What Do We Celebrate on Reformation Day?
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to the podcast. Tomorrow marks the 506th celebration of Reformation Day,
00:00:11.080 | commemorating October 31st, when Martin Luther fearlessly published his 95 Theses, mailed
00:00:16.560 | one copy to the archbishop, and then posted another copy on a prominent church door for
00:00:21.480 | everyone to read. And whether it was dramatically nailed to that door with a hammer or more
00:00:27.600 | likely glued to the door with a paste brush, Luther's document set in motion a wave of
00:00:33.840 | reformation that we honor half a millennium later.
00:00:39.280 | But given how much time has elapsed since this event, we can find ourselves questioning
00:00:43.760 | what exactly we're celebrating each year. Is it the profound recovery of the truth of
00:00:49.400 | justification by faith alone, in Christ alone? Is it the liberation of the Bible into the
00:00:55.020 | language of the people? Is it the end of indulgences, the rejection of papal authority, the dismantling
00:01:02.320 | of the priest class as mediators between God and man? Or perhaps is it all of these things
00:01:08.360 | all combined, Pastor John, as you honor the enduring legacy of the Reformation? What's
00:01:14.560 | your primary cause for celebration?
00:01:17.880 | Let me fudge on the word "primarily." I'd like to replace it with five other words,
00:01:24.320 | but I couldn't think of five other words. But I did think of five other questions. I
00:01:29.120 | just couldn't think of words to go with them. I thought of two, but I gave up on five words.
00:01:33.720 | So I'm going to replace your question with five, but I will at the end, I think, answer
00:01:38.960 | exactly what you're asking. So here we go. First, what am I celebrating ultimately? That
00:01:46.240 | is, what's at the top as the goal of all things when I celebrate the Reformation? And the
00:01:52.100 | answer is the glory of Jesus Christ. In Calvin's response to the Roman Catholic Sadulei, he
00:02:00.360 | said, "You touch upon justification by faith, the first and keenest subject of controversy
00:02:06.880 | between us. Wherever the knowledge of it is taken away, the glory of Christ is extinguished."
00:02:16.080 | I think the same point could be made on issue after issue in the disputes of the Reformation.
00:02:25.340 | So ultimately, we celebrate the exaltation of the glory of Christ. Second, what am I
00:02:33.140 | celebrating most foundationally? So the first one was most ultimately. Second, most foundationally,
00:02:40.460 | that is, what's at the bottom as the ground of all things when I celebrate the Reformation?
00:02:46.540 | And the answer is the free and sovereign grace of God. When Martin Luther came to the end
00:02:53.420 | of his life, he regarded his book, The Bondage of the Will, as his most important work. And
00:02:59.140 | the reason is because he regarded the issue of human autonomy versus sovereign grace as
00:03:06.220 | the key underlying issue of the Reformation. He said, "I condemn and reject as nothing
00:03:13.700 | but error all doctrines which exalt our free will as being directly opposed to this mediation
00:03:22.860 | and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. For since apart from Christ, sin and death are our masters
00:03:32.160 | and the devil is our God and prince, there can be no strength or power, no wit or wisdom
00:03:39.660 | by which we can fit or fashion ourselves for righteousness and life." Which means that
00:03:47.580 | as long as someone insists on ultimate human self-determination, they fail to grasp the
00:03:56.960 | depth of our need and they obscure the greatness of the free and sovereign grace of God, which
00:04:05.200 | alone can give life and faith. So I'm going to celebrate that as bottom. That's the bottom.
00:04:13.680 | Third, between the glory of Christ at the top and the free and sovereign grace of God
00:04:20.380 | at the bottom, what am I celebrating in between as the greatest achievement of God flowing
00:04:29.940 | from grace leading to glory? And the answer is the decisive achievement of the cross of
00:04:38.580 | Christ in providing peace with God for guilty sinners. Four times, four times in the book
00:04:46.960 | of Hebrews, the author underlines and emphasizes the work of Christ in the forgiveness of sins
00:04:54.460 | as once for all. I love this phrase and the way he uses it. Hebrews 7.27, 9.26, 10.10.
00:05:05.280 | He has, this is the first one, 7.27, he has no need, Christ does, like those high priests
00:05:13.600 | who offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins, then for those of the people, since
00:05:18.440 | he did this once for all when he offered up himself. So I will be celebrating that the
00:05:27.640 | finished and complete work of Christ in providing imputed punishment for our sins and imputed
00:05:37.320 | perfection for our righteousness was once for all and cannot be reenacted in the Roman
00:05:45.780 | Catholic mass so as to become a necessary point of transfer of that decisive grace purchased
00:05:53.440 | once for all for us and given to us through faith in Christ alone. Fourth question, between
00:06:01.560 | the glory of Christ at the top and the free and sovereign grace of God at the bottom,
00:06:07.000 | what am I celebrating in between as the decisive means of my enjoyment of peace with God that
00:06:17.360 | Christ achieved? Answer, the inspired Word of God in Scripture read and known by every
00:06:26.800 | Christian. The church of the Middle Ages cut people off from the Word of God. They had
00:06:34.320 | done so intentionally. It was a capital crime in the 1400s in Britain to translate the Scriptures
00:06:42.800 | into English so people could read it. They burned people alive for reading fragments
00:06:49.440 | of the English Bible, even children. They believed that God did not offer his fellowship
00:06:57.160 | to be enjoyed through a personal encounter with him in his Word, but rather through the
00:07:04.000 | ministry of priests and sacraments. This was evil. And the chasm created between Scripture
00:07:13.240 | and the people of God has not been closed to this very day. I've mentioned before my
00:07:22.600 | experience in Europe where a nun was converted at 80 years old and had never read the Gospel
00:07:29.320 | of John. So a Roman Catholic professional religious woman never had read the Gospel
00:07:34.440 | of John. That is symptomatic of a deep evil in cutting people off historically and today
00:07:43.920 | doing things that subtly discourage the personal encounter with God through Christ in his Word.
00:07:53.120 | So I will be celebrating the personal preciousness and access to the Word of God for my daily
00:08:01.280 | means of enjoying personal fellowship with my Father in heaven. And the last question,
00:08:09.040 | what great Reformation truth will I be celebrating concerning how I experience the living Christ
00:08:18.160 | through his Word? Answer, I will be celebrating the truth that faith acted directly on Christ
00:08:28.720 | through his Word, not mediated by priestly sacraments, is the decisive primary way I
00:08:36.480 | enjoy what Christ purchased and what the Word makes possible.
00:08:43.400 | Here's what I read this morning, Tony, in my devotions that made my heart sing. I was
00:08:49.520 | reading in Ephesians 3 and that unspeakably great prayer where Paul says, "I pray according
00:08:57.080 | to the riches of his glory that he may grant you to be strengthened with power through
00:09:01.600 | his Spirit in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." That's
00:09:13.400 | amazing. Christ dwells. Now this is a prayer for Christians. This is not a prayer for conversion.
00:09:22.220 | We think, "Oh, that means Christ knocks on the door and comes in." That's not. He's
00:09:26.080 | in. He's in. We are Christians. He's praying for saints in Ephesus that Christ would dwell,
00:09:34.180 | that is consciously alive, present, at home, experienced. How? Through faith so that Christ
00:09:44.160 | may dwell in your heart through faith. He's praying for Christians who already have Christ.
00:09:51.780 | This is a prayer for real, authentic experience of the living Christ. So when I embrace the
00:10:01.200 | crucified and risen Christ as my supreme treasure, alive, present, at home, in me, that very
00:10:10.840 | faith, that embrace, that faith is the sufficient instrument for the enjoyment of his fellowship.
00:10:21.380 | That will be my primary daily celebration.
00:10:25.120 | Yeah, amen. Opening a Bible in our native language, reading and studying it, and encountering
00:10:32.560 | the real, authentic experience of the living Christ. It's the best way to honor such a
00:10:39.240 | day. Thank you, Pastor John, and thanks for joining us today. If you want to ask Pastor
00:10:43.080 | John, type out your question as briefly as possible and email it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:51.760 | Selfishness. It's the antithesis of Christ and the antithesis of the holy Christian life.
00:11:00.780 | Yet despite its defiance against the faith, selfish tendencies persist inside of us, leading
00:11:07.040 | one 17-year-old to earnestly seek guidance on how to cultivate selflessness.
00:11:12.640 | That's up next time on Thursday. I'm your host Tony Reiki. See you then.
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