¡Viva La Reformacion!
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Five hundred and seven years ago, a thunderous earthquake of truth ruptured the silence of a spiritually stagnant Europe. That bomb that went off was the Protestant Reformation, championed by men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, John Knox, and their fellow reformers. This movement shattered the chains of religious opacity, returned the Church to the pages of Scripture, and fundamentally altered the course of Western civilization. Far from a mere academic disagreement or a restructuring of ecclesiastical furniture, the Reformation was a revival, a divine gift to the Church, which needed course correction after centuries of stagnancy from heresies that had crept in.
Before Martin Luther's hammer struck the door at Wittenberg, the call for reform had already begun. One of the earliest and most courageous voices was Jan Hus, a Bohemian priest who spoke out against the corruption and false teachings of the Church. Hus was convinced that Scripture alone should be the ultimate authority, a belief that cost him his life. In 1415, nearly one hundred years before Luther's famous gavel slammed against the castle church door, Hus was burned at the stake, an attempt to silence the glowing embers of Reformation. But as the flames consumed him, he proclaimed that God would raise the voice of a "swan," a coming reformer who would not be silenced and who would build upon the foundation he had already laid. A century later, Hus's prophecy found its fulfillment in Martin Luther. Like the swan foretold, Luther's defiance shattered centuries of falsehoods and proclaimed the truth with a power that changed history forever.
This is because the Reformation was a crescendo, a climactic moment of theological pressure that finally exploded in the 16th century at Luther's rediscovery of Justification by Faith Alone. Eventually, these rediscoveries would be codified as the five solas, which were not merely the doctrinal quibblings of a German hot-headed monk but instead, the battle cry of men who would rather die than betray the purity of the gospel. Sola scriptura (in opposition to the teachings of Rome)asserted that Scripture alone, not the edicts of popes or councils, held supreme authority for the life of the Church. Sola Fide defiantly declared that faith alone, not the purchase of indulgences, justified a sinner before God. Sola Gratiabelligerently heralded that salvation was a gift of grace alone, not deriving from the treasury of merit or time spent in purgatory. Solus Christus thunderously placed Christ as the sole mediator between God and humanity and not a corrupt and abusive priestly class. And soli Deo gloria affirmed that all glory was due to God alone, stripping away the vain glory of the Harlot Rome and her perverted achievements.
The Reformation's mission was urgent and dangerous. The reformers risked everything to put the Word of God back into the hands of believers. It was not enough for a select group of clerics to guard the Scriptures as though they were relics for scholarly contemplation. No, the Scriptures were for the plowboy as much as the priest. Men like William Tyndale, who paid with his life to translate the Bible into English, died with prayers on his lips that future generations might read, understand, and live by the Word. As he was tied to the stake and his body left to burn into ash, Tyndale's final plea was, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes." And God did. As the ash of His body wafted its way to heaven, the Lord Himself was seeding the clouds for a future downpour of Reformation.
This path was trodden by countless martyrs who held fast to their confession, even as the pyres crackled beneath them. Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, bishops burned at the stake in 1555, encouraged each other with a vision of hope. Latimer's words to Ridley still resonate: "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as I trust shall never be put out." They sang hymns as flames licked their flesh, refusing to recant under the cruel gaze of executioners. Men like Thomas Cranmer had once faltered in the face of martyrdom and fear and had signed a recantation of His Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who grew like mighty Oaks to stand firm in his final hour. It was Cranmer, the one who signed the letter denying Jesus, who willingly died as a friend of Jesus, placing the very hand that had signed his denial into the fire first, declaring, "This unworthy hand must be the first that burns."
The Puritans, who carried forward the legacy of the Reformation, faced severe persecution for their commitment to reforming the Church of England from the inside. When their efforts met resistance, they sought to create new communities rooted in biblical worship and governance. Their goal was to strip worship of human traditions that had weakened and obscured true devotion to God. These men upheld the principle of semper reformanda—always reforming—and were willing to cross oceans and face martyrdom rather than compromise the truth of the gospel.
Fast forward five centuries and seven years, and here we now stand—heirs of that blazing legacy, yet surrounded once more by a church and culture steeped in corruption and confusion. The seeker-sensitive movements have diluted the message, replacing the sharp, convicting truth of Scripture with motivational speeches that soothe the ear but starve the soul. Charismatic extremes chase emotional highs and personal revelations that obscure the sufficiency of God's Word. Meanwhile, liberal, woke mainline churches twist the gospel into a message of social activism devoid of its redemptive power, echoing the same kind of distortion and compromise that plunged the medieval Church into unprecedented darkness.
Ironically, in this age of boundless access to Scripture, we face a tragedy that mirrors the pre-Reformation era: a new, self-imposed Wordlessness. Our shelves groan under the weight of specialty Bibles—study Bibles, journaling Bibles, niche versions tailored to every demographic—yet our souls are malnourished, growing light and brittle, starved for real truth. The sacred texts once fought over and cherished at the cost of lives, now gather dust. We have exchanged the passion of martyrs for the indifference of the comfortable and traded the daily bread of Scripture for the crumbs of second-hand interpretations.
The lessons of the Reformation remain as urgent as ever. We must remember that semper reformanda—always reforming—is not just a slogan of history; it is our ongoing duty and rallying cry. The Church cannot afford to become calcified, satisfied with past triumphs, or lulled into complacency by modern distractions. We must return to the Word, let it pierce and shape us, let it define and drive us, and may we continually repent whenever we fall short because all of life is repentance, as Luther declared in his first outstanding thesis. The call to reform did not end in the 16th century; it continues, and we must be vigilant and courageous in these darkened days that we have been given.
The call for semper reformanda—always reforming—rings out to our generation. My prayer is that we would rediscover the fire that fueled these men to sacrifice their lives in flame, that our hearts would burn again for the Word and for true religion, and that we would refuse to settle for the weak and tepid shallow faith that is being peddled in modern evangelicalism.
Should our Lord tarry another 500 years, may future generations not remember us as the people who squandered the Reformation and plunged the world back into darkness. But let us instead be known as those who set it back on fire once more.
¡Viva La Reformación!
