Lux Lucet

Just over a month back, Protestants celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. It was a noteworthy occasion. October 31, 2017 marked 500 years since a little known Augustinian monk nailed his 95 theses to the Wittenberg church door and changed the course of history.

But while as Protestants we look back with joy at Luther’s bold stand against the papacy and proclamation of the Gospel of Justification by Belief Alone, not everyone was or is so appreciative of his achievements and the achievements of the other Reformers. But to call them unappreciative is really far too mild. The truth is, Luther and his contemporaries were hated unto death by representatives of the Roman Church-State (RCS), who did everything in their power to frustrate the spread of the Gospel in the 16th century.

And their efforts to quash the preaching of the Gospel did not stop in the 16th century, but continue unabated to this day. One example of this is the way the Pope Francis and the RCS attempted to co-opt this year’s Reformation Day celebration and turn it into a great big group hugging, Kumbaya singing rapprochement between Rome and her erring children, the “separated brethren” of the Reformation.

But Rome isn’t the only false church singing a false Gospel siren song in the hopes of wooing Protestants onto the rocks of works righteousness. No, Eastern Orthodoxy wants in on the act too.

To that end, I wanted to briefly comment on an article appearing in the latest issue of Christianity Today, “The Reformation Viewed From The East” by Bradley Nassif. Dr. Nassif, himself an Orthodox Christian, begins his article by asking “What might have happened if Orthodox churches had been party to the theological controversies that dominated 16th-century Europe?”

This is a bit like asking what if the CSA had won the Civil War? Who knows for sure how things would look today? But in the case of the Orthodox Church, Dr. Nassif’s own article provides answers the question for us: the Eastern Orthodox would have rejected, and actually did reject, and to this day still rejects, the Gospel of Justification by Faith Alone.

As Nassif goes on to write, “Luther’s colleague Philipp Melanchthon organized the first official contacts with the Orthodox in 1559 by sending the Augsburg Confession…to the patriarch of Constantinople for reply. Unfortunately, no response was given.”

Nassif writes that from 1573 until 1581 there were additional talks between Lutheran theologians in Tubingen and the then patriarch of Constantinople Jeremiah II, who eventually “abruptly ended the correspondence.”

In other words, Orthodoxy’s 16th century response to the Gospel of Jesus Christ was the theological version of “talk to the hand ’cause the face ain’t listening.”

And Orthodoxy’s refusal to believe the Gospel did not stop with the 16th century. Three hundred years later in 1836, Nassif tells us, the Synod of Constantinople condemned, “Luther as the leader of a heresy.” If nothing else, Constantinople managed to maintain a stubborn consistency in its rejection of the truth.

Things are no better today. The Orthodox church continues to reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Only now, we’re told, it’s really not that big of a deal. Nassif writes, “Sola fide was a rallying cry of the Reformation, but its meaning no longer needs to be a church-dividing issue between historic Protestants and the Orthodox.” In so many words Nassif and Christianity Today are saying, “You know that whole justification thing? It’s a mere detail. Really, it’s not all that much more important than what color carpet to put in the foyer, and certainly nothing to divide the church over.

On the other hand, maybe Nassif and CT are on to something: When Nassif writes, “Faith includes good works,” he puts forth a definition of faith that would warm the hearts of many an Evangelical preacher. And if Protestants and Orthodoxists can all agree that faith includes works, why not embrace each other as brothers in Christ.

The only problem is that the Word of God says something different. It teaches that faith is not works, and works are not faith.

Faith, as Gordon Clark argued, is intellectual. Faith is assent to an understood proposition. Or, to put it less formally, faith (belief) consists of two parts: 1) understanding a statement that was made, and 2) agreeing with it. Saving faith consists of understanding of, and agreement with, the Word or God. More specifically, it means understanding and agreeing with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that he died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised the third day according to the Scriptures.

The Gospel, as Luther told Melanchthon, is totally outside you. It is the good news of what Christ has done to save his people. It is not sanctification, one’s subjective moral improvement. It is not good works, the fruit of our sanctification.

We are justified, pronounced innocent at the bar of God’s justice, solely through our belief – understanding of and agreement with – in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

When Dr. Nassif and CT write something different, they make God a liar.

And, unless they repent, he will bring them into judgment for doing so.