The great 16th-century scholar Erasmus said, "The sum of our religion is peace and unanimity, but these can scarcely stand unless we define as little as possible. In other words, don't define your beliefs too carefully, or we'll never have peace." Have you ever had a discussion with someone where you realize that even though you're using the same words, you have a different set of definitions? This is one of the reasons that it's important to take the time to define our terms when engaging in debates or dialogue, and this is no less true of theological discussions. Lots of Christian traditions use terms like justification or repentance, for example. But do they mean the same thing when they use those terms?
Welcome to the Monday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm Dave Terrio, and this week we begin a new study with Dr. Michael Reeves from his series Reformation Truths. If you listen to Renewing Your Mind frequently, you've probably realized that the Reformation comes up quite a bit.
Well, in his series, Dr. Reeves helps us understand why the Reformation is so important. It's not just because we're fans of history or a particular denominational lineage. The Protestant Reformation is much more than that. At its core, it was a recovery of the biblical gospel.
And by studying the truths of the Reformation, Christians today can better understand, rejoice in, and proclaim the good news about Jesus Christ today. If you'd like to study this series in depth, you can add all eight messages to your learning library in Ligonier's Grow app. When you donate, you'll also receive a digital study guide to help you reflect on the truths of the Reformation and apply those truths to our day. Just go to renewingyourmind.org to give, or call us at 800-435-4343. Here's Michael Reeves now with a message on the importance of words.
Welcome. In this series, we're going to look at some essential Christian truths: Scripture, sin, grace, justification, union with Christ, the new birth, the glory of God. And these are all truths. That the reformers dug deep into, and each one can be understood in quite different ways. Indeed, we're going to see each of these topics is understood in remarkably different ways by different Christian traditions, and what we'll see is that the reformers.
Didn't simply trumpet belief in justification or Scripture or grace. They fought to articulate a very specific biblical understanding of these truths, for they saw you could believe in justification by faith or salvation by grace. And still not have anything like the biblical gospel in mind. For you can mean things by justification or grace that the scriptures simply do not mean. A vague understanding of these truths, we'll see, will not bring the life change and world change.
That the reformers saw with their clear understanding of these truths, and my hope in this series is that we'll come together to appreciate that when we have the mainstream reformers' clarity on the precise meaning of these truths, that's when we'll share there joy. Their resolution and their gospel—the gospel that is the power of God for salvation, the light that scatters the darkness.
Now, take Martin Luther as an example. We'll see that long before the Reformation, as a monk, Luther always believed in justification by God's grace.
However, it was only when he gained clarity on how different the apostle Paul's understanding of it was that he could say, "Here I felt I was altogether born again, and had entered paradise itself through open gates." And so, our time then will be about growing in gospel delight. Through growing in gospel clarity, and we'll be doing that as we walk in the footsteps of the reformers, letting them be our guides.
Now, the suggestion that the issues of the Reformation might still be live. Sits uncomfortably with our culture today. Most Christians today would far rather say, with Dr. Samuel Johnson, "For my part, sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and their differences are trivial and political rather than religious." And it's not just that we lament divisions in the church; our reaction reveals.
Something in us that is perhaps more important than Protestant-Catholic relations. To modern ears, the debates of the Reformation sound like panicky wars over words. We ask: Is it really worth squabbling over whether justification is by faith, as Rome agreed, or by faith alone? As the reformers insisted, the battle over one word. Surely our culture feels that can interest only those with the prickliest of doctrinal sensibilities.
And as for the strong language used in those debates, it sounds shrill and unloving today in our culture. And to suggest those debates are relevant now. You might as well campaign for the reintroduction of burning at the stake. It sounds so backwards, so harsh. For in the twenty-first century, our culture does not trust mere words.
In our culture, they're seen as the weapons of manipulation, the tools of spin. We are tolerant. The spirit of the Reformation that replaced the altar with the pulpit, as the focal point of the church, has long gone. For a pulpit, we think, that strikes our culture as authoritarian. And this was just what some thought at the time of the Reformation.
The great sixteenth-century scholar Erasmus said, "The sum of our religion is peace and unanimity." But these can scarcely stand unless we define as little as possible. In other words, don't define your beliefs too carefully, or we'll never have peace. And the spirit of Erasmus has really conquered in our day. Simply put, in our culture today, we do not like theological precision. For our culture feels it causes division over issues that are not the most relevant.
Luther, unsurprisingly, responded bluntly to Erasmus. He said, "You, with your peace-loving theology, you don't care about truth." Perhaps that was a little harsh, and the screams of all those who were put to death for their beliefs. Might suggest to us that a little more toleration, little less harshness, might not have been a bad thing. But as we look at the history of the Reformation, we're forced to ask: Are their beliefs worth dying for? For all those martyrs suffered for nothing, if what they died for was either untrue or irrelevant.
Oh, they might, of course, have been mistaken. Each side of the Reformation debate thought the other side's martyrs were mistaken, but their fates demand from us more than simply flippant dismissal. But perhaps what's really going on is we relegate these theological issues because of a submerged cultural assumption: they're not actually true. Because these are hardly small concerns that were being debated in the Reformation. What will happen to me when I die?
How can I know? Is justification the gift of a righteous status by faith alone, or a process of becoming more holy? Justification by faith. In which case, can I confidently rely on Christ alone? For my salvation, or does my justification also rest on my own holiness?
And far more is at stake than a fussy concern to dot the i and cross the t of doctrine.
Now, what is so worrying about Erasmus' indifference to doctrine was its imprisoning, corrosive effect. Erasmus was only ever able, and only ever wanted, to sponge down the system that he was in.
So he could take potshots at bad popes, he could wish people were more devoted, but because Erasmus was unwilling to engage with deeper doctrinal issues in his day. He could never bring about more than cosmetic changes to the church in his day. He was doomed, ever to remain a prisoner of where the church was at, and so it must be in a world conquered by Erasmus, filled with his spirit. For as long as doctrine is ignored. We must remain captives of the ruling system or the spirit of the age, whatever that must be.
And I hope we'll get to see that lack of clarity on these essential truths creates a host of pastoral problems in Christian lives. And yet, doctrinal vagueness. Or confusion is not always easy to spot.
So let me give you an example. A few years ago, a poll was taken to measure the presence of evangelicalism in Canada and the U.S., and respondents were marked down as evangelical if they agreed with four statements. That the Bible is the inspired Word of God. That I have committed my life to Christ and consider myself to be a converted Christian. That it is important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians.
And fourth, that through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God provided a way for the forgiveness of my sins.
Now, certainly, those sound very theologically evangelical statements, each one. And on that basis, a significant percentage of Roman Catholics were labelled evangelical. In fact, a quarter of those marked down in Canada as evangelicals were Roman Catholic.
Well, half of the American Catholics interviewed scored three out of four on the evangelical test, and none of this was to offend the Catholics concerned for a good number already referred to themselves as evangelical. The problem with the poll, however, was that it raised none of the issues of the Reformation. In the 16th century, both sides of the Reformation divide would happily have signed up to all four statements and found themselves labelled evangelical. The inspiration of the Bible, commitment to Christ, mission, God's provision of salvation through Jesus, were never points of contention. Let's take an even trickier example.
Of doctrinal vagueness or confusion, that isn't obvious—one, in fact, that looks very clear on the surface. On October the thirty-first, Reformation Day, nineteen ninety-nine, the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. Claiming we are now able to articulate a common understanding of our justification by God's grace through faith in Christ, and the Joint Declaration held out a pretty detailed account of the theological agreement shared over the doctrine of justification. And it was detailed and persuasive enough to lead many to think that the fundamental theological differences of the Reformation, especially justification, have now been resolved. The eminent historian Professor Mark Noll, for instance, boldly declared, "If it is true." As once was repeated by Protestants conscious of their anchorage in Martin Luther or John Calvin, that justification is the article on which the church stands or falls.
Then the Reformation is over, he said. And you can see why he'd say that when you read the Joint Declaration. It is worded so carefully. It can be hard to imagine these words are open to two possible but completely incompatible theological interpretations. Take paragraph twelve.
Listen carefully. It says the justified live by faith that comes from the word of Christ. And is active through love.
Now, what Christian could object? But does that love contribute to the believer's righteousness before God? The Roman Catholic view, or does it follow from it? The traditional evangelical view. We're not told.
Or take paragraph 15. Which, amazingly, appears to affirm a Reformation distinctive: grace alone. It reads: together we confess, the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church, by grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work, and not because of any merit on our part. We are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works. Yet, what could be taken as an affirmation of justification by grace alone there is, in fact, only a statement that by His grace alone, God.
Renews our hearts, transforming us to do good works. It doesn't answer the question: Do those good works and that renewal play a part in the justification of the believer? It sounded so tight, so persuasive, but it hadn't actually delved deep enough. See how hard it can be to spot the problem. The Joint Declaration speaks of justification by faith, and even grace alone.
And because it can be hard to spot, it can give the impression that the differences are too small to be significant. It certainly feels more positive, less mentally taxing. Simply to say they look pretty similar, but when each theology is practically applied to real lives, it becomes clear how different they are, and how deep those differences go. Take the question of assurance of salvation, the matter that drove Luther on his quest. According to the Joint Declaration, it says, "No one may doubt God's mercy and Christ's merit.
Every person, however, may be concerned about his salvation when he looks upon his weaknesses and shortcomings." Recognizing his failure, however, the believer may yet be certain that God intends his salvation. You confused? Does that mean we can have assurance or not? Let me read it to you again. Here's what the Joint Declaration says: No one may doubt God's mercy and Christ's merit.
Every person, however, may be concerned about his salvation when he looks upon his own weaknesses and shortcomings. Recognizing his own failures, however, the believer may yet be certain that God intends his salvation.
So, can a believer have assurance or not? We may not doubt Christ's merit, God's mercy, yet we may be concerned about our salvation when we look upon our own weaknesses. I'm confused. The declaration explains then: a person can certainly lose or renounce faith and self-commitment to God and His Word of promise, but if he believes in this sense. He cannot, at the same time, believe God is unreliable in His Word of Promise.
Does that help? In other words, what it's saying is, God is faithful to save, but only to save those who maintain their self-commitment to God and His Word of Promise.
So the assurance of believers rests. Upon their own self-commitment.
Now, compare that with how Luther spoke of the believer's assurance. These theological differences that could have looked small.
Now see when it's played out on the pastoral ground of assurance. See how different Luther sounds. Luther said the believer can have assurance, for her sins cannot now destroy her, since they are laid upon Christ and swallowed up by Him. And the believer has that righteousness in Christ, her husband, of which she may boast as of her own, and which she can confidently display her sins in the face of death and hell, and say, "If I've sinned, yet my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned, and all His." His righteousness is mine, and all mine. My sin is his, as the bride in the Song of Solomon says: "My beloved is mine, and I am his." There's doctrinal clarity worked out into real lives.
See the difference. Looking with the Joint Declaration with ultimate concern, worry because of our personal shortcomings, or confidently with Luther saying, "All his is mine, and all mine, my sin, is his." Those are the two. Applications that reveal two quite different theologies, and it gives just one example of why we should want in this series to gain the reformers' clarity on these issues. For through clarity, we can grow in that assurance. We can grow in Luther's own resolution.
We can grow in Christ. The difference between being made righteous and declared righteous may seem relatively minor, but when it comes to justification, the difference could not be more significant. The gospel says that God declares us sinful people to be righteous in Christ, not because of our merit or progressive growth in holiness, but because of Christ's righteousness alone, which we receive by faith, and that is good news. The message you heard today on Renewing Your Mind was from Michael Reeves' series, Reformation Truths. We'll be in this series all week long, but we won't get to all of the messages during our study.
However, you can receive the entire video teaching series today when you donate in support of this program. Just go to renewingyourmind.org to give, and we'll add all eight messages to your learning library in Liganiere's Grow app, along with a digital study guide. Who's in charge here? That's what people ask when there's some kind of crisis of authority, and it's the question that the Protestant reformers were asking. Why was there a crisis of authority?
Here's a preview of tomorrow's episode. You can know that the Bible is this supreme, trustworthy, authoritative Word of God first and foremost because it authenticates itself as such. There are other supporting reasons why you can have confidence in it as the Word of God. But first and foremost, you can because it proves itself to be what it claims.
Now let's get some clarity here. What did the reformers mean when they argued that the scriptures authenticate themselves? They were going further than the claim that the Bible is the word of God. They weren't simply Arguing that the Bible claims it is the Word of God, they weren't making what people often dismiss as a weak circular argument: that we trust the Bible is the Word of God because it claims it is the Word of God. No, they meant the Bible proves itself to be what it claims to be, the Word of God.
Join us tomorrow here, on Renewing Your Mind.
