As we continue to look at the honour issues of the Reformation, sparked by Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door on the 31st October 1517, following on from Part 1, we come to the next two significant categories of honour restoration:
Honour of God's Word
When we don't honour God as God, we are consequentially not going to honour what God says the way we should. If we honour a human being, human leadership or human systems and rules above God, we are going to honour what they say as authoritative above what God says as authoritative. And that is what was happening in the Roman Catholic Church. The church was adding to Scripture's requirements. Words and concepts and regulations and warnings and systems were developed that had no basis in God's word whatsoever. Teaching on such things as Purgatory became central to church doctrine yet are not even mentioned in Scripture, let alone supported.
God's word had become secondary. The focus was on the teaching of the church and authority of the Pope. In fact they had gone one step further and made the teaching of the church of equal authority, infallability and holiness to Scripture. Of course when that happens it is inevitable that the teaching of the church becomes elevated above Scripture. When supposedly two 'equal' pieces of information conflict, and the church's teaching says that the church leadership speak as the voice of God, no-one is going to question what the church leadership says, and any Scripture that disagrees will be put aside in favour of what the church leadership says.
To thus treat God's true word with such disregard, is to despise God's Word. And as God accused and reminded king David when he sinned (2 Sam 12:9-10), to despise God's Word is to despise God Himself.
There was also an understanding by the Reformers that God's word would lose no honour by being translated into the language that the people spoke. The honour of God's word was not in it remaining in the Latin language accessible only to those of high church rank and status. The honour of God's word was founded on its nature and source, not what earthly language it was in. Luther's translating the bible into German, like John Wycliffe before him in England translating it into English, was because they believed God's word would have greater honour in the hearts and lives of the people if they had access to it in a language they could understand and which they spoke on a daily basis.
The Reformation sought to restore God's word to its rightful place, that it might be once again honoured as God's supreme and ultimate authority shared with no other human authority, person or organisational rules, but that it could have the honour of being accessible to everyone in their own language.
Honour of God's Son and Salvation brought through Him
I remember sitting in a Christian Convention as a teenager, many years ago, and hearing the speaker say "Christ+ = Christ- = not Christ"! (ie Christ plus equals Christ minus equals not Christ)
God sent His Son, His only Son to be the only way of salvation for sinful humanity.
He sent His Son to be the one and only Mediator between man and God.
We are not saved by any other name, only Jesus' name.
When we pray, we are to only pray to God the Father and only in the name of God the Son.
There is only one who sits at the right hand of God the Father, Jesus Christ. Only He is the firstborn from the dead.
Only Christ is the Messiah, only Christ is Immanuel God with us.
And I could go on…..
Mary is not Christ, she is not a mediator between God and humans, she does not hear and answer prayer. 'Saints' of the Roman Catholic Church are not deity in human form, are not elevated to some higher spiritual power after death, and have no power or influence over creation or life on this earth. To say such things is to say we need more than Christ, which is to say that Christ is not enough for God's saving, sanctifying and sustaining work in a Christian's life. A view of Christ that says this, is a view of Christ which does not equal who God tells us Christ is.
We are thankful for Mary's availability, obedience, humility and submission to God's will in God's plan, but we don't need her for salvation or answers to prayer. She has no more powerful or special spiritual connection to Christ, than you or I.
We are thankful for the lives of great Christians of the past and their example of godly actions but they too are not in any different spiritual catagory from anyone else…..if they truly came to Christ alone as sinners and accepted His full finished work of salvation for them, they were saved just like you and I can be, and if they did not they are just as lost eternally as you or I can be.
Not only was the Roman Catholic church denying the priesthood of all believers which allows us to all access God's throne in prayer directly through Christ, and not giving sole Mediator status to Christ, they were giving authority to priests to forgive sins, an authority that was only God's.
The 'church' was also saying that salvation was not assurred in Christ. The 'church' taught that to be saved, or have a good chance at being saved, you had to do good works. You had to participate in the seven sacraments of the church which were believed to be the channels of receiving God's grace including the Mass/Eucharist and Confession. The church had also invented the unbiblical category of 'purgatory' between life on earth and heaven, a category in which the church was telling people if they were to give money to the church (called indulgences) it could help them reduce their time in purgatory and to get relatives out of purgatory and into heaven.
From beginning to end the 'church' was promoting a works based salvation in which people often had no sense of assurance of salvation before or after death, and definitely no assurance if the priest hadn't given it. They had to hope that their 'good works' outweighed their 'bad works', or that they had paid enough indulgences or had relatives who would keep paying after your death.
To think there are some additions needing to be made to salvation in Christ alone, is to not honour God as God, because you are not accepting that God's way of salvation through Christ's once for all sacrifice, is enough. It's saying you don't believe God when He says it is enough. That, in adddition to saying that the 'church' and its leadership know better, is thorough dishonour of God.
The Reformation was to restore to God's people a right and true understanding that they could be saved by faith alone and grace alone in Christ alone. It was about restoring the honourable rightful place of God's Son as the sole means and assurance of salvation from sin.
To be continued in Part 3…..
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