Today, many Americans will be celebrating Halloween. However, October 31st is significant to Christians for another reason. This is the date that we look back to as the official beginning of the Protestant Reformation. For many centuries, the Roman Catholic Church had grown corrupt, and began to elevate church traditions as an authority over and above the Word of God. This had led to a gross distortion of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel had been replaced by a works based religion. However, in the good providence of God, a German monk by the name of Martin Luther, nailed his famous 95 theses, his statements of concern and disagreement, to the door of the church, in Wittenburg, Germany, on October 31, 1517. While Luther was merely seeking a debate concerning doctrines that troubled him, he ignited a firestorm that spread throughout Europe.
In the spring of 1521, there was a meeting called together by Church and State officials; however, instead of a debate, Luther was asked to recant all that he had written. Luther bravely responded by saying:
“Since then your serene majesty and your lordships seek a simple answer, I will give it in this manner, plain and unvarnished: 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 often err and contradic themselves, I am bound to the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand. May God help me, Amen.”1
Martin Luther, took a stand for the Word of God, and God used him and many others during the Protestant Reformation to elevate the Bible back to its proper place of authority over church traditions. But, why is this important for us today? Why is the Reformation significant to us almost 500 years later? The primary reason, is that as Christians, we must continue to look to the Bible as our authority in matters of doctrine and church practice. We must continue to be reformed by the Word of God, and not by our culture, or even our own traditions. We must hold fast to the Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura: Scripture alone is God’s authoritative Word to the Church (Psalm 119:18, 138:2; 2 Timothy 3:14-17). Pastors, proclaim the Word to your people. Therein, lies the truth of the power of God unto salvation: the revelation of the true gospel of Jesus Christ! There we must stand. We cannot do otherwise.
Today, we stand with the great Reformers of the past, and proclaim the Reformation slogan,
ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei:
the church reformed, always being reformed according to the Word of God.
1 Stephen J. Nichols, The Reformation: How A Monk and a Mallet Changed the World (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 32.
