R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 53

Covenant Dynamics

Here’s an excerpt from Covenant Dynamics, Guy Waters' contribution to the October issue of Tabletalk:

Covenant is not a word that we use often in the West. But it is a word that can show up in surprising places. Some of us live in “covenant communities”—neighborhoods where each resident agrees to abide by a written set of standards designed to make people’s homes and yards look neat and presentable. Or perhaps you have been to a wedding recently and heard the word covenant used during the ceremony. In both of these examples, covenant is not tossed around casually. Investment in a home and in the lifelong union of a husband and a wife are weighty matters that deeply affect people’s lives. In an age not known for its seriousness or thoughtfulness, covenant manages to carry the sense of something important and abiding.

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Can a Saved Person Be Lost?

Can true Christians fall from the faith in his final days and be lost? From one of our Ask Ligonier events, Derek Thomas responds to a startling picture at the end of John Bunyan’s beloved book The Pilgrim’s Progress. To get real-time answers to your biblical and theological questions, just ask Ligonier.

Read the Transcript

What Does the Roman Catholic Church Believe About Justification?

The gospel of Jesus Christ is always at risk of distortion. It became distorted in the centuries leading up to the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. It became distorted at innumerable other points of church history, and it is often distorted today. This is why Martin Luther said the gospel must be defended in every generation. It is the center point of attack by the forces of evil. They know that if they can get rid of the gospel, they can get rid of Christianity.

There are two sides to the gospel, the good news of the New Testament: an objective side and a subjective side. The objective content of the gospel is the person and work of Jesus—who He is and what He accomplished in His life. The subjective side is the question of how the benefits of Christ’s work are appropriated to the believer. There the doctrine of justification comes to the fore.

Many issues were involved in the Reformation, but the core matter, the material issue of the Reformation, was the gospel, especially the doctrine of justification. There was no great disagreement between the Roman Catholic Church authorities and the Protestant Reformers about the objective side. All the parties agreed that Jesus was divine, the Son of God and of the Virgin Mary, and that He lived a life of perfect obedience, died on the cross in an atoning death, and was raised from the grave. The battle was over the second part of the gospel, the subjective side, the question of how the benefits of Christ are applied to the believer.

The Reformers believed and taught that we are justified by faith alone. Faith, they said, is the sole instrumental cause for our justification. By this they meant that we receive all the benefits of Jesus’ work through putting our trust in Him alone.

The Roman communion also taught that faith is a necessary condition for salvation. At the seminal Council of Trent (1545–1563), which formulated Rome’s response to the Reformation, the Roman Catholic authorities declared that faith affords three things: the initium, the fundamentum, and the radix. That is, faith is the beginning of justification, the foundation for justification, and the root of justification. But Rome held that a person can have true faith and still not be justified, because there was much more to the Roman system.

In reality, the Roman view of the gospel, as expressed at Trent, was that justification is accomplished through the sacraments. Initially, the recipient must accept and cooperate in baptism, by which he receives justifying grace. He retains that grace until he commits a mortal sin. Mortal sin is called “mortal” because it kills the grace of justification. The sinner then must be justified a second time. That happens through the sacrament of penance, which the Council of Trent defined as “a second plank” of justification for those who have made shipwreck of their souls.

The fundamental difference was this. Trent said that God does not justify anyone until real righteousness inheres within the person. In other words, God does not declare a person righteous unless he or she is righteous. So, according to Roman Catholic doctrine, justification depends on a person’s sanctification. By contrast, the Reformers said justification is based on the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus. The only ground by which a person can be saved is Jesus’ righteousness, which is reckoned to him when he believes.

There were radically different views of salvation. They could not be reconciled. One of them was the gospel. One of them was not. Thus, what was at stake in the Reformation was the gospel of Jesus Christ. Though the Council of Trent made many fine affirmations of traditional truths of the Christian faith, it declared justification by faith alone to be anathema, ignoring many plain teachings of Scripture, such as Romans 3:28: “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”

This excerpt is adapted from Are We Together? A Protestant Analyzes Roman Catholicism by R.C. Sproul. Learn more by watching R.C. Sproul's teaching series Justified by Faith Alone.

Living on the Basis of the Word of God Alone

We are not only obligated to know the Word of God, but also to live by it. In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul explores the temptation of Jesus.

Transcript:

“Jesus answered him, saying, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone.”’” Now suppose He just stopped right there and said, “No, I can’t turn these stones into bread because I’m in the middle of a fast, and though it’s perfectly legitimate on normal occasions to have breakfast, when you’re in the midst of this kind of test, that’s not allowed, so that’s all right with me. I can – I can survive in these days without any physical nourishment if that’s what God wants Me to do. After all, Satan, man doesn’t live by bread alone.” But then He goes on to finish the statement: “…but by every word that proceeds forth from the mouth of God.” It’s as if Jesus is saying, “I am the New Adam. The first Adam did not last very long living by the Word of God, but My task, My vocation is to fulfill the original destiny and purpose of the human race, to live on the basis of every single word that comes from the mouth of God, and what is that compared to bread?” And so Jesus focuses the question in His response to Satan on obedience to the Word of God. Now we need to understand that because I hope that we’re not having this overview of sacred Scripture, “Dust to Glory,” just out of a casual kind of interest in a historical document. I am convinced that what we’re looking at here is nothing less than the very written Word of God, and we are required and obligated not only to know it, but to live by it, by every word that comes to us from God.

Listen to the First Episode of Luther: In Real Time

It’s October 10, 1520. A monk named Martin Luther hears someone hammering at his door. It’s the pope’s envoy, and the message is dire. If Luther does not retract all of his teachings, he will be cut off from the church.

Today, listen to the opening episode of our new podcast, Luther: In Real Time, and experience the dramatic journey that God used to change the world. Each episode is released 500 years to the day after major twists and turns in Luther’s transformation from a terrified monk to the bold German Reformer. Subscribe today on your favorite podcast app so you can listen in real time.

Simply listening to today’s episode on Apple Podcasts is an easy way to help this podcast reach even more people. You can also listen to Luther: In Real Time on Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, RefNet, or RSS. Coming soon to Pandora.

 

Reformed and Always Reforming

The year 2017 was the Martin Luther year. We remembered the Reformation and we celebrated it. But we must also continue the Reformation. The Reformation is not a museum to be visited occasionally on a tour bus. It was and is a vital movement for truth and life in the church of Jesus. How should we maintain and advance the cause of reform? Some believe that the answer to that question can be found in the slogan reformed and always reforming. We continue the Reformation by always reforming. That slogan is indeed useful if we understand it correctly. The problem is that sometimes the slogan is used to justify the opposite of what it originally intended.

Those who misuse the slogan end up saying something like this: The Reformation had to change things that were wrong in the church, and we have to continue changing things that are wrong with the church. We have to make Christianity more understandable and relevant today. We have to strip away formalism and legalism so that we can get on with the great work of evangelism. We must be always reforming.

At first glance, this use of the slogan may seem good. All of us want Christianity to be vital, understandable, and evangelistic. But too often, those who are always reforming are in fact moving away from the Reformation and its great concerns about the Bible and justification, about worship, preaching, and the sacraments. They are simplifying or minimizing Christianity in ways that leave out many of the great concerns of biblical truth. Always reforming comes to mean increasingly conforming to the demands and standards of the world.

Such an approach to the slogan is not at all what it originally meant—or what it should mean for us today. The exact origins of the slogan are obscure, but its meaning is not. It was designed to make two critical points about who we are as Reformed Christians.

Reformed

The first point is that we are Reformed. We must remember that calling ourselves Reformed is in fact an abbreviation. The full statement is: We are Christians who have been reformed by the Word of God. Reformed means that the Word of God has changed and purified us. We still are small-c catholic Christians, which means that we accept the canon of the New Testament as did the ancient church and accept the ancient definitions of the Trinity and Christology. We are Augustinian in our soteriology. But we also agree with the Reformers that various traditions of the church, from ancient and medieval times, drifted away from the Word of God and therefore had to be reformed or corrected by the Bible.

When we say we are Reformed, then, we mean that the Reformation, and particularly the Calvinistic wing of the Reformation, rightly understood and applied the Bible to help purify Christian doctrine, the church, and individual Christians. The great insights of the Reformers into the Word of God were summarized and preserved in the confessions and catechisms of the Reformed churches. Those teachings were true and are still true. They are a great, settled accomplishment of the Reformation. We still hold to them and in that sense we are Reformed. Reformed is something defined by the confessions of the Reformed churches, which are still rightly subscribed to by Reformed Christians.

Always Reforming

We recognize, however, that every generation not only needs to learn again what it means to be Reformed, but every generation also needs to be about the business of always reforming. We need to be always reforming because we are sinners. We fail to understand and follow God’s truth as we ought. We recognize that the Reformers were sinners, too, and did not understand everything perfectly. So we want always to reform ourselves and the lives of our churches by turning again and again to the Word of God to allow it to reform us. Always reforming does not mean allowing our clever insights into the needs of our present world to change the biblical inheritance we have received from the Reformation. It means turning as the Reformers did to the Word of God to allow it to change us.

One way in which we can see the need to reform ourselves is in the arena of Christianity and culture. John Calvin was convinced that the church should influence culture by being legally established by the state and by having the state outlaw false religion. Today, most Reformed Christians believe that the Bible teaches something very different about church and state, about Christ and culture. Many American Christians are understandably concerned about the great moral and intellectual changes taking place in our culture. Decades of secular education, liberal media, and immoral entertainment have combined with other forces to lead many Americans into a post-Christian way of thinking and living. As citizens, American Christians are right to recognize the dangers in these developments and to seek cultural alternatives.

We must be careful, however, not to confuse these cultural concerns with the gospel. The gospel is itself not a cultural program. The gospel certainly has cultural significance and implications. But the Christian gospel can flourish in any culture, from pagan Rome to Islamic theocracy to Communist tyranny. The gospel is the good news that Jesus has fulfilled all righteousness, has conquered sin and death for His people, and is building a new humanity of those who repent and believe.

We learn about that gospel and the life of that new humanity produced by that gospel in the Bible. Always reforming means always returning to the Scriptures to be changed and improved. It is a passion to know, love, and live out the Word of God.

A careful examination of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16–20 illustrates this point for us. This important passage has often been claimed by those who misuse the slogan always reforming to justify their innovative and reductionistic approaches to modern church life. But when we really look at the words of Jesus there, we see clearly that He did not say, “Do whatever will advance the cause of evangelism.” What, then, did He say?

First, we see that Jesus in the Great Commission is instructing those who were His disciples and His Apostles, those who worshiped Him even if they had some doubts. He intends to prepare them for the work to which He is calling them. He truly is giving them the program for the church that He wants them to pursue.
Second, He makes a clear statement about Himself. The disciples will serve Jesus correctly and faithfully only when they know who He is. He is not just their teacher who died and rose again from the dead. He is supremely the Lord. His resurrection does not just mean that He is alive again but that He is glorified as “ruler of kings on earth” (Rev. 1:5). All authority is given to Him so that He can indeed build His church, and no forces, temporal or spiritual, can stand against Him (Matt. 16:18). His authority guarantees the success He intends for His church.
Third, the disciples are charged to make disciples. Their commission to make disciples is for all nations. They are not limited to Israel or the Jews but are commissioned to take the good news to the nations. But what does it mean to make disciples, which is another way of asking, what does it mean to preach the gospel correctly? Jesus’ commission has two parts, namely, teaching and baptizing. The Apostles must teach the truth about Jesus to make disciples. The preaching and teaching work of the church and especially its official leaders is necessary for making disciples, according to Jesus. The commissioned disciples must also baptize. The Great Commission requires the sacramental ministry of the church as well as its teaching ministry. Baptism is the sign and seal of the disciple’s new life and new identity in Christ.
Fourth, Jesus specifies what the disciples are to teach. This point is particularly important. Jesus authorizes no minimal summary of His ministry. New disciples are not made by selected parts of His teaching. Real disciples want, deserve, and must have all of His teaching. Real disciples are eager for the fullness of the revelation of Jesus.
Fifth, Jesus assures His disciples that as they carry out His commission, He will always be with them. His authority and lordship will not forsake them. Success does not need to be manipulated because it is assured by the presence and blessing of Jesus.

The Great Commission is indeed the program by which the church must operate. But we must not use the Great Commission as a slogan to justify any approach to evangelism. Jesus did not commission His church to evangelize according to its wisdom, but according to His teaching. The Great Commission is part of His Word, and it must always reform us.

Sometimes in history, the church goes into very serious decline in doctrine or life and must be reformed thoroughly. At other times, Christians may be frustrated with the rate of growth of the church and assume that some drastic reform is needed. Only a close examination of the Word can help us determine which is true. Where reform according to the Word of God—the whole Word—is needed, we must pursue it vigorously. On the other hand, where the church is faithful, she must persevere patiently and wait for seasons of richer grace from the Lord. Luther said of his reform, “The Word did it.” So, of all good continuing reformation we must say, “The Word must do it.”

This post is adapted from an article originally published in Tabletalk magazine.

$5 Friday (And More): Prayer, Gratefulness, & Martin Luther

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as prayer, gratefulness, Martin Luther, forgiveness, baptism, the book of Romans, and more.

Plus, several bonus resources are also available for more than $5. These have been significantly discounted from their original price. This week’s bonus resources include:

Gratefulness: November 2019 Tabletalk , Magazine $3 $1
Perfectionism and Control: October 2018 Tabletalk , Magazine $3 $1
The Sixteenth Century: October 2016 Tabletalk , Magazine $3 $1
What Does It Mean to Be Born Again? by R.C Sproul, Paperback book $2 $1
The Life and Theology of Paul by Guy Waters, Hardcover book $15 $8
A Simple Way to Pray , Hardcover book $10 $7
Maturity: Growing Up and Going on in the Christian Life , Paperback book $17 $11
Now, That’s a Good Question! by R.C. Sproul, Paperback book $18 $12
Jesus Made in America by Stephen Nichols, Paperback book $20 $13
The Hand of God by Alistair Begg, Paperback book $15 $10
The Legacy of Luther , Audiobook CD $20 $12
Luther: The Life and Legacy of the German Reformer , Blu-ray $30 $15
The Last Days According to Jesus with R.C. Sproul, Audio and Video Download $19.20 $7
The Last Days According to Jesus with R.C. Sproul, Study Guide $12 $8
The New Birth with Steven Lawson, DVD $48 $15
The New Birth with Steven Lawson, Study Guide $15 $5
A Survey of Church History, Part 3 A.D. 1500-1620 with W. Robert Godfrey, DVD $48 $15
A Survey of Church History, Part 3 A.D. 1500-1620 with W. Robert Godfrey, CD $31 $10
A Survey of Church History, Part 3 A.D. 1500-1620 with W. Robert Godfrey, Study Guide $15 $8
The Holiness of God with R.C. Sproul, CD $24 $12
The Holiness of God with R.C. Sproul, Study Guide $15 $8
Meaning for Men with R.C. Sproul, CD $17 $12

Sale runs through 12:01 a.m.–11:59 p.m. Friday ET.

View today’s $5 Friday sale items.

A World-Changing Moment

You have probably heard that we are in a world-changing moment. Perhaps we are, but historians can sort that out later. It sure seems that way, however. The stakes are high wherever you look. But you and I know that God’s people are called to be faithful regardless of the circumstances. Our times are in His hands (Ps. 31:15). Christians were made to flourish in moments like these.

To help Ligonier remain faithful to God in this and every hour, we’ve developed ten ministry commitments that I want you to read. Your gift of any amount this month will help move the mission of Ligonier forward and end 2020 in a position of strength.

The year 2020 has offered little in terms of clear vision. A global health and economic crisis persists. Lawlessness is rampant. Consequential political elections are around the corner. Christians are uniquely prepared to face the challenges in such a time as this because we are united to Christ, the Captain of our salvation. Thanks be to God that He has gone before us in all things and He will bring His people home (Heb. 2:10; 6:19–20).

We may not know what is coming around the corner. Yet, God has spoken in His Word. While He hasn’t told us everything about the future, we know that He has entrusted to us the message of salvation. The one Savior is redeeming a people from every nation, tribe, and tongue. Ligonier Ministries intends to faithfully steward this moment in history. Whether the Lord tarries a day or a thousand years, what Dr. Sproul said is just as true, just as pressing: “Right now counts forever.”

Only the grace of God and commitment to a well-defined mission keep God’s people steady in times like these. At Ligonier, we’re grateful that R.C. gave us a simple, clear, and focused purpose that we have been following for decades—to declare the fullness of the holiness of God to as many people as possible.

Strengthened by God’s grace, Ligonier is pressing on to fulfill this vision, doing what we’ve always done in teaching people the deep things of God. We’re reaching millions of people around the world this month. People testify to the timeless truth of God’s Word that goes forth with power from Ligonier’s many outreaches.

Staying fixed on our purpose, we formalized ten ministry commitments to ensure your generosity helps advance a global awakening to the Lord and His holiness for years to come. We believe ministry friends like you support Ligonier’s global gospel outreach because of these unwavering commitments and because billions of souls do not know who God is. You might have seen these commitments in the past, but if not, we would be honored and encouraged by your taking the time to read them and to pray for the people being reached by Ligonier.

These commitments serve as a kind of guardrail to help us remain steadfast in our unchanging mission for generations to come. Your part in this work cannot be overstated. Under God, we cannot fulfill our mission without faithful friends and partners such as you standing with us through prayer and financial support. We’ve needed to make budget adjustments to sustain our outreach even as the scope of our mission has grown. Your gift to increase financial support over the next few months is vital for a strong finish in 2020 and for us to hit the ground running in 2021—our fiftieth year of ministry.

You and the team at Ligonier are engaged in a mighty kingdom work. Any support you can give at this time will be greatly appreciated and will help make it possible to provide more people with the trusted teaching you expect from Ligonier. Thank you.

 

The Covenant in History

Here’s an excerpt from The Covenant in History, R Scott Clark's contribution to the October issue of Tabletalk:

Until recently, it was widely held that covenant theology was created in the middle of the seventeenth century by theologians such as Johannes Cocceius (1609–69). In fact, covenant theology is nothing more or less than the theology of the Bible. It is also the theology of the Reformed confessions. In the history of theology, the elements of what we know as covenant theology—the covenant of redemption before time between the persons of the Trinity, the covenant of works with Adam, and the covenant of grace after the fall—have existed since the early church.

Continue reading The Covenant in History, or begin receiving Tabletalk magazine by signing up for a free 3-month trial.

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Why the Reformation Still Matters

On October 31, 2016, Pope Francis announced that after five hundred years, Protestants and Catholics now “have the opportunity to mend a critical moment of our history by moving beyond the controversies and disagreements that have often prevented us from understanding one another.” From that, it sounds as if the Reformation was an unfortunate and unnecessary squabble over trifles, a childish outburst that we can all put behind us now that we have grown up.

But tell that to Martin Luther, who felt such liberation and joy at his rediscovery of justification by faith alone that he wrote, “I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.” Tell that to William Tyndale, who found it such “merry, glad and joyful tidings” that it made him “sing, dance, and leap for joy.” Tell it to Thomas Bilney, who found it gave him “a marvellous comfort and quietness, insomuch that my bruised bones leaped for joy.” Clearly, those first Reformers didn’t think they were picking a juvenile fight; as they saw it, they had discovered glad tidings of great joy.

GOOD NEWS IN 1517

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Europe had been without a Bible the people could read for something like a thousand years. Thomas Bilney had thus never encountered the words “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). Instead of the Word of God, they were left to the understanding that God is a God who enables people to earn their own salvation. As one of the teachers of the day liked to put it, “God will not deny grace to those who do their best.” Yet what were meant as cheering words left a very sour taste for everyone who took them seriously. How could you be sure you really had done your best? How could you tell if you had become the sort of just person who merited salvation?

Martin Luther certainly tried. “I was a good monk,” he wrote, “and kept my order so strictly that I could say that if ever a monk could get to heaven through monastic discipline, I should have entered in.” And yet, he found:

My conscience would not give me certainty, but I always doubted and said, “You didn’t do that right. You weren’t contrite enough. You left that out of your confession.” The more I tried to remedy an uncertain, weak and troubled conscience with human traditions, the more daily I found it more uncertain, weaker and more troubled.

According to Roman Catholicism, Luther was quite right to be unsure of heaven. Confidence of a place in heaven was considered errant presumption and was one of the charges made against Joan of Arc at her trial in 1431. There, the judges proclaimed,

This woman sins when she says she is as certain of being received into Paradise as if she were already a partaker of . . . glory, seeing that on this earthly journey no pilgrim knows if he is worthy of glory or of punishment, which the sovereign judge alone can tell.

That judgment made complete sense within the logic of the system: if we can only enter heaven because we have (by God’s enabling grace) become personally worthy of it, then of course no one can be sure. By that line of reasoning, I can only have as much confidence in heaven as I have confidence in my own sinlessness.

That was exactly why the young Martin Luther screamed with fear when as a student he was nearly struck by lightning in a thunderstorm. He was terrified of death, for without knowledge of Christ’s sufficient and gracious salvation—without knowledge of justification by faith alone—he had no hope of heaven.

And that was why his rediscovery in Scripture of justification by faith alone felt like entering paradise through open gates. It meant that, instead of all his angst and terror, he could now write:

When the devil throws our sins up to us and declares that we deserve death and hell, we ought to speak thus: “I admit that I deserve death and hell. What of it? Does this mean that I shall be sentenced to eternal damnation? By no means. For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction in my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Where he is, there I shall be also.”

And that was why the Reformation gave people such a taste for sermons and Bible reading. For, to be able to read God’s words and to see in them such good news that God saves sinners, not on the basis of how well they repent but entirely by His own grace, was like a burst of Mediterranean sunshine into the gray world of religious guilt.

GOOD NEWS IN 2017

None of the goodness or relevance of the Reformation’s insights have faded over the last five hundred years. The answers to the same key questions still make all the difference between human hopelessness and happiness. What will happen to me when I die? How can I know? Is justification the gift of a righteous status (as the Reformers argued), or a process of becoming more holy (as Rome asserts)? Can I confidently rely for my salvation on Christ alone, or does my salvation also rest on my own efforts toward and success in achieving holiness?

Almost certainly, what confuses people into thinking that the Reformation is a bit of history we can move beyond is the idea that it was just a reaction to some problem of the day. But the closer one looks, the clearer it becomes: the Reformation was not principally a negative movement about moving away from Rome and its corruption; it was a positive movement, about moving toward the gospel. And that is precisely what preserves the validity of the Reformation for today. If the Reformation had been a mere reaction to a historical situation five hundred years ago, one would expect it to be over. But as a program to move ever closer to the gospel, it cannot be over.

Another objection is that today’s culture of positive thinking and self-esteem has wiped away all perceived need for the sinner to be justified. Not many today find themselves wearing hair-shirts and enduring all-night prayer vigils in the freezing cold to earn God’s favor. All in all, then, Luther’s problem of being tortured by guilt before the divine Judge is dismissed as a sixteenth-century problem, and his solution of justification by faith alone is therefore dismissed as unnecessary for us today.

But it is in fact precisely into this context that Luther’s solution rings out as such happy and relevant news. For, having jettisoned the idea that we might ever be guilty before God and therefore in need of His justification, our culture has succumbed to the old problem of guilt in subtler ways and with no means to answer. Today, we are all bombarded with the message that we will be more loved when we make ourselves more attractive. It may not be God-related, and yet it is still a religion of works, and one that is deeply embedded. For that, the Reformation has the most sparkling good news. Luther speaks words that cut through the gloom like a glorious and utterly unexpected sunbeam:

The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. . . . Rather than seeking its own good, the love of God flows forth and bestows good. Therefore sinners are attractive because they are loved; they are not loved because they are attractive.

ONCE AGAIN, THE TIME IS RIPE

Five hundred years later, the Roman Catholic Church has still not been reformed. For all the warm ecumenical language used by so many Protestants and Roman Catholics, Rome still repudiates justification by faith alone. It feels it can do so because Scripture is not regarded as the supreme authority to which popes, councils, and doctrine must conform. And because Scripture is so relegated, biblical literacy is not encouraged, and thus millions of poor Roman Catholics are still kept from the light of God’s Word.

Outside Roman Catholicism, the doctrine of justification by faith alone is routinely shied away from as insignificant, wrongheaded, or perplexing. Some new perspectives on what the Apostle Paul meant by justification, especially when they have tended to shift the emphasis away from any need for personal conversion, have, as much as anything, confused people, leaving the article that Luther said cannot be given up or compromised as just that—given up or compromised.

Now is not a time to be shy about justification or the supreme authority of the Scriptures that proclaim it. Justification by faith alone is no relic of the history books; it remains today as the only message of ultimate liberation, the message with the deepest power to make humans unfurl and flourish. It gives assurance before our holy God and turns sinners who attempt to buy God off into saints who love and fear Him.

And oh what opportunities we have today for spreading this good news! Five hundred years ago, Gutenberg’s recent invention of the printing press meant that the light of the gospel could spread at a speed never before witnessed. Tyndale’s Bibles and Luther’s tracts could go out by the thousands. Today, digital technology has given us another Gutenberg moment, and the same message can now be spread at speeds Luther could never have imagined.

Both the needs and the opportunities are as great as they were five hundred years ago—in fact, they are greater. Let us then take courage from the faithfulness of the Reformers and hold the same wonderful gospel high, for it has lost none of its glory or its power to dispel our darkness.

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.