Chapter Two
The Reformation: The Lost Legacy
Some years ago Russell H. Conwell penned a marvelous little inspirational book titled Acres of Diamonds. The opening chapter recounts the true story of a man named Ali Hafed, who owned a large farm in the Middle East. The farm was doing well, and Ali Hafed was prosperous and contented. Then, one day, a man told him that the only way he could possess true wealth was if he discovered diamonds. Ali Hafed became consumed with the idea that he would never have all he wanted unless he owned a diamond mine. He sold his farm and all his possessions, and set out to find the diamond mine that would make him as rich as he dreamed. The search was fruitless. He scoured much of the Middle East and Europe, but he found nothing. He spent every penny, his clothes were in tatters, and his body was wasted and racked by disease. In utter despair, Ali Hafed threw himself into the ocean and was drowned.
Some time later, the man who had purchased Ali Hafed’s farm was watering a camel in the stream that ran through the property. He noticed a strange gleam of light beneath the surface of the water. Curious, he reached down and dug out a small black stone that sparkled and reflected the colors of the rainbow when held up to the sunlight. The man was intrigued by this odd stone, and he took it home and set it on the mantle above his fireplace.
A few days later, a visitor to his home happened to notice the little stone lying on the mantle. He suddenly snatched it up and examined it closely. “This is a diamond!” he exclaimed.
The man who had bought Ali Hafed’s farm laughed. “That? Why, that’s just a rock I found in the stream after one of the animals kicked it loose,” he replied carelessly.
His visitor was insistent. “Show me the spot where you found it,” he demanded. The man eventually discovered that his new farm was sitting atop the richest diamond mine in history! The crown jewels of both England and Russia came from this extraordinarily rich vein. Ali Hafed spent his fortune, his health, and eventually his very life searching for that which was, quite literally, in his own back yard.
I am convinced that the Church in America today bears more than a passing resemblance to this tragic man. It isn’t difficult to see that the Church is in trouble. While a great many Americans still attend church regularly, and pollsters report that a significant number of Americans report that “religion” or “faith” is important to them, one need only take a cursory look at American culture to see that biblical truths hold very little significance for the average American.
We seem to have reached the point where we see church as a “nice” thing to do on Sunday morning, but not as God’s institution which provides us with godly standards for how we should live our lives. Many abortion providers report that of those women who seek their assistance in destroying their unborn children, the number who claim to be Christian differs only slightly from those who are avowed unbelievers. Trash talkers like Howard Stern and Jerry Springer have no problem lining up sponsors to enable them to spew out incredible filth over the national airwaves. Issues like the legalization of assisted suicide, narcotics, and gambling are gaining support all over our nation, and have even won majority votes in some parts of the country.
The Church in America is not making any appreciable impact on the culture. The Church in Europe is even farther down the slide than the United States. I cannot help but feel a deep sense of loss when I see pictures of the magnificent cathedrals that used to resound to the preaching of giants like Charles Spurgeon and John Wycliffe, churches that now sit largely empty or teach a brand of “Christianity” that bears no resemblance to the truth of Scripture.
Church leaders across our nation are not unaware of their waning influence on their flocks. They fret that church attendance, financial giving, and the number of people who claim that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is having a significant impact on their lives is down. And so, increasingly, we see books written and seminars conducted on the subject of initiating “church growth.” We examine the plans and programs of various “mega-churches” around the country, hoping to find the bright new formula that will spark revival in our land. It seems to me that we are vainly searching all over the country for a diamond mine when we have one right in our own back yard, or, more accurately, right on our bookshelves! The answer to the spiritual poverty of the present lies with the doctrinal riches of our past.
The Vital Importance of Our Spiritual Heritage
We must recognize our connection to our wealthy heritage in the past or we will never truly appreciate God’s truth in the present. If we would carefully examine every Christian doctrine within its historical framework, we would discover that each doctrine has been handed down to us from generation to generation, coated with the very blood of its proponents. These doctrines came to us out of the historical crucible of controversy, conflict, and combative criticism. In this flaming furnace of opposition, the greatest church creeds were forged for future posterity.
As the beneficiaries of these blood-bought bastions of truth, we must slavishly devote ourselves to getting straight the historical and doctrinal truths of Christianity. If we do not, we will be guilty of joining the ranks of our forefathers’ enemies, and thereby betraying the greatest heritage of all human history.
If Satan can divest our minds of the historical relevancy of Christianity, then he has pulverized the very bedrock that supports the subject matter of all Christian doctrine: namely, that God has entered into history and given us a trustworthy body of revelation. That revelation explains His nature, purposes, and redemptive plan for His people through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. If our link with this historical foundation is severed, our beliefs are reduced to mere mythological imaginations, and we are left with only our own religious emotions about God. This tragic “dumbing down” of our faith amounts to man creating another god (who is an illegitimate imposter) and turning away from the true God who has revealed Himself in history.
Our doctrinal roots are not free-floating fancies, but are grounded in documented, historical events, which are presented to us in an inscripturated revelation called the Bible, which is God’s infallible interpretation of those events. This is why we must constantly refer to the Christianity in which we believe as historical and biblical. There is no Christianity, apart from historical, biblical Christianity--only “another Jesus” and “a different gospel.”
Does Christiandom today represent original Christianity? Does it reflect true, historical, biblical Christianity as was published by the apostles? Are the doctrines we teach today historical Christianity, or are they historical paganism? Are people today calling themselves “Christian” when, in effect, they are enemies of historical Christianity? To press the point home: would first century Christians even recognize twentieth century Christianity as Christianity?
A Visitor From Christianity’s Glorious Past
Imagine the following scenario: An early Christian named Ambrose comes to sit in on the Sunday morning service at a typical assembly today. At its conclusion, the man sitting next to Ambrose turns to him and asks, “How did you enjoy the service today?”
Ambrose answers, “I saw a great display of emotion and zeal, but it was zeal without knowledge. Not once was the depravity of man even mentioned.”
A worried look flickers across the countenance of the man whom Ambrose addresses. “We have not heard of this term you used: depravity,” he admits reluctantly.
“Oh?” Ambrose replies. “Then have you not heard of my son in the faith, Augustine?”
“I am sorry,” replies the twentieth century “Christian.” The figure of Ambrose becomes cloudy, and with a knowing, sorrowful look on his face, he sinks silently back into the historical realm from whence he came.
We are confronted in the twentieth century with a new breed of Christian teachers--men who are devoid of doctrinal and historical content. Oh, to be sure, what they are teaching sounds like Christianity, but they are teaching only the applications of Christianity without the doctrinal and historical foundation that supports those applications.
Apart from these foundational truths, the applications of Christianity become empty shells, devoid of power and real meaning and its free grace uniqueness. Hence, these emasculated truths might easily be adopted by any pagan and integrated into his religious system without any real conflict. That is because the conflict lies in the root, not in the fruits of our faith. Controversy arises only when we compare or contrast roots, not fruits. Today, the emphasis has shifted away from the authority and sufficiency of the objective and historical truth of God’s Word and has centered on a super-subjective and heart-centered, anti-doctrinal, emotional experience. Where devotion is exalted and given priority, it is always at the expense of doctrine. When this emphasis dominates the teaching of any Christian group, it inevitably produces an unscriptural cry in the hearts of its hearers--a cry which exclaims, “Give us Christ, not creed; devotion, not doctrine.”
Unwittingly, the devotees of this false thinking are teaching a self-refuting philosophy, because apart from historical creed there is no Christ. Apart from historical doctrine, there is no devotion. We are told by the apostles that we are to believe on Christ as He is presented in Scripture, and serve the Christ of Scripture on the basis of knowing His will for our lives as it is revealed in Scripture. Doctrine-less and devotional teaching leaves a believer with no objective, historical defense of his Christian position, because his true defense is grounded exclusively in the historical and doctrinal truths of Christianity, and not in his heart centered experience!
The Christian who sings, “You ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart,” is caught in a subtle trap of thinking that he is accurately defending the claims of Christianity by comparing his Christian experience with the non-Christian’s experience. This is not to say that his experience with Christ, if it is a biblical experience, is not to be used as a valid testimony to the transforming power of Christ. However, his experience, as God honoring as it may be, is never the ground for his faith. It is only, and always, the fruit of his faith--not the root.
Therefore, a Christian is not called to compare his experience with another person’s, but rather to contrast truth against error. We are not to compare Christianity with other religions; we are to contrast them. We do not believe Christianity because it “works” for us; we believe because it is true. God has revealed Himself to His people in word and deed in history, and we must unhesitatingly and unashamedly proclaim that salvation begins with an historical “DONE,” not with an experiential “DO.” The Gospel is the work of God for you and for me in history, and not the work of God in our hearts. Christianity is not grounded in experience, but in doctrine and history.
Satan wants today’s Christians to make a clean break with the past. In making this break, Christian men and women are making a break with their only lifeline and objective source of truth. Apart from this objective and historic truth we cannot say, “I believe,” because what we believe is grounded in God’s Word and in history.
The Reformation is the Key to Revival
In the 1500's, Christianity was mired in a malaise even worse than the one we face today. Then God, in His sovereign grace, moved in the mind of a 34-year-old Augustinian monk named Martin Luther to shine the light of God’s truth into the blackness, and lead Christianity out of the Dark Ages. Just as God prepared and ordained Moses to lead Israel out of slavery in Egypt, He also gifted Luther to sever the idolatrous umbilical cord that held the Christian church in the restrictive clutches of the Roman state church. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church, he sparked a revolution in church history that is surpassed only by the era of the Lord, Himself, and the Acts of the apostles.
The Christian church, prior to the time of Luther, had plunged into an anti-scriptural, pagan darkness. The institutional church, which had been a vibrant, Christ-centered ecclesiastical body in the first century, was now the formidable, hybrid behemoth I call the Roman state church. This organization, which combined the ecclesiastical function of a “church” with the immense political power that influenced much of Europe, bore precious little resemblance to the New Testament church described in the book of Acts. The Bible was available only in Latin, a language which the common people could not read. As a result, a profound gulf of ignorance separated the priesthood from the laity. There was no unified body of Christ. Since the Bible was merely a jumble of meaningless letters to the common people, they had no clue as to whether what was said from the pulpit was God's Word or some man-made “gospel.” The Catholic priests did not deliver expository sermons which exposed the biblical text for the listeners. Rather, the priests gave their interpretation of the text. Indeed, while the Roman state church acknowledged the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, she had taught her followers for hundreds of years that the discovery of truth was a process. They informed the laity that the Bible was not the finished, complete revelation of God, but rather that the church must interpret the truth of Scripture through the “divine revelation” given to the pope and transmitted by the traditions of the church. Rather than all authority residing in the truth of God’s Word, the Roman state church had co-mingled the Word with the traditions of the church. At the time of the Reformation, the church was paying precious little heed to the authority of Scripture. Virtually all authority had been ceded to the Roman state church.
Naturally, the potential for corruption and abuse was enormous. Martin Luther was appalled that the Roman church was teaching that believers could purchase forgiveness for their sins through indulgences. Pope Leo X had engaged in an aggressive church‑building program, and he had authorized a Dominican monk named Johan Tetzel to assist in the fund raising by selling indulgences. Tetzel's blasphemous claim was that the Roman state church could grant forgiveness of sins, and even assurance of salvation, for the right price. According to Tetzel, one could even secure salvation for deceased friends and family through the purchase of indulgences! Unlike the scribes of Jesus' day, who correctly understood that only God has the authority to forgive sins, the common people of that time had no Scriptural basis for understanding this truth. Tetzel and others like him were able to coax and frighten thousands of well-intentioned but scripturally ignorant people into “donating” huge sums of money to the Roman state church.
When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church, this was not the defiant act of a revolutionary. It was the common practice at the time, if one wanted to engage in a theological debate, to post the points of contention in such a way. Martin Luther, in all godliness, wanted to debate the ecclesiastical abuses of power committed by Tetzel and others. Rather than engage in a free and open debate, however, the Roman state church excommunicated him.
God used this rough treatment by Pope Leo as the catalyst that began to open Martin Luther's mind to a problem far more fundamental than the corruptive influence of church authority lying solely in the hands of an elite ecclesiastical council. God focused Luther's mind on the most fundamental question of all eternity which was first recorded in the book of Job: “How can a man be righteous before God?” This was the bedrock for the entire Reformation.
As a devout young monk, Luther had earnestly and urgently sought out the answer to this eternally significant query. Since the teaching of the Roman church was that man could never be completely sure of his standing before a just and holy God, Luther pursued all manner of "good works" to justify himself. These ranged from long fasts and hours of prayer and confession of sins, to the extremes of scourging and walking barefoot in the snow to punish himself for sins real and imagined. Luther could find comfort nowhere.
Gradually, God revealed to Martin Luther that truth and authority did not lie in some synergistic union of God with the specialized church leadership. Rather, truth and authority resided in, and only in, God’s revealed Word: the Holy Scriptures. Luther used the Scriptures as his sole source for deducing the means for man’s salvation.
A Gospel “Alone” Christianity, Versus a “Gospel-plus” Christianity
What was truly revolutionary about Martin Luther’s teaching was the concept of “alone.” Luther said that the Gospel of Jesus Christ defies addition or subtraction. It is the Gospel alone--not the Gospel plus the teachings and traditions of the church--that provides the answer to Job’s burning question: “How can a man be righteous before God?” The authority and sufficiency for faith and practice rests on what God says; it does not rest on what men say.
Luther’s teaching was the galvanizing influence for the great cleaving of the Protestant Church (Protestant simply means “protest-ants,” or “those who protest”) away from the Roman state church. The Roman church taught its followers that salvation came through the teaching of Scripture plus the teaching and traditions of the church which would lead her followers to salvation. Luther countered that any “plus” that was added to the gospel was not Christianity!
Martin Luther specified five principles which outlined the foundational truths of Reformation theology: Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), Solo Christo (Christ alone), Sola gratia (Grace alone), Sola fide (Faith alone), and Soli Deo gloria (Glory to God alone). I am going to devote an entire chapter of this book to each of these truths, but I would like to provide a brief overview here.
The Five Fingerprints of the Reformation
The arches, loops, and whorls on the fingerprint of a man or women’s hand provide unique and unmistakable indicators of that individual’s identity. You might have an identical twin--another human being who is virtually indistinguishable from you in appearance. The visual resemblance might be so close that even your own parents could be fooled into believing that your twin was you! However, that resemblance doesn’t extend to the tips of your fingers. Your twin’s fingerprints would not match yours, and anyone trained in the art of fingerprint identification would be able to tell which twin was which in seconds.
I call the five foundational truths that Martin Luther and the other Reformers developed “The Five Fingerprints of the Reformation” because they are the five points which unmistakably identify the hand of God in the plan of salvation. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul fretted that “Somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted‑‑you may well put up with it!” There are those who come to us all the time, preaching “another Jesus” and “a different gospel.” Some of these gospels are much like an identical twin: they look so much like the real gospel that even the pastors of many churches in America have mistaken them for the real thing! When a pastor is deceived by a counterfeit gospel, he unwittingly drags his entire flock, which might number into the thousands, into the darkness with him. That is why it is so essential that you and I be able to identify the real thing! We must become fingerprint experts who are able to quickly and surely identify the true gospel and the true Jesus, in order that we may guide our families and our churches into the way, the truth, and the life. So, just as a bank teller learns to identify counterfeit money by handling only the real thing, we will begin to identify the “other” gospels by learning about the five points of truth that clearly identify the real thing.
Sola Scriptura meant that Scripture alone is our source of truth, knowledge, and authority. Luther’s idea was that everything that unites us as a church and empowers us as believers, everything which gives men and women the wisdom and knowledge they need to glorify God, is found in Sola Scriptura--Scripture alone. This was a direct repudiation of the authority that the Roman state church had abrogated to herself, and a return of authority to its rightful place: the Word of God! Luther and the other Reformers understood the truth of Proverbs 30:5, which reads, “Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him.” Luther boldly proclaimed that there were not two teachers--the Bible and the traditions of men--but one: “Every word of God.” Moreover, Jesus’ unequivocal assertion that “Your word is truth” forever settles the question: “What is truth?”
Solo Christo simply meant that salvation comes through the finished work of Christ on the cross alone. When the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” they replied, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” It is through the redeeming work of Christ alone--not by our works--that we receive salvation. “But as many as received Him,” John wrote of Christ, “to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Salvation comes to us because of the personal work of Christ, not because of what family we were born into, nor because we work for it, nor because we desire it to be so, but only because God sovereignly ordained it for us through the death of His Son. Paul told the Ephesians that prior to the death of Christ, “You were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.” It is Christ’s finished work on the cross--not our continuing work, and not the seven sacraments of the Roman state church--that has accomplished our salvation. Jesus declared, “It is finished!” just before He gave up His spirit. It is done. It is finished. Man has nothing to add to the perfect work of Christ.
Sola Gratia, the third of the five fingerprints of the Reformation, meant that salvation through Christ is bestowed by the sovereign grace of God alone. Salvation is the result of the monergistic work of God. Monergism is a word that comes from the roots mono (“one”) and ergon (“work”). Literally, monergism means “the work of one,” or, in this case, “the work of One,” i.e., God. Our salvation is not the result of synergism, as the Roman state church has taught for nearly two millennia. If you break the word synergism down to its roots, you find syn (“together”) and ergon, so synergism literally means “work together.” We do not work in a cooperative effort with God to earn our salvation. The Catholic Church, and far too many Protestant churches, teach that salvation is similar to buying a home on credit. Jesus, according to this theology, made the down payment on the home, but the believer must keep up on the installment payments or the home will be repossessed by God, the Mortgage Holder. This is blasphemy! It is an affront to the clear message of the Scriptures. The gospel does not teach grace plus man’s best efforts.
Paul wrote to the first century Christians at Rome that believers are “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The Greek word that most English translations render as “freely” in Romans 3:24 is dorean (“door eh on”), which means, literally, “without cost to you, without cause in you, for no reason, for no advantage, for nothing.” God is under no obligation to grant us salvation. If there were anything about us that caused or merited our salvation, God would be responding to us. God would be obligated to grant us salvation because of some quality within us. But God is sovereign. There is no outside agent or force that causes God to react or respond to some outside stimulus. He neither needs nor wants a cause for His actions. Speaking of God’s sovereign election, Paul told the Romans, “And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.”
Sola Fide (“Faith alone”) was the fourth fingerprint of the Reformation. A verse that most of us know by heart is one of the best teachers of this truth: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Again, to go to the original Greek in which the New Testament was written, we see that you have been saved “by means of” faith, not “because of” faith. We are saved by faith alone, not by faith plus obedience.
Faith looks away from self and looks at God. Faith is like a telescope that is designed to look at a distant object. The issue is the object we are looking at, not the instrument we look through! If salvation occurred “because of” faith--the sincerity of your faith, the intensity of your faith, the depth of your faith, the “faithfulness” of your faith, etc.--then the quality of your faith would become an issue. Your faith, in this instance, would actually be a work! Sinful men would be tempted to walk about thumping their chests, speaking about how great their faith is. Our faith is not, nor can it be, a virtue which makes us acceptable in God’s sight. Only the perfect righteousness of Christ can do that.
Faith was viewed by the Reformers as a gift from God. They cited verses like Philippians 1:29 (“For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ... to believe in Him”) and 2 Peter 1:1 (“To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours...” to assert that man does not contribute his faith to the work of salvation. Salvation is not a reward for our faith. Rather it is, just like every aspect of eternal life, a non-meritorious (unearned) gift from God.
The fifth and last fingerprint of the Reformation, Soli Deo Gloria (“To God alone be the glory”), is the linchpin of the entire theological system. The inevitable, logical outcome of the first four Solas is that all the glory goes to God. The Lord God Almighty has told us that He is a jealous God; He will not share His glory with another.
None of the glory of salvation goes to man! We are not saved because of our wisdom: it is Christ, revealed to us through the Scriptures alone “Who became for us wisdom from God.” We are not saved because we are good people; it is Christ alone who is our “righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” In fact, we are not saved because of any contribution of righteousness of our own; it is by grace alone, for “The righteousness of God... is revealed” through Christ’s perfect sacrifice on the cross. We are not saved because of our good works; it is by faith alone, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” There is NO aspect of salvation for which man can take any credit at all! Eternal life is not a co-op program, where man shares in the work of salvation and, in so doing, shares in some small measure the glory for eternal life. Salvation comes wholly and solely from God. Man may take none of the credit, and man gets none of the glory. All the glory goes to God. “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise,” Paul wrote, “and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.” In summing up “the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God,” Paul emphatically proclaimed that “ from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever!” If our salvation is “from him” and “through him,” then all the glory can only go “to him.” Soli Deo Gloria!To God alone be the glory! “Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.’”
These five fingerprints of the Reformation--Sola Scriptura, Solo Christo, Sola gratia, Sola fides, and Soli Deo gloria--are the very essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The word gospel, literally translated, means “good news.” It is easy to see, from even the brief explanation of the five fingerprints that I have just given you, why the gospel is, indeed, very good news!
It is good news--great news--that God did not leave our salvation up to us. Sinful man is incapable of pleasing God. Man, “who is vile and corrupt, who drinks up evil like water,” does not possess the capability of pleasing God! If you doubt me, look at the nation of Israel. God provided them with a covenant of good works. All Israel had to do was follow the rules. God had promised, “Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.” Israel was incapable of walking in the ways God had given them! Time after time they repented of their sins and promised to walk in the ways of the Lord, and time after time they lapsed back into apostasy and idolatry. God, in all His sovereign majesty, knew that Israel would fail. And so He prepared a Lamb, “slain from the foundation of the world,” who would, by His finished work alone, make it possible for us to truly be God’s adopted children.
Yes, the gospel is very good news because it is the only way that man can stand as righteous before God. Tragically, man often seems determined to pervert the gospel, to ignore the covenant of grace, and to revert back to a covenant of good works. We seek to alter the five fingerprints of God’s grace by inserting man’s efforts in there somewhere! We create a “gospel-plus”: a gospel plus our good works, a gospel plus our pious behavior, or a gospel plus our meritorious faith. We create these counterfeit gospels in order to “help” God out and contribute to our own salvation. In short, we seek to create “another gospel,” which Paul emphatically admonished the Galatian Christians not to do! “I am astonished,” Paul rebuked them, “that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” Any “gospel-plus”, that is, a gospel which adds to the completed work of Christ on the cross, is a gospel which will cause you to be eternally condemned!
These “other gospels” are very appealing to the sinful nature of man, because they allow him to seek self rather than seek God. They promote a faith which is subjective (focused on self and the “righteousness” of self), rather than objective (focused on something outside of self, that is, the true righteousness and holiness of Christ). These gospels are “bad news”; in fact, they are damnable news, because they will condemn your soul to an eternity in hell! The very First Commandment that God gave to the nation of Israel was, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” When we hear the preaching of “another Jesus” or a gospel that differs from the one that is clearly identified by the five fingerprints of the Reformation, we are seeing, just as plainly as the technician in a laboratory, the fingerprints of a false god.
What Does the Reformation Mean to Me Today?
I hope that I have already answered that question! Our forefathers in the faith have handed us an inheritance of priceless theological treasures of incalculable worth. Martin Luther was excommunicated and exiled for refusing to recant what he knew to be the glorious truths of the gospel of Christ. Many others like him were martyred for their faith. The unmistakable truth of the “good news” survived this savagery, however, and swept through Western civilization. The very freedoms that we in America enjoy today are direct descendants of the great doctrines of the Reformation. Dr. John Robbins has written a superb paper titled, “Civilization and the Protestant Reformation,” which describes in detail how the Reformation ignited a virtual renaissance of intellectual, political, social, economic, and religious thought around the world.
The Reformation was like a bomb exploding on the salt flats--the radius of the impact was virtually unimpeded. Dr. Robbins describes how religious liberty, constitutional government, free-market economics, and the repudiation of civil monarchy and aristocracy all can be traced to the Reformation. A German historian, Leopold von Ranke, called John Calvin (who subscribed wholeheartedly to the five fingerprints of the Reformation) the “virtual founder of America.” Once the approach to life became objective (“outside of me”), freedom was born. The Sola Scriptura philosophy of honoring only God’s objective truth was contiguous to every aspect of life, and it became the basis for a dramatic leap in productivity in every area of human endeavor.
For example, the teaching of the Roman state church had been that the only truly honorable forms of work were scholastic and ecclesiastical (related to the church). All other forms of work, such as farming and the various trades, were considered less valuable. But Luther, Calvin, and others seized on verses from the Scriptures such as Colossians 3:23 (“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men...”) to lift up the value of all work done to the glory of God. The famous Puritan work ethic is a direct result of this teaching, and this fueled, in large measure, the dramatic economic prosperity that the United States has enjoyed for several centuries.
Perhaps the most powerful single word that came out of the Reformation was the word Sola, meaning alone. That single word is the theological line of demarcation between Christianity and paganism. Just as Moses ordered the people of Israel to move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the Reformation drew a clear line in the sand between truth and error. The Reformation exposed the difference between subjective, man-centered theology and objective, God-centered theology.
It is my fervent prayer that this book will equip you to draw the same kind of line that separates truth from error in your own mind. In Bible college, we talked a great deal about Church history, yet these crucially important historical and theological distinctives were never even mentioned! This abysmal ignorance of our spiritual heritage is an absolute tragedy. It is no different from teaching American history and ignoring the War Between the States. It is a criminal waste of time for everyone involved.
The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error
We have been commanded by God not to “believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God.” Clearly, all five fingerprints of the Reformation (I’ll call them the five Solas, for short) are of God and from God. The Scriptures are the Word of God alone. No opinions of man are found in the pages of the Bible. Salvation was accomplished by the grace of God and the work of Christ alone. Man contributes nothing to the propitiation of God’s righteous wrath. That salvation is apprehended by faith in God alone. Any trust that man places in self to achieve eternal life will lead that man straight to eternal damnation. And all the glory for God’s perfect plan of salvation--and the perfect accomplishment of it through Jesus Christ--goes to God alone. Man cannot even claim credit for being “smart enough” to place his trust in Jesus Christ! “It is because of [God] that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God‑‑that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” Your faith in Christ is a gift from God: “For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ... to believe in Him.”
“OK, great,” we might think, “God has given me a priceless gift. So now I can just relax and be grateful for this wonderful salvation.”Our responsibility to God is far greater than that!Jesus’ brother, Jude, exhorted the saints to “Contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” Paul commanded the church at Thessalonica to “Prove all things.” Why this sense of urgency? Why must the saints be so vigilant against false teaching? John answered this question when he commanded believers to “Test the spirits... because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
Indeed, a great many false prophets are putting forth a great deal of false teaching. They are busy preaching “a different gospel” and “another Jesus.” These false teachers inform their congregations that the Bible is not trustworthy, that the church, or science, or man’s reason must be used to explain and interpret the Scriptures. They insist that salvation is a matter of grace-plus, that the believer must contribute good works or follow certain church-ordained rituals, such as attendance at mass or participating in the Lord’s Supper, in order to attain eternal life. Other wolves in sheep’s clothing preach that salvation is not a matter of trusting in the truth contained in Scripture alone. They explain that one must undergo certain experiences, such as a mind-altering baptism of the Holy Spirit which renders one supernaturally equipped to “hear God speak,” and perhaps even to speak in some incomprehensible language which is said to demonstrate that one is “filled with the Spirit.” In some extreme cases, discomfitted followers of this brand of grace-plus theology are informed that they may well not be God’s children unless they display this unusual behavior.
Tragically, rather than following Jude’s command to “Contend earnestly for the faith” and shine the light of truth on such heresies, a great many Christian men and women (and, all too often, their pastors) have resigned themselves to the belief that the most important thing they can do is promote unity within the body of Christ. We see highly respected members of the evangelical community urging a “co-belligerency,” or cease-fire, amongst the followers of widely divergent beliefs, all in the name of “waging the culture war.” The battles against abortion, euthanasia, and homosexual marriages are far more important than any disagreements over a few items of doctrine, according to these so-called “leaders.” A great many evangelicals have willingly sacrificed sound doctrine on the altar of unity.
Is this the example of the early church fathers? As Dr. John Robbins has pointed out, Paul blasted the Christians at Galatia for believing “a different gospel.” The church at Galatia had been influenced by the teaching of the Judaizers, who had renounced one of the five Solas: the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. Although the Judaizers accepted a great many of the teachings of the Scriptures, such as the virgin birth of Christ, the deity of Christ, and the authority of Scripture, they insisted that the only way to salvation was through good works, specifically through obedience to the Law of Moses.
Did Paul preach “unity of the body” at the expense of doctrine? After greeting the Galatians and giving praise to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul immediately expressed his surprise and dismay that the Galatians were “so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel‑‑which is really no gospel at all.” Paul warned that “Some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.” After reestablishing the mandate he had received to preach the gospel, and recalling how he, Paul, had personally rebuked the apostle Peter for continuing to keep one foot in the “good works” camp, Paul delivered this stinging reproach:
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
Would you wish to accuse the apostle Paul of being unnecessarily divisive? I’m sure none of us would do that, since the apostle was delivering the very words of God to the Galatian church! Paul was contending earnestly for the faith, as Scripture commands. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, “Brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you... by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you‑‑ unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” Paul was determined that his preaching and his doctrine (teaching) should be only that of the revealed Word of God--that of Scripture alone.
Error has Infested the Church!
In my discussion of Martin Luther’s heroic struggle to proclaim the truth of God’s Word, I have made several references to the institution of the Roman state church which opposed Luther so venomously throughout his lifetime. You may have been offended by my blunt explanation of Roman Catholic theology. While I make no apology for speaking the truth in love, I do hasten to add that the Catholic church has by no means cornered the market on proclaiming “another Jesus” and “a different gospel.”
There are plenty of Protestant churches--indeed, entire Protestant denominations--which teach a grace-plus gospel, and faith-plus the efforts of man and intervention of the church. Each and every one of us should have a major problem with any church of any denomination that does not follow Paul’s example of teaching “the whole counsel of God”; i.e., salvation that is from God only, through God only, and to the glory of God alone!
Paul cautioned Timothy that “The Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.” I have absolutely no intention or desire to isolate the Roman Catholic church, as if she were the sole source of doctrines of demons. Yes, it is true that God used Martin Luther to expose the error that pervaded Roman Catholic theology, but Catholicism is only the historical backdrop for the great teaching that emerged from the Reformation. It is also true that the Roman state church remains, to this very day, a “church” in name only. Far from being merely an ecclesiastical body, it is an immensely powerful political organization, recognized as a diplomatic entity by over one hundred nations. But the Roman church is not the only one which has broken loose from its historical moorings. You can step into tens of thousands of churches today that bear the name of a Protestant denomination over the front door and hear a message that is virtually indistinguishable from the teaching of the Roman state church! The original “Protest-ants” were seeking to refute any teaching that added to the five Solas, not specifically the dogma of the Roman state church.
It is interesting to note that when a person claims to be “evangelical,” they are essentially saying that they believe in the five Solas of the Reformation. However, many religious groups are pseudo-Christian because they defiantly teach against these five Reformation truths. Only people who wholeheartedly believe in the Five Fingerprints of the Reformation can rightfully claim the title of “evangelical.”
The focus of this chapter--and of this entire book--is not merely to alert you to the differences between the historical teachings of the Catholic and Protestant churches. The chasm between these two bodies of thought is wide and deep, and it is crucially important for you to understand the basis for these differences, primarily because there is so much gospel-plus theology that has seeped into Protestant denominations. And therein lies my motivation for writing Legacy: I hope to help you learn to distinguish truth from error. When you read the epistles of men like Paul, Peter, and Jude, you see that one of their primary concerns was battling against the various kinds of false teaching that were slipping into the church. They were not contending against the Roman Catholic church, as Luther was, but the purpose was precisely the same: to teach the glorious, shining truths of historical, biblical Christianity, so that the Church would not fall prey to cleverly conceived heresies. “For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you,” Jude warned. “They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.”
I mean to alert you, to implore you, throughout every chapter of this book, to take notice! Far too many Protestants don’t even realize that “another Jesus” and “a different gospel” are being preached to them every Sunday. Their churches are Protestant in name only--not in doctrine. I love the people who lead these churches, but I do not love their doctrine. I intend to speak the truth in love, as clearly and as boldly as I know how, in the hope that I will alert you and your family to the false teaching that has always corrupted the theology of the Roman state church, and has now crept unnoticed into many Protestant churches as well. I want to inspire a cry to rise up from churches all across America: “To the law and to the testimony!” If our various churches and denominations “do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” We must demand that our shepherds begin to feed us!
“I plead with you, brethren,” Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” Please don’t miss this: We cannot “speak the same thing” nor be “perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment,” if we do not understand the historical foundations of our faith! Our unity must be doctrinalunity. If we seek to bond together to create political unity, or cultural unity, or ecclesiastical unity, we are seeking to create a modern-day Tower of Babel. We become no better than the secret societies that meet, many of them claiming to be biblically based, which believe they have a greater reason for unity than the pure and holy teaching of Scripture. Unity based on anything other than historical, biblical, Christian doctrine is a false unity. It is an idolatrous, rebellious unity that seeks to unite man beneath the banner of man’s teaching, rather than uniting on the basis of God’s Word. It is a unity based on man seeking man, rather than man seeking unity through the truth of Scripture alone.
The Legacy
For the rest of this book I hope to bring you to a greater understanding of the doctrines that are the unmistakable distinctives of historical, biblical Christianity. In learning these great doctrines, we will be discovering the keys--the only keys--to salvation, sanity, and civilization. I want you to place these keys in the hands of your children so that they can come to a clear, biblical understanding of the world in which they live. I want our children to be able to immediately distinguish truth from error, whether they hear it from the pulpit, the professor, or the politician.
It will be then -- and only then -- that you and I will be able to join with the next generation and work together to build our nation into a land that is once again a shining city set upon a hill. Dr. Gordon Clark wrote: “To echo an early Reformation thought, when the ploughman and the garage attendant know the Bible as well as the theologian does, and know it better than some contemporary theologians, then the desired awakening shall
Russell H. Conwell, Acres of Diamonds (Charlotte, NC: Commission Press, Inc., by the Fleming H. Revell Co., 1960), p. 10-14.
1 Corinthians 1:31 (NIV).
John W. Robbins, “Civilization and the Protestant Reformation” (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundations, 1994).
1 Corinthians 1:30 (NIV).
1 Thessalonians 5:21 (KJV).
John Robbins, “Bleating Wolves, Shearing Lambs,” audio tape of Trinity Foundation conference, October, 1998, Unicoi, TN.
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