By Darren Brooker
In light of tomorrow being Reformation Day, and Monday’s space usually reserved for something from the pen of Horatius Bonar, this week’s post from Bonar deals with the importance of the Reformation and the doctrine that God caused to be re-illumined after centuries of darkness: justification by faith alone. (It’s no wonder Geneva’s motto is Post Tenebras…Lux, After Darkness…Light). The same simple truth that brought reformation and revival in the 16th century is the same simple truth that could do likewise in our day; if only men would put off the foolishness that passes for gospel doctrine that seems so prevalent. You will also see from the following passage, and if you know anything about Bonar at all, that he was cut more from the mold of the Reformers than the Puritans, although he did at times combine the best of both!
The Reformation went back to the simplicities of apostolic truth. This was the secret of its strength. By this it won its victories. Away from “the wisdom of this world,” from the mystic dreams of the cloister, from the subtleties of the schoolmen, from the contradictions of the fathers, it went back to the Epistle to the Romans, and, above the mists of ages, lifted up to view “the righteousness of God without the law” (Romans 3:21), “the righteousness of faith” (Romans 4:13), the righteousness in which the sinner stands complete before God. Human pride, self-righteousness, philosophy, priestly pretensions to pardon, all opposed these divine simplicities of justification,—preferring something more elaborate and complex; something that would not settle the question of acceptance so easily and speedily. But to the aching hearts and heavy-laden spirits of that age the simplicity of the divine message constituted its excellence. It adjusted the whole matter at once, between God and the sinner, by setting aside human goodness as a justifying element, and resting forgiveness entirely upon THE FINISHED SUBSTITUTION of the Son of God. Divine perfection came in the room of human imperfection, presenting every man who accepted that perfection complete before God. The tattered and defiled raiment of human goodness was exchanged for the fine linen, pure and white, “the best robe” in the Father’s house.
Our prayer is, that God would raise up evangelists for [every nation] in numbers proportioned to your country’s need; men of faith, and, therefore, sure of success.
Yet numbers are, after all, but secondary. One whole-hearted evangelist, preaching simply the good news of God’s free love, would do more than a hundred half-hearted cumberers of the ground. One holy, self-denying teacher, filled with the Holy Spirit, is worth a host of preachers who have never tasted for themselves the glad tidings which they profess to declare. “Nobody can withstand him,” was said of Calvin, “when he has the Bible in his hand.” And of Luther it was written, “Every word of thine was a thunderbolt.” Such are the men whom [our] country needs at this hour; and, with even a few such, what might not be done! “One would chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight.”
-Taken from Does God Care For Our Great Cities? 1882, as found on The Life and Works of Horatius Bonar CD-Rom
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