LUTHER’S AGENDA: NOT A NEW CHURCH

Clearly, the Christianity of Rome developed into something very different from the teaching of Christ and His Apostles. In returning to Holy Scripture, the reformers—Luther, Calvin and others—recovered the pure and original Gospel. Yet they never claimed to be starting a ‘new church’. Indeed, there were Evangelicals before the Reformation! Besides those who had preserved the Gospel among the Waldenses (or Vaudois) of Piedmont, others had enjoyed a measure of Gospel light even in the days of Roman darkness, e. g. Bernard of Clairvaux. The reformers were but weeding the garden of the Lord from all the poisonous plants that had grown up over the preceding centuries. In answer to woolly-minded evangelicals who say they prefer Roman Catholicism to liberal Protestantism because Rome affirms the Trinity, the virgin birth and other basic biblical truths, the reformers never charged Rome with questioning these foundation truths. No, Rome’s error is the obscuring of the biblical character of these and other truths by their unbiblical dogmas and superstitious rituals. In which case, while we may applaud Rome’s affirmation of many truths—albeit teaching correct things for incorrect reasons (on the joint authority of Scripture and Tradition), sadly, more divides than unites us.

Rev. Dr Alan C. Clifford