Five Lonely Words

Five Lonely Words

Collect for the Church:  O gracious Father, we humbly beseech thee for thy holy Catholic Church; that thou wouldest be pleased to fill it with all truth, in all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, establish it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of him who died and rose again, and ever liveth to make intercession for us, Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

Children and teenagers know October 31 as an annual important day - Halloween, a day for costumes and candy. But the day is also important for another reason. October 31 each year is Reformation Day.

This year marks a very special Reformation Day. It will be the 500th Anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. What happened 500 years ago that began the Reformation?

A priest and monk living in Wittenberg, Germany, wrote out 95 statements that challenged some of the teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church and offered to debate them. At the time it did not seem an extraordinary event. But looking back we see that event triggered an earthquake, called the Reformation, that changed the western world. Luther, along with John Calvin at Geneva and Thomas Cranmer in England set out by God’s grace to reform the church they believed had become deformed. Without the Reformation there would be no Anglican Church, no Reformed Episcopal Church.

But what was the Reformation all about? There are five lonely words that answer that question. They are lonely words - lonely because the word “alone” is attached to each of them.

1. Scripture Alone

Luther kept writing, and eventually the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire ordered Luther to answer for his writings at meeting in the city of Worms. At that meeting a theologian named John Eck would question Luther. Eck instead laid Luther’s writings on a table and asked him if he were going to stand by his writings or submit to the church’s teaching and retract his writings that contradicted the church. Martin Luther’s back was to the wall.

After seriously thinking about it, Luther gave his answer:

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or

by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in

councils alone, since it is well known that they have often

erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the

Scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to

the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.

Many people today think the significance of what Luther was to strike a blow for individual freedom and the conscience against all authority. A lot of people think, “Whatever I think the Bible says is what it means - at least for me. I’ll decide what I believe and don’t believe, and no one can tell me different.” But that’s not what Luther intended to do.

John Eck pushed Luther to face a question: “What do you do when the teaching or practice of the church is clearly contradictory to Scripture?” His answer was, “Scripture is God’s Word to us, and so God’s Word must have final authority.”

What Luther did was to say Scripture is supreme over even the church. It is not the Bible plus church traditions or church declarations, but the Bible alone - the  Bible alone that has ultimate authority in the church. The Bible is not a book about every subject. If you’re having a heart attack, you don’t pick up your Bible to find out what to do about it. You go to the emergency room and let the doctors and nurses handle it.

What is the Bible about? Paul told Timothy:

...from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred

      writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation

      through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by

      God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,

      and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may

      be complete, equipped for every good work (3:15-17)

This teaching that the Bible alone is the final authority in the church is not a theory to talk about. The Bible is first a book to know. Today, there is a great ignorance of the Bible, even in the church. We need, as Cranmer put it in the Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent, to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest (the Holy Scriptures).” Second, the Bible is second a book to believe and obey. The Bible alone, not our opinions or societal trends, tells us what to believe about God and salvation and how God wants us to live.  


2. Christ Alone

There are two important questions about God. First, How can we know God? The Bible says no one has ever seen God - he dwells in unapproachable light. Second, how can we any relationship with God? He is absolute holiness. His eyes are too pure even to look upon our iniquity except to judge it.

Luther and the other Reformers answered the first question, “Here is how we can know God. We know him in Christ, and in Christ alone. He the eternal Son who was made flesh and lived among us.” He is “he radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3). The four Gospels tell us about his life, his words, his deeds.

The Reformers answered the second question” “Here is how we can approach God and not die for our sins. Here is how we can have a relationship of peace with God. We can approach God and have a relationship with him in Christ, and in Christ alone. St. Paul wrote “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all…”(1 Timothy 2:5,6). St. Peter declared, “...there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

One teaching the Reformers had to confront was that the priest is your mediator with God. The priest represents you before God and represents God to you. His great act of Mediation was to transform the bread and wine of Holy Communion into the body and blood of Christ and then to offer Christ on the altar as a sacrifice. But the Reformers said, “The priest is not your mediator with God. A priest or minister is a preacher of Christ’s Word and and administrator of Christ’s Sacraments. Your Mediator is Christ, and Christ alone.

The challenge we face today is the view that Christ is not the only way to God. We can approach God any way that works for us. Jesus spoke unambiguously: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). We know God and and are reconciled to God through Christ alone.

3. Grace Alone

The Bible is clear that we are sinners and that the consequences of sin are judgment and condemnation. Since we are sinners, there are two questions we need to ask ourselves: The first is  “What do I as a sinner deserve?” The second is “What can I do to help my situation?”

What do I deserve? Some people we know today will say, “I’m  not perfect, but I’m a pretty good person, especially compared to all the bad people. I do many good things. I think I deserve good from God.”

But other people may know there are some things wrong with them and believe they need to change. So how? Quite a few try self-help. They find a therapist, or get a life coach, or search for the right self-help book so they can deal with their “issues.” They want to be less uptight and angry, to be a nicer, kinder, more helpful person, a better friend, parent, or spouse.

But other people sense that that sin is a bigger problem than some imperfections. They believe that we will have to answer to God and face judgment. They are right.

The question for anyone who knows he is a sinner and faces judgment is: “How can I be saved?” The natural human response is to try harder to be better and do better. Follow the example of Jesus. Try to make up for the bad with good. Maybe God will accept our best sincere efforts in place of perfection. In other words, they believe in self-salvation.

In the Middle Ages no one believed is self-salvation by self-effort. The Roman Catholic Church did not teach that. Everyone knew we need help. That’s where Christ comes in. But what does Christ do? How much does he do? How much do we do? Do we need his merits, plus our merits? Is salvation partly Christ’s work and partly our works. What he did for us? What must we do for ourselves?

The answer of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church was that it’s mainly Christ’s work for us, but there must also be our work. Salvation is God’s doing his part, but we must also do our part.  God’s grace to us in Christ accomplishes most for our salvation, but we must cooperate and do our smaller part.

This is the natural human tendency, even among strong Protestants who would never put their foot in a Roman Catholic church. We want to do something to contribute to our salvation. Suppose I invite you to supper. You say, “What can I bring?” I say, “Nothing.” You say, “Well how about a dessert?” “No.” “How about salad?” “No.” “Well, could I bring some  the bread?” I answer, “No, I am preparing the whole meal; don’t bring anything.” What do you do? Accept the gift of supper I provide? Or, do you despite all I said, bring something you made anyway? Or, do you refuse since you can’t bring a little something? That’s a picture of the human tendency when it comes to salvation.

The Reformers became convinced from Scripture that God provides the whole of our salvation in Christ. We don’t contribute anything. In fact we can’t. We don’t have the willpower, or strength, or ability to do anything good enough the help toward our salvation. Christ does it all. It is grace, all grace, grace from first to last - grace alone. The Apostle Paul tells us, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8,9).   

4. Faith Alone

Martin Luther had a theological and personal problem he could not resolve. He could not figure out the first part of Romans, chapter one, verse 17: “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed.” OK. God is righteous. He expects us to be righteous. But we are not righteous. Luther found that no matter how hard he worked to do good works, no matter how faithfully he observed the disciplines and rituals of the church, he could not achieve a righteousness a righteous God would accept. He was frustrated with himself and angry with God. He could not provide the righteousness God requires.

The breakthrough for Luther came when he understood the second part of that same verse: “For in it (the Gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Righteousness is not about being righteous or doing righteous things. It’s about God’s verdict, God’s pronouncement, that you are righteous. This declaration by God is called justification. You do not attain righteousness by works - whether those works are obedience to moral demands of the law or works you think mark you out as belonging to God’s people. God justifies you. He declares that he does not count your sins against you but considers you righteous in his sight. He does this on the basis of Christ’s work. Christ gained the forgiveness of your sins by suffering the law’s penalty; he gained for you a righteous standing by keeping God’s law for you. Your righteousness is not grounded in what you are might become, in what you do or might do, but wholly in what Christ did for you.

But how can you get this verdict you are not guilty, but righteous? How are can you be justified? Paul says it is by faith: “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works” (Rom. 3:28). As salvation is not partly by God’s grace and partly by our merits, so justification is not partly by Christ’s work for us and partly by our works. We receive what Christ did for by entrusting ourselves to Christ and what he did for us. As Article Eleven expresses this truth, “We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only, is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort...” We must understand this, and we must remind ourselves of it every day, because we will naturally fall back into some kind of reliance on ourselves. We are right with God by faith in Christ and his merits, or we are not right with God at all. The Gospel is that Jesus did it all, and we receive it all by faith - faith alone.

5. The Glory of God Alone

Scripture alone tells us we do not figure God out. He speaks t us in Scripture. Christ alone tells us we do not find our way to to God but he comes to us in his incarnate Son. Grace alone tells us that salvation is not by our efforts, but by God gracious work alone. Faith alone tells us we are not saved by our good works, but by trusting in the work of Christ for us. Therefore, to God be the glory - to God alone. It’s not all about us but all about God. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36).