What we are celebrating is Reformation Day. It was on this day in 1517 that Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the chapel door at the University of Wittenberg. There were concerns that he, a Roman Catholic monk, had about some points of Roman Catholic doctrine and practice. In our day, nailing a document to a chapel door would be a provocative act, but not in Luther’s day. The chapel door served as a campus bulletin board, and Luther was simply inviting his colleagues to join him in discussing his concerns.
Some students saw what he posted, took the post to a print shop and had copies printed, which they distributed, sparking a firestorm of controversy. Luther’s innocuous act now appeared to be inciting people to question the Roman Catholic Church. Karl Barth famously likened Luther to a blind man climbing a bell tower, losing his balance, and blindly grasping the bell cord to prevent himself from falling. The resulting peal greatly disturbed the Roman Catholic Church.
Luther was only one voice among many in Europe calling for the reformation of the Roman Catholic Church. A century earlier, John Hus, a professor at the University of Prague, influenced by the writings of John Wycliffe, also pressed for reformation. He was declared a heretic, and, like Wycliffe, was burned at the stake. After a careful study of Scripture, John Calvin, a French attorney and Luther’s contemporary, had the same stirring in his heart. Calvin fled to Geneva for safety and from there championed reformation.
From the fire of this controversy, five propositions were forged that set those affirming them in opposition to the Roman Catholic Church earning them the title of protestants. They affirmed that sacred Scripture alone had divine authority, not church tradition. They affirmed that the Scriptures teach that a person is justified before God by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and not by any human merit. The glory for the salvation of men goes to God alone.
I was raised a Roman Catholic, but in 1984 experienced a personal reformation, a marvelous, God-ordained transformation. God in his grace regenerated this spiritually dead sinner, gave him the gift of faith, enabling him to believe the Scriptures, recognize he was a sinner, and put his faith in Christ, who bore God’s just wrath in this sinner’s place and was raised for his justification. What can I say but, “to God alone be the glory!” Happy Reformation Day!
