No church organization, movement or a group can honestly claim to be the flag-bearers of the Protestant Reformation if they have departed from believing in the central importance of the substitutionary, representative life and death of Jesus Christ, and His literal, bodily resurrection.
Trusting in Jesus-alone, plus no one and nothing else, is the heart of the Protestant Reformation and its understanding of the Gospel. If we truly appreciate that “the Church reformed is always reforming” we will see clearly that the reasons for Protest have not been removed.
Christian groups that undermine or caricature the most literal centrality of Christ in their teaching, or that pay the Gospel of Christ a lip service only, or if they hijack the Gospel of Christ for the promotion of their own peculiar teachings are not the Reformers of our days. Neither are those that major on the social and cultural benefits of the Reformation alone, while growing embarrassed of the exclusive claims of Jesus. And neither are those groups that are ascribing the redemptive attributes belonging to Jesus alone to their subjective and speculative prophecies, miracles and wonders.
Only those who continue to sift everything they believe through the filter of the exclusive, substitutionary, representative and objective significance of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are legitimate flag bearers of the Reformation.
Friends, no compromising formula has been discovered yet that bridges the gap between the two irreconcilable views of the Gospel. The only way to bridge the gap between us and God is for us all to embrace Jesus plus nothing (no one) else, and let all the other garbage go.
It must be Christ plus nothing, or it soon becomes everything but Christ.
May “the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse (purifies, heals) our consciences from acts that lead to death (FROM dead works, useless rituals), so that we may serve the living God!” Hebrews 9:14. NIV
Have a Thoughtful Reformation Day!
