Today, the sons and daughters of the Protestant Reformation will invest a great deal of time, energy, and resources into remembering and celebrating the anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, an event which is now well over 500 years in our rearview mirror. But why? With everything going on in our world, why take the time to remember a world that no longer exists? In other words, “Why are we bringin’ up old stuff?”
Hebrews 2:1 answers that question. “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” So, are you paying attention? Good. Pay more. Are you looking to the Word of God? Good. Look closer. Why? Because if you don’t, you might drift away from it. If you are not anchored in the Word of God, you will float away on the current of current events. Drift is the default position of the human heart. The only thing you have to do in order to drift is nothing. The lazy river of life does not discriminate. Anyone can get caught up in its undertow. And that current never revisits the same place twice. It has no memory. It never doubles back. It is only concerned with forward progress. But as Chesterton once observed, that kind of “progress” is more like a funeral procession than it is like a victory march. "A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."
So, today we remember the Protestant Reformation and the men and women who gave so much in order to give us so much, like the Bible in our own language, congregational singing, the end of the sacred/secular distinction with respect to lawful vocations, pastors with wives and children, beards behind the pulpit, and most importantly, the recovery of the doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Christ alone to the glory of God alone according to His Word alone.
But if we were to pay much closer attention to what the reformers said in order to avoid drifting away from it, what would we hear them say? What words would we hear echoing to us from 500 years ago? We would hear, “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” The reformers were not trying to win a special place in history for the 15 and 1600s, they were trying to recover a special place for the Word of God for all times and places. One of the rally cries of the Reformation was ad fontes, or to the sources. This included a return to all source materials, but most emphatically it meant a return to the Bible itself as the standard of doctrine and conduct. So, if you had been alive at the time of the Reformation, you would have been surrounded by people who were not looking to their own time and place, but people looking back to the Word of God in order to understand and operate in their particular time and place. The timeless Word of God provides timely instruction for whoever you, wherever you are, whenever you are. The Reformers were simply saying what we have been fond of saying, which is, “By what standard?” So, they studied the Bible and they learned Greek and Hebrew in order to make sure they understood what the words actually were and what that text actually said. They always wanted to go as far back as they could in order to find the firmest foundation possible off which to go forward.
So, when we look to the reformers we see them looking back to the original text. So, what does our text say? “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” So, even if we look all the way back to the first century church we find them urging us to look back even further. In the immediate context of the book of Hebrews that would mean looking back to 1:1 which says this, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” That is what we must pay much closer attention to lest we drift away from it. The Word of God that was in the beginning, that was with God, that was God, and became flesh and dwelt among us. He is the rock on which we must build. When we build on Him and His Word we find a rich history of materials with which to work and a solid foundation already laid.
1 Corinthians 3:11,10
For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Therefore, let each one take care how he builds upon it.
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