What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church

by Gavin Ortlund

Here we note the Reformers’ recognition of the true church outside of Protestantism even in their own day. Martin Luther, for example, commenting in the 1530s on Paul’s characterization of the Galatian churches as true churches (Gal. 1:2) despite their compromise of the gospel (Gal. 1:6), drew a comparison with the Church of Rome. On the one hand, the Church of Rome was “worse than Sodom and Gomorrah” because of her doctrinal and spiritual corruption. On the other hand, Luther stipulated that “today we still call the Church of Rome holy and all its sees holy, even though they have been undermined and their ministers are ungodly.”24 This is because, Luther maintained, the Church of Rome still possesses “Baptism, the Sacrament, the voice and text of the Gospel, the Sacred Scriptures, the ministries, the name of Christ, and the name of God.”