Since the beginning of Church history God has worked
through the lives of thousands of individuals, some well-known and others
forgotten in the pages of time, to reignite a pure passion for His Word. While
major movements within the Church are remembered in their bold and decisive
moments, the true origins of such zeal find their beginnings in the quiet
background of ordinary men and women who honestly seek and hunger to know the
Lord. The last Great Reformation was begun by such a man. Martin Luther, a
German monk of the Catholic Church, was moved by the Spirit of God to nail his
Ninety-Five Theses on the doors of the Catholic Church on October 31, 1517. His
challenge of the teachings of the Catholic Church sparked much debate and
culminated in what is now considered the Protestant Reformation.
The Catholic Church as a whole had
become more focused upon their own traditions and the influence they held
through politics and fear that they had forgotten, whether intentionally
or not, the salvation truths recorded in the Bible. The leaders of the
Church falsely taught that they had the power to sell salvation to those willing
to pay the penance. Rather than shepherding and caring for their flock, they
were paralleling the example set by the Pharisees by placing heavy
requirements and restrictions upon those under their care. Rather
than exhorting people to work out of their salvation, they taught
their members a works-based salvation which directly opposed Ephesians 2:8-9 where
God stated that "…by grace you
have been saved through faith. And this not of your own doing; it is the gift
of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."[1]
Much like the Jewish people during the
time of Christ, the Church in Luther’s day was blinded to the Scriptures
because of their own pride, greed and pursuit of greater control and influence
over the people. Their actions were dishonoring the Lord because they were
oppressing the people. One of the greatest travesties was that they thought
they were doing the will of God. They read from the same Bible as all believers
do, yet they were deceived in their hearts and their way of thinking was futile
because they forgot the Lord. Martin Luther spoke of this when he wrote:
“Nobody who has not the Spirit of God
sees a jot of what is in the Scriptures. All men have their hearts darkened, so
that, even when they can discuss and quote all that is in Scripture, they do
not understand or really know any of it … The Spirit is needed for the
understanding of all Scripture and every part of Scripture.”[2]
When Martin Luther nailed his
Ninety-Five Theses to the front doors of the Catholic Church, it was a public
and direct assault on their false teachings which had corrupted the message of
the Gospel. The leaders of the Church had forsaken the very teachings of Christ
in place of their own tradition. Yet, against all odds and pressures from
the establishment, Martin Luther rose to become one of the many heroes of the
Great Reformation who stood up against the heretical teachings of those with
authority over him, in order to magnify the free gift of salvation to all who
believe (Romans 6:23). Later in his life, God provided for Luther to translate
the Bible from Latin into German so that his fellow countrymen would have ready
access to God's Word and be able to study it for themselves.[3]
Because of Luther’s willingness to take a step of boldness, the Lord tore down
the unholy cathedrals established on the sand of man’s tradition and lust for
power in order to rebuild His Church upon the solid and enduring rock of His
triumphant Word.
Martin Luther not only broke away from
the false teachings of his day, but he first died to himself. His whole life he
had been taught that the Church was the authority of all spiritual matters.
Yet, he had to forsake the security he had found in that teaching by realizing
the Bible did not receive its authority from the Church but that the Church
received its authority from God’s Word. The Church as a whole desperately
needed a spiritual reformation. However, true spiritual transformation within
the Church did not happen immediately. On the contrary, true spiritual revival
began on an individual level when a spiritual hunger and passion for God’s Word
was the driving force in the Church and this happened when His Word took
precedence in the lives of believers. Because Martin Luther was willing to risk
his life and reputation, God’s Word brought freedom to generations of
Christians.
As man looks throughout history, God’s
sovereign hand is evident at all points in time. Believers can be sure that no
great mission movement or reformation was ever begun by man, but by the Spirit
of God. The God who works all things out according to the good of those who
love Him is the same God who is writing this great epic. It is interesting to
note that, for approximately the last two thousand years, God has benchmarked
every five hundred years as both great reformation and transformation in His
Church as it hinges on the backdrop of the Roman Empire and its influences.
Around 4 B.C. the long-awaited Christ made His appearance on the scene of human
history. In 476 A.D. the last of the Roman Empire fell. In 1054 A.D. the Great
Schism occurred then, finally, in 1517 A.D. Martin Luther ignited the Great
Reformation. What is known for certain is that history often repeats itself
because it is a demonstration of God’s faithfulness. 2 Timothy 2:13[4]
teaches that even when man is faithless, God is faithful.
The first of these four periods was the
entrance of the incarnated Jesus into the timeline of history. Jesus came to
set free men and women who had been placed in bondage for so long both by sin
and the unrighteous teachings of the religious leaders. These Jewish leaders
had turned God’s Word and the temple practices into a means by which to make
great profit and to maintain political control. They also hoarded the truth of
God for themselves and made it even more difficult for Gentiles to come and
worship Jehovah. Both the religious leaders and the people were in desperate
need for a spiritual reformation. Yet for this to happen, what they needed most
was the Spirit of God to transform their lives through the sacrifice of Jesus.
Every instance in human history of revival and restoration of God’s people is
brought about by the power and initiative of God the Father.
When persecution began to arise from the
Jewish people and the Roman government towards the Christians, God scattered
His people to all corners of the known world. For a long time, Christians
endured horrible treatment. Yet, the time came in the early 300’s A.D. when the
power of the Gospel reached through to the heart of the Roman Emperor
Constantine who established Christianity as the religion of the State. The
pendulum then swung as the outcome of conversion to Christianity went from
persecution, loss of wealth and even the loss of life to an abundance of
social, political and economic advantages. This act of Constantine, though
possibly well intentioned, enticed people to convert even if they did not
believe in Christ so that they could receive the worldly benefits of being a
Christian.[5]
It is easy to see why so many unregenerate
individuals would claim Christianity simply because of the elevated status the
title would bring. These false converts were then placed in positions of
authority throughout not just the government but the Church as well. This caused
true believers of God to be led astray into both theological errors and sinful
practices which began plaguing the Church. Yet, God was still faithful. When
Rome eventually fell in 476 A.D due to barbarian invasions, God used this second
period of time to establish and strengthen His Church through suffering.
Christianity was no longer politically and economically pleasing in the eyes of
the world thus the true heart of the Gospel could be taught undefiled and
uncorrupted. Not only that, but with the incoming clusters of people groups due
to the fall of Rome, history shows God’s sovereign hand in using such uncertain
times to reach them with the Gospel of Christ.
The third great mark occurred in 1054
A.D. and is known as the Great Schism. This tumultuous event was a major separation
which concluded with the division of the Church into two parts: the west and
the east. This division was brought about through theological disputes,
cultural preferences and political idealism. However, much of this separation
was hinged upon regular Church practices, control over sacraments and the
authority of the Pope. With the refusal from the east to accept the full
sovereignty of the Pope and Rome over the entire Church body, the Great Schism
actually prepared the groundwork for the Roman Catholic Church to experience the
fourth period which is known as the Great Reformation.[6]
In the early 1500’s, a monk named Martin
Luther submitted his life to Christ and began studying the Scriptures. As he
grew in his understanding of God’s Word he became increasingly convinced that
the Catholic Church had lost its way. The Spirit of God was giving this man and
others the ability to see the love and truth of God, both theologically and
practically. Just as God listened to the cries of His people when they were
enslaved in Egypt and sent to them a deliverer to free them from their bondage,
He once again saw the spiritual captivity of His people enslaved by the
hopeless traditions of the Roman Catholic Church and was moved to action. Each
one of the great eras previously mentioned was due to the faithfulness of God
in the lives of His people in bringing them out of great apostasy. This is why
this last period is referred to as the Great Reformation — because only the
Great Jehovah can bring His people out of great and terrible sin and perform a
great transformation in their lives. After all, the spiritual reformation of
the Church is not brought about by human initiative, but rather through divine
appointment.
Nearly five hundred years later, the
Church today is in desperate need for a new Reformation. Today Churches are
full of those who do not know their Bibles, people who have forsaken Biblical
morality and those who confuse the definition of love. Five hundred years ago,
there was a break in the Church because the leadership felt they could
interpret the Bible the way they felt it should read. As in the days of Martin
Luther, the Word of God once again is being twisted and distorted not by
skeptics, but by those who claim the way of life. This corruption is not coming
from outside, but from within. This internal degradation occurred in the time
of Christ, just before the fall of Rome, during the Great Schism, throughout
the Great Reformation and it is happening today with the authority of the
Scriptures challenged by the very ones who claim to hold spiritual authority.
Five hundred years after Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses which led to the Great
Reformation and a thriving Church, the Church is now found struggling. Three
main reasons why there is such a need for a new Reformation is due to Biblical
illiteracy, the acceptance of sin in the Church, and the misuse of love.
Believers are now living in a time where
the pages of Scripture are thought to be out of date and irrelevant to the
current cultural ideas. This great apostasy of the inerrancy of Scripture is
now leading to divisions in the Church. Some of these divisions have resulted
from heretical teaching which has steadily been creeping into the pulpits while
others have divided simply over opinions and preferences and a lot of this is
credited to the fact that many people in the Church simply do not know their
Bibles. Many are easily swept away when cultic followers come knocking on the
door. Many others are not actively seeking to examine the Scriptures daily to
know for sure whether or not the church they attend is teaching truth.
A cause for this rise in skepticism of
the Scriptures is one of the same issues as Martin Luther’s time: Biblical
illiteracy. In Martin Luther’s day, man could make the excuse that the Bible
was not available to them and, if it was, they were illiterate thus the only
way to learn the Scriptures were from the mouth of a priest. Today’s Church
suffers from a different problem. Whereas believers five hundred years ago were
illiterate, society today is speedily becoming alliterate — meaning that they
can read, but they just choose not to. A common excuse that is given is that
the Bible is not understandable. With thousands upon thousands of resources
available to believers, the Church by and large has faltered in their handling
of the Holy Scriptures in not seeking to understand. The Word of God is not
treasured, not treated as a guide, not treated as holy. Charles Spurgeon once
said:
“The Word of God apart from the Spirit
of God will be of no use to you. If you cannot understand a book, do you know
the best way to reach its meaning? Write the author and ask him what he meant.
If you have a book to read and you have the author always accessible, you need
not complain that you do not understand it. The Holy Spirit has come to abide
with us forever. Search the Scriptures, but cry for the Spirit’s light and live
under His influence.”[7]
In the American culture today, many in
the Church are bored with God’s Word. There is no desire to know Christ. There
is no longing for the deep things of God. The excuse often made is that the
preacher is dry or dull. Even if that is true, most of the people who make this
excuse perform little to no effort in the use of a plethora of resources available
to them to find a man of God whom they can learn from more effectively. Others
may use the excuse that people today, specifically millennials, have short
attention spans thus they lack the ability to study God’s Word. They will say
that it is a hassle to sit forty-five minutes to an hour on a Sunday morning
listening to the Word of God yet these same individuals will not hesitate to
spend two hours watching a movie, or four hours playing a video game or six
hours scrolling through Facebook. Grant Osbourne said it well when he wrote:
“The big problem with Bible study today
is that we think it should be easier than other things we do. We study recipes
for quality meals, how-to books for all kinds of things—carpentry, plumbing,
automobile maintenance and so on—and read vociferously for our hobbies. Why do
we think the Bible is the only subject we should not have to study?! Let me
challenge you—make the Bible your hobby. At one level I do not like the
analogy; the Bible must be so much more than a hobby! But at another level,
what if we spent as much time and money on Bible study as we do on our hobbies?
What if we took the same amount we spend on golf clubs and courses or on skiing
equipment and skiing trips, and put it into Bible study? Yes, encyclopedias,
commentaries and other reference materials are expensive. But so is everything
we do.”[8]
Some may give the excuse that the lives
of modern believers are just too busy to study the Word or to pray. However, to
give a real life example, many will force themselves out of bed in the wee
hours of one or two in the morning every Black Friday to shop for material
possessions, yet very few in the Church, rarely if ever get up at an hour early
in the morning to pray and spend time in God’s Word. Jesus said, “For where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”[9]
Knowing the Lord and by spending time in His Word and in prayer will require
sacrifice because modern lives are very busy with so many things vying for
attention and causing distraction. Yet, the things in life that are of the most
worth are those that come at a cost. What is valued in this life will show
itself in actions, regardless of what is verbally claimed.
The Berean believers in Acts 17:11[10]
were commended for two things: they received the Word with great eagerness and
they diligently studied the Scriptures every day to make sure what they were
hearing was true. It is tragic that both of these characteristics are lacking
in the modern mainstream Church. The rebuke to the Church today is that they
carry too little excitement for the absolute things of God. This is why a new
Reformation is so desperately needed.
Because Biblical illiteracy is at an
all-time high the practice of godly living is disappearing rapidly. With God’s people neglecting His Word, they
are not renewing their minds and thus paralleling the people the apostle Paul
wrote of in 2 Timothy when he was referring to men in the last days as,
“…lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to
their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without
self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with
conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of
godliness, but denying its power.”[11]
Homosexuality is embraced by many in the Church, abortion is approved by many
in the Church, and according to at least one statistic, just sixty percent of
the pastors in the United States believe that the Bible is necessary for
spiritual growth while the other forty percent believe you do not need it to
grow spiritually.[12]
As well as Biblical illiteracy and a
lack of morality, the Church is teaching falsely. The Church today is full of
doctrinal errors and rampant in sin. Not only is it very likely that God is
about to do a Great work in the lives of His people, but it is absolutely
fascinating that these five hundred year increments of time all begin with the
incarnation of Christ. Jesus came at a time when the leadership of Israel had
turned from Him. They burdened the people by demanding they work harder and pay
more much like how the Catholic Church was acting during the time of Martin
Luther.
To summarize what was cited earlier, the
apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy that in the last days men and women will love
anything and everything except for God. If the Church were to be honest, they
would realize that they do not have to look far to find examples of pre-marital
sex occurring even among Christians, broken families, disobedient children,
just to name a few. The Church today is filled with gamblers and swindlers,
self-focused pleasure-seeking fornicators, ungrateful and unholy sons and
daughters, abusive parents, gossip groups, drug addicts and every other sin
mentioned in the Bible. Just as Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:5[13],
all of these people claim to be Christians, yet they deny the very power of God
in their lives and refuse to allow the Spirit to change them.
Lest those in the Church become puffed
up, the truth is that this list reflects every believer. Fingers can be pointed
all day long but three fingers will be pointing back condemning themselves.
James 2:13 says, “For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.”[14]
Unchecked sin within the lives of believers is distancing the Church as a whole
from God and His Word. Many churches across this country have forsaken Biblical
values and have begun accepting and even giving approval for sin. Others pray
to see God and for Him to show His glory, but it is the very sin in their own
lives that is what separates them from His very presence. It should be pondered
how many believers are characterized the same way Israel was during the time of
the Judges: rebellion, retribution, repentance, restoration, rebellion,
retribution, repentance, restoration, rebellion, and the cycle goes on. It will
take time and effort, but believers must learn to walk in the victory that
Christ has won on their behalf. They must learn to appropriate and exercise all
that is given to them in Christ Jesus.
In addition to Biblical illiteracy and a
lack for Biblical morals, the third area that shows that the Church has a need
for a new Reformation is the misuse of love. The believers of the Great
Reformation in 1517 A.D. came out of an entirely works-based society. The leaders
of the Catholic Church was constantly placing heavy demands upon their people
and requiring the impossible from them. The constant preaching that lacked
grace and love put a toll on these people and left them hopeless. True love and
thus grace for the souls of their congregations had fled from the Catholic
Church long before and all that was left was a cold regiment of rules.
Today the Church now finds themselves on
the other side of the pendulum. Believers have become so focused on loving the
individual that many pastors and church leaders today refuse to preach about
sin and eternal judgment. Several have begun to believe the lies perpetuated by
culture which teach it is wrong to offend, least of all, to confront an
individual. When someone sins, it has been taught that offering grace is the
more biblical route by refusing to discipline them or even to discuss the issue.
When believers find themselves in support groups or one-on-ones and another
person opens up about a consistent sin pattern in their lives, many will wrongfully
brush it off by stating that everyone struggles and then change the subject
because societal norms have made it uncomfortable to discuss faults.
Yet this is neither grace nor love. The
Church has surrendered grace and forsaken love and in its place has taken on complacency
and apathy. It is unbiblical to excuse habitual sin simply because everyone has
sin in their own life. If a doctor performs tests on a patient and finds cancer
but refuses to inform them simply because he does not want to offend them and
make them uncomfortable, then he will be convicted of malpractice. This would
not be a good or loving doctor. Likewise, it is not loving to share only half
of the Gospel of Christ because that would mean the other’s belief system is
wrong. The people of this world are aware that something is wrong. They know
this because built into everyone is a knowledge that sickness and death should
not be a reality. The only problem is that most people in this world do not
know why there is so much suffering or the remedy. The only remedy is the
Gospel in its entirety but the only way the lost world will hear it is if the
Church begins to again speak the truth in conjunction with love.
The Church should love those around them
and seek to serve their communities in God-honoring ways. That being said, when
the Church refuses to share any of the key points of the Gospel when the opportunity
arises then they are, at that moment, refusing to love that person. The culture
would tell believers the exact opposite. They would say that to offend someone
is unloving. On the contrary, the most loving thing the Church can do for a
person is share the Gospel with them. Carrying it a step further, when believer
live and act as a reflection of the Lord Jesus Christ in their life they shine
as the purest beacon of love. The Lord Jesus was the epitome of love both in
His ministry and in His death yet He did not hesitate to speak the truth. He
did not speak brazenly with a whip in his hands to all just as He did not speak
softly to all – He adapted His message for the audience and context but never
took away from the content or watered down the truth. If a believer was aware
that someone they knew was about to be murdered and did nothing to try and
prevent it, then they would be held liable to the court of law as an
accomplice. The Church has the Gospel message and many of the people that they
see on a daily basis are likely going to spend an eternity separated from
Christ. The most loving action would be to tell them the truth of the Gospel
even if it is uncomfortable.
Many pray for another Great Awakening to
occur. It has been over a hundred and fifty years since the last Great
Awakening and there is no doubt that the country and world is in desperate need
of another Great Awakening. However, looking at the spiritual state of mainstream
churches, there is a desperate need of a new Reformation within the Church. After
all, if a Great Awakening occurred, what would the world be awakened to? Would
the Church be any different than the world? It must be realized that revival
will begin when the Church gets right with God.
Scores of seminaries within this
country’s borders are training up men and women to view many of the Scriptural
accounts merely as poetic stories only written to reveal a moral code. They are
teaching future pastors and Bible expositors that the Bible is not wholly
relevant or reliable in what it says. Post-modernism is taking precedence in the
thinking of Christian leaders and leading the Church to doubt the inerrancy and
accuracy of the Biblical record. Historical accounts such as Adam and Eve,
Jonah and the great fish, and countless others are now being deemed as just
fables. The very Word of God is being reduced to just a piece of literature
equal to Homer’s Iliad. If there was an immense passion that began to stir in
the hearts of unbelievers to know God’s Word and churches all across the nation
became flooded with individuals, what spiritual truths or the lack of would
they be taught? Would that hunger for truth continue or would they become
further convinced in their own mind that the Bible is neither needed nor
believable? Reformation is not a movement for non-believers. Reformation is for
the Church. Reformation is needed in churches and in the private lives of
believers as the two are inevitably linked.
Jesus Christ is not just the one-time
Savior and Deliverer from sins, but He is the ever-present God who sees and
hears the afflictions of His people and is daily conforming His Church more
into the image of God through the working of His Spirit for their
sanctification. Every book of the Bible expresses the suffering of the people
of God, and what is seen through every one of those instances and every
circumstance in the lives of individuals is that God is exalted in His
sovereign control in both leading the Church through the fires of life and also
purifying the Church’s character.
If there is to be a new Reformation
today, then there must be intentionality on the part of all believers. No one
will just awaken one day overly zealous for God. No, each believer must train
their hearts and their minds in such a way as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:5[15]
by taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and in Luke 9:23[16]
where Jesus says to daily take up the cross. It is exciting to think that the
Church may be on the verge of seeing another Great Reformation or even the
glorious return of Jesus Christ thus believers should examine their own hearts
and lives and seek to know the Lord and His Word with all their might.
In conclusion, the lack of Biblical
understanding and longing to know God, sin in each believer’s lives and the
rampant false ideas about love reveal three major areas where the Church as a
whole needs a new Reformation. Only the Spirit of God who is at work in the
lives of His people can rescue the Church and bring about this new Reformation.
Yet, Reformation is not something man alone can achieve no matter how hard they
work at it as it is the working of the Spirit within each believer. What is
needed most of all is for the Spirit of God to do a great work in His Church. The
Church desperately needs God to raise up godly men such as Luther who will have
the courage to stake their lives on the truth of God’s Word and stand for truth
and thus against the establishment and culture. The prayer of the Church should
be that God would stir in believers a zeal and a holy passion to study His
Word. For it is from God’s Word that truth and life is found and true
biblically morality will be reestablished and the true practice of love will be
reapplied. Ultimately, through prayer and action, a great Reformation may once
again sweep across the Church as Christ continues to sanctify His bride for the
coming wedding feast.
Bibliography
THE GREAT SCHISM, S
I L O U a N. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 May 2017.
THE HOLY BIBLE, ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION. Crossway,
Wheaton, IL, 2001
MARTIN LUTHER, Biography.com.
A&E Networks Television, 28 Apr. 2017. Web. 07 May 2017.
Matthews, J.F., and
Donald MacGillivray Nicol. CONSTANTINE I, Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., n.d. Web. 07
May 2017.
Platt,
David, SCRIPTURE AND AUTHORITY IN AN AGE OF SKEPTICISM, Radical, Birmingham, AL, 2017
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