W. Robert Godfrey writes:
“It may be safe to say that the greatest event for Christendom in the last 1500 years was the Protestant Reformation.” Professor John Murray spoke these words in his class lectures on justification in the mid-1960s.
At that time, forty years ago, it would have been hard to imagine anyone in a Reformed or evangelical church finding much that was exceptional about Murray’s words. But today, in a world that would amaze him, the central doctrines of the Reformation are under attack, not only in liberal and ecumenical circles, but in the heart of evangelical and Reformed churches.
Contemporary criticisms of Reformation doctrine, it seems to me (a historian of the Reformation), usually arise from those who are not well acquainted with the theology of the Reformers, the concerns that motivated them, or the biblical foundations for their teaching. In this brief article, we cannot survey or answer all the critics. But we can take a quick overview of the fundamental convictions of the Reformers and see their continuing importance for the life of God’s people and of our churches.