remember we may then attempt to reflect.

Colin Gunton comments that to the extent Evangelicalism relies on the Reformation it is more objective, and on Pietism more subjective. PT Forsyth comments:

'after the Reformation period, [theologians] dwelt upon justification until they lost sight of sanctification altogether. Then the great pietistic movement had to arise in order to redress the balance.' (The Work of Christ)

...I wonder whether I should read Pia Desideria... its only 136 pages apparently.

More musings on the differences between the Reformers and Evangelicalism

Further to my recent musing on the difference between Evangelicals of the eighteenth century onwards and the Reformers of the sixteenth here, I am now thinking that the root difference was that the Reformers looked for 'revival' through a top-down reformation of theology and worship, where as the Evangelicals looked for the change in hearts of individual Christians which would then lead to the reformation of society. [Phew long sentence]

So a monarchal compared to a democratic approach.

This is no doubt partly a result of the Enlightenment but also other factors.

The Puritans may form a bridge between the two in England.

Reformers on the run

One thing that has struck me reading about the history of the Reformation is how almost every major Protestant figure seems to have had to leave their homes at one point or another. These include: Luther, Melanchthon, Bullinger, Calvin, Bucer, Carlstadt, Osiander and Knox. I don't think Zwingli, Cramner, Ridley and Latimer had to leave there homes but they all got killed in one way or another.

This was no ivory tower dispute.

We have to be thankful for their love of God.