Pastoral Letters

Commemorating Reformation Day

October 20, 2024 Author:Elder liu Kerh Li
Today we have various Bible translations. These enable us to understand the Word of God in languages with which we are familiar. Moreover, with electronic Bibles becoming ever more popular, it is really convenient now to access the Word of God. The only worry is that we do not make good use of this privilege to study God’s Word.  This, however, was not the case 500 years ago. The widely used Bible version then was known as the Latin Vulgate. Most laypersons at that time could not understand it because it used a foreign language. For this reason, in order to understand what the Bible said, one needed to depend on the church clergy for interpretation. This made it difficult for lay-believers to correctly understand the Word of God. Such a situation caused most believers to err from the proper teaching of the Bible as they received only human “wisdom.” Most people regarded the teachings of Pope, the highest human authority in the Roman Catholic Church, to be equal to the Word of God. Such was the state of the church in the dark medieval period.

When the Word of God was no longer taught in the church, all kinds of heretic teachings seeped in. Relying on humanly authority, the Pope exercised his dominating influences on rulers all over Europe. To those who truly loved God, the church then was in a very sorry state. In the midst of great decline within the Church, our almighty God nevertheless kept for Himself people who were loyal to Him, just like what happened in the past during the time of the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19:18).  Amongst the faithful were people like Martin Luther.

Martin Luther was a forerunner in the sixteenth century Reformation movement.  He was a Roman Catholic monk. The stark differences between the teachings of the Bible and what the church taught landed him in deep spiritual struggles. On 31 October 1517, he nailed a copy of his “95 theses” on the door of the Castle of Wittenburg. They highlighted the erroneous teachings of the Roman Catholic church and sparked the Reformation movement all over Europe.

The Reformers sought to bring people back to the Word of God. They appealed to believers that only the Word of God is the ultimate authority, and not the Pope or church traditions. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). When this fundamental tenet of faith was restored, all the wrong teachings that the Roman Catholic Church propagated were exposed. It became apparent that the idea of salvation by works, which the Roman Catholic Church championed, was merely a human idea and not God’s. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). We are all saved by God through the saving grace accomplished through Jesus Christ!

The Reformation movement put much emphasis on bringing God’s Word to people. Since then, the Bible has been translated into various languages. This enabled people to understand God’s Word on their own. But these works came with the heavy price of the lives of these reformers and Bible translators.  Without their sacrifice, the gospel truth and various translations of the Bible that we can understand may still be out of our reach. 

As we commemorate Reformation Day, may we thank God for all the brave reformers. May we also treasure and defend these spiritual legacies for our future generations.