Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 700 | Why Reformation Day Matters

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

Happy Reformation Day! Today we’re digging into history of the Protestant Reformation and Protestantism, initiated in 1517 when Martin Luther, in protest against the unbiblical actions and teachings of the Catholic Church, nailed the Ninety-Five Theses to the doors of All Saints' Church in Germany. We look at the controversial theological arguments he made that caused a schism in the church and shaped the foundation of Protestant theology as we know it today. We discuss the five solas, the statements that summarize the core beliefs that separate Catholicism from Protestantism, and explain why it matters that we know this today. Watch our 2022 Democrat Campaign Ad here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgoGn5AGQXU&t=60s&ab_channel=AllieBethStuckey --- Today's Sponsors: PublicSq. — download the PublicSq app from the App Store or Google Play, create a free account, and begin your search for freedom-loving businesses! Annie's Kit Clubs — all subscriptions are month-to-month, and you can cancel anytime! Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE and get your first month 75% off! Range Leather — highest quality leather, age old techniques and all backed up with a “forever guarantee." Go to rangeleather.com and use coupon code "ALLIE" to receive 15% off your first order. Good Ranchers — change the way you shop for meat today by visiting GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE and use promo code 'ALLIE' to get two Black Angus NY Strip Steaks FREE all throughout the month of November! --- Past Episodes: Ep 170 | Is It OK to Celebrate Halloween? https://apple.co/3E0VxY1 Ep 514 | Halloween: Satanic Trick or Harmless Treat? https://apple.co/3DY7HRA Ep 697 | Revealing the Real Origins of Halloween | Guests: Jeremiah Roberts & Andrew Soncrant (Cultish) https://apple.co/3Wv9qoy --- "Go VOTE" Sticker: https://shop.blazemedia.com/products/vote-sticker?pr_prod_strat=use_description&pr_rec_id=6552e1052&pr_rec_pid=7931910291709&pr_ref_pid=7926489317629&pr_seq=uniform --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Today is a Reformation Day. What does this day mean? And why does it matter to believers? This is going to be a very edifying and hopefully informative episode for all of you Christian relatable listeners.

Also, before we get into it, I do just want to give a show. shout out. Make sure that you go watch our DNC ad video. The third one that we have put out is perfect right before the midterms to tell you all the reasons why you should totally, definitely, absolutely 100% be voting Democrat in the midterms. Share that with your friends. It's on YouTube. It's on YouTube. All that good stuff. We'll link it in the description of this episode. Also, make sure that you get our new voting sticker. If you're watching on YouTube, You can see that my laptop is a little chaotic. It's between the awkward stage of like too many stickers and not enough stickers.

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on YouTube and on the listening end. All right. That's all we got for the introduction. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to good ranchers.com slash Alley. That's good ranchers.com slash All right. Happy October 31st, All Saints Day, Halloween, Reformation Day. There is so much that we could talk about today, especially newswise, with midterms

coming up, with everything that happened over the past few days. Paul Pelosi, what? That's definitely a Halloween tale. But instead, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to dedicate today's episode to what today symbolizes primarily for Christians, more specifically for Protestants, and that is Reformation Day. So I'm dedicating two days episode to the Reformation, what it means, why it's something to celebrate, and why it matters to Christians today. this is obviously going to be a very condensed version of what the Reformation means. I could do an entire series on that and I could bring lots of people on who have been studying this for years and years and years. And that would be really interesting.

It's really hard to boil everything down into a 30 minute to a 45 minute episode. So I'm just going to do kind of the highlights. There are a lot of you who know what Reformation Day is. There are a lot of you who don't. There are a lot of you Catholics out there who have been taught something. things about Reformation Day or about Martin Luther that are overwhelmingly negative. I invite you to stick around for this very Protestant podcast episode. Your mind might not change, but you will probably learn something that you did it before.

I just want to say quickly, before we get into it, I'm not highlighting Reformation Day today because I am trying to avoid Halloween. Those of you who listened to last week know I did an episode on the real origins of Halloween, with the guys from cultish who are awesome. The origins are Christian. They're not pagan. I also did an episode a couple years ago with my mom about using Halloween as an opportunity to share the gospel with our neighbors.

So that's my stance on Halloween in general. I know there are a lot of people who disagree. And I am not against those who simply want to celebrate fall and harvest without any semblance at all of Halloween. I think that's perfectly fine. But in my opinion, so is dressing up in fun, lighthearted costumes, enjoying candy, fellowshiping with friends, as long as there is not a celebration of fear and death and gore, which simply are not Philippians for lovely or praiseworthy.

There is, I believe, Christian liberty in that area. Bottom line on that, and this is where he stand, every day is the Lord's. Psalm 24-1, the earth is the Lord's, and the full name. thereof, the world in those who dwell therein. There is no day that belongs to Satan. He doesn't have that power. The darkness does not have the power or the authority to claim a day. It doesn't have ownership over candy or fun or costumes.

October 31st, like every other day, can be used for good or for evil. And that may look different for every Christian. But whether you or your family participate in any of these Halloween festings, One thing that I would encourage all Christians to do is to honor this day as Reformation Day. Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of a church at Wittenberg in 1517, and that is what Mark's Reformation Day. Now, this is not something that I celebrated growing up. I don't even remember learning about it.

It wasn't even something that I remember hearing about in school. I mean, I'm sure that I did. I went to a Christian school kindergarten through 12th grade. I mean, I was raised Southern Baptist, so obviously we were Protestant, but I honestly don't remember learning about this in Sunday school or in regular school or from my parents. Maybe I did, but I just don't recall that. It really wasn't until I started studying theology for myself in college, maybe later high school, but really in college and after college that I read about the history of Christianity and the

birth of Protestantism and realized how relevant this history is to the core tenets of our faith. I do think today Christians, and it's probably pretty unique historically, are disconnected from the history of our beliefs, the history of apologetics and theology and biblical translation and interpretation and the stories of the martyrs and the church fathers. And I think that we really miss something when we don't know those things. I think that it can lead to one, thinking that our doubts and our questions are unique, that no one has ever asked the questions about God or the Bible that we are. And so thinking that we have unanswerable questions that lead us down a path of unhealthy

deconstruction, I also think that we lack a strength, we lack strength of faith and we lack perseverance when we think the obstacles that we are facing, whether it comes to persecution or exclusion here today are bigger than Christians have ever faced throughout history. And so we think there's no way that we can possibly face the powers that be today, that the evil is darker than it's ever been. It's stronger than it's ever been. And we just can't outlast them. We just can't stand firm in our faith.

We have to continue to compromise a little so the culture doesn't attack us or destroy us. if you look back throughout history, we actually see that the church has gone through much more difficult times, much greater trials, much more hostile forces than even we, at least in the West, are today. So it strengthens our faith. It strengthens our resolve to know the history of the church, the history of Christianity, to study the church fathers who went to great lengths to answer many of the questions that we still find ourselves asking about the reliability of Scripture, about the person of Christ, about the resurrection today. So I realized really over the past few years how important it is for me to understand where our faith comes from, why we believe, what we

believe. And I find great comfort and great relief and knowing that people much smarter than me, who lived many years ago, asked many of the same questions, had many of the same doubts that I do today and studied scripture to help Christians today answer a lot of those questions and resolve a lot of those doubts. And so I just kind of want to start us off on that connecting bridge today, taking us back to the origin of Protestantism and why we believe what we believe about the gospel. You will be encouraged because it is a story of the goodness and the steadfastness and the power and the sovereignty of God, the perseverance of his saints, and simply God's love and his mercy for his people yesterday, today, and forever.

Now, as I already mentioned, if you are a Catholic listener and you have been told, like most good Catholics have, that Martin Luther was nothing but a wicked heretic and that the Reformation represents a lamentable division within the church. I do encourage you to stick around for this episode. As I said, your mind might not change. You might not become Protestant, although I've met many of you out there who you were Catholic. You started listening to this podcast by the grace of God. You did become Protestant, if you will. But, But even if that, you know, doesn't happen for you, that's not necessarily my goal. You may learn something that you did not learn growing up going to Mass or in Catholic school.

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Alley, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. we ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed,

you can watch this T-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. So Martin Luther was a German Catholic monk and a biblical studies professor at the University of Wittenberg. He was incredibly learned in the Bible and a Catholic doctrine, and it was through his study of Scripture and of theologians like Augustine that Luther, like other European Christian scholars at the time, began to question the authority of the Catholic Church in many of its practices. The more he compared the Catholic Church to the Bible, the more distressed Luther became, as he realized that much of the church in Word and Indeed was not in alignment with

God's worth. It had wandered from its calling and purpose replacing the commands of scripture with the traditions and the rules of man, much like the Jewish Pharisees had done in Jesus' time. So Luther had several complaints. He had 95 to be exact. And he reportedly posted this list called the 95 Theses to the door of the church at the University of Wittenberg, where he was a professor. It was common for announcements and advertisements to be nailed to the door, but it can't be conclusively established whether he actually nailed this written list of theses to the door or if that's just folklore. But what we do know is that he at some point posted it at the door. And on October 20 or October 31st, All Saints Day, he sent these 95

reprimands to the Archbishop, Albert of Mainz. One of Luther's chief concerns in these 95 feces was the church's selling of indulgences. So this was money that the church received from its congregants that church leaders promised would pay for their sins and would limit the amount of time that their loved ones would spend in purgatory. Pergatory is a Catholic belief. Protestants don't believe in this kind of in-between. place this limbo between heaven and hell, but Catholics believed that. And so people would pay money to the Catholic Church thinking that the souls of those that they loved, that their family and friends could possibly spring out of purgatory into heaven if they paid enough money. This money, however,

was often spent to fund lavish lifestyles of church leadership to fund wars, to commission art and architecture. And Luther was rightly concerned about this. He was concerned. He was concerned. concerned mostly about the hearts of the lay people in the Catholic Church, that there was a false sense of assurance that Catholics would feel by giving money to the church when that's not what the Bible outlines as the means of salvation. Luther also saw serious problems with the papacy. He wasn't actually anti-Pope, but he was against what he saw as a movement of the papacy towards embracing man-made doctrines like the practice of indulgences rather than scripture. So here are a couple examples of what Luther said in his 95 Theses about indulgences and the Pope.

So this is number 32. On the way to eternal damnation are they and their teachers who believe that they are sure of their salvation through indulgences. Number 33. Beware well of those who say the Pope's pardons are that inestimable. inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to God. So apparently people believed that the Pope had some kind of authority then to pardon people in a way that would ensure a pardoning by God, that that was the reconciliation between God and man.

The Pope, that would be a usurping of the authority that is only found in Christ as we read. as we read in scripture. His theses were translated and distributed throughout Europe after October 31st in 1517. And this is seen as the start of a revolution against the Catholic Church as the start of what we refer to as the Protestant Reformation. And we don't have time to get into all of the historical context. It wasn't just Martin Luther nailing this to the door or sending this to the Archbishop of Maine that started this kind of rebellion against the Catholic Church and kind of the breaking apart of the stronghold that the Catholic Church had on Europe.

There were a lot of geopolitical things going on, a lot of theological things going on that was that were trying to break this grip that the Catholic Church had on this part of the world. There were many Christians protesting against the unbiblical authority and practices of the Catholic Church and seeking to reform the church in alignment with God's Word. And so Protestant Reformation, there were Christians protesting the corrupt practices of the Catholic Church and seeking to reform the church in alignment with God's Word. But Luther, and even though he knew that there could be dire consequences for doing this, he never actually intended to start a revolution or even a why.

widespread reformation. His 95 Theses was not his declaration of separation from the Catholic Church. I think a lot of people think that. He wasn't saying, hey, I'm no longer a Catholic. I can't be a part of this. He retained a lot of Catholic beliefs throughout his life. For example, he still believed that the Eucharist was, you know, he believed in transubstantiation that the bread and the wine were the real body and the real blood of Christ. Protestants really I think all denominations, if not almost, maybe almost all denominations believe that it is a symbol and that it's important to take communion, but we don't actually believe that it is the real body and the real blood of Christ. Martin Luther did. So he wasn't separating himself from the Catholic Church

at this point. His goal was not to demolish it or replace it or even to remove the Pope. His intention back in 1517 was to call out the misuse of power by the church that exploited poor lay people who could not understand Latin in which the Catholic Church taught and did not have a Bible in their native language and therefore they did not know the Bible and were at the mercy of church leaders who told them that their salvation depended on obedience to rules that were not founded in the Bible. That was his chief concern at the time that he nailed the 95 Theses. And this really is what was happening in the Catholic Church is a remarkable parallel to the Pharisees in Jesus' day, whom Jesus rebuked is whitewashed tombs who looked good on the outside but were dead on the inside. They were placing unbearable

burdens on the people in the name of faux righteousness that really had nothing to do with obeying God's law, but just had to do with this kind of facade of holiness that they knew the common people could not actually reach. That is basically what was happening at the time of the start of the Reformation in the Catholic Church. So Luther wanted the Catholic Church to be reformed in some big ways, yes, but his theses were not originally meant to be revolutionary. His truly revolutionary ideas that really created the division, the chasm, between him and the Catholic Church, and consequently Protestants and Catholics.

These ideas came a little later in his writings. The main being that justification is, is by faith alone. We are justified as sinners before God, not by good works, not by our faith plus works, or faith plus any adherence to the rules and traditions at the Catholic Church, but by faith in Christ alone, that faith is given to us by the grace of God. That was the revolutionary idea. The other main revolutionary idea was that scripture possesses supreme authority as the word of God over church leaders, not the other way around. So these beliefs, which Luther started writing about and disseminating, these were in direct

and fundamental opposition to the teachings of the Catholic Church. And still to this day, the main distinctions between Catholics and Protestants, and we'll get to more on that in just a second. In 1520, Pope Leo the 10th issued something called a papal bull against Martin Luther, judging Luther as a heretic. As a consequence of that, Emperor Charles VIII called the infamous Diet of Worms, or Verms, which was a court assembled, before which Luther was asked to appear and recant his heretical beliefs. When asked by John Eck, who represented the emperor, if he would recant, Luther said this, unless I am convinced by the testimony of the scriptures

or by clear reason, for I do not trust either in the Pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves. I am bound by the scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen. Yes and amen. You've probably heard. A similar quote from Martin Luther, truth at all costs, peace if possible.

Peace if possible, truth at all cost. That is probably the defining, one of the defining quotes for how Luther lived his life. And here is Charles Spurgeon, the great British theologian of the 19th century on Martin Luther and his testimony before the deed of worms. He says this, there is Martin Luther standing up. in the midst of the deed of worms. There are the kings and the princes, and there are the bloodhounds of Rome, with their tongues thirsting for his blood.

There is Martin, rise in the morning as comfortable as possible, and he goes to the deed and delivers himself of the truth, solemnly declares that the things which he has spoken are the things which he believes, and God helping him, he will stand by them till the last. There is his life in his hands. They have him entirely in their power. The smell of John.

Husse's corpse has not yet passed away. That was another early reformer who was martyred. And he recollects that princes before this have violated their words. But there he stands, calm and quiet. He fears no man, for he has not to fear the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keeps his heart and mind through Jesus Christ. After that, the deed of verms issued the edict of verms declaring Luther a heretic and banning the reading of Luther's writings. It was understood that Luther was excommunicated and he would probably be executed, but he ended up being taken away, being hidden away by Prince Frederick III of Saxony, and it was in hiding that he continued his writings and began translating the Bible into German.

This was the full translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek into German, rather than the Latin Vulgate version. This meant that the common person, the layperson, not just the monks and the priests and the pope and the clergy who had been educated in reading the Latin Vulgate, but everyone who could read in Germany could read the word of God for themselves. And not just that could know God themselves, could confess sins to God themselves,

could be saved by God themselves. It didn't require the mediation of a priest or the approval of the Pope or the rendering, of money or the following of any extra biblical rules or traditions, but only faith given to them by the grace of God. And the translation didn't stop in Germany. The Holy Spirit lit the spark and fanned the flame of the gospel, the true gospel throughout the continent so that every person who could read could read passages like Ephesians 2 8 through 10. For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works. It's so clear,

so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. So here we read that good works, the good works that we do as Christians are a product of our salvation, as James II tells us, not a prerequisite for salvation. And here's what Martin Luther writes about his revelation of this revolutionary concept that our salvation cannot in any way be earned, but rather is a gift given to us by grace through faith. He says this, my situation was that although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him, Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace.

And sheer mercy, God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of scripture took on a new meaning. And whereas before the justice of God had filled me with hate. Now it became to me an expressively sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate of heaven. If you have a true faith that Christ is your Savior, then it wants you have a gracious God. For faith leads you in and opens up God's heart and will that you should see pure grace and

overflowing love. This it is to behold God in faith, that you should look upon his fatherly, friendly heart in which there is no anger nor ungraciousness. He who sees God as angry does not see him rightly, but looks only on a curtain as if a dark cloud had been drawn across his face. So Martin Luther was troubled that as pious as he was, he would never be enough for God. If God is perfect and just, how can we ever pay penance, enough penance to be made right in his eyes? How can we do enough good works, confess our sins enough, go to mass enough, pay enough indulgences to earn the eternal approval of a perfectly holy God. Luther realized that it's not possible.

He realized that we are actually justified before God and made acceptable to Him by Christ and Christ alone that it is only through faith in this good news of faith given to us by the grace of God that we are saved. Christ gives us His righteousness. It is Christ's righteousness that makes us acceptable to God. not our own. Romans 322 through 26. For there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's

righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So of course, this does not mean that we go and live as we would like to live. Do we keep sitting that grace may abound by no means? That's Romans 6. It means that our good works, which we do because of our salvation, because of our faith, do not save us. Again, they are a product of our faith, a product of our love for God. We don't do it because we're scared that he's going to punish us. We don't do it because we're scared that if we do one more bad thing, we are going to be placed into hell or we're going to miss heaven or

we're going to be sent to purgatory. We do good works. We obey God because we love him, because we love his law, because we have been given faith in Christ by the grace of God. Our good works do not earn our salvation. They are a product of our salvation. This was the revolutionary idea that really fanned the flame of the gospel of Christianity, the true gospel, real Christianity throughout Europe. And I realize that many Catholics still hate Martin Luther. They still see him as the guy who,

ruined everything and they say, how can Protestants possibly celebrate the Protestant Reformation? You've got so many denominations now. You're so fractured. And to that I say, yes, there is fracturing. There is disagreement. There aren't as many denominations as Catholics say that they are. There's not like 36,000. That number is taken from faulty data. There are denominations, though, and there are disagreements within these denominations. But What I would say is that disagreement is always the result of freedom. I mean, that is true in the United States as well. In the United States, we don't live under a tyrant or we're not supposed to.

We have freedom of speech. We have freedom of religion. That means that there is speech out there that we don't like and that we don't agree with. That means that there are religions being practiced that we don't agree with. But just as the founders of this country, you know, disagreement and freedom is better than unity and tyranny. And at the time of the Reformation, the Catholic leadership had, in fact, become tyrannical. And it's also important to note that while Protestant denominations do disagree, it is mostly, mostly on secondary and tertiary issues, not on what it means to be a Christian or on salvation issues.

There might be differences about baptism and about different traditions, but we all are united, supposed to be united by the belief that salvation is by grace through faith. So there are more consequences of the Protestant Reformation, wonderful consequences, and that was the prominence of many other theologians that were contemporary to Martin Luther. John Calvin was a French theologian and one of Luther's contemporaries, and his book, Institutes of the Christian Religion, was probably one of the most influential, products of the Protestant Reformation. And here's a quote that is incredibly relevant today from

this book. The surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves. Wow, that has always been true, still true today, exchanging the God of Scripture for the God of self. And there are many such quotes from John Calvin that are relevant today. I really recommend a little book on the Christian life. It is exactly what it sounds like. It's a tiny little book about Christian theology and really the basics of the Christian life completely countercultural today, but also counter to a lot of what we learn in pseudo-Christian circles and spheres and in Bible studies that constantly tell us to focus on ourselves and to focus on how we feel about ourselves rather than putting our eyes on Christ and making ourselves less. Calvin was probably

the theologian with the most influence on Western civilization and the most modern world. I know that a lot of people demonize Calvinism, and I understand there's cage stage Calvinism, and Calvinists can be really intense about things and maybe at times legalistic, doubt things. But whether you like it or not, the form of Christianity that set the foundation for everything good when it comes to human rights and flourishing in the West in the United States is very likely a result of Calvinism, not exclusively, but in large part simply because his organization of the Bible, of biblical interpretation and theology was so widespread and so influential that it ended up permeating almost like every part of Western

society and civilization and still dies in many ways. Without Calvin, without the Protestant performers in general, we would not. I don't think this is an exaggeration. We would not have Western civilization. The British Empire wouldn't have been at least what it was. America probably would have never been founded, or at least it would not have become what it became. Protestantism's rebellion against what it saw as the tyranny of the Catholic Church created an individualism, and I believe in a healthy way, an individualism and fostering. a yearning for freedom that then lay the foundation of the United States. And while not all founders had solid theology, they were inevitably shaped by the Protestant theology and very likely the

Calvinist theology and instincts that had become to dominate so much of Europe and so much of England specifically. Protestants have a very long history of rebellion against tyrants, both in the church and in the state, you guys ask me all the time about this sign over here, if we can show it. Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God. And that is, that's ascribed to a lot of different people that quote. I believe that it is by John Knox, though. He is the Scottish reformer who was a resistor to tyranny. And a lot of you asked me where I got that sign. We did not get it anywhere. It was made here in-house. But it's probably something like it. is probably for sale somewhere.

Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God. That is a Protestant phrase if you have ever heard it. Now, coming from Calvinism and just the Reformation in general are five basic tenets of Protestantism or what a lot of people refer to as reformed Protestantism. And that is the five solas or the five alones. So the five solas go all the way back to the Reformation. and they really have been the building blocks of Protestant theology and apologetics for centuries. So these five alones or five solas are one sola gratia, and that is by grace alone.

This is one of the most radical ideas of Christianity that your salvation and that your acceptance to God is a gift that is given to us by His grace. It is not something that we can earn. Lots of religions can tell you how to climb the proverbial mountain to get up to God. All the things that you have to do to make yourself acceptable to clean yourself up so you can climb the mountain to get to him and to hope that you will be taken in. Christianity is radically different. Christianity says that God came down the mountain and saved you when you could not save yourself. The radical part of Christianity is seen in Ephesians too.

we've already read verse 8 through 10, but the first part of Ephesians 2 that describes the state of sinners, dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. That is who we are apart from Christ, dead in our sin. If you are dead, that means you cannot save yourself. You're not on life support. You can't muster up enough effort in order to save yourself or to make yourself acceptable to God, you are dead. And we are only made alive by the power and the grace of God through faith in Christ. And so that is one tenet of Protestantism that we are saved by grace alone.

John 318 says, whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God. This tenet by grace alone holds that we cannot save ourselves. Romans 310 through 11 says none is righteous, no, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. Isaiah 646, we have all become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment or like a filthy rag.

we cannot save ourselves, no matter how many good deeds we do, no matter how much effort we put in, no matter how many times we confess our sins, no matter how perfect our attendance is when it comes to church or mass or whatever, it will never be enough to save ourselves. We are in desperate need of God's grace for our salvation and sanctification. Number two, so lafide or through faith alone. So by grace alone through faith alone. And Martin Luther called this justification by grace through faith, doctrine by which the church stands or falls. That is how crucial this is to Christian theology.

And so this is obviously very closely tied with through grace alone. It is by grace through faith. As we read in Ephesians 2 8 through 10, Galatians 216 says, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law because by works of the law no one will be justified. Romans 5.1. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And as we mentioned a little bit earlier, that passage in James 2 that says faith without works is dead. What good is it? My brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works, can that faith save him?

That is not mean that we are justified by our works, that we are saved by our works, but that faith that is not accompanied by obedience to God was never real faith in the first place, real saving faith that comes as a gift of a gracious God will always be accompanied by good works and obedience to God. That doesn't mean that we do not sin. Of course we do. but it is an earnest seeking after the things of God. And then number three, in Christ alone. So by grace through faith in Christ alone. Now here is where Catholics and Protestants do essentially agree.

There is no salvation found in any other God or any or any other entity except in Christ. Isaiah 43. 11, I am the Lord. and besides me, there is no Savior. We see this, of course, reiterated throughout Scripture. The first five verses of John speak to this, and this is also a key difference. This passage right here is a key difference between what I would call Mormon theology and then this biblical theology. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

So Jesus is God, not just a Son of God. God, but Jesus is God, the Bible says. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. And verse 14 tells us and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory. Glory is the only some from the Father full of grace and truth. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. So that word that only means of salvation is Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 521 for our sake,

he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. So Solis Christus in Christ alone means our righteousness comes from Christ. It is not earned. It is not developed on our own. It is imputed to us by Christ in his perfect righteousness. 1 Corinthians 1 30 says this and because of him you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that as it is written let the one

who boast boast in the Lord that is glorious number four solo scripture a scripture alone this is a controversial one Catholics do not believe in solo scripture this is a very vibrant debate Martin Luther summed it up this way the difference between us and the papists is that they do not think that the church can be the pillar of the truth unless she presides over the word of God. We, on the other hand, assert that it is because she reverently subjects herself to the word of God, that the truth is preserved by her and passed on to others by her hands. So he did not think that the church did not have authority or does not have a role to play here, but rather that the church should be subjected in everything to the direction of scripture, not the other way

around. It's often misunderstood that Protestants, that we don't believe in tradition or we don't believe in teachings or we don't believe in wisdom that comes from theologians. Of course, that's not true. What we believe is that all things, all theology, all opinions when it comes to anything having to do, anything within the purview of the Bible, which I guess you could say is everything, is subject to Christ's word, is subject to the Bible. We don't add to it and we don't take away from it, or at least that is our aim. We take 2 Timothy 2.15 very seriously. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. Again, that does not mean that we don't have serious disagreements

as Protestants, but we do all believe that at the end of the day, one of us is wrong. One of us or all of us is wrong in that scripture is always right. That is at the end of the day what we believe about soul of scripture. Here's what Martin Luther also said about this. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's word, otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept the word so greatly weakened to the papacy that no prince or imper ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing. The word did everything. That's pretty

amazing. And then of course, 2 Timothy 316 through 17, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. And then number five, the last Sola, the last alone, solely deo, Gloria, to the glory of God alone. And this is the point. This is why Martin Luther said what he said, wrote what he wrote. This is why the theologians reformed the church the way they did. This was the point of the Protestant Reformation.

Not that it was a perfect movement. Not that Martin Luther was a perfect person. We didn't even have time to get into some of the writings about the Jewish. people that he published that are obviously very offensive for a variety of reasons. Just like a lot of people, he was a fallible person who said things that we would not say today or would not agree with today. And yet, if you look at the Protestant Reformation as a whole, not just the impact that it had on Western civilization, human flourishing and freedom and academia and the abandonment of these Protestant principles is what has,

led us to many of the dark places that were in today. But this was the point of the Reformation. This was the point of the revolution, the glory of God. This is the answer to all of it. Why? Not only did the Reformation happen, but why, essentially, by grace, did God send his son to die for us? Why did he grant us the gift of faith that we might believe in him to be saved? why did God offer us redemption and reconciliation and forgiveness and eternal life for his glory? Why does he choose to reveal himself, his plan of salvation and his will in the written word? Why does he want this message to be shared to the end of the earth? Why does he give us the gospel for his glory?

Yes, he loves us. Yes, because he longs to save us. Yes, because he wants to take care of us. But all of these things, his love, his salvation, his care, his provision. his protection, it is all for his glory that he might be glorified, that he might be made known. God is for himself. God is about himself. As Jesus says in John 15, 5, apart from me, you can do nothing. Apart from Christ, we are dead in our sin, we are depraved, we are lost, we are unrighteous, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive together

in Christ, by grace, you have been saved. Ephesians 2. He is the only being in the entire cosmic and earthly universe who deserves to be worshipped, who deserves to be glorified. That is why we Christians find satisfaction and fulfillment and joy when we worship him rather than worship our selves or our anger or jealousy or envy. It is for his glory that the Christian heart longs. We all long to worship something or someone, and everyone does worship something. or someone. You worship yourself, you worship your boyfriend, you worship your job, your body, your kids, whatever it is. And what we find every time we direct our worship towards any of these things is that we end up disappointed, we end up deflated, we end up dejected, we end up destroyed.

The objects of our worship fail us, they turn their back on us, they end up not being able to deliver on their promises or meet our expectations. They may betray us, leave us, or lie to us. ultimately they break our hearts because they are not worthy of worship. They are not worthy of being glorified. God alone is. That is what all of this is about. It's for God's glory. That is the heartbeat of the Christian.

And that is why I am thankful for the Protestant Reformation because of how it glorified God, because of how it allowed the Bible into the hands and the hearts of the common person of the believer for how it changed the course of history forever, not because of the efforts of men, but because of the power of the Holy Spirit and the goodness and the power of the gospel, that through the obedience of Martin Luther and other reformers, was unleashed onto the world. So praise God for that. I know a lot of times, especially depending on your view of the end times, you see history as just getting worse and worse and worse and dark and darker really going further and further into the depths of hell.

But really, if you look throughout history, God, by his grace, through the simple obedience of believers, has allowed for the salvation of countless souls. There have been different parts of history that have been darker than others, that have been more chaotic than others, that have been more tyrannical than others. And yet the word of God, the past. of the Holy Spirit persist. Really, if we look throughout history, what we see is that God will do what he wills. And by his patience and by his grace, he uses the obedience of Christians to glorify himself and bring people to himself. So I don't know the direction the world is headed in

right now. I mean, it's fairly obvious that things are only getting more chaotic and disorderly and farther from God, certainly in our society. And yet, I do not. not count out God's ability, God's willingness to have another reformation or another reawakening or another historical stage where he is bringing more hearts than ever to him. So our answer to that or our role in that, our participation is simply to do the next right thing for His glory, to simply continue living out this gospel, not knowing when or where or how God will use the seemingly small obedience of a Christian to start a movement that can once again change the course of history for His glory. So happy Reformation Day, my fellow Protestants, I'm thankful for the church. I'm thankful for the true church that is defined by faith in Christ by grace from God. All right, that's all we have time for today.

We will be back here tomorrow. Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe. is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

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