Accidental Reformer

The man who accidentally sparked off a Reformation

Reformation Day 2022

31 October is Reformation Day. What are we celebrating? What are the five solas?

Sola Gratia
Sola Fide
Solus Christus
Sola Scriptura
Soli Deo Gloria

saved by Grace alone
through Faith alone
in Christ alone
according to the Scriptures alone
for the Glory of God alone

Reformation Day 2018

standing at the door at Castle Church, Wittenburg where Martin Luther was supposed to have nailed his 95 theses

 

This day celebrates the beginning of the Reformation on 31 October, 1517. It was the day that Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. This is especially significant day for me as I went on a study tour of Reformation Germany earlier this year. As I reflected on what I learnt about the reformation and its implication, I realize that I often need a knock on the head to remind the five solas that is foundational to the Reformation.

 

Sola scriptura (by Scripture alone)

Sola fide (by faith alone)

Sola gratia (by grace alone)

Solus Christus (Christ alone)

Soli Deo gloria (glory to God alone)

 

Sometimes when we are busy in ministry and church work, we often become dissociated from the solas. We began to depend on our own knowledge, skills set, strength, and abilities to achieve and often forget that the work of the Kingdom depends not on human effort but by God alone as the solas remind us. We need to slow down and find ourselves in God in silence. Philippians 2:13 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) notes “For it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to desire and to work out His good purpose”.

We live in a culture that knows little or nothing of a life that listens and waits, a life that attends and adores. What makes things even more difficult, we live in a church that knows even less of this life that makes friend with silence, a life that leaves time and space for the Holy Spirit to breathe into our hourglass lives and form a mature Christ life. The consequences are alarming as our great Christ heritage becomes more superficial by the decade, shallow and trivialized, noisy and gitzy with god-talk

Eugene Peterson

As Kingfisher Catches Fire, p.77

So instead of clinging to our spiritual lives and ministries, and trying to develop or build it out by sheer human effort, let us submit and commit ourselves to Him who has given us everything and all things from Him alone.

 

31 October 2018

The Luther Rose

 

The Luther Rose is the coat of arms for Martin Luther. Luther explained how the seal represents his theology.

Grace and peace from the Lord. As you desire to know whether my painted seal, which you sent to me, has hit the mark, I shall answer most amiably and tell you my original thoughts and reason about why my seal is a symbol of my theology. The first should be a black cross in a heart, which retains its natural color, so that I myself would be reminded that faith in the Crucified saves us. “For one who believes from the heart will be justified” (Romans 10:10). Although it is indeed a black cross, which mortifies and which should also cause pain, it leaves the heart in its natural color. It does not corrupt nature, that is, it does not kill but keeps alive. “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17) but by faith in the crucified. Such a heart should stand in the middle of a white rose, to show that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace. In other words, it places the believer into a white, joyous rose, for this faith does not give peace and joy like the world gives (John 14:27). That is why the rose should be white and not red, for white is the color of the spirits and the angels (cf. Matthew 28:3; John 20:12). Such a rose should stand in a sky-blue field, symbolizing that such joy in spirit and faith is a beginning of the heavenly future joy, which begins already, but is grasped in hope, not yet revealed. And around this field is a golden ring, symbolizing that such blessedness in Heaven lasts forever and has no end. Such blessedness is exquisite, beyond all joy and goods, just as gold is the most valuable, most precious and best metal. This is my compendium theologiae [summary of theology]. I have wanted to show it to you in good friendship, hoping for your appreciation. May Christ, our beloved Lord, be with your spirit until the life hereafter. Amen

source: Wiki

Assurance

Today’s guest post is by Dr Tang U-Liang

One less talked about heritage of the Reformation is perhaps on the topic of assurance. It follows naturally from Luther’s (re)discovery that justification is by faith alone. But the connection is perhaps not as straightforward as one might think.

It is perhaps been supposed in Christian circles that we can have assurance of salvation because we are not saved on the basis of our good works or good behaviour. Instead, since we only need to believe, we can be assured of our salvation. If salvation had been by works, so the argument goes, then our success in works is not certain, for we may fail. We are after all merely human. So therefore, since salvation is not by works (but by faith), we have full assurance.

But I don’t think it follows, logically speaking, that one’s assurance of salvation as a Christian is obtained on the basis of our faith alone. After all, in 2 Peter 1:3-11, Peter talks about the effort to attain to godliness, virtue and love in addition to faith as a way to “confirm your calling and election.” The assurance of salvation therefore cannot be just obtained from mere introspection of our confession in absence of evidence. On the contrary, we see here that Peter recognises that “for in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” There is no entrance through the pearly gates without evidence of a changed life.

It could seem like a “betrayal” to some Christians to discover that Christianity isn’t just about believing, but that it demands some thing from us. But what then of assurance? How can we still say that we can go to heaven if we die tomorrow but yet need to “confirm our election”. It does seem like a contradiction in terms.

The thinking that salvation is tied to the success or failure of our good works is so hard wired into our human psyche that assurance is often mistakenly interpreted in terms of a basic opposition between what we need to do for ourselves versus what we cannot do for ourselves (i.e. for which matters does God have intervene).

Instead, assurance rightly understood in the context of God’s covenant with us upon our putting our trust in him. After conversion, to be assured of salvation is to believe first and foremost that God is no longer angry with us because of sin, but have forgiven us completely. It is His convenant with us that He will never abandon us after conversion but will continually be with us until the day we die and see Him again. This is what assurance is. In assurance the question is not so much “Will I go to heaven?” as it is “Does God still love me?” to which the answer (to both questions) is a resounding “YES!”

So often in discussions of assurance and in the debate between Calvinists and Arminians on the correctness of “once saved always saved” what is often an unspoken assumption on both sides is that salvation is tied to the sincerity or genuineness of faith. Well, then we ask, how do we know that our faith is genuine? The assumption here is that a Christian can finally fall away by just finally denying Christ.

But I contend that nobody, once making a profession for Christ, will suddenly one day just say “ I no longer believe” for no good reason at all. Indeed, a Christian may renounce the faith, but usually under extreme persecution and even so, I very doubt that that counts as apostasy. And because true apostasy is final (c.f. Hebrews 6:1-8), mere public denunciations of the faith does not necessarily mean apostasy. If so, people like Peter (who denied Christ) and Wang Ming Dao were irrevocably “unsaved”. Instead, the great danger for all Christians is not renunciation of belief, but an abandoning of their walk with God. Merely maintaining the outward forms of a religion while the inner man does not love God anymore.

How then does assurance fit in into this? There is at least three aspects of assurance that I can think of that relate to the life of a Christian in the body: The assurance of justification, the assurance of perseverance (or sanctification) and the assurance that we will see God again (the second coming of Christ). It is in that we know that we are justified, that we can draw near to God. The Father is no longer angry with us and loves us, so we have that assurance that He will never cast us out (from our proverbial Eden) ever again. The assurance of justification is our rainbow in the sky, for when evil befalls us, it is not a punishment for sins, but the discipline of a loving Father. It is through this assurance that we need not put barriers between us and God (Hebrews 4:16). No longer any need to pray to the saints, or Mary or have a priest intercede on our behalf because we have Christ to do all these for us. We do not need to worship from afar – the curtain rent from top to bottom.

There is at least three aspects of assurance that I can think of that relate to the life of a Christian in the body: The assurance of justification, the assurance of perseverance (or sanctification) and the assurance that we will see God again (the second coming of Christ).

The assurance of perseverance is the assurance that we will never lack in the energy to godliness throughout our entire lives. We are promised a “new heart” (Ezekiel 36:26) and so while there is striving, and effort and much denying of self, it is not exhausting, nor a burdensome and empty ritual we perform. It done out of love, and therefore its place in our salvation becomes less a matter of earning marks, as it is to please our Father in heaven. We can see that even though God demands works of us, he does not demand it as exchange for a place in heaven, but because he is a holy God and we are to be like him.

And finally we have assurance that our salvation will be completed. God is the author and perfecter of our faith. If we have been called, we will be assured that God will finish the job. Once again, we will meet him on the beautiful shore, where every tear will be wiped from our eyes and death, the final enemy is no more. All the warnings about falling away, all the cajoling and the encouragement to live a god fearing life are fulfilled in the second coming of Christ. Once it was a warning, and when Christ comes again, we see how it was used to turn our stubborn hearts around. Once we felt that God was far away, but when we finally see his face, we realise that he never left us. Month after month, we ate the bread and drank the wine of his presence, waiting for the day when we will feast with him in heaven, that day is now, when Christ comes again.

 

It is a bare cold rock, far from the warmth that heaven brings. But come it will, borne on a chariot and peals of trumpet song. Bright sound, He comes announced and To all who hear him cry, “At last!”

Reformed Perspectives Magazine (Feb 6-12)

RPM Volume 13, Number 6 (February 6 to February 12, 2011), is now available. The following articles are featured in this issue:
APOLOGETICS DIALOGUE
A Dialogue
By: George Hawkins
Webpage  PDF  Word
The Ministry of the Gospel
The CALL and QUALIFICATIONS for the Gospel Ministry
By: Joseph Philpot
Webpage  PDF  Word
Annihilationism
An Article
By: BB Warfield
Webpage  PDF  Word
The Doctrine of Repentance
Part I
By: Thomas Watson
Webpage  PDF  Word

Random musings and reflections on life, God and all that stuff (movies, comics, science fiction, spiritual formation, Christian education, biomedical ethics, post modern parenting, books, theology and philosophy)