On the 500th anniversary of the reformation, Pastor David reflects on the Reformation.

<p>On the 500th anniversary of the reformation, Pastor David reflects on the Reformation.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

Reflections on the Reformation

I mentioned this in my message on education.

And this is a landmark book from Dawn to Decadence, 500 Years of Cultural Life.

And this author, the brilliant historian Barzan, reflects on the Reformation in chapter 1, and I want you to notice the language that he uses.

How a revolution erupts from a commonplace event, a tidal wave from a ripple, is cause for endless astonishment.

Here is the historian looking back at history and he sees this obscure priest in a small town that nails a document to the door of the university church there and it sparks a fire that erupts into a conflagration that changes the course of human history.

Barzun goes on by saying the Reformation caused the transfer of power and property in the name of an idea, a concept, an epiphany, sparked a revolution that spread all over Western Europe as country after country went under the Protestant banner.

Germany, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, and England all sided with Protestantism, and Western Europe was changed and shifted, not only in terms of theology, but there was a dramatic power shift that took place in the name of an idea.

There are several ideas surrounding the Reformation, sola scriptura, the Bible and the Bible alone, sola fide, faith alone, and there is a notion that emerges from the Reformation that has warmed the hearts of Protestants throughout the centuries, and it really goes back to the staircase in Rome.

This is Pilate's staircase, reputed to be the same staircase that Jesus was on during his trial, and Martin Luther was in Rome, ascending Pilate's staircase, because there was a special indulgence that was offered that if you ascended this staircase, you could earn or buy salvation.

And so Martin Luther is ascending this staircase on his knees in existential agony and angst, trying to merit salvation, trying to earn the favor of God, and he's ascending this staircase and across his mind thundered the words from Romans, the just shall live by faith.

He sprang to his feet and he never was the same again The revolutionary notion that you could not earn or buy salvation.

Christianity throughout Western Europe was in a legalistic, works-oriented paradigm, and salvation was bought and sold on the open market like a commodity.

If the price or if the amount was right, You could buy it, you could earn it, you could merit it.

And there were edicts that would go out when the Crusades would begin, and people would be enlisted on the promise that if you went on this crusade, You were assured salvation.

And so in 1517, Tetzel was put over Germany in order to sell indulgences.

They needed to earn or raise enough funds to build what is known today as St.

And so, Tetzel went through Germany selling these indulgences.

And so he nailed the 95 thesis on the door of the Wittenberg Chapel.

Prior to that, Gutenberg's press had been already invented.

It is the equivalent of the internet today back then.

And so that document was printed and reprinted and spread like the leaves of autumn all over Western Europe.

And the Protestant Reformation had begun.

So today, I wanted to take a brief pause from our series on the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts.

I thought to myself, after all, this only happens, or will never happen again.

It's the 500th anniversary in a few days.

15-17, October 31st was when Martin Luther nailed the 95 Thesis on the door of the Wittenberg Chapel.

And I wanted to share some reflections on a central theme in the Reformation.

And here it is, this is in your study guide, pull it out.

It is a brief outline of today's presentation.

And Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8, beautifully summarizes a central motif of the Reformation.

Beautiful words from Ephesians 2, verse 8.

For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Notice that this text says, "'For by grace you have been saved.'" Now, the Greek language is very specific in terms of Greek tenses, and here it says, for by grace you have been saved, not you will be saved, or you are being saved, but in this particular passage it says you have been saved.

In other words, assurance is based in the experiential, the existential reality that we have been saved.

Salvation is something that we not only receive in the far away future by and by, but it is something that we can receive right now.

The moment that you accept Jesus as your personal Savior, you can know that you have been saved.

Assurance, not will be saved or are being saved, but you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

That word, a gift, I looked it up in the dictionary.

A thing willingly given to someone without payment.

Something voluntarily transferred by 1 person to another person without compensation.

Something given voluntarily without payment in return.

The very definition of what a gift is, is that it is given and there is no compensation, there is no purchase, There is no merit in it.

And the implication of what Ephesians chapter 2 is saying is that salvation is not something that you can make payment for because it is a gift.

Once you make payment for a gift, it is no longer a gift by definition.

A gift is something that is given without any sort of transaction of means.

It is transferred to the other person without payment in return without compensation Now there's an axiom that I thought about in my mind That I believe it is true in regards to gifts Have you ever received a gift that is so valuable That you had difficulty believing that it was really free I remember someone gave me an iPad brand new At the time of the iPad 2 Gave it to me.

It was not even opened and I was like, are you sure I?

In other words, the greater the value of the gift, many times the more difficulty we have in believing that it's actually free.

We naturally assume that when something is given that is so valuable, we assume that there's something that I need to do to help this transaction some sort of contribution some sort of payment some sort of Renumeration that that helps in this transfer the greater the value and so here we have salvation that is extremely valuable.

And so naturally, we, I, have a difficulty in really, really believing that this thing is free.

And that's why the Bible says it takes faith.

Because the value of salvation is so high, it takes faith to believe it, that it's actually free.

The beauty is, all of us right now can accept the gift and believe without any sort of human contribution to make payment for that.

You receive it by faith and you have been saved.

There are some pockets within our community of faith that have been abused by legalism.

And this notion of salvation being a free gift, when you say it, it is very difficult for individuals to really internalize and accept because of abuse in the past by other individuals.

And I want us to reflect on where Adventism really is in the lineage of the Reformation.

And I have these quotations in your study guide, and I want you to see them with your own eyes because this is where Adventism really stands, believe it or not, because people naturally assume that Seventh-day Adventists are legalists, people that earn their salvation through meritorious works.

We're really in this paradigm of meriting salvation.

But when you go back to what we actually believe, not misrepresentations, Not spins, not offshoot movements, not people that don't really believe the gospel as it is found in the New Testament.

This is from the pen of Ellen White, and I want you to see it in its clarity.

I'm gonna give you a few quotations here.

I invite you to look at these and realize that this is where we stand as a church.

There is not a point that needs to be dwelt upon more earnestly, repeated more frequently, or established more firmly in the minds of all than the impossibility of fallen man meriting anything by his own best good works.

Salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

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Reflections on the Reformation

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