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It was October 31st, 1517 in Wittenburg, Germany.

Martin grasped a hammer and a long piece of paper covered with his writing. He walked out into the street and straight over to the castle church door. It was here that community messages were often posted.

Martin nailed his 95 points of discussion on the door. He only wanted to lay out his newly discovered views of the Bible to other church leaders in the Medieval Catholic church. He thought he was free to do so even though his thoughts were radical. After all, he was an Augustinian monk and a professor of theology at the university.

Young Martin Luther called himself a “stinking bag of maggots,” and certainly did not dream of being a leader in a revolution of thinking in Germany and across Europe that shaped history in a powerful way. But God had determined something far bigger than the monk Martin Luther expected when he penned those 95 Theses.

Before he knew it, someone had printed his words and distributed copies (the printing press was new), and his arguments became the primary topic of discussion among all classes of people, from the farmers, to the business men meeting in the pubs, to around the supper table at home. Very quietly the Protestant Reformation had begun.

What was the Protestant Reformation all about? What did Luther and others protest? The protesters were seeing something new (or old) about how a person is accepted by God. It was new to them, but dripping all over the passages of Scripture. They protested that the church had been teaching the wrong view about the most important issue of life. They discovered that the Bible says we are not accepted on the basis of our religious deeds, or even our good deeds added to our faith, but rather that we are accepted before a holy God only through faith in Jesus the Christ. While people may want to work their way to God, they cannot, and thus God worked His way to us.

“Justification through faith alone in Christ alone” began to be heard all over Europe. The people must transfer their confidence for salvation in the church’s religious traditions to Christ alone. The reformers wanted the people to return to the Bible’s plain teaching on how to become and live as a true Christian. Because heaven and hell were at stake, the passions rose very high. Because this key biblical truth was not politically expedient nor good for the status quo of the Catholic church, thousands were persecuted and some even killed for this vital truth. It has been said that the Bible we read in the comfort of our own homes has blood splattered all over the pages.

We have been feeling the effects of the Protestant Reformation ever since. Many of our churches have their historical roots in the Reformation. Returning to the Bible as the source of understanding about how we are to relate to God has shaped nations. Perhaps no other religious period since the coming of Christ has been so influential as this one. What difference can this mean to you nearly 500 years later?

Let’s start with this simple truth, from Ephesians 2:8-9:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

The Protestant Reformation sought to reclaim the truths of that passage, and all the rest of the teachings of the New Testament, to know that we can come to God in His Son Jesus Christ and be freely forgiven, because He suffered in our place, the innocent in place of the guilty. Since none of us are “good,” we must recognize our need for Christ, and our lack of a desire for God, and approach Him in humility, saying “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” And He will be merciful! He had vented the due penalty on His Son, and His forgiveness and justification is imputed to those who believe. (Read more on what’s at stake.)

What is Justification? Let’s allow John Piper to describe it to you:

“justification is the moment or the event when you put your faith in Jesus Christ and at that moment God is no longer against you—he’s for you, and he counts you as acceptable, forgiven, righteous, obedient because of your union with Christ. You are perfectly acceptable to God and he is totally on your side.”

So where do works come into the picture? Let’s keep reading in Ephesians, the next verse states:

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

God created us to please Him and our good works reveal His perfect plan, for we are walking in step with Him and revealing the unique character of our personality and being, for we are His workmanship (work of art), created to reveal and display Him to all the world. In short, taking verses 8-10 together: It’s that He’s for me totally that enables me to obey, not that I obey that makes Him totally for me.

By grace we are justified. Happy Reformation Day!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 6:13 am and is filed under Blog, Gospel, Holidays, Quotes, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.