The Reformation Continues
1 Corinthians 3:10-15
By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.
What does reformation mean? Usually when we think of reforms, we think of changing something to make it better. The Oxford English dictionaries even define the word reform as “making changes in (something, typically a social, political, or economic institution or practice) in order to improve it.”
For example, when you think of tax reform, it doesn’t mean to return to the tax laws of the late 1800’s. Instead, it means changing the tax laws to fit with the advances in economic policy. New tax laws to match innovation and change.
But when we talk about the Lutheran Reformation of the sixteenth century, we actually mean the opposite. This reformation wasn’t an innovation of new teachings to fit the times. It was a return to the teachings of the Bible.
Over the centuries after the Bible was written, many new teachings were brought forward. Many of these were based on the Scriptures. These were gold, silver, and costly stones. Many were not. These were wood, hay, and straw.
One of those straw teachings was the belief that a person had to contribute in some way to their salvation. Though Jesus had won salvation from eternal punishment, he had not saved people from all punishment for their sins. Rather people had to earn their own salvation from the lengthy—but not eternal—punishment for sin in purgatory.
Naturally, this teaching of straw led people not only to worry about the limited punishment of purgatory but also to doubt they would avoid the limitless punishment of hell.
God used Martin Luther and the other Reformers to reform the church. In their reformation efforts, they did not sit around and try to reason out a humanly-created alternative to what the church was teaching at that time. No, they returned to the Word of God. In this Word alone, the Holy Spirit reveals his truth: that we are saved from all punishment for sin by God’s grace alone only through faith in Christ alone.
The Reformers also made the point to say this was not a new invention. They backed up their teachings with Scripture. They pointed to ancient church leaders who taught the same things based on Scripture. The Holy Spirit burned off the wood, hay, and straw teachings to let the foundation—which is Jesus Christ—and the gold—that which is built on Scripture alone—to stand.
We’re now 500 years removed from the Lutheran Reformation. And the need for reformation continues. Keeping in mind that reformation means returning to what God says in his Word, we will want to examine what we build on the foundation of Christ. Is what we’re building gold or wood? Silver or hay? Costly stones or straw?
In other words, have we let teachings not based on God’s Word into our minds and hearts? Do we use words or phrases that make unclear what Scripture says clearly? Perhaps even language that contradicts what Scripture says? Do we try to speak where God has been silent?
All of these are straw. On the one hand, when we add to or take away from God’s Word we reveal our sinful hearts’ doubt that his Word is truth. That God isn’t telling the whole story, or that the Bible is not actually God’s Word. If that were true, how could we be certain of our salvation in Christ alone, this great truth found only in Scripture?
On the other hand, even clinging closely to Christ, straw teachings begin to hide him. If we believe, for example, that though Christ alone saves, “God helps those who help themselves,” the second teaching easily obscures the first. If we believe that we receive perfect joy in Christ, and that means God will grant us all happiness on earth, how will the troubles of our lives not hide Christ from our eyes? If we believe that Christ has suffered, died, and risen for us and that Christ lives in us by faith (both true and biblical!), but put all our comfort in Christ in us, evidenced by our good works, how will we be comforted when the good fruits dry up? How easily we would question whether we still have faith! How easily we would forget that Christ died for us since we had not put our focus there!
The Reformation continues. We resolve “to know nothing … except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). We build on the foundation of Christ with other truths of Scripture. Through that same Scripture, the Holy Spirit burns away the wood, hay, and straw. The gold, silver, and costly stones remain. May the Holy Spirit bless us so that we fix “our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). We are saved by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.