John Calvin’s reflections on the Reformation are a good place to begin. In the course of his life, he wrote three important treatises defending and explaining the need for reform in the church. The first was a quite personal statement defending the reformation in Geneva, usually called “The Reply to Sadoleto” (1539). The second, “The Necessity of Reforming the Church” (1543), was written at the request of Martin Bucer for presentation to Emperor Charles V at a meeting of the imperial Diet. The third treatise, “The True Method of Giving Peace to Christendom and Reforming the Church” (1548), was written in response to the imperial victories over the Protestant princes and the imposition of the Augsburg Interim requiring Protestant conformity to certain Roman Catholic practices. While there are differences among these treatises, reflecting the different occasions on which they were written, they really speak with one voice, giving us Calvin’s understanding of the basic concerns of the Reformation. These treatises show that for him the Reformation had five key concerns (not the traditional five points of Calvinism!).
- The first was that the Bible alone is the authority in the church for religious matters.
- The second was that the church must worship God purely, according to the Bible.
- The third was that justification is by grace alone through faith alone in the righteousness of Christ alone.
- The fourth was that the church must have a proper understanding of the two (and only two) sacraments instituted by Christ, baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
- The fifth was that the true pastoral, teaching office must be restored in the church.
Ping for later
The distinction between Reformation and evangelical churches is, IMHO, artificial.
None of the doctrinal bodies associated with any individual one of these churches is perfect. Nor do I have a perfect one to put in place of them, except to point out that Jesus Himself is the ultimate teacher, who will bring out the fine points of the Bible as they become relevant. It’s easy, carried off with the relative freedom of evangelicaldom, to get over-eager and read things into parts of the Bible that Jesus has not yet begun to teach.