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Reformation Spirituality Part 2 By Alister McGrath

Yesterday, I began to introduce Reformation spirituality, and one of the points I made was that a central theme of Reformation spirituality is simply that of going back to scripture, and exalting in the fact that in the reading of scripture we encounter God, in the reading of scripture we are excited by God, and in the reading of scripture we are motivated and fired up by God to go and bring his good news to the world.
In many ways that is such an important theme.
But Reformation spirituality is also about a quite definite content.
In other words, there are certain themes there which are of enormous relevance to life.
And what I want to do is just begin to pick up some of the themes which the Reformers develop in relation to their spirituality, and begin to show how they can impact on the Christian life.
And I think what might be helpful, just to begin with one that we were talking about before the coffee break, and that is justification.
Because justification is of enormous importance in relation to the whole area of spirituality, and above all an issue which is of major importance in Western culture, and that is the issue of self-esteem.
And therefore it might be helpful just to make some connections here for you, and show how here is a classic Reformation theology which impacts on a very modern issue indeed.
Let me tell you about a meeting that a friend of mine went to about five years ago in New Jersey.
It was a meeting which was populated by middle-class North Americans who were quite self-effacing, but not too self-effacing.
And the meeting was being led by someone who was into the Robert Shiller type approach to self-esteem.
In other words, you know, you're great.
And he looked around over in the room and said, now I want you to grade yourself, okay?
Grade yourself on a scale between one and ten, where one is lousy and ten is perfect.
And so they all talked about this for about five minutes, and they all gave themselves scores of four, five, or six, because they were all middle-class, self-effacing, but not too self-effacing Americans.
In other words, they're all not too good and not too bad.
And they were quite happy with that.
But he wasn't.
He said, no, no, no, no, you are all ten.
You may not think that, but unless you start thinking of yourselves as being perfect, then
you're going to get nowhere in life.
You're perfect.
Just get used to the idea.
But they didn't, for two reasons.
One is because, as one of them said to me afterwards, if I'm perfect, the word has no
meaning.
In other words, it was just unbelievable, and there was a huge credibility gap.
And secondly, I mean, if you are perfect, well, what's the motivation for self-improvement?
You're there.
Well, you just go home and put your feet up.
But the point I want to make is, you know, let's take Luther's theology of justification.
He's saying this, God has accepted you as you are.
You know, you don't need to be perfect to come to God.
He has given you that status, but you, in reality, are not that good yet, and therefore
there's a real motivation.
You are a sinner.
That's realistic.
People can believe that without any difficulty at all, but you've been accepted by God.
That's a wonder of the gospel, and God is going to work with you to make you what he's
called you to be.
I was just reading before you came back that Philippians, and picking up Philippians 1
verse 6, I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in
the day of Jesus Christ.
This is a very strong statement of God's commitment to bringing to fulfillment what he's begun
in you.
And of course, that's a whole process of healing and renewal and regeneration and making perfect
a man.
Now, what I want you to notice here is how affirming that is.
Many contemporary self-esteem movements ask you to base your valuation to yourself on
something that's very, very spurious.
And for the Christian, our true self-esteem lies in Christ.
And the point that Luther brings out so clearly is the inestimable love of God for us.
Now, once you realize how much God loves us and how much God values us, then you begin
to realize that actually human estimations of your work aren't all that important.
After all, if God thinks of you one thing and somebody else thinks of something different,
it's God who's going to win in the estimation stakes.
And the point I want to make to you is, in the end, the person's valuation who really
counts is none other than God himself.
And you and I have this enormous delight of knowing that we are loved by God, and everything
else, quite frankly, pales into its significance.
So I must say that because it's a very good instance of the way which Reformation puts
us straight back in touch with basics, that really it's going straight back to the love
of God in Christ.
That's one area, then, where I think there's something important being said.
But I want to pick up now on the theme which is perhaps more reformed, and that's the whole
doctrine of the providence of God, and the way in which this has enormous implications
for Christian spirituality.
I thought I'd pick this up again from Paul's there to Philippians.
If God is in control, then one of the central themes is quite simply this.
It means that you and I can rejoice, that no matter what our situation is, no matter
what our abilities are, that God is the one who's in control, who means us to be there,
and is able to take us and use us.
The whole idea of God's providence is enormously helpful to the pastor who says, why on earth
am I serving this congregation?
I feel so discouraged.
They don't like me very much.
But the point is that a doctrine of the providence of God is saying, you may be there for a purpose.
God may have placed you there because there is something that you and only you can do.
You must never rely on human estimations of how important your position is.
You may feel that you are in an utterly insignificant part of the world, I don't know, doing an
utterly insignificant thing.
But there you are simply being influenced by human valuations of the matter.
The doctrine of God's providence is saying that God's way of seeing things may be rather
different, and there may be some great important work which you have been called to do in that
place, which may be unrecognized by human beings, but which nonetheless matters profoundly.
And I find that echoed very clearly, for example, in Paul.
I mean, I've been reading Paul's Thessalonians quite a lot recently, and just noticing how
Paul, in writing this letter, is in prison, he is in change for the gospel, and his phrase.
Let me read to you what he says about his own situation, this is 1st Philippians 1 verses
12 to 14.
I want you to know, brethren, what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel,
so it has become known throughout the whole Praetorian Guard, and to all the rest of my
imprisonment is for Christ.
And most of the brethren have been made confident in the Lord because of my imprisonment, and
are much more bold to speak the word of God without fear.
Now I see from a human perspective, Paul is in prison.
I mean, that's it.
That would seem to be a very impossible, hopeless situation for him.
But in the wisdom and providence of God, Paul is in a situation which to a human estimation
may seem to be hopeless, but to God is simply the means by which things which might not
otherwise get done, do get done.
And that's a very important point, that in many ways we are deeply affected in our thinking
by secular ideas of value.
We want to go to the big churches.
We want to go to those large, prestigious congregations, and yet somewhere there may
be a great work of God needing to be done which you could do, which is unrecognized
by human agency.
If you look at the history of American evangelicalism in the 20th century, one of the things you
notice is that some of the great leaders, the men who really shaped things and got things
going, come to faith in what I guess you and I would call hick towns out in the northwestern
world, out in the Midwest, out in small farming towns.
And the point is, somebody brought them to faith, somebody nourished them, somebody who
didn't keep saying, you know, why am I here, I could be somewhere big, but someone just
recognizing that where they were was where God could use them.
So I think the whole theme of the providence of God is of enormous spiritual relevance.
We use the language of calling, I think sometimes too easily.
If you are called to be somewhere, maybe that's where you are meant to be, and maybe that
is where you can do something that nobody else could be.
And of course, the doctrine of providence is very directly linked with the whole idea
of peace, of tranquility, of being able to rest in God, knowing that you are where he
wants you to be, and being able to have that deep sense of peace.
Paul himself, you know, is very much aware of this.
Philippians chapter 4 and verses 11 to 13.
I have learnt in whatever state I am to be content.
I know how to be abased and I know how to abound.
In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of facing plenty of hunger, abundance
and want.
I can do all things in him who strengthens me.
And there is Paul, I think, finding deep consolation in his idea of the sovereignty of God.
Maybe what you're going through now is preparing you for something you will do later.
You don't know, but what you can know is simply this, that we are dealing with a wise
and compassionate and loving God who wants us to make the most of what he calls us to
be and is preparing us and equipping us for whatever that may be.
The doctrine of the providence, the sovereignty of God, is a very powerful affirmation of
the total trustworthiness of God.
Our perception of the situation may not be reliable, it may be thoroughly muddled by
all kinds of intrusive values, and the doctrine of the sovereignty of God is simply saying
let's trust God on this one, let's see what he can do.
Again I always find the end of 1 Thessalonians very very helpful.
I'm thinking of 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 24 where Paul says this, 1 Thessalonians
5 24, he who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
Language of calling is all about providence, sovereignty.
He who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
The Greek is actually slightly different.
The word it isn't there, he will achieve, he will do, he will deliver, and there's a
real emphasis there on the total reliability of God, and I think that's a very firm foundation
on which to build both our Christian lives and our Christian ministry.
That's one area where I think that there is an enormously important point being made.
It is so easy to be restless and agitated and dissatisfied and resentful and fed up,
but there's a real need for us to realize how easy it is to be led astray by human ideas
and values.
Certainly there is a divine discontent.
We are discontent with your grasp of the gospel, discontent to which the gospel has transformed
you.
That's one thing, but discontentment with God is something very, very different, and
there's a real need for us to rediscover a sense of delight in God and of his sufficiency
for us, and just learn that perhaps our perceptions of things aren't always reliable.
That seems to me to be a very important point to make.
Now what I want to do, if I may, is move on and look at this whole business, which is
so important for Reformation spirituality, about the business of being in the world,
but not of the world.
In other words, look at this dialectic between, if you like, being present in the world as
a witness, but remaining distinct from the world.
How on earth can we do it?
And every now and then you feel a bit sympathetic to the monks, you know, after all they had
quite easily just withdrew from the world, and that was the end of the problem.
And you see, really, if you look at the late Middle Ages, you can see two options being
there.
One is the monastic option.
The world is corrupt and will corrupt us.
Let's get out of it.
Let's build a wall all around ourselves and let it separate us from the world and its
problems.
It's a sort of theme you find in Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, isn't it?
The other is to look at the Renaissance papacy.
The pubs in the late Middle Ages, the Borgias, for example, used to have those spectacular
dinner parties where you're never quite sure which of the courses had the poison in it.
But they were strongly world-affirming.
In many ways, they knew how to handle money, power, influence, corruption.
They knew how to use it.
If they were alive today, they'd be the guys who'd be funding that casino you just opened.
And there's a tension there between those who simply mimic the world, who are judged
by its standards and like them, and those who feel very strongly that the only hope
is to get out of the world as quickly as possible and withdraw from it.
And the Reformation actually is saying no to each of those.
No, you don't simply fall into the world and adopt its standards.
And no, you don't get out of the world.
You stay in the world, but maintain your Christian integrity and Christian distinctiveness, because
that is the basis of Christian mission.
You can never be salt and light to the world unless you are in the world.
And really, the Reformers are trying to help us develop a way of thinking about the world,
a way of living in the world, which allows us to maintain that distinctive position.
Now, one of the most important ways is by rediscovering the Church.
Rediscovering the Church.
I think it's very important to make the point that in many ways, modern 20th century Western
Christians are actually deeply individualist, that in many ways, it's sort of a Lone Ranger
type Christianity.
It's me.
You know, it's my faith, and I will just live my own life as a Christian, and that's it.
A very privatized understanding of the Gospel.
And that is not an understanding of the Gospel we find at the Reformation at all.
The Reformation is holding together two themes.
The need to make Christianity relevant to individuals, the need to firmly lodge Gospel
realities in individuals' personal experience.
But the other hand is the simple fact that the Gospel is corporate.
You make it relevant to individuals, but the Church, the community, is where individuals
grow in faith.
Here's what Calvin says, I shall begin with the Church into the bosom of which God is
pleased to gather his children, not only so that they may be nourished by her assistance
and ministry while they are infants and children, but also so that they may be guided by her
motherly care until they mature and reach the goal of faith.
For what God has joined together, no one shall divide, Mark 10-9.
For those to whom God is Father, the Church shall also be their mother.
I mean that is a very strong statement of the importance of the Church in the Christian
mind.
Again, he continues, if you want to look this up, this is Book 4 Chapter 1.
Let us learn from this simple word, mother, how useful and indeed necessary it is to know
the Church.
There is no other way to life unless this mother conceives us in her womb, nourishes
us at her breast, and keeps us under her care and guidance.
That seems to me to be a very helpful corrective to our natural tendency to lapse into individualism.
We very much need to rediscover, not so much the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers,
i.e.
I'm a priest, you're a priest, but the point that for Luther this is a corporate idea,
that it is the Church as a whole, the body of Christ, with all its different aspects,
which is that body of Christ.
And again, you know, the Reformation reminds us to recover.
See, the Reformation is not about a new version of a faith.
It's simply about recovering our roots, going back to the New Testament, and rediscovering
the whole Pauline doctrine of the Church as individual parts, each with a distinctive
role to play, and that role is necessary for the mutual upbuilding of the whole community.
Calvin says, you know, I look after myself, but the Reformation is saying, no, you have
been gifted for the good of others.
And again, the point that Paul makes is the same point that Luther and Calvin both make.
In a human body, we naturally think of certain parts as being less esteemed, less dignified
than others.
But the point is, those valuations are profoundly unhelpful, because those parts are necessary
even if they're not valued.
And the key point is to realize that whatever area of ministry we end up in, it's necessary,
it has to be done, and we must not allow human valuations of that ministry to influence our
thinking at this point.
But I want also to move on and make the point that there is a real need for us to have a
good way of thinking about the world which helps us to understand it.
And in other words, there is a real danger we'll be seduced by the world.
Calvin makes the point the world is a wonderful place because it's God's creation, and we
may be seduced by it.
And therefore there's a need for us to develop a way of thinking, a framework, which will
help us see the world in the right perspective.
And Luther and Calvin and many others provide us with exactly that.
We are pilgrims in this world.
Not permanent residents, but people who are passing through, who are appreciating it and
enjoying it, but at the same time knowing that we are not going to stay here.
Let me read to you what Luther says.
In every age, the saints live in the world in the following ways.
They get on with domestic affairs in the everyday world.
They carry on public business.
They build families.
They cultivate fields, and they become involved in commerce or some other sort of career.
But they recognize that they, like their fathers, are strangers in exile.
They use this world as a place of passage.
Again Calvin makes this point very, very powerfully.
For example, in Geneva Catechism, Calvin writes that we should learn to pass through this
world as though it is a foreign country, treating all earthly things lightly and declining to
set our hearts upon them.
And elsewhere he writes like this, all things that are connected with the enjoyment of the
present life are sacred gifts of God.
If we abuse them, however, we pollute them.
Why?
Because we always dream of staying in this world with the result that those things which
were meant to help us pass through it instead become hindrances to us, in that they hold
us fast to the world.
So it is not without good reason that Paul, wishing to arouse us from his stupidity, calls
upon us to consider the brevity of this life, and suggests that we ought to treat all the
things of this life as if we did not own them.
For if we recognize that we are strangers in the world, we will use the things of this
world as if they belong to someone else, that is, as if they are things that are lent to
us for a single day.
So you see, again, Calvin's making the point, through God's grace we can enjoy this world.
But if we set our hearts on them, the things that were meant to help us pass through this
world will become a problem in that we decide to stay behind and lay down roots.
So Calvin's point is, get that attitude right.
Recognize that we are strangers in this world who are passing through and admiring, but
not putting down those roots.
Here are some words from Jonathan Edwards, who developed this idea in the later Reformed
tradition.
Though surrounded with outward enjoyments, and settled in families with desirable friends
and relations, though we have companions whose society is delightful, and children at whom
we see many promising qualifications, though we live by good neighbors and are generally
beloved well known, yet we ought not to take our rest in these things as our portion.
We ought to possess and joy and use them, with no other view but readily to quit them,
whenever we are called to it, and to change them willingly for heaven.
That last phrase, we ought to possess and joy and use them, with no other view but to
readily quit them, whenever we are called to it, and to change them willingly for heaven.
And again, it's a very, very hopeful approach.
Nobody is saying the world is a pain.
Nobody is saying the world is to be rejected.
Jonathan Edwards' book making the same point.
By God's grace, here are things that you can enjoy, but there is a greater thing still
awaiting you, and when it comes, you must be prepared to leave behind these things,
which in its light are seen to be lesser.
And I guess in many ways what Edwards is saying there is really a challenge to us.
Edwards is really saying, you know, do you believe that being with God is better still
than these things we see around us?
Because if you don't, you'll want to stay where you are, and it really is a challenge
to you as to whether you really take the whole doctrine of the Christian hope seriously.
Again I find this actually very well expressed in Paul.
And if I go back to Philippians, Philippians chapter 1 and verse 21, which I think summarizes
this so well, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
In other words, my experience of Christ in this life is wonderful, but I know that something
better awaits me, and therefore I have something good or I have something wonderful, and that
is a wonderful choice to be allowed to make.
And Edwards' point is very much the same thing, you know, that the world is a place
which by God's grace we are allowed to enjoy, but we must realize there is something more
wonderful awaiting us.
And that is a very distinctive feature of Calvin's theology.
And I think I can make this point that Calvin is so often presented as being a very, very
negative thinker, you know, someone who really is concerned to be a killjoy, but actually
it really is rather different.
And for example, Calvin makes the point that God is gracious in that he provides us with
things that we may enjoy in this world.
For example, a point that you may find surprising knowing Calvin is this.
For Calvin, we would get by very well if we only had water to drink, but God in his grace
gives us oil and wine in order we might have something that we might enjoy rather than
something which merely keeps us alive.
So there's a real point there, you know, Calvin is stressing God is a good creator.
It is in no way dishonoring to God to value and enjoy his creation.
But the ultimate thing which can go wrong is to confuse the creator and the creation,
and to long to stay with the creation when we are called to be with the creator, or to
worship God's creation when we should be worshipping God.
So it is a very helpful way to say you're in the world, but learn to treat it as one
who is passing through it.
There are opportunities to bear witness, to evangelize, to enjoy this world, to exalt
in it as God's creation.
But in the end we have this thought which is both a reassurance and a challenge that
there is something better to which we will have to go eventually, and we must be prepared
to say goodbye when that moment comes.
And that's either reassurance if you're committed to that, or a challenge if you're not to really
realize how much wonderful being with God is.
So again I find that a very important point to bring out in this context.
But finally I want to go back to this whole business of the work ethic, because I think
there's a real need for us just to rediscover how important ordinary everyday work is.
Let me give you a quote from the English performer Hugh Latimer, one of the Oxford martyrs during
the reign of Mary Tudor.
Our Saviour Christ, Latimer writes, was a carpenter and got his living with great labor.
Therefore let no man disdain to follow him, because you may feel it's a job which doesn't
get you much respect these days.
The son of a friend of mine, a friend of mine is a vicar in an English city, and his son
finds it very, very difficult to tell his school friends that his father's a clergyman,
so he keeps telling his friends his father's unemployed.
There's a very big cringe factor involved.
So the point I want to make is that really we are being quite challenged here as to whether
we allow human valuations of our position, of our calling, to have a decisive influence
on us.
You know, sure, there's a very real moor, a very real temptation to go for the big jobs
with a high profile and a big salary.
But you know, there is this question, there is this real question about whether you gain
the world and lose your soul.
I think what Paul was saying there in Philippians really about learning to be content is actually
a profoundly Christian sentiment, one which certainly the Reformers endorse very, very
heavily.
Reflection for the Reformers is ultimately a reflection of a sinful dissatisfaction and
a refusal to allow God to direct you to where you want to be.
I find that a challenge.
Recently I had written on my mind, did I choose a very well-paid job or one which actually
wasn't well-paid at all, but where I felt I might be more useful.
And obviously, I mean, I wouldn't be saying this to you unless I chose the more poorly
paid job, but you know, there is a certain sense in which it was a difficult decision
to make because there was a real element of temptation there, and I'm honest enough to
admit it.
You know, it wasn't as if I'm so holy that instantly I said, I'll go for the more poorly
paid one because I'm like that.
It was a real struggle and it was a difficult decision, but in the end I feel it was a right
decision.
I think there is a real challenge there.
You know, we are in a society which values certain things, which pays certain things
well, and which wants to play down the importance of the Gospel and its ministers.
And really I think that you and I have just got to learn to rediscover that our sense
of purpose, our sense of value, our sense of dignity and identity in the end comes from
the God who has called us to be his and to serve him in the world.
So it's always struck me as being one of the most wonderful things about the Christian
Gospel that the two words used to refer to Christian leaders in the New Testament are
a slave and a waiter at a table.
It's about service.
And really I think that it's so difficult for us to grasp that, that the paradox of
Christianity in many ways is that the greatest honor is to serve, that the greatest honor
is to humble yourself to serve your fellow believers.
And to me that is actually a deeply humbling and also deeply exciting thought.
Because one of the great consequences of adopting the Incarnation is this, in humbling himself
to come and serve us, Christ has given a new dignity to humility, a new dignity to service.
And that I think is an enormously powerful thought to any who are worried about the negative
side of being a minister today.
Now my voice is beginning to dry up, I'm afraid, and in fact I think we may have a very, very
short question time because it's becoming quite painful for me to speak.
Let me just try and bring these thoughts together.
What I've been saying in the last two lectures is that the Reformation makes available a
form of spirituality which is directed at being a Christian in the world.
That to me is enormously important because it's saying no to two options, becoming worldly
and becoming anti-worldly.
You don't become like everyone else, nor do you go and put up the barricades and separate
yourself from everybody else.
You live in the world giving God the opportunity to bear witness through you while at the same
time staying close to him.
In the language of John 17 it's about being in the world but not of the world.
And therefore the key question for the Reformers is how do you maintain Christian vitality
and identity and distinctiveness?
And the answers they give basically through immersing yourself in scripture, through welcoming
the fact that you are a member of a church whose many members can gift you as you can
gift them, through rediscovering the place of the world as God's good creation but nonetheless
a place which we are passing through and beginning to raise our eyes upwards towards that great
Christian hope.
Let me end on the theme of hope, I mean again just focusing on the opening of your casino
last night.
I mean why is the casino such an attraction to so many?
I think one of the answers is quite simply because people want hope.
They are in a situation where they feel hopeless and they are given hope by the thought that
the throw of a dice, the spin of a wheel could make them enormously rich and change the situation
completely and it seems to me that that really brings home to us how much people need hope
and how they will reach out for any kind of hope they can find and how great a privilege
but also how great a challenge it is to us to bring them the Christian doctrine of hope.
But that doctrine of hope really must shape our thinking, our thinking about being Christians
in the world.
And remember Edward's idea of contemplating the hope that is to come which will allow
us to say farewell to this world when we are asked to do so.
Here is Paul making much the same point.
Galatians 3 verses 1 to 4.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ
is, seated at the right hand of God.
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
For you have died and your life is hid with Christ in God.
When Christ who is our life appears, then you will also appear with him in glory.
And the point being made here is this.
When you're walking through this life and get tired or weary or jaded, you raise your
eyes upwards and realize that where Christ has gone is where we shall one day go and
be with him.
And already our thoughts and minds are in heaven as we reflect on that great hope and
joy that is already there and which is going to inspire us and comfort us as we journey.
That's the kind of hope which will keep you going and keep you growing and allow you to
maintain your distinctiveness in this world.
Everyone else may simply be looking down and wondering about where life is taking them,
feeling miserable, seeing only the dull routine of life which leads only to death.
And that's the end.
But you and I have this privilege and joy of walking that same road with them but looking
upwards and knowing that there is something else to which we are called, to which we are
going, which can give us a deep sense of excitement and consolation as we journey.
And it seems to me that the ultimate goal of spirituality really is to keep that hope
alive because by doing so it keeps us different and keeps us witnessing in this world.
Thank you for listening.
I will take a few questions but as you can hear my voice is actually in quite a bad way.
I'll take one question if I may because I've got another letter to give this afternoon.
Yes, please.
I haven't got him here, I'll look him up for you, okay?
Thank you so much.
I'm sorry about my voice but this is what happens.