Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Oct/95

Contributor - Jeff Kingswood

Title - Reformation: What Is It?

Topic - Reformation

The end of October is of course Reformation Day. While the children in our neighbourhoods dress up in various forms of costume to extort candy from friends and neighbours we in the Reformed churches are thankfully remembering the great and gracious providence of God in bringing about a reformation of the Church in the sixteenth century. That reformation eventually resulted of course in the establishment of our own Reformed denomination in the Netherlands, and subsequently North America, and various other branches of the Reformed faith throughout Europe.

But as we need to remember each and every day, the Reformation must not become some sort of and historical fact but a continuing truth as the Church works, by the grace of God, toward that day when Jesus Christ will come and claim His spotless bride. Reformation means working in God's strength to remove the spots.

How does that express itself in the Regional Synod of Canada and its congregations? Are we reformed in practice as well as Reformed in name? Are we striving for reformation in our church life? By what standard do we measure ourselves and to what mark are we pressing forward?

While on holiday this summer I thought a lot about the question: "What is the Church and what is its purpose?" As we worshipped with a congregation in Moncton for a few weeks the teacher of an adult Sunday School class there arrested my thoughts with his explanation of Isaiah chapter five. There the picture of an unreformed church is truly frightening.

That chapter is a picture of a national, church that, because of its unrestrained appetite for novelty, had abandoned the celebration of God and what He had accomplished (v. 12), and so had given itself over to every imagination of its sinful heart and Isaiah describes the resultant judgement of God (vv.15,16).

The Reformers stressed that how we worship is indicative of where our hearts are. John Calvin maintained that worship was of the essence of Christianity and that proper worship was the result of a church reformed according to God's Word.

We live in an era of unrestrained appetite for the novel. T.V. goes further and further into its depraved state to titillate viewers who have seen it all and who hunger for a new excitement. The movies, advertisers, authors, the news media, stretch the boundaries of what is acceptable in order to capture our dollars but in so doing they dull our sensitivities and we come to tolerate the unacceptable.

This spirit is not new. Ahaz, one of the kings of Judah during Isaiah's ministry, was also jaded by the world around him. He sought to bring new and novel ideas into the church life of his people. His idolatry soon brought the judgement of God on the whole land.

In Leviticus 10 we see Nadab and Abihu offering a different form of worship than was prescribed by God and suffering the dramatic consequences of being consumed by fire.

Reformation means being transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we are no longer conformed to the patterns of this world (Romans 12:2). When this occurs our worship will be according to the Word of God and in conformity with His desires.

Let's resist the temptation to jump on every cultural band wagon, to accommodate every demand, to pander to the tastes of our jaded communities, and instead earnestly search the Word of God and ask what our worship ought to look like. Let's question the church growth fads, let's swim against the current, not just to be argumentative, but because God calls us to be different, "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God" (1 Peter 2:9).

Reformation means becoming what God has called the Church to be and yet as we look about us we see a church consumed by a desire to be whatever is attractive to the world, ostensibly for evangelism's sake but can such evangelism ever be successful in terms of what reformation truly means?

'Reformed and always reforming" has become a trite phrase used to justify straying from the biblical and the dumbing down of our worship. Let us seek to become truly reformed in all our ways and may each of our congregations shine like a city on a hill whose light cannot be hid. May we see reformation happening as we search the Word of God and seek to remove the spots from our lives and the congregations in which we serve. May our lives resemble Josiah's (2 Kings 23) more than that of Ahaz.

I pray that this issue of the Pioneer Christian Monthly may be used of God in some small way for the continuing reformation of His Church.

Soli Deo Gloria!

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