Reformation Sunday
Reformation Sunday
ps 13 song
Call to worship:
OT:
pastor Andrew Loginow
Genesis 3.15
NT:
pastor bobby owens
Romans 1.16-17
song:
grace alone
Historical reading:
pastor zachary mcguire
apostle’s creed
song:
a mighty fortress is our god
McGuire baby dedication:
pastor kevin mcguire
Confession & Pardon:
pastor michael champoux
song:
in Christ alone
Sermon:
Reformation Sunday 2025
dr. alex loginow
Introduction
Today is Reformation Sunday, meaning it is the Sunday before or on Reformation Day – October 31st. Some of you know this and our annual celebration of Reformation Sunday is gladly welcomed by you. Others of you might be thinking, “what is he talking about?” Every year on Reformation Sunday we recognize and celebrate our Protestant Reformed heritage and tradition traced back to and symbolized in the day Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenburg on October 31, 1517. Though seeds had already been planted by pastors and Christians before Luther, men we call proto-reformers, Luther’s 95 theses providentially set the Western world ablaze with what would eventually be called the Protestant Reformation.
To put it simply the Protestant Reformation is why we’re not Roman Catholic. We are in protest of Roman Catholic theology and practice. We are proudly and confessionally catholic and we confess so in the early ecumenical creeds like the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed, but we are not Roman Catholic, and we stand in protest of their dogmas codified in the Council of Trent forward. We are not only Protestant, but we are Reformed. There is much theology and history packed in the word Reformed, which has diversified quite a bit historically based on region, politics, and theological differences (especially with the sacraments), but the core of Reformed theology, of reforming the church, can be summarized in the 5 solas – grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, Scripture alone, to the glory of God alone.
Scripture reveals this Reformed theology from beginning to end. Since we’ve been preaching through Romans together, I thought it would be helpful to revisit Romans 3.21-26. This great pericope on God’s righteousness revealed through faith, what some have called the most important paragraph ever written, reveals all 5 pillars of the Protestant Reformation. I’ll list some other passages along the way to show you that this teaching is in all of Scripture, and we’ll note how the Roman Catholic Church misunderstands, or abuses Scripture, but most importantly, we want to see these 5 solas, these 5 theological truths, these 5 pillars of Protestant Reformed theology directly from the Word of the Lord.
Grace Alone
The 1st sola of Reformed theology is grace alone – we are saved by God’s grace alone. Notice verse 24 says, we are justified by his grace as a gift. We are freely declared righteous by God’s grace. God’s grace is the means by which we are declared righteous before God. Grace means unmerited favor; so, our salvation, our justification, our declaration of righteousness before God is the result of his sovereign unmerited favor toward the elect, the church, all who believe.
This has been true from the very beginning. God created all things out of grace – God did not need to create the world, or us, but he did. After Adam sinned, God did not need to give us the covenant of grace, the protoevangelium, the 1st gospel of Genesis 3.15, but he did. In fact, God didn’t simply respond to our sin, but before he even created the world, God decreed to save sinners in the covenant of redemption – all in his grace.
Much of Romans has explicitly revealed that we are undeserving of God’s favor and that we are guilty, we are unrighteous and we deserve God’s just wrath. This is encapsulated in Romans 3.23 – for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Yet, despite that we are freely justified by his grace. Romans 9.16 says our salvation is not from human will or exertion, but from God, who has mercy. We cannot and do not earn our salvation, or justification, but God freely justifies us in his grace.
This doctrine of grace alone completely obliterates our pride. We deserve hell because we’re guilty in sin, but God saves us by his grace – simply because he desires to choose us despite nothing deserving in us. Our only option in response is humility. We have no opportunity for pride, arrogance, or self-righteousness when we confess grace alone. Another great verse that reveals this truth is Ephesians 2.8-9: for by grace you have been saved through faith. And it is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Faith Alone
And that organically transitions us to our 2nd of the 5 solas: faith alone. We have been saved by grace through faith. Romans 3.22 says the righteousness of God is revealed through faith. Verse 25 says Jesus’ propitiation (satisfaction of God’s justice) is received by faith. Verse 26 says that God is the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
We saw this earlier in the thesis statement of Romans in chapter 1 verses 16-17:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
God’s righteousness is revealed from faith for faith; another way to translate that is – beginning and ending with faith; it’s all faith. The Roman Catholic Church does not teach that we are made acceptable before God by faith alone; RCC teaches faith + works. Chapter 10 of the Decree on Justification from the Council of Trent explicitly states that “faith co-operating with good works…furthers justification.” While more obscure passages like James 2.14-26 force us to contemplate the nature of good works in relation to justification, the overwhelming testimony of the Bible, with many clear passages reveals that we are declared righteous by God through faith alone. Romans 4 is a clear and explicit apology and exposition of Genesis 15 revealing that Father Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
Because Scripture teaches that we are made right with God through faith alone, it is imperative that we understand what faith is. Faith begins with the knowledge that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We stand guilty before our holy creator God because of our sin but in God’s grace he sent his only begotten Son, the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity, conceived by the Spirit and born of the virgin. His name is Jesus, and he lived without sin, righteous before God. Jesus died on the cross to satisfy God’s just wrath against the sins of the elect, Jesus was buried, and on the 3rd day Jesus resurrected for our justification.
If someone does not have that knowledge, how can they have faith? But knowledge alone does not constitute faith, the demons have that knowledge and tremble. Faith also includes assent. Assent means we acknowledge that this message of Jesus is true – we confess it and do not deny it. And finally, faith means we trust in Christ alone.
When we receive the gift of faith, by God’s grace, we repent of our sins. We humble ourselves, we confess our sin, and we turn from our sin. Do you believe? Do you have faith? Do you trust Jesus alone to be right before God? In response to that trust do you repent of your sin?
Christ Alone
Faith in Jesus Christ is the only way and that brings us to the 3rd sola: Christ alone. Romans 3.22 says we are not justified by generic faith, but faith in Jesus Christ. Verse 24 says redemption is in Christ Jesus. Verse 25 says that Jesus is our propitiation, our means of satisfying the justice of God, our mercy seat, to use Old Covenant imagery. God’s justice is satisfied, verse 25 says, by Jesus’ blood – this is a word picture meaning by Jesus’ death. We see this every week as we drink the wine of the Holy Eucharist, picturing Jesus’ blood shed for us. Verse 26 says that God is the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
There are so many different roads we might travel here, so many passages we could cite. The truth is our religion; Christianity is all about Jesus. Our understanding of God is centered in Jesus, we can only understand ourselves and salvation in relation to Jesus. Our theology and practice, our liturgy, gathering on Sunday, how we view our identity and vocation, our call to love God and neighbor, our mission to make disciples of all nations – it’s all centered in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our entire existence, in fact, the reason all of creation was made was for Jesus.
The Bible is all about Jesus. Jesus was promised in the Old Testament and Jesus is revealed in the New Testament. The New Testament teaches us how to go back and rightly interpret the Old Testament seeing Christ as the meaning. Jesus is what the Bible is all about; though Scripture reveals and teaches many things, the Bible principally reveals the good news of Jesus.
Scripture Alone
And that brings us to the 4th sola: Scripture alone. Romans 3.21 says that the law and the prophets bear witness to the righteousness of God. The phrase the law and the prophets is a colloquial way of referring to the Old Testament. The Jewish OT, while containing the same books as our OT, was formatted differently, called TNK, so here St. Paul is saying the OT bears witness to the gospel, but even in his statement, he’s assuming the authority of the OT.
The ultimate authority of Scripture is based on its inspired nature and Scripture is filled with authoritative self-referential statements, meaning the Bible teaches the authority of the Bible. Some easy and famous examples: 2nd Timothy 3.16-17:
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2nd Peter 1.21: For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. In Genesis 1 God created all things by his Word; when God gave Moses, the 10 Commandments, which were the 1st ever written Scripture, God wrote them with his own finger, teaching us how highly God views Scripture. The Lord Jesus venerated Scripture by his preaching of the OT, making statements like, “If you don’t believe Moses and the prophets, you won’t believe a man resurrected from the dead,” after the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
Scripture is the ultimate authority for faith and practice. This is where we need to check ourselves, lest we fall in to saying something foolish like, “no creed but the Bible.” Scripture is not our only authority, but it is our supreme authority. Scripture itself reveals different authorities in our lives – the authority of husbands in marriage, fathers in the family, Elders/pastors in the church, the authority of government, you may have a boss or teacher or coach with some authority over you. We all live under authority.
The church has always recognized authorities of creeds, confessions, catechism, some traditions recognize ecclesiastical authorities like councils, synods, episcopacies, and presbyteries. Even in autonomous churches, like ours, we recognize the right, God-given authority of Elders. None of these stands in contrast to confessing Scripture alone. It is right and good and healthy to submit to the providential wisdom we have in Orthodox creeds and Reformed confessions and catechisms; they are just not ultimate authority. They are norming authority, but Scripture is the only authority, which is not normed. Scripture stands above every other authority.
This is why we protest Rome’s tri-fold authority of Scripture, Tradition, and the Church. RCC views all this as equal authority and in many practical ways the Scripture ends up submitting to the church, or to Tradition. We believe in church authority, we even believe in authority derived from our Orthodox Protestant Reformed tradition (at least we should), but we believe and confess that these authorities submit to the ultimate authority – Scripture alone because tradition, councils, or church leaders are not inspired by God.
To the Glory of God Alone
The 5th and final sola of the Protestant Reformation is the glory of God alone. This is the great summary of Reformed theology, of the Bible, of the gospel, of the meaning of life itself – the glory of God alone. Romans 3.23 shows us our problem is that we’ve all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Verses 25-26 reveal that God’s justification of sinner is all to show his righteousness so that he might be just and the justifier – aka God’s doing this for his own glory. We saw last week in Romans 5.2 that our response to being at peace with God is that we rejoice, we boast, we exult in the glory of God.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism famously and beautifully begins:
Q1: What is the chief end of man?
A1: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever
Now to be fair to our Roman Catholic neighbors, I don’t think they’d disagree with this. We can argue that some of their dogma and practice leads to not glorifying God or outright does not glorify God, but this is a statement that all Christians regardless of denomination or confessional identity should agree with. And for the Reformers this point was a summary, an encapsulation, an exclamation point on everything Scripture reveals about Christ and his gospel and how we live in response to the good news of Jesus.
All things do exist and happen for the glory of God, whether we see it, or recognize it, or not. But how much better will our lives be, how much truer to reality will we live if we move with the current, with the grain, and not against it? How much more will we love God and neighbor when we see and trust and hope in the glory of God? 2nd Corinthians 10.31 says, So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Conclusion
We are Protestant and we are Reformed. We are confessionally catholic – we believe and confess the early catholic or ecumenical creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, Athanasian) – but we are not Roman Catholic. We stand in Protest to the Roman Catholic Church. We believe and confess that sinners are saved by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Scripture alone is our ultimate authority, and this is all to the glory of God alone. Happy Reformation Sunday!