The Beginning of Reformation
Definition of “Reform” (Webster’s 1828 English Dictionary)
To change from worse to better; to amend; to correct...I personally believe that the Protestant Reformation was the greatest move of the Holy Spirit since Pentecost. We need such a move of the Spirit today. The church today is largely dominated by complacency and apostasy. We have abandoned God’s Word as the Standard. Many Christians gladly throw sound doctrine out the window. This must change! When most Christians embrace Marxist philosophy and still claim to have a biblical worldview, there is a major problem in the church! We need a new reformation!
I thank God that a new reformation is occurring in our day. A growing number of Christians are returning to the Word of God as the only standard for faith and practice. Many are beginning to take seriously God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply...and have dominion”. Many are rejecting Greek style public education in favor of Hebrew style (i.e. biblical) home education. Instead of cursing the darkness in our culture, Christians are beginning to light candles. We’re taking our culture back; we’re reclaiming it for Christ!
No area of society is exempt from this reformation - education, music, film, science, and politics. All must be brought captive to the obedience of Christ! Please join the Reformation. Please support businesses and ministries that are taking part in the wonderful new work of the Spirit!
Vision Forum Ministries
American Vision
Answers in Genesis
and many more!
Labels: Biblical Worldview
posted by Scott Eash at 3:11 PM
8 Comments:
Your vision of "reformation," appears to be more accurately described as Dominion Theology or Christian Reconstructionism.
Martin Luther subscribed to this statement from the Augsburg Confession Article 17: "[The Churches of the Reformation] condemn also others who are now spreading certain Jewish opinions, that before the resurrection of the dead the godly shall take possession of the kingdom of the world, the ungodly being everywhere suppressed."
Is Christian Reconstructionism (Dominion Theology) a legitimate child of the Reformation? Did Jesus come so that people would have more children? Did Jesus come so that people would reject so-called Greek educational models in favor of so-called Hebrew models? Did Jesus come so that Christians could take over the culture? If Christian Reconstructionism can somehow be identified with the Reformation, how could it possibly be identified with Gospel of Jesus Christ? The Gospel is not about law and political order, or about cultural restoration; it is about the forgiveness of sins in Christ Jesus.
Eric, thanks for your comment! I am so glad you took the time to write. You raised some perfectly valid and appropriate questions. You’ve shown some good thought. I’ll do my best to answer your questions in kind.
I agree that the Gospel is not “about” having more children or educating them a certain way. “It is about the forgiveness of sins in Christ Jesus.” I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. However, where in my blog did I say I was talking about the Gospel? The Gospel is vitally important, yes, but there is more to the Christian life than Salvation. The Bible is much more than a book on Salvation. It is a book that speaks to every issue we face in every area of life. God tells us how to be saved, but He also tells us how to live after we are saved. In His infinite wisdom, He addresses all things necessary that we may be “...throughly furnished unto all good works.” This includes questions regarding child bearing, education, and politics.
The point I’m making in my blog post is simply this: Christians must begin to apply biblical principles to all areas of life, no exceptions. Why? Because the Bible speaks to every area of life, with no exceptions! If we will cling to sola scriptura, like the Reformers, then we must apply the Bible to every issue.
Did Jesus come so that people would have more children, or educate them a certain way? Frankly, no. He came to pay the penalty for our sins. You made a good call there. However, during His earthly ministry Jesus did give us commands (i.e. laws) that teach the people of God how to live. In the Great Commission, our Lord commanded us to “teach all nations...to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you...” (Matthew 28:20)
To what commands is He referring? Was He only referring to the commands He gave during His earthly ministry? While His statement certainly includes those commands, it cannot be limited to them. Jesus’ teachings are not limited to the four Gospels, or even the New Testament. We must never forget that Jesus is God in human form. This must mean that all the commands of God are also the commands of Christ. God’s Word is also Christ’s Word. This means that even Old Testament commands are the commands of Christ. All of Scripture is Christ’s Word.
So then, we must determine what the Bible says about child bearing, education, etc. When you read Gen. 1:28 and Psalm 127:3-5, do you get the impression that it is better to have fewer or greater numbers of children? When you read Deuteronomy 6, do you find that the state is responsible to teach your children, or are you, the parent, responsible to teach your own children?
At any rate, I thank you again for raising those thought-provoking questions. I hope my response will be of help to you and anyone else who reads this.
Blessings in Christ,
Scott Eash
If we will cling to sola scriptura, like the Reformers, then we must apply the Bible to every issue.
Hi Scott,
While reflecting on your comments I did a little reading in a book called, The Religious Bodies of America. It was written by F.E. Mayer (1892-1954), Professor of Systematic Theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, and revised by Arthur Carl Piepkorn. The Glossary of Religious Terminology in the fourth edition defines sola Scriptura as follows: "The doctrine that the Sacred Scriptures contain everything that a person needs to believe for his salvation" (emphasis added). Notice how that differs from your definition of sola Scriptura: "Scripture as the only standard for all matters of faith and practice."
It is true that Luther and the Reformers held Scripture as the ultimate standard for all matters of faith and practice. But as Mayer points out, "In Luther’s thinking the sola Scriptura principle is exclusively Christocentric. The 'Scriptures alone' is the same as 'the Gospel alone,' and 'the Gospel alone' is Christ alone."
Very often, I believe, we see the sola Scriptura principle of the Reformation as a recovery of the Bible’s authority, when in reality it was, first and last, a recovery of the Gospel. The Lutheran Confessions underscore this reality. Although the various documents in the Confessions are saturated with appeals to Scripture as the ultimate authority, there are no specific articles devoted to an explication of the Lutheran attitude toward Scripture and its authority. This is because the Church had never questioned the authority of the canonical writings. And in the absence of an antithesis (i.e. dispute), it was deemed inappropriate to put forward a thesis specifically devoted to that truth.
Mayer wrote: "The Lutheran Confessions have no special article on the divine character of Scripture, because their interest was centered so prominently on a Christocentric approach to Scripture. They have no interest in an atomistic, proof text, concordance approach to the Scriptures... The Apology (to the Augsburg Confession, a specific part of the Lutheran Confessions) points out that 'enthusiasts,' humanists, and rationalists dissect the Scriptures into individual Bible texts and explain the articles concerning the righteousness of faith in a philosophical and a Jewish manner. But in this atomistic Biblicist manner they actually abolish the doctrine of Christ as Mediator. Without the knowledge of the Gospel the Bible remains a meaningless and useless book. But when the Scriptures are seen as Gospel, as evangelium, the Word of God becomes the sanctuary above all sanctuaries, which sanctifies the person and everything he does." In other words, when we add the Law to the Gospel, the Gospel winds up serving the Law (as was the case in Rome), and Christ is inevitibly lost.
The point I am trying to emphasize is that a Reformation understanding of sola Scriptura begins and ends in the Gospel. This is quite different from your understanding of sola Scriptura which begins in salvation, but does not end there. After salvation, in your view, Scripture becomes a font of knowledge teaching us the difference between good and evil so that we may do good works. Reformation doctrine does not preclude or neglect good works, it simply does not achieve them through a knowledge of good and evil.
So here is my question for you... Given the fact that your understanding of sola Scriptura represents a significant departure from that of Luther and the Reformers, how did this come about? Could it be that your religious tradition stands apart from the Reformation? Could it be that your religious tradition finds its real roots in the revolutionary restorationist movements of the Anabaptists, and later on the Dissenters and Separatists, which were steadfastly opposed by Luther and the Reformers?
Hi Eric,
Thank you for your very candid response. I appreciate your straightforward approach.
It appears to me that this entire discussion centers on the definition of sola Scriptura. I did some research of my own and came across the following definition:
“Sola Scriptura simply means that all truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual life is taught either explicitly or implicitly in Scripture...”
“Scripture is therefore the perfect and only standard of spiritual truth, revealing infallibly all that we must believe in order to be saved, and all that we must do in order to glorify God. That -- no more, no less -- is what sola Scriptura means.
The Westminster Confession of Faith defines the sufficiency of Scripture in this way: ‘The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men’ (1:6).” (Chapter 5 of Sola Scriptura! The Protestant Position on the Bible: The Sufficiency of the Written Word) by Dr. John F. MacArthur, Jr. [http://www.mbrem.com/bible/sufficn.htm]
I could be wrong, but it appears to me that sola Scriptura is essentially the doctrine of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. Does that differ from Martin Luther’s definition? F.E. Mayer seemed to think so, though he never actually quoted Luther in that statement you gave above. However, have you considered the possibility that Luther differed from the other Reformers on this issue? I don’t know if that is the case or not, but it could be possible.
On the other hand, even if I assume that Mayer’s statement is true, that does not falsify my own statement about the Reformers’ belief in sola Scriptura. Did they or did they not believe that Scripture is the ultimate standard that must govern all matters of faith and practice? You already agreed that they did:
“It is true that Luther and the Reformers held Scripture as the ultimate standard for all matters of faith and practice.”
Doesn’t this support my definition of sola Scriptura? If Scripture is the ultimate or final standard, then it must be the only standard. Webster’s 1828 defines standard this way, “That which is established by sovereign power as a rule or measure by which others are to be adjusted.” A standard is the reference point by which everything else must be compared. Therefore, a standard cannot have any competitors. If you have lesser “standards”, these “standards” will eventually contradict each other because they are fallible. They must ultimately be compared with a higher standard that supercedes them all. And so, we must recognize that there can ever only be one standard.
Did the Reformers claim to hold to any lesser “standards” besides Scripture? That seems unlikely. They recognized that men are fallible, churches are fallible, and everything else is fallible – except Scripture. They recognized that Scripture is the only infallible standard. That is to say “Scripture alone,” or sola Scriptura. So, we must conclude that the Reformers did believe that Scripture alone is the standard for all matters of faith and practice. Did the Reformers recognize this belief as sola Scriptura? I don’t know, but isn’t that rather beside the point? They believed in Scripture alone as the standard. Martin Luther’s title for that belief may have been different than the title I and others have attributed to it. But he still believed what I claimed he and other Reformers believed.
In Christ,
Scott Eash
Thanks Scott,
It was never my objective to begin a debate on the meaning of sola Scriptura. But you were promoting a particular vision of that doctrine, and I wanted to engage in a little reflection as to whether or not your vision is consistent with that of Luther and the Lutheran Reformation. Whether your vision is or is not consistent with other so-called Reformers (such as the revolutionaries, Calvin or Zwingli) is immaterial to me. You weren’t making your point by trading on their notoriety. You were using Luther’s fame and heroism to promote your own vision of "reformation."
Going back to your original post... You present the doctrine of sola Scriptura as if it were the crowning achievement of the Reformation. That isn’t really a theological error so much as it is an historical error. The Reformation was about Jesus. It was about the cross. It was a recovery of the doctrine of justification by grace (alone), through faith (alone), in Christ (alone), according to Scripture (alone). Thus sola Scriptura was a by-product -- it was never the main point.
You suggest that if we would only re-emphasize the doctrine of sola Scriptura, we would experience a new reformation in our own time. The Bible without the Gospel is a useless book. Some Christians have this idea that once a person gets saved, what he needs is the knowledge of how God wants him to live. So the Gospel becomes like a one time inoculation preparing people for a lifetime of Law, and striving to keep it. No. That is completely wrong. And if we promote a vision of sola Scriptura even remotely compatible with that picture, it will NEVER produce anything like the Reformation. That picture is utterly and irreconcilably opposed to the spirit of the Reformation because, A) it unapologetically obscures the Gospel, and B) it promotes individual autonomy under the authority of Scripture alone.
Hi Eric,
You have made a keen observation when you say that I “present the doctrine of sola Scriptura as if it were the crowning achievement of the Reformation.” I do believe that it was one of the preeminent doctrines if not the preeminent doctrine of the Reformation. Sola Scriptura is the doctrine upon which every other Christian doctrine stands or falls. Without sola Scriptura, we would not know the true Gospel. Our understanding of the truth of the Gospel is inextricably linked to sola Scriptura.
The problem in the Romish church has long been that they have “standards” in addition to Scripture. For the church of Rome, it is Scripture + the Pope or Scripture + church tradition. These are the very reasons the Gospel had become corrupted in the ages before Luther. Scripture was not held as the ultimate authority. Rome had other “standards” which corrupted the truth of the Gospel. It was only because the Reformers returned to sola Scriptura that the Gospel could become pure once again.
As you said, “The Bible without the Gospel is a useless book.” I certainly agree. But the Gospel will always be corrupted and perverted whenever sola Scriptura is abandoned.
I do not suggest that knowledge alone brings reformation. It never has and it never will. Knowledge is important because truth is important. However, it is only by the power of God’s Spirit that a reformation is ever realized. That was true in the 16th century and it’s true now.
This discussion has been enjoyable and stimulating. May God’s grace rest upon you as the light of His Word shines in your life!
Your Brother in Christ,
Scott Eash
Christian Greetings! I would like to ask your opinion in whether is possible that God will give every single soul that ever lived on this planet the chance to be saved and live forever on Earth, during the Millennial reign of Christ? In other words do you believe that the Gospel Time is for electing the Church/Bride of Christ and Millennial reign of Christ/Bride will give the rest of the world the chance to be saved?
Liviu, thanks for your comment! I'm not sure I understand your question fully. You asked "...do you believe that the Gospel Time is for electing the Church/Bride of Christ and Millennial reign of Christ/Bride will give the rest of the world the chance to be saved?" Isn't it true that everyone in the world who is saved becomes a part of the church? I fail to see the problem.
I believe the time for salvation is now. We are not promised another day on this earth so we must act now.
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