A Reformation Heritage

Reformation is a reclamation, “a rescuing from error and returning to a rightful course”. The 16^th century Protestant Reformation was God’s rescuing of his church from error by the power of the Holy Spirit through the instrument of His Word and sinful yet redeemed grace filled servants of the gospel. Each year as a church we desire to remember, learn from and respond to what God has accomplished in our reformation heritage. Our church is Reformed in that we are connected to the teachings of the historical church and doctrinal beliefs recovered by the Protestant Reformation. Therefore it is important that we remain connected, but not for the purpose of becoming what these people or churches once were, but so that we are vigilant and diligent to be always reforming, semper reformanda, to the rightful course set down for us by the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

This week we will look back at Martin Luther and his theology of the cross. To get to his theology of the cross we must first step into his understanding of the gospel. Martin Luther wrote, “By the one solid rock we call the doctrine of justification by faith alone, we mean that we are redeemed from sin, death and the devil, and are made partakers of life eternal, not by self-help but by outside help, namely by the work of the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ alone.” He arrived at this truth through his illumined study of the Scriptures. And, this doctrine of justification by faith alone, that salvation is not man’s achievement but a gift from God, is the bedrock of the church and the centerpiece of her proclamation. Therefore, the reclamation of this truth was for Luther and others a joy and a standard that would mark them as the protestors in their day. Through not only the understanding of this truth but living in this truth Martin Luther would discover the theology of the cross.

The grace of God in Jesus Christ seen at the cross was at the center of all that Luther thought, preached, wrote and acted upon. God lead him to understand all things as they were revealed to him at the cross. This idea brought him into conflict with the scholastic method of theology he had been taught. The scholastics of the middle ages were proud philosophical and speculative thinkers about God and reality. They studied God in light of their own understanding and speculated about his revelation on the basis of their own human categories. Luther called their theology a theology of glory. He said, “That theology which seeks for God in His glory and majesty is to be replaced by a theology of the cross, which is satisfied with knowing God as He has given Himself to us in His shame and humiliation.”. The theologians of glory were building their theology upon what they expected God to be like, themselves. But Luther’s theology of the cross was built upon the revelation of God in Christ hanging on the cross. Luther wrote, “It is not sufficient for anyone, and it does him no good, to recognize God in His glory and majesty unless he recognizes Him in the humility and shame of the cross.”

Therefore when Luther practiced the theology of the cross in thought he put all revealed knowledge of God through the sieve of the cross. When he thought about the power of God he did not think of some great power of man and multiply it infinitely to reach an understanding of God’s power. Rather he understood God’s power as revealed in weakness at the cross. There power is hidden in the form of weakness where Christ suffers under the power of sin and death and then displays his power in rising from the dead and putting all his enemies under his feet. So, for Luther power is hidden in the appearance of weakness. When Luther practiced the theology of the cross in conduct he lived in the light of the cross. If Christ came to earth as the King and acted as a suffering servant to all then Luther lived in his callings as a servant of the gospel of grace in suffering that he may one day be exalted with Christ in glory. The theology of the cross teaches us that the way to glory is the way of the cross, so serving and suffering by grace is glory. For Luther the theology of the cross directed his thought and his life as it should the church today.

May the light of the glory of God in Christ shine in the face of the church so that she may know and delight in him in worship with greater knowledge and affection and suffer as servants of the gospel of grace toward all in the earth by the grace that God gives.