When we speak of the Reformation, we generally think of the mighty work that God carried out in sixteenth-century Europe. During that period, He raised up godly men whom He used to bring a large sector of the professing church back to its roots, doctrines, and biblical practices. The pure Gospel was once again proclaimed.
However, we must never forget that the need for reformation is not limited to a specific historical period. God’s people must continually participate in biblical reformation until Christ returns for His church.
Reformata, reformanda (literally, reformed, reforming) is the shorter form of the Latin phrase often used to express this biblical truth. A longer version is ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda (literally, the reformed church, always reforming).
What does this mean? If to reform means to remodel something, then to reform beliefs and conduct is to remodel them, to change them in some way.
What does this mean? If to reform means to remodel something, then to reform beliefs and conduct is to remodel them, to change them in some way.
Whether in its shorter or longer version, the only way this Latin phrase can be understood and used biblically is by also adding these words in Latin: *secundum Verbum Dei* (literally, according to the Word of God).
The church is made up of the people of God, who tend to stray from His Word. As the beliefs, commandments, values, and practices of the church lose their biblical “shape,” they must return to the shape established in the Word of God. They need a biblical reformation.
Psalm 119:59-60 gives us a classic illustration of biblical reformation
Consideré mis caminos,
Y volví mis pies a tus testimonios.
Me apresuré y no me retardé
En guardar tus mandamientos.
When the psalmist considered that certain areas of his life were not in line with the Word of God (His Law, His testimonies, His commandments), he turned his steps away from his own ways, his own desires, his own thoughts, and turned to the path marked out by the Word of God. He ceased doing what the Word of God forbids, in order to do what that same Word commands. He reformed or restructured his conduct, changing the pattern of his life to conform to the life pattern revealed in God’s unchanging Word.
Later in that same psalm (verse 89), the psalmist says:
Forever, O Lord,
Your word endures in the heavens
The reformers of the sixteenth century were not trying to adapt the church to the culture of their generation. They sought to change the beliefs and practices of the churches of their generation so that they conformed to the immutable Word of God, as far as they were able to study and understand it.
In every generation, the church must continue examining its beliefs, teachings, and practices to ensure they conform to what the Bible teaches. Otherwise, the beliefs and practices of the church must be changed, when necessary, to align with biblical teachings and commandments.
In the same way, Christians, individually, must continually review their own beliefs and conduct and, when necessary, change them to conform to the biblical pattern. This is what biblical reform is about.
Biblical reform begins in the heart.
Biblical reform does not aim at merely formal and outward practice of the commandments or biblical ceremonies. The prophet Isaiah of the Old Testament condemned such formalism (Isaiah 29:13), and Christ reinforced Isaiah’s condemnation, as we read in Matthew 15:8-9:
This people honors me with their lips;
But their heart is far from me.
In vain do they honor me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men
In 2 Timothy 3:5, the apostle Paul issues a similar condemnation:
… having a form of godliness, but denying its power; from these turn away
Reformation is not the same as regeneration; but regeneration is necessary for true biblical reformation. Human beings, who are spiritually dead in regard to their relationship with God, dead in their sins, must receive spiritual life in order to obey the Word of God from the heart.
En Ezequiel 36:26-27, Dios declara a Su pueblo:
I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will remove from your flesh the heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and keep my precepts, and do them.
True biblical reform is motivated by the desire to glorify God (Romans 11:36), united with love for Him who gave Himself up to save His people from their sins (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).
For from Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
…For the love of Christ compels us, thinking this: that if one died for all, then all died; and He died for all, so that those who live, no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again for them.
Such reform can only arise as the fruit of true evangelical repentance, which involves trusting solely in Christ for the salvation from sin.
As important as the biblical doctrines known as the pillars of the Reformation may be, a vigorous and convincing defense of those doctrines does not constitute biblical reform.
True biblical reform, the fruit of regeneration, begins in the heart, with a pure and sincere desire to worship and serve God. It transforms our thoughts and attitudes, and from there, our behavior.
It calls us to mortify everything that weakens devotion to Christ and zeal for His Kingdom. It calls us to live a life full of the Holy Spirit, manifesting the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22).
It calls us to cultivate the love described in 1 Corinthians 13, which rejects selfishness, bitterness, resentment, anger, envy, arrogance, and thinking or speaking ill of one another.
True biblical reformation leads each of us to strengthen our spiritual life through the diligent use of the means of grace, such as:
Biblical reform extends to conduct.
Certainly, as individuals and as churches, we must continually examine what we believe and declare (publicly and privately, when we speak, write, and sing) by comparing everything with the standard given to us by the Word of God, to ensure that our beliefs and declarations are in conformity with the truth revealed by God.
However, biblical reform is incomplete if it only produces correct beliefs and declarations, even when these arise from sincere, pure, and well-intentioned hearts.
If we sincerely believe in the biblical truth we declare, this truth must inevitably govern our conduct, our habits, and our practices. Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia offers us a striking example of this. In Galatians 1:6-7, the apostle harshly rebukes the Galatians for having changed their “gospel.”
I am astonished that you have so quickly turned away from the one who called you by the grace of Christ, to follow a different gospel.
Not that there is another, but that there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
In Galatians 3:1, 3 and 5:7-8, we see that their perversion of the truth was a matter of conduct, of practice, a matter of disobedience to the truth.
O foolish Galatians! Who has fascinated you to not obey the truth, you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly presented among you as crucified?
… Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now going to be perfected by the flesh?
… You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?
What had happened?
The religious experts had come to Galatia with a new emphasis, a new version of the Gospel, with a particular nuance, different from what Paul had taught.
This nuance was a matter of conduct, a conduct identified with the practice of circumcision, but a conduct that Paul condemned as alarmingly incompatible with the Gospel of the crucified Christ.
Not only had the Christians of Galatia been led astray to deny the Gospel through their conduct; the apostle Peter was equally affected, as Paul tells us in Galatians 2:11-16:
But when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him face to face, because he was to be condemned.
For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he drew back and separated himself, because he was afraid of those of the circumcision.
And the other Jews also participated in his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was also carried away by their hypocrisy.
But when I saw that they were not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all:
If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like a Jew, why do you compel the Gentiles to Judaize?
We, Jews by birth, and not sinners from among the Gentiles, knowing that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, we also have believed in Christ Jesus, to be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law, since by the works of the law no one will be justified.
Peter’s conduct denied a fundamental doctrine of the Gospel: the doctrine of justification. (Who would have expected such a thing from an apostle?)
Peter had not connected the dots between his actions and their implications. He had allowed the presence, influence, and pressure of the “celebrities” of his time to cloud his understanding and intimidate him, to the point of withdrawing from the Gentile believers.
He did not realize that, by associating with a group marked by certain religious practices (those of the circumcision), he was departing from a fundamental doctrine of the Gospel: justification by faith alone, not by works.
The text tells us that he was afraid of those of the circumcision, which seems to be the reason for his distancing from those identified as Gentiles.
Perhaps he was concerned that if he did not agree with those of the circumcision, a door to ministry might be closed to him (or he might lose influence). After all, even Paul himself had recognized (as we read in Galatians 2:7) that God had given Peter a ministry to bring the gospel to those of the circumcision (the Jews), just as He had sent Paul to the Gentiles.
As far as we know, Peter was not preaching a gospel of circumcision. However, in practice, he publicly associated with people whose conduct promoted this different gospel. By publicly associating with them, he denied a fundamental truth of the Gospel.
No matter how good his intentions were, instead of influencing them with the Gospel, he was allowing them to influence him and his conduct. Worse still, he was helping and cooperating in their harmful influence over others: his public participation with them served as an implicit endorsement of their false gospel and conduct.
Peter’s choice of table companions may have easily seemed like a secondary matter to him. However, Paul saw what Peter had overlooked: the implications of Peter’s conduct were not minor—they denied justification by faith alone.
Overwhelmed by this concern due to the inevitable connection between the Gospel and appropriate conduct, Paul apparently realized that his silence might imply his consent. According to his own testimony, he immediately rebuked Peter, even publicly (before them all, Galatians 2:14).
Paul may have risked being misunderstood, denounced, and marginalized, as someone who disturbed and opposed the unity, peace, and advancement of the church. Despite this risk, guided by love for the Lord and for Peter, Paul acted with Peter as Nathan had acted with David. He called Peter to a biblical reform: a change of conduct, a return to biblical ways.
Paul’s faithfulness to Peter in this matter was recorded in Scripture and was one of the means God used so that we today, two millennia later, might understand a fundamental truth of the Gospel, proclaim it accurately, and live in accordance with it.
If an apostle, in a moment of weakness, could be deceived into denying a fundamental truth of the Gospel through his conduct, who are we to assume that, as pastors, church members, and individuals, we cannot be deceived?
In the 21st century, we continue to run the risk of denying and undermining the truth, not only by what we say or preach, but by what we do and by the practices we appear to accept. It is easy to lose sight of the inevitable connection between truth and conduct. Among the powerful sources of distraction are our own good intentions, our lack of discernment, the pressure of our friends, our remaining corruption, the natural fear of man, or the fear of losing influence.
However, through our practices in seemingly minor matters, and even through our fellowship with other people involved in practices that may seem insignificant, we may be denying the very doctrines we seek to promote, even justification by faith alone, glory to God alone, or some of the other key doctrines rediscovered in the 16th-century Reformation.
How necessary it is that we continually seek to examine our hearts, our conversations, and our practices in the light of Scripture, to see if we have strayed, or if we are about to stray, from the truth!
Biblical reform must continue.
Proverbs 4:23 warns us:
Above all else, guard your heart;
For it is the source of life.
Solomon continues in verses 24-27, referring to the actions of the mouth and lips, the eyes and the feet, warning of how easily they can fall into sin.
Jeremiah 17:9 warns us of how deceitful the human heart is. The lives of David and Solomon (and many other men in biblical stories) show us how easy it is to stray onto non-biblical paths.
In Exodus 32, we read the tragic example of the children of Israel. After God had accomplished the miraculous deliverance from Egyptian slavery, even while God was giving His law to Moses on Mount Sinai, they soon turned back to worship idols.
Not only did Aaron, the leader, accede to the desires of the people, but he also proclaimed a feast to the Lord (Exodus 32:5). Not only were sacrifices offered to an idol, but the people, after the feast, rose up to rejoice, or to amuse themselves (Exodus 32:6). This amusement included singing (Exodus 32:18) and dancing (Exodus 32:19).
Was this festive celebration pleasing to the Lord, in whose name it was carried out? Absolutely not!
Why not? Exodus 32:8 summarizes it for us this way:
They have soon turned aside from the way I commanded them;
The people called by God had “reformed” their ways in the wrong direction, turning away from the Word of God, following their own desires and choices.
They now needed a truly biblical reform, a reform like that of Psalm 119:59-60. They needed to consider their ways and turn their feet to the testimonies of God, to keep His commandments.
The word “soon” is particularly relevant here. In Exodus 32:8, God says to Moses:
Soon they have turned aside from the way I commanded them.
Similarly, we read in Galatians 1:6 that Paul later marveled that the churches of Galatia had turned away so quickly from the Gospel.
The deceptive tendency of the human heart to turn away from the Word of God is both astonishing and dangerous, even in those who have been saved from their sins through repentance and faith alone in Christ.
Christians eagerly await the final purification from sin in heaven; but, as long as we live on this earth, we must continually engage in biblical reform, both individually and collectively.
This has been true for the church of Christ throughout the centuries. Biblical reform must continue until Christ returns. At no point can the church stop and say, “We have made it. We have arrived. We don’t need to go any further.”
In a certain sense, all Christians and all churches, in all times, must strive to obey everything that Christ has commanded, as we read in Matthew 28:20.
It is also true that there are specific areas of weakness that require special attention at a given time and place. In the 16th century, it was necessary to recover and proclaim some of the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel. At other times, a dead orthodoxy and formalism were particularly prevalent evils that needed to be countered.
During the 20th century, a popular religious liberalism and “modernism” denied that Christ was truly God and denied the miracles of the Bible. Meanwhile, many evangelical churches, although vigorously resisting religious liberalism, fell into a man-centered perspective regarding salvation. Subtle influences such as “easy-believism” and pragmatism infiltrated the content of many teaching and preaching ministries; and various extrabiblical evangelical traditions became the norm in many churches.
During recent decades, God has led many to rediscover, and even embrace, some of the main God-centered biblical perspectives recognized by the Protestant reformers and the Puritans, perspectives that we often identify as the doctrines of grace.
However, an intellectual acceptance of these God-centered doctrines that are biblically accurate, as well as their vigorous and unashamed proclamation, do not by themselves guarantee an understanding of the implications of such doctrines, since they must affect the heart and conduct.
Moreover, emphasizing emotions (perhaps in a sincere and well-intentioned attempt to counter dead orthodoxy and formalism) is not the same as addressing the heart and conduct biblically.
The heart is much more than mere emotions. Throughout Scripture, God associates truth with the mind, but also issues authoritative commands and instructions to the will, based on that truth. Some have usefully referred to these truths and commands as the indicatives and imperatives of the Gospel.
Often, various emotions accompany an individual’s reception of these indicatives, as well as their obedience to the imperatives. We see this particularly in the Psalms. There we read, in various ways, about sorrow, joy, satisfaction, anger, sadness, hope, discouragement, fear, and trust. The list seems endless.
However, although our reception of the Word of God and our obedience to His commandments may be imbued with appropriate emotions, it is not those emotions that should determine our conduct. God’s truth (the biblical indicatives) and His commandments (the biblical imperatives) must determine our conduct, as well as determine which emotions are appropriate to accompany our understanding of His truth and our obedience to His commandments.
Moreover, emotionalism and formalism are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It is possible to participate in religious events and experiences that have been designed to express and provoke emotions; it is likely to feel and express strong emotions during such events or experiences, without the truth or biblical commandments making a significant impression or having a determining effect on the mind, conscience, or will.
The emotions we have, or the emotions we believe we should come to feel, do not determine which truth we must believe, nor what our conduct should be.
In Exodus 32:1-6, the children of Israel evidently became impatient and anxious while waiting for Moses’ return. They considered his delay to be excessive. Their complaints, along with their conduct in response to this delay, suggest that they were bored and craving excitement.
Regardless of how we describe their emotions, their subsequent actions demonstrate that they wanted to engage in worship that included religious ceremonies (sacrifices), along with feasting, singing, and dancing. They wanted a religious celebration. Their emotions (or the emotions they sought to inspire) and their desires determined their actions.
Aaron allowed their emotions and desires to determine his own conduct as their supposed leader by establishing what he called a feast to the Lord (Exodus 32:5). However, this feast did not please the One to whom it was nominally dedicated.
God accused the people of corruption (Exodus 32:7). He defined or described their corruption as turning aside from the way He had commanded them (Exodus 32:8). His commandments should have governed their understanding, their behavior, and also their emotions and desires. Instead, their emotions and desires governed their behavior and, in particular, the way they offered professed worship to the Lord, Jehovah.
If any church wants to glorify God in this generation, fulfill its role as a pillar and buttress of truth, and be a powerful instrument in God’s hands to establish and maintain the true religion of God on earth, each of its members must engage in the work of reforming their personal, family, and church life in accordance with the Word of God.
We must consider whether we are undermining or denying the truth, or any aspect of it, not only with what we say, but also with what we do.
If, by faithfully studying and applying the Word of God, we discover that we have strayed from some aspect of the truth, or from obedience to some commandment, we must return to the path indicated by the Word of God. We must engage in the work of biblical reform.
Biblical reform in the church will lead us to change worship services that have many songs but little preaching; much emotion, but little teaching of the truth. Instead, we must have worship services in which God is worshiped as He commands in His Word, and in which God is the focus of attention: we focus on God, on His glory, on His person, on His works, on His commandments.
We need a faithful ministry that leads us to bow before God in search of mercy through Christ, and that teaches us the biblical way to live so as to please Him.
The fact that we have been enabled to carry out reform in a certain area does not mean it will be easy to maintain. It will require constant spiritual vigilance. It will cost tears and prayers, suffering and sacrifice.
It may cost us friends and popularity. It is unlikely that we will attract crowds of members and visitors to our churches. However, when lives are reformed according to the Word of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will not only be able to please and glorify God: the people around us will be able to see the power of the Gospel. It will be evident that this is not a game: it is a reality. Christ truly saves.
The Gospel is the power of God (Romans 1:16) to save souls; and, when we take it seriously and apply it to ourselves and to our church life, we are showing the world that this is true.
Adapted from a sermon preached by Pastor Eugenio Piñero at the Reformed Baptist Church of North Bergen, New Jersey. The biblical citations are from the Authorized Version, with added emphasis.
Eugenio Piñero graduated from Northeastern Bible College in Essex Fells, New Jersey (USA), in 1976. During his studies, he became acquainted with Trinity Baptist Church of Essex Fells (later Montville), New Jersey, of which he later became a member. In October 1977, he was called to serve as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hoboken, NJ, now known as the Reformed Baptist Church of North Bergen.
I considered my ways, and turned my feet to Your testimonies. I hastened and did not delay to keep Your commandments. Psalm 119:59-60
