Back to basics
Text: Jeremiah 31:27–34
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The whole point of the Reformation that happened in the Church over 500 years ago was to return to God’s Word. Christians had become distracted by all kinds of other things that can be whittled down to one major problem: attempting to take control out of God’s hands.
Christians wanted to see the Church continue to flourish and prosper so that more and more people would come to know Christ. Unfortunately, the authorities in the Church a the time thought that this great mission was achieved by expanding and strengthening the institution—building magnificent places of worship became the number one priority.
They thought that the “success” of the Church depended on it becoming the driving force behind the culture itself. The problem was, the more “successful” the Church was and the more Christian the culture became, the more the Church trusted in its own ability to exist and function. We forgot that it is God’s Church that we are members of, not the other way around.
The Church tried to seize control of itself rather than allowing God to determine how it existed in the world. In a very similar way, Christians were also taking their very salvation into their own hands. There was a big problem with people feeling they needed to be good enough people for God to allow them into heaven—Luther, as a monk who lived under strict rules and regulations, knew how oppressive and empty that way of living was. The caveat for the Reformation, though, was the selling of indulgences—essentially, tickets to heaven that you could buy for yourself or a loved one who has died.
The Church was raising money for a new cathedral, so it decided to charge people for these completely fake certificates. Since the people had no access to the written Word of God in their own language (and many couldn’t read anyway), they were completely at the mercy of the Church’s corrupt leadership. Once Martin Luther discovered the truth of the gospel as a well-educated person who could read the Word for himself, he couldn’t bear to watch the Church do this to people.
500 years later, we are still susceptible to the same temptations—taking control of God’s Church and our salvation. As we commemorate the Reformation today, let’s return to the truth of God’s Word and trust in Him to save us and sustain His holy people.
God has written His law on our hearts.
In the prophet Jeremiah’s day, God’s people were in exile from their homeland. God sent this word to remind them that even though they aren’t living in the land God had given them, He is still with them.
Learning by rote memory has gone out of fashion, but it is an incredibly useful thing particularly when you don’t have a Bible or catechism handy. The Israelites memorised the Torah so that they always had God’s Word with them wherever they went. Even in exile, they had access to God’s Word and could worship Him without having the physical resources available.
Our liturgy functions a bit like this. Every Divine Service has a rhythm to it. We follow the same order and only slightly vary the words we use—even then, the variety is taken from only a handful of different places. We don’t do this because we like things to be bland, boring, or repetitive. We do it because as we practice the liturgy each and every week, participating in it becomes second nature. We can afford to think less about what words to say and focus on how and why we are saying them.
However, God doesn’t say that His Word (or His law) is written in our minds, but their hearts. That’s deeper than rote memory or regular practice. Even if your Bible memory isn’t particularly strong, God has written His law on your heart and given you an instinct. That’s not to say that memorising Scripture isn’t important or necessary—it’s still incredibly helpful and rewarding—but our relationship with God doesn’t depend on it.
God puts His law within us and writes it on our hearts so that we can be His people and He our God. He does it to form a genuine and deeply personal relationship with us. He does it so that we can truly know Him rather than just knowing about Him.
This is what it really means to be justified before God, as Paul teaches in our New Testament reading from Romans. We know through the law that all have sinned. At the same time, all are forgiven and justified because of Christ’s work on the cross. As a result, we come to know God as our gracious and loving heavenly Father.
We are called to introduce people to God.
At the time of the Reformation, Christians thought that God’s great vision for creation in Jeremiah 31—that everyone would know the Lord—would happen off the back of our great work. We seem to think that our aim is to make every single person a member of a local congregation somewhere and a part of our institution.
The truth is—and it’s a hard truth for us to reflect on—we are always at risk of trusting in our membership in the institution for our relationship with God, and ultimately, our salvation. We can fall into the thinking that if I am a baptised, confirmed, and communing member of a local congregation, I am saved. If I attend a worship service every (or at least most weeks), God (and other Christians) approve of me.
Yes, we believe baptism is essential for salvation because Jesus says so, but membership in a local church isn’t. Confirmation and church membership are our own inventions that are intended to serve a purpose. They don’t save in and of themselves. They don’t make us know God or prove that we have a relationship with Him. They encourage us and build up our communities, but that’s it.
God’s great vision for creation is that everyone will know Him, just as it was at the very beginning. Humanity has fallen away since then and the overall health and faithfulness of the Christian Church has fluctuated over the centuries.
It wasn’t that long ago that it felt like everyone went to Church and identified as Christian. Within a couple of generations, we’re now seeing non-Christians outnumber the Christians, and that will only continue for the foreseeable future. We’re a long, long way from God’s vision.
It’s not up to us to change that and bring the world back into a state of popular Christianity—that’s the exact error the Church fell into before the Reformation. However, God does give us a part to play in His story and a responsibility and joy to introduce others to the God we ourselves have a personal relationship with.
God equips us for this work by forgiving our sin through Christ.
We don’t just tell people about God—we introduce people to Him. He is not just a historical figure or made-up concept—He is alive and longs to have a relationship with each and every person He has made and loves.
When we share God with people, we talk about what He has done for us in our lives. “I’d like to introduce you to my heavenly Father. He gave me a loving, Christian family to grow up in. He has blessed me with everything I have and am. He forgives me my sin every time I come to Him in repentance and faith. He has done all this for me and I think He might like to have a relationship with you, too.”
To carry out this great task, all you need is your own story about how God made Himself known to you, forgave you all your sin, and gave you new life. You don’t need a theological degree, strong Bible memory, or even a good Christian life to back yourself up. God has forgiven your iniquity and remembers your sin no more—that’s all we will ever need. Yet, He abundantly blesses us each and every day in so many ways.
Praise be to our God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and sender of the Holy Spirit.
