It is the Reformation rediscovery of the gospel that actually makes Christmas and Easter worth celebrating. Sola fide is what takes the amazement of the incarnation, the wisdom of the cross, and the glory of the resurrection, and applies it all to us. It’s what does justice to the person and work of Christ. If we get the gospel wrong, Easter and Christmas mean nothing (and benefit nothing) to the person who seeks to be made right with God.

It’s October again and the 31st is just around the corner. I don’t mean it’s time to get ready for trick-or-treats, unless of course you use this as a time to share the gospel with Reformation themed tricks, treats, or tracts, when a herd of children, looking like ghouls, arrive on your doorstep. Sadly, some ministers are hesitant to celebrate this momentous event in church history. On the one hand, some ministers humbug it as an almost idolatrous celebration because, from their perspective, this period of church history seems to have been elevated and prioritized over other important time periods in church history. On the other hand, other pastors’ views of the ‘regulative principle’ seem to have prohibited them from celebrating the reformation given it’s not a prescribed day in Scripture.
Of course, with anything there are generally legitimate extremes that need to be cautioned against. Church history did not commence when Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses criticizing the sale of indulgences, and there is no requirement to officially celebrate the Reformation. In the end, it depends on motives. No doubt, any Reformation celebration can become divorced from the reality of what was at stake for the Church. Coming from a culturally Reformed heritage does not give us a step-up into heaven.
What is the point of celebrating the incarnation of Jesus Christ at Christmas, or the substitutionary atoning sacrifice of the cross and resurrection at Easter, if we get the God-ordained means of receiving these truths—faith alone (sola fide)—wrong? The gospel is the good news of the person and work of Christ. That is, who He is (Christmas) and what He did (Easter)—to be a little simplistic. If, after hearing this good news, we trust in Christ—alone, we are saved by God’s grace through that faith in Christ (Eph. 2:8). But, if we get the incarnation wrong or Christ’s work of salvation wrong, then we have no right to the name of ‘Christian.’
The Reformation restored the true meaning of Christmas and Easter in its rediscovery of the biblical gospel. To varying extents, the old heresy of Pelagianism had made its way back into Roman Catholic theology with the teaching that ‘God would not deny His grace to those who do what is in them.’ That is to say, God has promised to give us grace when we do what we can to move toward Him. In today’s language we might say, ‘God helps those who help themselves’, or even ‘God looks down the corridor of time and chooses those who first choose Him’.
Don’t let the mention of grace fool you. Sure, the Roman Catholic church is not a church which teaches that we are saved by works. But it is a church which says we are saved by grace in addition to works—God’s grace in addition to our works. This still undermines the gospel of grace alone, through faith alone. The wave of the hand ‘Jedi mind-trick’ in saying ‘nothing to see here’ by the Roman Church did not deceive Luther. He smelled a Pelagian rat; he understood that to ‘do what is in us’ was to depend on our ability to do ‘good works’ and, if that wasn’t bad enough, the ‘free will’ story was invented in order to carry out these good works.
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The resurrection of Christ Jesus was not a fantasy or a vast conspiracy. There were too many witnesses and too much written testimony to easily dismiss it. Today, skeptics should be encouraged to examine the historical evidence and then consider the evidence of Christ’s church.

Is Christianity private or public? Does the truth about Christ Jesus, who is the object of my faith, depend on my own private beliefs, or is there something verifiable that can be “fact-checked”? The reason I pose these questions is because we are living in a time when the determination of truth and untruth have turned inward, making one’s own personal beliefs the measure of what is true or not.
While examining and verifying evidence and testimony may be found in courts of law, in the press and many political and personal interactions it is common to observe persons passing off as truth what are merely their own feelings, opinions, and beliefs, often without evidence or verifiable testimony.
The resurrection of Jesus was a very public miracle.
Not so with the resurrection of Christ Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus was a very public miracle witnessed by many and supported by evidence at the time it occurred and afterward. The evidence is recorded in Scripture. There are about 5,250 ancient Greek manuscripts of books and parts of the New Testament that record Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. The earliest is dated to about 90 years after his death (Rylands Library Papyrus 52).
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Written by Jared C. Wilson |
Friday, February 17, 2023
If you simply want to build something for Jesus, go sell cars or insurance or real estate. Start a non-profit. We don’t need any more salesmen in the pulpit.We need tenders of the sheep. We need shepherds up to their elbows in Christ’s little lambs. Pastor, if you don’t get to the end of your week without at least a little wool on your jacket, you might not be a shepherd.

After his resurrection, before his ascension, Jesus has this moment with one of his chief traitors, one that is as tender as it is powerful:
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.” (John 21:15-19)
This, then, serves as the great pastoral commission. And it centers not on building a large ministry or casting a large vision. The central pastoral commission centers on this mandate: Shepherds are to feed the sheep.
In the center of Peter’s restoration here is embedded not just a reality of identity but a reality of vocation. What I mean is, Jesus isn’t just reaffirming Peter’s right standing with himself; he is restoring Peter’s pastoral office. He’s giving him something to do, and it is the fundamental, essential, irreducible task of the shepherd—feed Christ’s sheep.
Three times he commands him to care for the flock:
v.15 He said to him, “Feed my lambs.v.16 He said to him, “Tend my sheep.”v.17 Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”
If I may speak briefly to one issue I believe central to the more recent debate about the sufficiency and reliability of the Bible in worship gatherings and in evangelism and apologetic conversations with unbelievers. I think if we trace back some of these applicational missteps to the core philosophy driving them, we find in the attractional church, for instance, a few misunderstandings. The whole enterprise has begun with a wrong idea of what—biblically speaking—the worship gathering is, and even what the church is.
In some of these churches where it is difficult to find the Scriptures preached clearly and faithfully as if it is reliable and authoritative and transformative as the very word of God, we find that things have effectively been turned upside down. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul uses the word “outsider” to describe unbelievers who are present in the worship gathering. He is making the case for our worship services to be intelligible, hospitable, and mindful of the unbelievers present, but his very use of the word “outsider” tells us that the Lord’s Day worship gathering is not meant to be primarily focused on the unbelieving visitor but on the believing saints gathered to exalt their king. In the attractional church paradigm, this biblical understanding of the worship gathering is turned upside down – and consequently mission and evangelism are actually inverted, because Christ’s command to the church to “Go and tell” has been replaced by “Come and see.”
Many of these churches – philosophically – operate more like parachurches. And the result is this: it is the sheep, the very lambs of God, who basically become the outsiders.
And so you will have leading practitioners of these churches saying things to believers like, “Church isn’t for you.”
For example, Steven Furtick, leader of attractional megachurch Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, in a series called “Confessions of a Pastor” says this:
If you know Jesus–I am sorry to break it to you–but this church is not for you.“Yeah, but I just gave my life to Christ last week at Elevation.”Last week was the last week that Elevation Church existed for you . . . Let me get a phone book; there are 720 churches in Charlotte. I’m sure we can find you one where you can stuff your face until you’re so obese spiritually that you can’t even move.
In response to the criticism that his teaching isn’t deep enough, Perry Noble, former leader of Newspring Church in South Carolina, once said this:
I’ve heard it…You have too…Christians saying, “I just want to be fed!” It blows my mind!
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