1.21 blog

We’ve been examining the Five Solas of the Reformation, which served as slogans and summaries of the Protestant church’s distinctives. And while they’re all important (Sola Scriptura defines where we’ll look for answers, (Sola Gratia and Sola Fide define how we’re made right with God), the idea of Solus Christus (Christ Alone) perhaps encapsulates them all. They all find their reference point and efficacy here in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ.

Scripture teaches that there is “one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus ” (1 Timothy 2.5). In Christ God has become man (John 1.1-14). As man, he lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father (this is called his active obedience).  As man he died in place of sinful people (this is called his passive obedience). As God, his death carries infinite value so that all who by grace believe in him will be reconciled to God. All who are united to him by faith are forgiven all their sins on the basis of his death. But we also receive something much better and much more than forgiveness. We are also credited with his life of righteousness. We are justified. Forgiveness puts us back at square one and gives us a second chance. Justification makes it to where we don’t need a second chance, we are completely restored and completely secured solely by the work of Jesus Christ. God doesn’t just demand that we not sin. He demands that we be perfectly righteousness. And in Christ he gives what he demands.

This means that all of our hope is located outside of us. There is nothing in me upon which I can rely or base any hope. Pietists rightly note that God looks upon and is primarily concerned with the condition of the heart. However, as Rod Rosenbladt has noted, “When I look into my heart, all I find is blood and sin.” A concern for personal holiness is good and biblical (see Hebrews 12.14). However, to the extent that our hope, or our focus is on these things (heart and/or holiness), we are missing the point. God demands utter perfection. None of us live up to this. We’ll always have mixed motives, and our best works will always be tainted with sin. So we don’t dare rely on anything in ourselves. If I’m to have any hope, I need God to look upon the perfect heart of Jesus, rather than my own.

A key verse for the Reformation understanding of Christian life and piety is 1 Corinthians 1.30, “[God] is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God has made our wisdom, and our righteousness, and our holiness, and redemption.” My righteousness and holiness (and wisdom!) lived on the earth about two thousand years ago and is seated at the right hand of God. Biblical growth and sanctification is always a call up and out of ourselves. It is a call for us to look away from ourselves and look to Jesus Christ, who is our hope.

Incidentally, this frees us to love and serve our neighbor. Because God has all the good works he needs in Jesus, I am free to give my good works to my neighbor, who does need them. They are too tainted with sin to be of any use in helping me be right with God (and Jesus has done that anyway). But even sin-tainted works can help my neighbor. Upward and outward.

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

As we noted in the last post, Sola Scriptura was one of the fountainhead principles of the Protestant Reformation. But it was not the only principle. Simple recourse to the Bible does not make someone a Protestant (there are plenty of Christians who seek to base their beliefs on the Bible alone, but who cannot be described as Protestant in any significant sense). However, it’s my conviction that when the Bible is properly understood, it will lead to the other conclusions reached by the Reformers, many of which are summarized in the other solas. Of these, the two most significant are sola gratia (grace alone) and sola fide (faith alone).

It’s conventional wisdom that the good people will get to heaven and the bad people will go to hell. The only problem is that according to the Bible, we’re all the bad people (Romans 1-3). God does not help those who help themselves, because there’s no one who helps himself! In the medieval church, people believed that God saved them by grace, but that they had to cooperate with that grace in order for it to be effective. They were looking for God to help them. He would do their part, but they certainly needed to do our part. Sadly, that mentality is still around today in much of the “evangelical” church. In reality, though, we are saved by grace alone. We so often fail to cooperate with God’s grace, and don’t do our “part.” If our salvation in any way depended upon us, no one would be saved. And when we cast things in terms of doing our part, or cooperating we both fail to take the law as seriously as we ought, and seriously misunderestimate our own sin and depravity.

And the instrument by which we receive the grace of God that saves us is faith. No one would deny that faith is necessary. But the Reformers (rightly) taught that we are justified (made right with God) by grace alone through faith alone. This is implicit in the nature of faith. True faith is a trust and reliance upon Jesus Christ and what he has done. If anything is added to it, then it is debased, because we are relying upon something other than Christ’s work. Faith is what happens when we stop trying to make ourselves right with God and allow Jesus to do it for us (Romans 4-5). This happens through Jesus’ life of perfect obedience being imputed to us. We are counted as righteous, even though we ourselves are not righteous.

Martin Luther described justification by grace alone through faith alone as the “article on which the church stands or falls.” And yet in contemporary Christianity it’s often ignored, if not debased and contradicted. As long as we neglect this truth. As long as we include our good works in the equation with God (or make them part of “faith”). As long as we look to ourselves and our obedience rather than to Christ and his, we cannot expect that the church will stand. We cannot even expect to call the church the church. As the church declines in influence, it has only itself to blame (and, frankly, so long as the church is neglecting/denying justification by grace alone through faith alone, I’d rather it not have much influence).

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

There were many dividing lines in the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation. But the principle of Sola Scriptura is perhaps the most well known and one of the most significant. It’s one of the most significant because it’s the wellspring from which all the other issues flow. This is so because it settles the issue of authority and standards. If you and I have a disagreement, we can only settle it if we have a common standard or authority. It might be reason (i.e., whoever is most logically persuasive wins). It might be observation (whoever can bring the most evidence wins). It might be emotional (whoever’s viewpoint feels best wins). But no matter what, we have to refer to some sort of standard in order to settle things. The Protestant Reformers determined to base their views upon and settle their disputes by reference to the Bible.

This means that creeds, traditions, perceptions, experiences, cultural expectations and so on are all subjected to the Bible. All these things are good. Indeed, they all have their place (our church holds to a confessional document, draws from historical traditions, seeks spiritual experiences, and tries to engage and be conversant with culture). But as Protestants, we test them by the Bible. The Bible gets the first word in the conversation. It gets the last word in the conversation. And it guides the conversation as it takes place.

Sometimes Sola Scriptura is misunderstood, as if to imply that truth is only found in the Bible. That’s not the case. That’s not what the Reformers were getting at. It also doesn’t mean that we can safely ignore other sources of knowledge (e.g., the sciences). All truth is God’s truth.

But finding truth is not always so simple a matter as we think it is. In postmodernity, we come to realize that “truth” isn’t just lying around out there for us to find. So much of our view of the world and what we consider true is inescapably conditioned by our cultural situatedness, our limitations, our expectations, and so on. In the sciences, certainty is no longer the name of the game. And because that’s the case, we need the Bible. Truth does exist, and it can be known and discovered. The problem is we’re often mistaken about the truth we discover. But God guarantees that the Bible is true. Scripture offers us a standard outside of ourselves. Because of this, it’s able to correct us.

And because of this, in the church we settle things by the use of Scripture. The Bible is the church’s book, which means that the church is ruled according to the Bible (in other words, the larger culture is not). In the Bible, God reveals to us everything we need to know in order to be reconciled to him (gospel) and live lives that please him (law), but this doesn’t mean that he’s revealed absolutely everything (2 Timothy 3.15-17; Deuteronomy 29.29).

So, how does this play out? We do our best to study the Bible, to understand what God is saying in it. Then we believe and do what it says. We refuse to allow what the Bible forbids. And we refuse to forbid what the Bible allows. Only the Bible is binding upon the conscience of Christians because only the Bible has the full authority of God. The church, particularly the elders of the church have divinely granted authority. But that authority is limited, delegated, ministerial authority. Only God in Scripture has unlimited, absolute, magisterial authority.

Sola Scriptura ensures that God is able to speak into and rule his church, rather than letting us with our preferences and biases to “determine” reality.

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

Saturday marked the 492nd anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. In the post I wrote on that day, I noted that the truths recovered during the Reformation are under attack today, not just from the culture, but in the churches, and in our own hearts. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once noted that American Christianity was very much a “Protestantism without the Reformation.” I’m not going to go into a tirade here, so I’ll leave it at that. But I will say that we lose sight of and/or ignore the truths and emphases of the Reformation to the church’s own harm. In the next few posts, we’ll be examining (maybe for the first time) some of the fruits of Reformation theology.

During the Protestant Reformation, five “solas” (Latin for alone)emerged, which served as slogans, rallying points, and symbols of the difference between the Protestant Churches and the Roman Catholic Church. The Cambridge Declaration is a helpful contemporary restatement of these articles and their importance. And I’d recommend reading it in its entirety. But for now, here are some excerpts explaining the solas

1. Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone): “We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation,which alone can bind the conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured.We deny that any creed, council or individual may bind a Christian’s conscience, that the Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary to what is set forth in the Bible, or that personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of revelation.”
2. Solus Christus (Christ Alone): “We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father.We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ’s substitutionary work is not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited.”
3. Sola Gratia (Grace Alone): “We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.”
4. Sola Fide (Faith Alone): “We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In justification Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God’s perfect justice.We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ’s righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can be recognized as a legitimate church.”
5. Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone): “We reaffirm that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God’s glory and that we must glorify him always. We must live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority of God and for his glory alone.We deny that we can properly glorify God if our worship is confused with entertainment, if we neglect either Law or Gospel in our preaching, or if self-improvement, self-esteem or self-fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel.”

In upcoming posts, we’ll take some time to unpack these statements, and see how they can inform our Christian lives today.

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

On this day, some 492 years ago, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. This began the movement which we now know as the Protestant Reformation.

We should thank God for the courage of men like Luther, who strove, and risked their lives so that the gospel of Jesus Christ could be recovered for us in its purity. And we must never take for granted the truths that were recovered in the Reformation. They are continually under attack in our culture, in the churches, and in our own hearts.

Next week we’ll be looking at some features of the Reformation. But for now, enjoy this contemporary re-working of Luther’s most famous hymn.

In the last two posts, we’ve looked at how God serves as the pattern of the church’s mission, and how corporate worship serves as fuel for the church’s mission. But there’s still one more aspect of church life we want to look at. In the New Testament there are two main strands of what makes up the church. One element is more formal, it involves authoritative teaching and the administration of the sacraments. We engage with this aspect of church in corporate worship. The other element is more informal, it involves more interpersonal participation and interactive relationships. We engage with this aspect of church in our mission groups. (Other churches will have other formats)

We can look to the mission of God through Jesus, and be commissioned and empowered for it through preaching and communion yet still fail to live the sort of mission-oriented lives to which God calls us in Christ. Sometimes we’re just really not sure how to go about it. And because we all have diverse lives and situations, it’s impossible that this could all be addressed in the preaching of the church. So to figure this out, God has given us each other. As we share life together (per Acts 2.42-47), we get to know one another. We see where we’re struggling, and we can work through it with one another.

In community, you can see from where my failure to be on mission stems, and you can help me see how the work of Jesus on my behalf specifically bears upon that problem. You can keep up with me, asking how things are going, encouraging me along the way. And I can do the same for you. As we do this, we share in mission together. And as our lives become more and more intertwined, my friends become your friends. My mission becomes your mission. As this happens, we become partners on mission, and are able to carry the gospel further than we could on our own. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

In this series we’ve looked at three sources and aids in mission. I know that we all have a tendency to choose whatever our favorite is and focus on that while downplaying the others. But let me assure you, if you do, you’ll be on a very anemic mission. And in some cases, you’ll be on a mission that is entirely different than (read: opposed to) God’s.

And in all of this, we dare not lose sight of the whole source and motive of our mission. Jesus Christ has died for us, risen again, and sent us. We don’t have to be on mission. As we are drawn to him by these various means, we will find that we are on mission.

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

In the Book of Acts, our church is looking at how the good news of Jesus forms us into a missionary community. In our first post in this series, we saw how our mission as the church is built upon the foundational pattern of God’s Triune life and Jesus’ Incarnation. Today we’re going to look at how the God fuels our mission through the church’s corporate worship.

I don’t listen to much Christian music, but when I do, it’s usually by Derek Webb. One of his songs in particular has been helpful for me in thinking through the connection between the church’s corporate worship and her mission. It’s called “Take to the World.” (Sorry I couldn’t find a good video to host here, you’ll have to follow the link to stream it at Lala.com.)

Go in peace to love and to serve
Let your ears ring long with what you have heard
May the bread on your tongue
Leave a trail of crumbs
To lead the hungry back to the place that you are from

And take to the world this love, this hope and faith
Take to the world this rare, relentless grace
And like the three in one
Know you must become what you want to save
‘Cause that’s still the way
He takes to the world

Go, and go far
Take light deep in the dark
Believe what’s true
He uses all, even you
May the bread on your tongue leave a trail of crumbs
To lead the hungry back to the place you are from

I love how the song touches upon such diverse themes as communion, the Trinity, Jesus’ Incarnation, and the church’s engagement with the world.

On Sunday mornings the church gathers and is fed by God. Through preaching and the sacraments (typically communion), he delivers us what we truly need: Jesus Christ and his work on our behalf. Through this engagement with God, we are prepared for another week serving God in our secular vocations, and living out the mission of God with our neighbors.

The ancient church realized this. In their Eucharistic prayers, they would speak of God gathering a people to himself from age to age, from east to west. They would speak of him gathering the many seeds to form one loaf of bread, even as people from the far reaches of the earth were being formed into the one body of the Church. And Eastern Orthodox Theologian Alexander Schmemann famously contended that the church’s worship was for the life of the world.

For whatever reason, though, we don’t recognize it. We either turn the corporate gathering of the church into something entirely for ourselves, or as a somewhat dispensable appendage to the mission of God (like a vestigial organ). But both of these approaches are wrong. Mission happens not as an activity separate from preaching and the celebration of the Eucharist, but precisely as the necessary result of them.

If you want to live a life of mission, participate frequently in the corporate worship of the church.

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

This Sunday, we kicked off a new sermon series in the book of Acts, where we will be seeing how the truth of what Jesus has done compels the church to join him on mission. Over the next few posts we’ll be taking a look at the biblical and theological bases for mission.

The Pattern for the Church’s mission is God. Orthodox Christians confess that there is One God, who has eternally existed as Three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three have eternally existed in a loving community of sharing, adoration, and joy. God has all that God needs within Godself: perfect companionship, love, and any other conceivable joy are found in this intra-trinitarian dance. And yet the story of the Bible and of history is a story of God gathering a people to himself.

In Creation, God made man in his own image, to enjoy fellowship and peace with God. But through mankind’s sinful rebellion, this relationship was disrupted. When this happened God took the initiative, and promised to send the Seed of the Woman, who would crush the Serpent’s head (Genesis 3.15). Thousands of years later this promise was fulfilled. The Father sent the Son on a mission of rescue and restoration.

The Son of God joined himself to humanity and became flesh, a truth we call the incarnation (John 1.14). And in his human life Jesus lived with distinct purpose. He was constantly about the Father’s business (Luke 2.49), and frequently referred to how God had sent him (John 5.19-29). Jesus’ purpose in coming was fulfilled when after a lifetime of perfect obedience to God he suffered on the cross for the sins of his people. He took our place under God’s wrath, so that we could take his place as God’s beloved children (cf. 2 Corinthians 5.21). Three days later he rose from the dead in triumph.

And now he is sending the church. In John 20.21, he tells his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And to help us, he and the Father have sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in and with the church, empowering it to bear witness to what he has done. Now, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are able to live lives of mission, patterned after the life of the God who has made us, sent his Son to redeem us, and sent us with his sent Spirit to join in his mission.

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

Recently, I wrote a post about the classic Protestant distinction between law and gospel. Broadly speaking, law is what God expects of us: the standard by which we are judged, and gospel is what God promises for us (especially in and through Jesus Christ). The post ended with a poll, where we looked at several statements and voted as to whether or not they were law or gospel. Here are the results.

Thou Shalt Not Kill:

89% identified it as law. 11 % identified it as gospel. It is an example of law.

Why is it law? Because it very clearly tells us what we should do. There is no promise in this statement.

Jesus Died for our Sins:

100 % identified it as gospel. It is gospel.

Why is it gospel? Because it does not give us anything to do. It simply tells us what God has done.

We should worship Jesus:

63% identified it as law. 38% identified it as gospel (and I’m not sure how it managed to add up to 101 percent). This statement is law.

Why is it law? Because it tells us what to do. Worshiping Jesus is good! We should do it. It’s a great goal. But if it becomes the basis of our relationship with God, we’re all going to hell, because we frequently worship other things besides Jesus. Good goals make horrible gospels.

God Accepts us Because of Jesus:

100% correctly identified this as gospel.

Why is it gospel? Again, because it’s all about what God is doing for us. You won’t find any instructions there.

Jesus will Never Leave us or Forsake Us:

100% correctly identified this as gospel.

Why is it gospel? It’s a promise. God’s doing it, not us.

God wants Changed Hearts, not just Behavior:

50% identified this as law. 50% identified it as gospel. And it is law.

Why is this law (and I suspected that many would identify it as gospel)? Because it shows us what God wants from us. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus explains that the law doesn’t just regulate our behavior, but our hearts and motives. He wasn’t changing the law, or making it harder. Instead, he was showing us how hard it had been all along. He tells us that anger is like murder in the heart. I can keep from taking someone’s life. But for the life of me, I can’t stop getting angry. There’s no way I can change my heart. And if that’s what God demands of me, then I’m damned.

The good news, though, is not that God looks at our heart (this would be bad news indeed), but rather that Jesus lived a perfect life. His heart was always right before God. And he died for my sinful heart’s affections and intentions. And he rose from the dead. And that on that basis, God accepts me. God doesn’t look at my heart. He looks at Jesus. And now I’m free. That kind of news can change the heart. But the change of heart is not the news.

Always remember. The gospel is for you. But it is not about you.

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger