Martin Luther's Open Gates of Heaven- Reformation 500

Today is the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. Very quickly from a simple act of placing a document on a door, written in Latin wanting  a scholar debate, Luther accidently started a movement that was both a revival and a reformation not just in his native Germany but right across the North of Europe.
 

Luther writes this of his own conversion:

'I greatly longed to understand Paul's Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression "the justice of God" because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore, I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Yet I clung to the dear Paul and had a great yearning to know what he meant.

 

Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that "the just shall live by his faith." Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sincere mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into Paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning. Whereas before "the justice of God" had filled me with hate, now it became inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.'

 

Taken from Here I Stand- Roland Bainton (emphasis mine).

Why read the Puritans?

Joel Beeke and Randall J. Pederson in their introduction to Meet the Puritans argue that we should read the Puritans because :

They shape life by Scripture, They loved, lived and breathed Scripture, relishing the power of the Spirit that accompanied the Word. They called believers to be Word centred.

'If you read the Puritans regularly, their focus on Scripture becomes contagious. Though their commentaries on Scripture are not the last word in exegesis, the Puritans show how to yield whole hearted allegiance to the Bible's message. Like them you will become a believer of the living Book' p.xx Meet the Puritans.

Another reason is they focused on Christ, they 'loved Christ and wrote much about His beauty.' p. xxii I've certainly experienced that reading John Flavel.

It's certainly worth the experience of reading them and praying that God would give us a similar experience of His Word and of exalting Jesus.

What Did the Reformers do for us?

The following is based on Joel Beeke's talk at Reformation Scotland.

There is a mysterious power in the word of God, like an acorn, containing all the information to build a mighty oak tree, when God unleashes the power of His word, He transforms people.

How did the reformation change the world. What areas are still felt today.

10 ways the reformation bore fruit.

1)      The Word of God- The Bible as God’s word for every aspect of life.

The Bible changed Europe in 5 ways, authority- all other authority, ecclesiastical, political and papal must submit to the Word of God, contrary to  the Church of Rome, the reformers held that the church was under the authority of the Word.

1 The Bible available in the language of the people, the work of translation at the time of the reformation was revolutionary. We just see it as normal because we are children of the reformation.

2 infallibility and inerrancy- every part of every word is the living word of God. Jesus argued the point over a tense for example at one point. (I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob- showing life after death by a present tense).

3 The reformers brought in  the idea of self authentication, scripture is the best interpreter of scripture. Not allegory or tradition but the Word itself.

4 liberation, the Reformers liberated the Bible by translation, the word be taught by expository preaching. Zwingli started preaching in the New Testament book of Matthew chapter 1 and just carried on, it was revolutionary but we are beneficiaries of the reformation. Straightforward understanding of the Bible, without imposing on it.

5 Power- the scriptures given to transform our mind, only one book can transform and conform us to the mind of God, the Bible.

The reformers encouraged everyone to not only read it but to study the Bible. In family worship the father is called to expound the scriptures.  We might see this as normal but this is because we are children of the reformation.

2)      The reformers recovered the Gospel of grace- they uncovered it from a false one. It’s by Grace Alone. In the Roman  Catholic understanding according to Thomas Aquinas sanctification came before grace and before justification do your best and God would do the rest. The reformers said, you cannot do one single thing.

God’s way of salvation is a glorious substitute for the false gospel of Rome. Luther experienced this when he was whipping himself, sleeping on cold concrete- until he found grace, found that he  had an open heaven, for him the gates of heaven were open.

Luther saw justification as the first thing and sanctification is the fruit of it and it is all of grace.

Grace calls us, justifies us, sanctifies us, and will glorify us.

Do you live by grace, is grace everything to you. Grace is more than what we think, because we do not start as neutral grace is undeserved kindness to those who deserve to be hell bound. It’s all of grace.

3)      Experiential Piety- The Reformers preached a piety that can be experienced. The Fatherly sovereignty of God to His people in the Lord Jesus Christ.

4)      Old paths- persevered the faith of the Reformers was the faith of  primitive Christianity. They recovered the truths from the early days of the church. These old paths of the father’s is worth us pursuing. The reformation principle of sola scriptura doesn’t mean you throw away church history but we examine church history/tradition by scripture.

5)      Christ as king- all done in subjection not to man but to God and His word. The reformers found themselves at odds with the Pope, the Pope had asserted authority, the kings asserted authority in their locality. The reformers said they were both wrong, not the Papacy and not the secular rulers. The Church was delivered from the State and the Pope.

We need to walk the tightrope avoiding anarchy as God calls us to honour authority, so we need to cultivate a heart of submission.

Yet we must be willing to oppose them when they oppose God. Christ is the head of the church.

6)      Christian freedom- the gospel of Christ freed us from tyranny, the reformed faith abolished the idea of the divine right of kings. No-one but God had power over the conscience but God alone. Kingship was changed to constitutional rather than absolute. To free the church from the state and towards freedom and democracy and gave us the rule of law.

7)      Vocations for the common good- the reformers recast the state as a commonwealth promoting the dignity of labour, encouraging trade and the growth of wealth for everyone. Everyone should thrive together, everyone has a stake in the life of the nation. This binds together the State as a commonwealth, everyone must do their work to the glory of God. It does away with the line between the secular and the sacred. All 7 days are from the LORD.

Everyone working for the good and salvation of his neighbour, this encouraged social cohesion, and care.

8)      Marry and child rearing- marriage as a reflection of the Christ/church relationship. Parents raising their children who are loaned to them from God. Seeking God’s face, the whole concept of the Christian home was developed by the reformers and the Puritans.  All of life must be lived for the glory of God. William Gough, 'You could have the most homely, cranky wife but you are to treat her like a godly queen.' Marriage is designed to encourage us in holiness and service.

9)      Arts and sciences, the reformers rekindled the spirit of enquiry by exploring knowledge, opening academies, fostered the idea of universal education. Encouraging art, science, architecture  astronomy, exploration.

10)   The true worship of God- they understood that worship was at the centre, they came to the Word to see how we should worship. To bow down before the supreme majesty through Christ in the Spirit, and we are to have as our goal worshipping God in every aspect in our lives. To give to Him the honour that is due to His holy name.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Puritan Preaching

I'm enjoying attending my first conference since the girls were born, The Puritan Reformed Fellowship in East Kilbride where we are being treated to Joel Beeke's passionate wisdom and knowledge of the Puritans. I avoided the Puritans like the plague until fairly recently as the ones I had read seemed too wordy and cold. I just started in the wrong place it seems, I am loving reading the Puritans now on a daily basis.  Dr Beeke has unwrapped the Puritans for us in two talks so far. One of these on the topic of Puritan Preaching. Below is a summary:

The Puritans loved preached, their books are basically sermons and they were in print for a long time because people loved their preaching. They developed plans for preaching, the whole counsel of God. Their sermons were rich in exegesis, doctrine, devotion and application and in experience, they preached an experienced Christ. They sought to reform the church with their preaching, they failed. They did however succeed to transform people through their preaching. In fact people would flock to hear them, leaving standing room only.
Puritan books were loved and well read, because they preached Christocentric sermons stripping away man in his sinfulness. For the Puritan there was two preachers, the preacher and the Holy Spirit. Puritan preaching lifts our eyes to see Christ, it ravishes the soul, focuses the sight on eternal realities both heaven and hell.

The believed that the preached Word was God's usual means to convert people, where every sermon was dressed in the mirror of Scripture. Richard Sibbes said the second greatest gift that God has given the church after the Spirit of God is a sound minister. For them the pulpit was at the centre of the church because it was from there that God feed His people for the whole week.

Yet their aim was please God, not the audience, those they were concerned with the weight and preciousness of souls they aimed more than anything to please God and to preach for His glory.

At it's best they desired to labour to awaken their own souls before seeking to awaken other souls.

In preaching they aimed to: 1) Address the mind with clarity, 2) confront the conscience-pressing home the guilt of sins, 3) woo the heart passionately- zealous and optimistically urging people to be reconciled with a God would seeks you as a spouse to marry you to Christ. 4) A plainness in preaching to be clear.

Their method was to be both idealist like Romans 8, realistic like Romans 7 and optimistic like Revelation 21. He said they preached as though they could save people, but 'preached like they were knocking the door, knowing that only the Holy Spirit has the key'.

Dr Beeke showed us that the Puritans were great preachers but then encouraged us not to preach like them in some ways.

Don't preach like them 

Don't preach doctrinal sermons, preach a text and expound it.
Don't multiple points on points at lots of levels- we live in a different age keep it simple.
Don't overwhelm with application
Don't preach too many sermons on one text

Do Preach like them
Do preach  doctrinal rich experiential sermons with application
Do Burrow down deep into the doctrine of the text
Do Preach the whole counsel of God over time.
Do Preach in a style that everyone can understand.
Do live a consistent life, preach with your life. Our whole life should be a sermon.
Love your people.


They were known not only for their preaching though but also for their piety, their lives affected by the preparation for preaching gave them a love for people. It is said that many of them died in the great plague because they loved their people deeply and didn't abandon them.