Tuesday, October 16, 2018
Deuteronomy 4:1-2 "Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you."
A DIFFERENT KIND OF REFORMATION
We Lutherans are not the only ones with a reformation. It seems (according to Wikipedia) that the Catholics, Muslims, and Mormons also have periods in their histories that are called reformations.
The term "reformation" is really just a handy word for historians who seek to explain why or how things change, and if we look at the Lutheran Reformation on its surface, things really did change. Kingdoms changed, language changed, people changed.
But at the core of the Reformation that we celebrate is something unchangeable: the Word of God. In fact, the purpose of the reformers' work was to stop and prevent change. Despite the efforts of sinful people, God's warning against meddling with His Word stands.
The reformers fought against a church that had added to and taken from God's word. They added works to grace, and when you do that, you automatically take away from Christ's all-sufficient sacrifice for all the sins of all the world. The grave danger in this is that no one can change the fact that salvation is found in Christ alone, whose gospel is found in Scripture alone. Listening to the pure statutes and judgments of our unchanging God is the only way to live.
We thank God that we still benefit from His servants' unwillingness to reform or change the Word of God. May He preserve us in the faith of His unchanging declaration of righteousness because of the work of His Son, Jesus Christ.
