The Reformation

• The church had fallen into ritualism, superstition and lifeless theological scholasticism.

• Some church leaders even suggested that salvation could be earned or bought. – Giving the church money to buy souls out of purgatory.

– Making expensive pilgrimages to view relics.

– Giving alms to the poor.

– Carrying out devotional practices like prayer and mediation.

– Going to mass.

The Reformation

• Protestant – protest

• On Oct. 31, 1517 a German monk by the name of Martin Luther (1483-1546) nailed 95 theses on the cathedral church door in Wittenberg

• He implied that the Roman church was in serious error.

The Reformation

• Because of the invention of the printing press a few decades earlier, within months, people all over Europe were reading and reacting to Luther’s thoughts.

• Pope Leo X read them and declared that they had been written by a drunken Saxon monk.

The Reformation

• Between 1518-1520 Luther engaged in several debates with leading Catholic scholars and wrote several reforming treatises on church and theology.

• These debates were halted when Leo X excommunicated Luther and called him before the emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521. – Diet = court.

– Worms = city in Germany.

The Reformation

• Before the emperor the church asked Luther to recant his “heretical” views.

• Asking for a night to think it over Luther came back the next day and replied:

“My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, for going

against my conscience is neither safe nor wise. I can do no other, here I stand, God help me.

Amen.”

The Reformation

• Luther was banned as an outlaw.

• On his way home a group planned to capture him and kill him, but a group of his followers kidnapped him and, under the territorial governor Fredrick the Wise of Saxony, Luther was hid in the castle at Wartburg.

The Reformation

• There Luther settled down and translated the Bible into German.

• Besides giving his people a Bible they could read, this translation was formative in unifying and establishing the German language to this day.

The Reformation

• Luther’s contributions to both Christianity and to the development of Western civilization are immeasurable.

• Some of his most significant ideas were:

– Justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

– Scripture alone as the only final authority for faith and practice.

– To the glory of God alone. – These are ironically called “The Five Solas”.

The Reformation

• Some other significant ideas of Luther were:

– Priesthood of all believers. (i.e. Everyone has access to God through Christ without having to go through a priest, saints, or Mary).

– The holiness of all honest forms of work, equalizing the work of priests, blacksmiths and housekeepers.

– The holiness of the institution of marriage, with the allowance of priests to marry.

Luther’s Understanding of Justification

• How is one saved?

• Luther despaired of finding justification through the “good” works suggested by the church.

• In the monastery Luther went to confession up to seven times a day, whipped and half-starved himself, and slept on the cold stone floor.

• None of these things eased his guilty conscience and allowed him to get right with the God he felt was continually angry with him.

Luther’s Understanding of Justification

• Luther realized that people sin even when they do the best works they can.

• Finally, through his study of Romans, he realized that much of what he believed and had been taught was wrong.

• Romans 3:21-30 testifies, “you are justified before God by God’s own grace in Jesus Christ through faith alone.”

• For Luther, this is the doctrine on which the church stands or falls.

Luther’s Understanding of Justification

• Luther came to realize that justification is not something that we can achieve, but something Christ has achieved for us.

• This exchange takes place both on the cross through Christ’s death and in the Christian’s life when they believe and trust in Christ alone for their salvation.

Luther’s Understanding of Justification

“I am not good and righteous, but Christ is and in him was a sweet and joyful exchange.”

(Luther)

“As a bride and bridegroom exchange possessions in a marriage, so the sinner

receives justification from Christ, and Christ takes over the Christian’s sins.”

(Luther)

Luther’s Understanding of Justification

• Christ’s righteousness becomes our righteousness and all that he has is ours.

• This does not change us into a righteous person, although it provides a new motive for pleasing God – thankfulness.

• Thus, the Christian is both righteous and sinner, holy and profane, an enemy of God and a child of God.

Other Reformers

• Luther never produced a systematic theology and a lot of his material may seem contradictory.

• This is because Luther was mainly a preacher who used language to prod and provoke, thus frequently applying communication devices such as exaggeration, metaphor, humor, illustration and paradox.

• Luther also felt much about God was paradox as God was ultimately mysterious and beyond human comprehension.

Other Reformers

• It came to other reformers like the Swiss reformers Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin to organize and systematize the new Protestant theology.

• They became the founders of what is referred to as the “Reformed” branch of Protestantism (which later spawned the Presbyterian

and Puritan movements in Great Britain) rather than the “Lutheran” branch.

Ulrich Zwingli

• Although Zwingli held to many of the same views as Luther he is probably most remembered for his debates with Luther over the Lord’s supper.

• Zwingli interpreted the elements in the meal as being symbolic of Christ’s sacrifice.

• Luther interpreted the elements in the meal as having the real presence of Christ in them and questioned the salvation of Zwingli, who refused to take God’s Word literally.

John Calvin

• Started the Geneva Academy to which Protestants flocked from all over Europe.

• From there many of them went out and spread the Reformation all over Europe.

• One of Calvin’s students, John Knox, succeeded in turning Scotland into a nation modeled after John Calvin’s ideas.

• Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion is still one of the best systematic reformed theologies ever written.

John Calvin

• John Calvin is probably best known for his views on predestination - although Zwingli and

Luther had the same views as Calvin on this topic.

• Calvin taught that absolutely nothing happens or can happen apart from God’s determination - “by his decree.”

Calvin’s teachings summarized by TULIP

Total Depravity

Humans are dead in their sins until God sovereignly regenerates them and gives them

salvation.

Calvin’s teachings summarized by TULIP

Unconditional Election

God chooses some humans to save apart from anything they can do on their own, including

being able to choose.

Calvin’s teachings summarized by TULIP

Limited Atonement

Christ died only to save the elect.

Calvin’s teachings summarized by TULIP

Irresistible Grace

God’s grace cannot be resisted

Calvin’s teachings summarized by TULIP

Perseverance of the Saints

God’s elect will persevere to the end

Jacob Arminius (1560-1609)

• Studied at Geneva under Calvin’s disciple Theodore Beza.

• Felt that Calvin’s doctrine of predestination was a “gross reductionist distortion of the doctrine of election.”

• For Arminius predestination/election is God’s foreknowledge of what individuals would freely do with the liberty given to them by God.

Jacob Arminius (1560-1609)

• Rom. 8:29 “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.”

• People are dead in sin and can do nothing, but God’s prevenient grace awakens and liberates us to choose.

• Christ died for all, but his atonement is limited to those who freely choose to accept it.

• God’s grace is resistible because not all choose to accept it.

Jacob Arminius (1560-1609)

• Many Reformed Protestants accused Arminius of being a secret Catholic for bringing works back into the equation.

• If we can choose then we can save ourselves, for this choice would be a work we performed.

• This also means that God is not in total control of everything and therefore not sovereign.