Reformation 2017: Relevant or Redundant? – Joshua Rieger

During the course of this year, to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Affinity has commissioning six articles from church leaders across the UK to explain what the Reformation means to them. In this final one – Reformation Day itself – Josh Rieger, minister of Hexham Presbyterian Church in Northumberland (Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England and Wales), shows how the Reformation was but one example of God’s faithful dealings with his people and his world – dealings from which we can draw strength and faith in dark days:

In thinking about celebrating this 500^th anniversary of the Reformation, I have been forced to consider why it matters today. After all, historically, we must go back nearly a quarter of the way to Christ to reach the Reformation. As a lover of history, and especially Church History, the reformation is fascinating and engaging, but some won’t feel this same excitement I do. But its theology and lessons still impact our lives today because the Reformation was a recovery of biblical Christianity.

As a young boy being raised in an American non-denominational church, my conception of the Reformation was probably that it was where real Church History began. After the apostle John’s death, I don’t think that I conceived of much history of the church until 1517. Early on I had read the 95 theses and I couldn’t understand what was so revolutionary about them. Not knowing much about the Reformation, it seemed to me a church that couldn’t accept these articles wasn’t a church at all. I did not know of the centuries of faithful men and women before Luther: of Jan Hus, Bernard of Clairvaux, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzus, Augustine, Athanasius, or Polycarp.

This ought to be an important lesson for us from the Reformation. This historic moment was an extraordinary blessing and grace from God, a display of His amazing faithfulness to His Church – but it was not a lonely example. God is always faithful to His promises. He was accomplishing his purposes in the Church prior to 31 October 1517, and, in those moments of history where it seems darkest in the Church, He is no less faithful and no less sovereign.

The history of the Reformation is also a personal encouragement to me today, because it reminds me that God uses frail and flawed individuals. To learn of the reformers is to know that they are not our hope, but the Lord, who is able to use even individuals like them to accomplish extraordinary things, is a sure foundation. They are just a few of myriad examples of this truth in Church History. William Perkins, the father of the Puritans, said “suppose you be full of wants and imperfections and have a rebellious and froward heart –what then? Remember God made you once a creature of nothing. He can now again make you a new creature of nothing.”[1] The Reformation teaches me to trust and hope in God’s ability to use His Word, faithfully proclaimed, to do all that He has purposed, and to pray to this end, knowing that all of His promises are yea and amen in Christ. My hope to see a fruitful ministry does not rest on my limited abilities, but on God’s limitless power.

The Reformation also displays for me the power of the gospel. In my weakness, my eyes are so easily drawn away from the pictures of this in my own life, that of my family, my congregation, and beyond. Every reminder of the power of God for salvation is a blessing to be utilised in firmly fixing my faith on Christ. This is an advantage of Reformation history, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, and the like. I must never forget that God’s Word is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing asunder joints and marrow. The Reformation was a display of the power of God’s Word preached. It is the gospel that is the power of God for salvation. Our congregation must proclaim God’s Word, and have confidence in God’s use of His Word.

Finally, the Reformation reminds me that the way the Church worships is important. It is imperative that we worship the One Living and True God, but if we worship Him according to our own inventions, it is a rebellion against His law that takes us down all sorts of paths away from Him. This is not a new lesson, but an old one learned again. From the second commandment, to the sons of Aaron, to Malachi, to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, and down through to the Reformation, God reminds his church not only that we should worship Him, but how we should worship Him. John Calvin said, “If it be inquired, then, by what things chiefly the Christian religion has a standing existence amongst us, and maintains its truth, it will be found that the following two not only occupy the principal place, but comprehend under them all the other parts, and consequently the whole substance of Christianity, viz., a knowledge, first, of the mode in which God is duly worshipped; and, secondly, of the source from which salvation is to be obtained.”[2] Notice that Calvin puts worship ahead even of salvation in his list of the two most important items for biblical Christianity. In his “Reply to Sadoleto” he went so far as to say that “…there is nothing more perilous to our salvation that a preposterous and perverse worship of God”.[3] If I am to celebrate the Reformation, I must worship God in Spirit and in truth, regulated by His Word. In considering the lessons of the Reformation, a practice of biblical worship is chief among them.

The Reformation is meaningful to me because of what it teaches about God and his work and his Word. Apart from these lessons that imbed themselves in my practice, it’s just an interesting set of historical events half a millennium ago. No doubt, it has repercussions to modern life, but they are muted and distant unless I remember that the God who worked then is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Joshua Rieger, Hexham Presbyterian Church, 31 October 2017

 

[1] William Perkins, The Works of William Perkins, Volume 3, Ed. Randall J. Pederson and Ryan M. Hurd, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Reformation Heritage Books, 2017) 30.

[2] John Calvin, “On the Necessity of Reforming the Church”, Selected Works of John Calvin, Volume 1, ed. by Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1983), 126.

[3] John Calvin and Jacopo Sadoleto, A Reformation Debate, ed. by John C. Olin (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 59.