In the Protestant Reformation of 1517, the Christian church, under the leadership of Martin Luther, rediscovered the truth that grace is the pulsing heart of Christian life. It had been discovered and rediscovered many times before that, as it has been rediscovered many times since. However, the 16th century had seen a loss of it within the church to an astonishing and deplorable extent.
It may be that the Christian church has again fallen in our time (including the Protestant churches and the Uniting Church) into a similar deplorable state in a loss of the truth of grace, marked by:
- Rejecting the truth of the God of grace – Creator and Redeemer of the world – in His Holy Scriptures
- Rejecting His holiness that defines sin and evil, and pronounces the judgement of death and hell upon them
- Rejecting the truth of His grace in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the only thing in time or eternity that can save us and give us fullness of life
Our grasp of the truth of grace is a matter of the life or death of the Christian, and of the life or death or the Christian church.
What is certain is that a rediscovery of grace as the pulsing heart of Christian life is needed by the church today, by the Uniting Church, by the Golden Grove Uniting Church, by you, and by me! And it will be needed tomorrow, the day after that, and every day until the end of the current age. Every day must be Reformation Day!… And why would we want it any other way?…
Grace upon grace, Jonathan