Are You Reformed?
Are You Reformed?
When I was in seminary, this question was typically asked by students to students. I had little knowledge of the Reformation then and could only think of someone having completed rehab or getting out of a correctional facility on good behavior. Truthfully, I was wondering what form I had been in and whether or not that form had been formed into something different, thus making me re-formed.
How would you answer the question?
In 1517, an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther became aware of the radically differing nature of grace and faith in Scripture compared to the Roman Catholic church's teachings. He described the Scriptures as a great forest having no tree that his hands had not shaken. With great attention, he sought to know the Word and teach it to the best of his ability, as he had done with his monastery work. What happened to him was an internal transformation of understanding and love for God. Something unlike his aesthetic piety and monastic practices had brought him. A profoundly religious laborer for God as a monk, he struggled to find peace with the Lord. On October 31, 1517, he enumerated 95 points of Catholic doctrine that he saw as contradictions to life in the Spirit as given by Christ's gospel. Over prolonged and extended time studying the Word and trusting its message for salvation (and not works), he expressed the tandem of his life to the Word of God:
“My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound. Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me.”
Luther's heart had been re-formed from sin and external, ritualistic righteousness into having the righteousness of Christ by faith. The Spirit, by the Word alone gave him faith by God's grace to know new life in Jesus Christ for the glory of God and no other.
“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. ”
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ”
Our hearts naturally wander toward sin. We are tempted to believe we can satisfy God and our consciences by doing enough good to outweigh the bad. But, Scripture is clear that we need to be re-formed, re-shaped, re-done, re-born.
What challenges your heart from believing you, too, can have new life in Jesus?
In what ways are you tempted to believe that your ability, character, good works, and good feelings are enough to assure you of your salvation?
Trusting Jesus for all our righteousness,
Loren