Why make a big deal of an event in church history some 500 years ago?
Michael Reeves and Tim Chester’s 2016 book, Why the Reformation Still Matters, explains:
"Luther posted his ninety-five theses on October 31, 1517. The Reformation was a complex movement with many tributaries. Nevertheless, October 31, 1517, has taken on symbolic significance. More than any other event, this has the best claim to be the starting gun that set everything else in motion. But five hundred years on, does the Reformation still matter?
It matters because this is our story. If you are Anglican, Baptist, Brethren, Congregational, Independent, Lutheran, Mennonite, Methodist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, or Reformed, then these are your roots. Your history can be traced back to these events five hundred years ago. . . .
Consider what was at stake. At its heart the Reformation was a dispute about how we know God and how we can be right with him. At stake was our eternal future, a choice between heaven and hell. . . . For the Reformers there was no need more pressing than assurance in the face of divine judgment, and there was no act more loving than to proclaim a message of grace that granted eternal life to those who responded with faith. The Reformation still matters because eternal life still matters" (17-18).
If we worship today with a protestant and not a Roman Catholic congregation, we owe it to Luther et al.
That we have confidence at all in the gospel of free grace and are liberated from the uncertainty of acceptance with God based upon our good works outweighing the bad, we owe to God’s sovereign will in bringing about the Reformation.
We do well to pause and thankfully reflect upon what Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and the rest recovered for Christ’s church through their bold leadership and doctrinal fidelity.
Have a blessed Reformation Sunday!
