The High Cost Of Reformation
The High Cost Of Reformation By Dr. Johnson C. Philip
We stand at a turning point of history today. Several historical events and movements have completed a significant amount of time in history. It is now time to take notice of what all we have achieved and what all we have lost. An awakening is an immediate need.
The historic Protestant Movement has completed five centuries of existance and growth. The New Testament pattern assemblies known as the Brethren have completed a century in India. Both the movements brought freedom from spiritual bondage and tyranny. The Protestant movement brought freedom, and the assembly movement brought an unparalleled era of diligent Bible studies. If spiritual momentum is to continue, we must once again capture the essence of both these movement.
Unfortunately believers have very short memories when it comes to the evil that entices them to fall. This is particularly so when the evil takes a religious, social, or national form. The history of the people of God in the Old Testament is a good example of this paradoxical behavior. They kept going back to pagan gods and practices even though they had seen the slavery it brought to their people. Even after personally seeing God’s hand of deliverance, they were quick to turn to the idol of the calf god.
Today a large number of the Christian churches are going back into a similar kind of slavery where there is no place for the gospel of Christ. The fantastic spiritual freedom that we have today, and the mighty missionary work that people of God are doing today, is all a result of the Protestant Reformation which took place five centuries ago. Reformation was not a very simple event; nor did it come easy. Tens of thousands of people around the world were murdered by the Roman Catholics for the reason that these people dared to believe in the message of the Bible.
In general, the Protestant faith is based upon the doctrine of salvation by grace, available to anyone who is willing to place his trust in Lord Jesus. No mediator is needed, or allowed by God, except the Lord Jesus. The Roman Catholic system denies these basic Biblical doctrines. To them salvation comes through one’s merit. Since a person is never sure of the quality or quantity his own merits, priests, saints, and Virgin Mary the “Mother of God” are brought into the picture. A whole system is opened up in which the ignorant and gullible sheep are manipulated and exploited for increasing the power and money of the Mother Church.
Selling “salvation” at the prevailing market price is still going on in these churches, even though it is not done as openly today as it was done before the days of reformation. Gone is the era when certificates and similar talismans were issued for a price that guaranteed its possessor a front seat in the coming divine kingdom. In those pre-reformation days there was no individual freedom for spiritual activities or for discernment. Everything was dictated by the Mother Church. People were forbidden from reading the Bible, lest they discover the truth and spoil the whole business.
In the sixteenth century the Lord gave light to many people and prepared the way for Martin Luther to lead the reformation. His actions can be compared with any of the most heroic deeds in the history. That was an era when the Roman Catholic church ruled the world with an iron rod. In name it was a body of Christian people, but in reality it was a group of religion-political corrupts who ruled the whole world in the spirit of Anti-Christ.
No one be they kings rulers, or noblemen dared to oppose these spiritual Masters; the sure penally for questioning the Mother Church was death. Many people have estimated that if a tally of all the people tortured and murdered for their faith by the Roman Catholic church is taken, the tortures and murders committed by Hitler would pale in their light. Wives had to witness their husbands, parents their children, and congregations their leaders, being murdered before their own eyes.
The cost paid by the reformers is unbelievable. One of the methods which the Roman Catholic church used for murdering the Protestants was to BURN them publicly. If any of the readers is naive enough to ignore the pains of being burned at stake, let them try holding a single finger ever fire for a mere ten seconds. Then they would understand the courage of men who were fried in slow fire for hours together, yet who did not disown their faith.
The Protestant Reformers forget a battle not only for the Bible, but also a battle of courage. They had to give away everything they had, including their life to give us spiritual freedom.
Most of us received everything already prepared for us. We did not have to fight for our spiritual liberty, and we never had to pay any cost for the spiritual riches which we have inherited from our spiritual Fathers. Familiarity breeds contempt, and hence the children of Israel complained that they were fed up of eating the ‘tasteless’ manna day and night. In the same manner, our spiritual freedom is something so familiar to us that many of us have started longing for the slavery of the past days.
Roman Catholics have been creeping in craftily into Protestant institutions, and we have been sitting unconcerned. They have been dictating our policies, and we do not even note. Recently a Catholic priest was honoured by many Protestant in Kottayam for finally bringing Protestant and Catholic preachers on the same stage for preaching the “gospel”. Actions like this betray an ignorance of the past.
Spiritual freedom does not result automatically. It has to fought for, won, and maintained. Here is where the Israelites failed repeatedly in Canaan, and it is here that we seem to be failing. Protestant Reformation was a gift of God. Let us not betray the Reformation by going back to spiritual slavery.
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