Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 02:3 (Summer 1993)
Article: Reformation of the Church
Author: J. I. Packer

RAR 2:3 (Summer 1993) p. 45

Reformation of the Church

James I. Packer

The word “Reformation” is magic to my heart, just as I am sure it is to yours. Say “Reformation” and immediately we think of that heroic sixteenth-century era when so many things that have burned bright in men’s imaginations ever since took place.

Our Reformation Heritage

One thinks, for instance, of Luther nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church, challenging, as it turned out, the whole Roman system of his day. We think of Luther at Worms a few years later, facing the Holy Roman emperor and being told that he must recant the things he had been saying. His famous response to the emperor, nobles and ecclesiastical dignitaries of central Europe ran thus:

Unless you prove to me by Scripture and reason that I am mistaken I cannot and will not recant. My conscience is captive to the Word of God. To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. There is nothing else I can do. God help me. Amen.

Those magnificent words have echoed down through the centuries, and no wonder.

Luther stuck to his guns. He translated the Bible into German, and preached and wrote tirelessly to spread the evangelical truth. He became the pioneer of reformation throughout Germany. His name will be honored as long as history lasts.

We think of Calvin, that shy scholar who wanted nothing more than to be a man of letters, reading and writing books for the whole of his adult life. But Farrel told him that he must come to Geneva and share in the work of the Reformation there, which he did. Sleeping only four hours a night he toiled away at the Institutes, that great Christian classic which is still for many of us in a class by itself. He commented

RAR 2:3 (Summer 1993) p. 46

on the greater part of Holy Scripture, setting new and superb standards of faithful exposition. Calvin died at 55, absolutely worn out—another of God’s heroes.

We think of John Knox, willing to spend 19 months as a galley slave because of his activities as a Reformer, and then finally rewarded by a few amazing weeks when virtually the whole of Scotland turned to the Reformation. Almost overnight Scotland became the thoroughly Reformed nation that it has been in substance from that day to this.

We think of the English martyrs. There was William Tyndale, defying the king by translating the Bible. He was burned eventually in Belgium because Henry VIII sent word to the continent that he must be put to death.

There was Thomas Cranmer, Henry’s archbishop of Canterbury, who bided his time until it was possible to produce a Refo...