Viewing The Reformation In Its Entirety
The Reformation was a necessary and important process in Christian theology in the last five hundred years. It began in 1517 A.D. with Martin Luther. It’s important because it was a process God used to restore the tenets of faith to Christendom. The original tenets of salvation, revealed on the Day of Pentecost and maintained throughout the Apostolic era, was lost as apostasy set in, as predicted by Paul (Acts 20:29). The apostasy grew and culminated in the Roman Catholic Church, which held the reigns tightly for over a thousand years. Much original Christian doctrine, especially as relating to salvation doctrine, had been lost in Church history during Catholicism’s unrivaled reign. But, beginning with Luther’s insistence that salvation is on the basis of faith, men and women of God began delving into the Word of God in the slow march toward the restoration of Acts 2:38. The process literally took four hundred years, when the fulness of the plan of salvation prescribed by Christ, was re-discovered in the early twentieth century.
Church history can be most fundamentally broken down into four categories.
1/ The original Apostolic era
2/ Apostasy into Catholicism
3/ The Reformation
4/ Apostolic doctrine restored in the early twentieth century
The Reformation was not a point in time but a period of time.
The Reformation was one of the most significant things to happen in world history because it took us from apostate Christianity, known as Catholicism, to the restoration of the Pentecostal experience of salvation. But the Reformation, to be doctrinally useful to us today, must be viewed and understood in its entirety that we have been stressing here. Precisely because it was a process that involved time and learning means that its result is its most vital part. In other words, the most important thing to consider about the Reformation is what it produced. And, what it produced was the restoration of Christian salvation doctrine that was first preached by Peter on the Day of Pentecost. That was its purpose and end. Thankfully, and much to the credit of the many who labored in God’s Word during the Reformation, we can now preach Acts 2:38.
Everything we have said so far about the Reformation is good. But the caveat to be observed is confidence being wrongly placed in some Christian institutions today that do not represent the doctrinal result of the Reformation but only a point in time leading up to it. It was right that denominations and schools would come into being along the way to promote the establishment of newly discovered truth. But discovery of revealed truth was in flux at that time. During the Reformation process, every person walking in new found light should have committed to continue in any furtherance of light. This is what Scripture demands (1John 1:7; John 8:31-32). In other words, what every person and denomination should have done during the fluid time of the Reformation was to recognize advanced biblical revelation and embrace it, forsaking inferior positions. By doing so, the vestiges of the Reformation, in the form of historical denominations, would not be present today. There would only have been one denomination of the Reformation at any given time, that one being the latest in the process of God granting renewed illumination from the Scriptures. That’s a very reasonable outlook, though not necessarily a very human one, since human beings are prone to shun revealed light (John 3:19-21). At any rate, the Reformation process is the explanation for the numerous mainline denominations that exist today.
“Isn’t any teaching that came out of the Reformation legitimate?”
Again, we’re extremely thankful for every step in the process of the Reformation. We are its beneficiaries. But, once more, the understanding of it being a process is significant, which points to its result being the end for which it served. The result of the Reformation was the restoration of Acts 2:38 salvation. That is where all eyes should be focused. To settle on a point along the way for salvation purposes is to miss the will of God and the fulness of biblical revelation.
Teaching just anything is not allowed by Scripture. To those who will teach others, the Bible offers a solemn warning— teaching must be according to God’s Word, rightly interpreted (James 3:1; 2Timothy 2:15).
While there is strict warning to those who misrepresent God’s Word, there is a huge reward to those who will faithfully and rightly teach and preach it. Jesus made this clear (Matthew 5:19b). And that includes parents who correctly teach their children, men and women who labor in Sunday Schools and youth services, along with all those who are witnesses of, and helpers to, the truth (3John 8; 1Timothy 3:15). Jesus said such people would be great in the Kingdom of heaven. Actually, I think the greatest reward that awaits faithful souls is Christ’s, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21,23). Let’s live up to our privilege to serve Christ truly.