Christian bookstalls, both Catholic and Protestant, groan under the weight of all the how-to guides. And we feel why not when life is so busy, it's relievingly simple. to follow a Five Steps to Better Spiritual Health manual. But There is such a thing as an outward performance It is spiritually hollow. It can be easy to fall into the performance trap, isn't it?
thinking that by doing good we can earn God's favor.
Well, there's nothing new about that. By the 16th century, the Roman Catholic Church had reduced Christianity to practice and rituals. In essence, A system of good works. Today, on Renewing Your Mind, we conclude our time in Michael Reeves' series Reformation Truths.
So don't forget to request the DVD set. It's available for you as our way of saying thanks for your donation in support of Renewing Your Mind. Renewingyourmind.org. But be quick. this offer ends tonight at midnight.
Here's Dr. Reeves to point out the difference between ritualistic religion. and genuine life in Christ. Where did the spirit go? in Medieval Roman Catholicism.
Not an easy question to answer because Really the sacramental system and the clergy seemed effectively to replace the spirit. The way things worked was God's grace was a blessing. that would pour through the seven taps. of the seven sacraments. The seven sacraments of Baptism.
Confirmation The mass Penance Marriage ordination Last Rites And the clergy were the ones with the power to turn the taps on and off. And with such a hermetically sealed plumbing system for Grace. There was really nothing for the spirit to do. And in many ways, the Reformation as a whole Would be a fight for that line in the Nicene Creed. We believe In the spirit The Lord The giver of life.
Because wrapped up in that affirmation is the belief that. We do not have life. in ourselves. We therefore need more than just a bit of enabling grace. We need life.
As the spirit hovered over the waters. In the beginning, giving life to creation.
So, again, we need the spirit in order to have new life. Luther therefore wrote. that the first thing That belief in the Spirit means is, I quote, That by my own reason or strength, I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. but the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel. Salvation, in other words, he saw cannot be a cooperative effort.
God merely assisting weak sinners. It's a divine rescue. God raising the dead. Belief in the Spirit as the Giver of Life. means belief in salvation by grace.
Alone. Without the spirit, then. We would be incapable of doing more than altering ourselves superficially. If we to have life The spirit must give us new birth. Into a new life, giving us new hearts that desire him and so turn to receive life from him.
And contending for all that was right at the heart. of the Reformation. and meant that The reformers believed in the need for a radical From the inside out. Change. As opposed to what Aristotle was recommending, we become righteous by doing righteous acts.
Change from the outside in. This is changed from the inside out. They saw stony hearted sinners need more than behavior modification. We need a deep internal reformation. Through the Spirit opening our eyes to see who the Lord truly and beautifully is.
We need our hearts to be overturned. Our love of self to be eclipsed. By a superior enjoyment of a superlatively lovely God. That is. The reformers believed in being born.
Again. In God haters being won by the gospel, not just to an outward act of obedience. But to love Desire and delight in God.
Now, the English Bible translator William Tyndale. He was one of the first reformers to make clear how different this belief in the living spirit is. Chawoti was brought up with a superficial ritualism. And he put it like this. He said, our problem is the heart.
with all the powers, affections, and appetites wherewith we can only sin. And he said, the only solution is. the spirit which lucifers The heart. Only, he said, the spirit has the ability to so loose. Free, liberate our hearts from their enslaving love of self and win them to the freedom of knowing God.
Tyndale said. I'm less the believer. Had felt the infinite mercy, goodness, love, Kindness of God, and the fellowship of the blood of Christ, and the comfort of the Spirit of Christ in his heart, he could never have forsaken anything for God's sake. And this theology made for the most practical difference in Reformation circles. The reformer saw The root of our problem before God doesn't lie in our behavior.
It is not as if we've done wrong things and we need to start doing right things.
Now, all our outward acts of sin are merely manifesting the real problem. The inner desires of our hearts. and therefore merely to alter a person's behaviour. without dealing with those deep internal desires, is simply to cultivate hypocrisy. The self-righteous cloak for a cold and vicious heart.
And this Reformation insight meant that hearts must be turned. Evil desires eclipsed by stronger ones for Christ. And for such fundamental change to happen? What do you need? The reformers saw?
The gospel must be preached. Here's Tyndell again. He said, when Christ is preached, Haunts. Begin to wax soft. and melt.
At the bounteous mercy of God and kindness showed of Christ. For when the evangelion, the gospel, is preached, The Spirit of God enters into them and opens their inward eyes and works such belief in them. And when the woeful consciences feel and taste how sweet a thing the bitter death of Christ is, how merciful, how loving God is through Christ's purchasing and merits, Then they begin to love. That's to say. Our sin cannot be removed from our hearts.
simply by trying harder. Hmm. scrubbing ourselves clean. The Spirit must transform us through the Gospel. That is how the new life of the spirit begins.
And that is how the life of the spirit grows. Tyndale put it enchantingly. He said Where the spirit is, there it is always summer. For there There are always good fruits. that is to say, good works.
Is not a beautiful image of the Spirit's work? Left. To our natural selfish coldness, we can Only spew forth. self-glorifying sham acts of goodness. But the heart that stays continually enlightened, refreshed by the Spirit, can be warm.
Summary fruitful.
So the gospel then cannot it was never treated by the reformers simply as a message for unbelievers. as the doorway into the Christian life. in order for Christians to grow they too must be kept in the sunshine of the gospel. Yeah. Is Very easy.
To miss. How revolutionary this theology of the spirit Wise. Medieval Roman Catholicism had been an essentially impersonal system of salvation. Said grace was a thing. God gives to help sinners along.
That's what God gives, this thing called grace. As a young man, therefore, Lucer Wanted this thing called grace, but He'd never actually dreamed. of enjoying direct communion with God.
So he would make requests to the saints. but never to God himself. But communion with God is precisely what the Spirit. Brings us. Luther came to see.
Luther wrote. God has given us His Son and His Holy Spirit. in order to bring Us two. to himself Through them. There are more than any other gift or thing by his Spirit God gives us Himself.
To know and enjoy, God is the reward of the gospel. And knowing him is the life for which we're made and to which we're saved. How different to grace as an impersonal thing. But if grace was an impersonal thing in medieval Roman Catholicism, so too was faith. Seis.
wasn't so much about personal trust. In Christ. That would be called explicit faith. in medieval thinking. An explicit faith.
was considered Desirable But superfluous. Two essential requirements. After all, it was thought. Was it even possible? for illiterate and feeble-minded peasants.
to grasp the mysteries of the gospel. Yeah. Therefore It was thought. The uneducated, the illiterate. can make their way to heaven on the simpler path of What was called Implicit faith.
which meant turning up to church. Receiving the sacraments. For Lutheran Reformers such as Implicit faith. was not true and saving faith at all. Such implicit faith assumed, God will automatically accept and reward church attendance.
Works of charity. As if God is not actually concerned with knowing us and being known. But in fact, Luther would argue such works. Of so-called implicit faith amounted to nothing more than self-dependent idolatry. if they didn't flow from personal trust in Christ.
Now a century later. The great Richard Sibbs, one of the Puritan heirs of the Reformation. would write Of late, these last hundred years in the time of Reformation, there has been more spirit, more lightsomeness and comfort. Why? Because Christ has been more known.
Now note how he phrases it. He doesn't say some formula called the gospel has been more known. Though he would agree with that. He says Christ has been more known.
Now therein is an important difference. Belief in the Spirit meant the reformers did not have simply some slightly alternative message. It meant people would personally. No Christ. And when we consider who the Spirit is.
It makes sense that he be about more. than just enabling us to do good works. The Spirit is the one who's eternally. enjoyed and empowered the word as he goes out from his father. Through the Spirit, the Father has eternally expressed his love for his Son.
Through him the sun is echoed his father's love back. And when the Father and the Son share their spirit with us, they share with us their own life. He loved. Fellowship. Because of who he is.
The spirit must be all about planting a hearty love for God. In us. Old Muse? And none of this has become any less important. or less relevant down through the centuries.
Still today, Christians display some strong gravitational pull. away From knowing God. We can believe and proclaim some message. called the gospel. we can hold a high view of the Bible.
We can go to church and live what we think are sort of holy lives. and still not actually know God. Our gospel can be a get out of hell-free card. That we've signed, where knowing Christ is non-essential, our holiness is nothing more than a self-dependent morality. This is precisely what sin does in us.
It draws us away from keeping the greatest commandment that we love the Lord our God. and this is precisely why the Reformist theology of the Spirit is so important for us today. And surely The Reformation also presents us with a challenge here. Ritualism The notion that religious practices Rituals by their very performance bring grace. isn't something that's disappeared with the passing years.
It's easy to spot it perhaps in a different culture, but It's with us today, Christian Bookstalls. both Catholic and Protestant, groan under the weight of all the how-to guides. And we feel why not? When life is so busy, it's relievingly simple. To follow a Five Steps to Better Spiritual Health manual.
There are many skills and practices that are enormously beneficial, but There is such a thing as An outward performance. it is spiritually hollow. I can read my Bible. I can say my prayers. be the linchpin of my home group without treasuring Christ.
I can preach, I can pastor, I can teach, I can lead. without sincerely turning to him for aid. And so We need the reformers' theology of the spirit to help preserve us. from such empty formalism. For the Reformers.
The Spirit not only gives a new heart, A new life. a new enjoyment of God, He also gives a whole new assurance. And the word Luther would most use to describe the Holy Spirit in his hymns was. Comforter. That was the title he liked to use most often, Comforter.
We'll take John Calvin as an example. Calvin writes of the spirit. The spirit is cooled, the The spirit of adoption. Because he is the witness to us of the free benevolence of God. by which God the Father has embraced us in His beloved only begotten Son.
to become a father to us. And he encourages us to Have trust in prayer. In fact, the Spirit supplies the very words so that we may fearlessly cry, Abba, Father. For the same reason the Spirit is called the guarantee and seal of our inheritance, because from heaven he so gives life to us as to insure us that our salvation is safe in God's unfailing care. And that being the case.
Calvin taught our faith. Which he called the principal work of the Holy Spirit is meant to be a certain thing. I'm assured. thing. In stark contrast to the Roman Catholic idea of an implicit faith.
Here's Calvin's definition of saving faith. Cowan said. We shall possess a right definition of faith. If we call it a firm. Certain knowledge of God's benevolence towards us.
founded on the truth, the freely given promise in Christ. Both revealed to our minds and sealed on our hearts through the Holy Spirit. For the comfort And the joy of God's people. The spirit is given. See how wide-ranging the importance of the Spirit is in Reformation thought?
Deep Heart metamorphosis. instead of superficial behavior change. Personal communion with God. instead of abstract blessing. Joy-inducing assurance.
Those were some of the vital. Benefits of the Reformist theology of the spirit. But in fact. The reformer's view of the spirit. Really?
Permeated Everything. that they fought for. For if the Spirit is the giver of life.
Well, then, salvation must be by grace alone. Is he the spirit of adoption? Freely unites us to Christ. Salvation is by faith alone. In Christ.
Alone. It must be about knowing God with the security of the Son. Christ alone, faith alone, grace alone. All flowing from this theology of the Spirit. In fact, John Calvin showed.
The spirit He even keeps us from placing any other authority over that of Scripture.
So protecting the principle of Scripture alone. For he argued, we believe scripture. Not finally because the church tells us to. Or because intelligent men persuade us that we can, but Because the spirit Opens our eyes. and witnesses to us that Scripture is indeed God's Word.
Well, facts. That the spirit is found in every doctrine that the reformers fought for. shouldn't actually be surprising.
So wide ranging is the importance of of the spirit for the reformers, but it shouldn't be surprising. For all the life-giving truths of the Reformation. are life-giving because they're to do with home. The giver of life. The Reformation was a movement of the spirit.
And that means If we are to see the church, and our world reformed revitalized and made healthy. We need Him. The Lord. The giver of life. The Protestant reformers displayed great courage in the sixteenth century.
But their courage didn't stem from confidence in themselves. Instead, it rested in the Holy Spirit and As they stood God's word. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind. I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and thank you for being with us.
This week, you have been hearing highlights from Michael Reeves' gospel-rich and historically insightful series, Reformation Truths. doctor Reeves is an expert on the English Reformation and serves as President and Professor of Theology at Union School of Theology in the United Kingdom. In the complete series you'll learn about the differences between the Roman Catholic and Protestant views of salvation. Those differences are not subtle. They are profound and have eternal consequences.
We'd love to send you the series on D V D and unlock it for you to stream in the free Ligonier app. Simply give a donation before midnight tonight at renewingyourmind.org. or when you call us at 800-435-4343. You'll also have access to the study guide in the app to help you if you'd like to use this in a small group setting. with your family.
So call us today at 800-435-4343 or use the link in the podcast show notes. And if you live outside of the US and Canada, the digital only edition of Doctor Reeves' series is waiting for you at renewingyourmind. org slash global. These offers do end tonight at midnight, so respond now, because only hours remain. Hebrews 13:3 calls us to remember those who are in prison.
as though in prison with them. At the end of August, I had the opportunity to step inside a correctional facility. Sit down with two inmates whose lives have been radically changed by Christ. They are now part of the very first remote program from Reformation Bible College. and I can't wait to share their stories with you.
and to show how the Reformation truths you've been hearing about this week are reaching even behind prison walls.
So be sure to join us tomorrow. Kia on Renewing Your Mind.
