Lot of people are asking today, “Why would we want to go back and remember something from 500 years ago?” There are a lot of Protestants, even evangelical Protestants, that have significant feelings of ambivalence about the Protestant Reformation. But at RTS, we are celebrating the Reformation. We believe that the great theological emphases of the Reformation are just as important and just as needed today as they were 500 years ago.

Interestingly, most people think –when they think about the Reformation– they think about justification by faith. That’s appropriate because that was one of the hallmarks of Martin Luther’s teaching and experience. He wanted to herald the fact that we are not justified by our works. We’re not justified by a combination of faith and our works; we’re justified by grace. Calvin and Luther and Bullinger and Bingley and Melanchthon and Bucer and Tindell and Cranmer and Knox and all of those great reformers, they believed the same thing on salvation: by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

The great reformers believed the same thing on salvation: by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

But Calvin, in his little book The Necessity of Reforming the Church, makes it very clear that the prime reason that the Reformation was needed was worship. He said, “Look, if Christianity is about worshipping the one true God and freeing us from idolatry, then idolatrous worship can actually deliver us right back into bondage; therefore, we need to worship God as he is, according to his word.”

Friends, that is just as needed today as it was 500 years ago. So Calvin’s emphasis on worship and salvation, as to linchpin issues in the Reformation, is a very, very important and needed emphasis for our own day in time.

We believe that the Reformation is something that ought to be celebrated. We believe that its theological commitments are true, and therefore they need to be heralded in our own time. We’re committed to heralding that same reformation message and to equipping students to herald that message in this generation and in the generations to come until the Lord returns.

Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III

Ligon Duncan (MDiv, Covenant Theological Seminary; PhD, University of Edinburgh) is the Chancellor & CEO of Reformed Theological Seminary, the John E. Richards Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology, and the President of RTS Jackson. He has authored, co-authored, edited, or contributed to numerous books. You can follow him on Twitter.