A Conflict Like No Other

We have come to the end of the first major section of Romans. Before we press on, it would be prudent to pause and re-consider the great salvation that our God has provided for us. As Paul has shown, the human need is great—all men are sinful, and are helpless in and of themselves to do anything about it. But God has responded by providing a great way of salvation—justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. The Protestant understanding of this crucial doctrine is a great heritage to us from our Reformation fathers. How did they arrive at such rock-solid convictions on this matter that they were willing to stand fast even at the cost of splitting the church? We will explore this matter for the remainder of this month by working through topics covered in Dr. R.C. Sproul’s “Renewing Your Mind” teaching series Justification by Faith Alone.

The church of Jesus Christ is always engaged in some theological controversy. In the fourth century, a man named Arias questioned the deity of Christ. In response, the church assembled at the Council of Nicea, where Arias was condemned and the full deity of Christ was affirmed. Likewise, in the fifth century, another controversy over the nature of Christ led to the Council of Chalcedon, where Christ was affirmed to be very God and very man. Such major conflicts dot church history. But while these controversies concerned essential truths of the faith, the church was able, for the most part, to settle them while maintaining its orthodoxy and avoiding fragmentation.

But that was not the case when controversy erupted over the doctrine of justification in the sixteenth century. The issue of justification—how we are made right with God—was deemed so important by both sides in the conflict that no compromise was possible. What was at stake was the essence of the Biblical Gospel, and when the Gospel is at stake, everything is at stake. So the controversy known as the Protestant Reformation, perhaps the most volatile disagreement in the history of the church, broke out across Europe. And this time, the whole of Christendom was torn asunder and the unity of the church was fragmented in an unprecedented way.