An Ongoing Reformation

The month of October always brings to my mind thoughts of the Reformation.  I think of a virtually unknown monk named Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses on the door of the castle church at Wittenberg, Germany.  He had concerns about teachings and practices in the church that went against Scripture.  He was upset that the church was leading people away from Christ rather than to him.  I can relate to Luther's feelings because I'm having some of the same ones.

I see a trend not only in our own denomination, the ELCA, but also in the mainline churches throughout American that is leading people away from Christ, not to him.  Dr. Carl E. Braaten, in his presentation at Christiana on September 16 talked about four serious problems in the church.  The first was in regards to the name of God.  There is a strong movement within the ELCA to do away with masculine names for God.  If God is Spirit and neither male nor female, what's the problem?  The problem is this is how God himself has directed us to address him.  God has revealed himself to us in the Scriptures as Father and as Son.  When we invoke his name at the beginning of worship, when we baptize a new Christian we are commanded by God to do so in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  To do otherwise is to disregard God's command.

The second problem involves soteriology.  That's the doctrine of salvation.  There are professors in our seminaries and pastors coming out of those seminaries who do not believe that Jesus is the only way of salvation.  They believe that all religions have value.  Jesus may be our way to God, but he is not the only way to God.  That is heresy!  Jesus clearly states in John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father but by me."  Act 4:12 says: "There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."  If Jesus is not the only way of salvation then why did he come to die?  If other ways to God are valid, what was the point of Christ's suffering?  Why do evangelism? Indeed!  Jesus is the only way of salvation.  We must reclaim this believe and evangelize the world.

The authority of the Bible is the third problem.  The Bible does not have a place of authority within the church today.  The ELCA has reduced it to a "book of faith."  I have lots of books of faith in my library, but there is only one Bible, one Word of God.  That's what the Bible is - the Word of God and as such is has the power to change me and make me a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17).  In the first draft of the sexuality study it talks about experience as a valid interpretation of God's Word.  It's our experiences that shape our faith and our relationship with God.  We all have difference experiences, but the truth of the matter is we're all still sinners in need of forgiveness.  God's Word is our norm, our guide through which God speaks to us and reveals to us how he expects us to live.  In his Word he tells us what we must do, regardless of our experiences, to be saved.  When we look first to our experiences to shed light on God's Word, we will be more likely to try and justify our sinfulness rather than to see our sinfulness judged by God.  The whole point of God's Word is for God to speak to us, reveal to us his great love and grace, which enables us to see ourselves as the sinners we really are, to repent of those sins and be changed.

The fourth problem has to do with the law, particularly the relationship between law and gospel.  The tendency in the church today is to proclaim gospel and omit the law.  This is heresy as well.  It is an old heresy called antinomianism, which simply means against the law.  When we proclaim only the gospel - i.e. that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and do not mention the fact that the law convicts us of our sin and moves us to repentance in order that we might come to faith in Christ, we are not proclaiming the whole truth of salvation.  While it is true that we are no longer saved by works of the law, but solely by the grace of God, still the law plays an important role in our faith life.  Luther said there were three uses of the law.  1) the civil use to show us right from wrong; 2) the religious use which shows us our sin and drives us to Christ; and 3) it show us how God wants us born again believers to live.  It's a matter of perspective.  Before Christ died on the cross to pay for our sins we obeyed the law in order to be saved.  Now that Christ has come and died for us we still obey the law, but not because we have to, rather because we want to.  We are grateful to Christ for dying on the cross and paying for our sins so that we no longer have to fear death and hell.  As a result we want to live our lives in a manner that is pleasing to God, that honors him.  What better way than how he has already shown us - by keeping the law.  We are free in Christ to live in obedience to him.  In doing so we show our love for him (John 15:9-10, see also Ephes. 2:8-10).

These are serious issues within our church that, if left unchecked, will lead us away from Christ, from the truth of God's Word, from salvation.  It is time for us as Christians, as disciples of God, as members of the ELCA to take a stand against these false teachings and proclaim God's Word in truth and power.  While we remember the Reformation as an event that happened in the life of the church in the 16th century, we need to realize it is an on going event.  The church is in constant need of reforming, today as ever.
 

Pastor Carl