What Does It Mean to Be Reformed?
This is a question that lots of different folks ask from time to time, whether it's through various social media outlets or maybe it's folks who are interested in a particular branch of theology or in visiting a particular church. This is a question that oftentimes comes up. Oftentimes folks don't have a shared mutual definition of what it means to be reformed. And so part of the nature of this discussion today is to encourage and drive the conversation and answers to this question towards a more unified definition of what it means to be reformed. So without going any further, let me give you a “succinct” definition of what it means to be reformed.
To be reformed in a theological sense means having particularly defined distinctions regarding what the Bible says about who God is, what he's done, and why that matters. These particular distinctions are noticeable in how various reformed groups and people relate their beliefs through creeds, confessions, perspectives on covenants, issues relating to salvation, and the hallmark doctrines of the European Reformation.
How “Reformed” is Used
The word "reformed" comes up in many different circles and can mean many different things. Sometimes it can be confusing when we don't all mean the same thing by using the same word. So some folks use the word reformed in a historic sense or in a historical sense. It means they are speaking specifically about a tradition of belief that emerged as a consequence of the European Reformation in the 1500s and 1600s. So this includes historical persons, maybe personages that you might have heard of coming from a reformed background. It also includes movements within Protestant Christianity at large. We could use the term reformed in an example sentence in the following way. Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Anglicans, Episcopalians, and more owe much of their heritage to reformed traditions. That is using the word reformed in a historical sense. Now each of those different traditions within Protestantism may have their own particular distinctives. There's a reason why each of those groups is different from one another, and they've each got their own particular persuasions and particular stances on different issues that set them apart from one another. And yet speaking and using the word reformed historically is an accurate way of using that word to describe the joint heritage of these different components or different movements or different branches of Protestant Christianity. They all owe a historic debt to the reformed tradition coming out of the European 1500s and 1600s, and the theology, the politics, and the culture shaping movements and events that occurred during those times.
Sometimes the word reformed is used in a very theological sense, which, of course, our definition today. Sometimes some folks use the word reformed in a theological sense, referring to a particular perspective of who God is as it's informed by principles that were influential at the time of the European Reformation. An example sentence of this would be: R.C. Sproul speaks with a distinctively reformed perspective on the topic of God's holiness. That speaks to a theological conviction that someone has that has been particularly influenced by their understanding of who God is based on teachings and based on principles that have emerged theologically from the European Reformation in the 1500s and 1600s.
A final distinctive use for the word reformed is to use it as a specific noun. Some people, churches, or movements may properly be known as reformed. They may include the word reformed in their name. An institution like a church, a group, or a movement like a denomination or a period of history could be known as a reformed thing, a reformed group, or a reformed noun. So an example sentence of this is, I thoroughly enjoy listening to the lectures from Reformed Theological Seminary. That is a noun. It is a definite place that has named itself RTS, Reformed Theological Seminary. So sometimes folks use reformed as a specific noun, and they don't necessarily bring to the table either a theological conviction with them or a historic conviction with them or a generic adjectival sense with them. I don't think when folks are discussing Reformed Theological Seminary that they are meaning that the seminary was one way, but now it's been reformed and been improved in a general sense of the term, right? So we can see there are different ways that different people might use this term, and sometimes that can be confusing. Asking somebody, What do you mean when you say reformed can be a helpful way of furthering the conversation.
What Being Reformed Is Not
Some folks understand reformed as anything opposed to Roman Catholicism. That is one approach; that is one caricature of what it means to be reformed. That is not what it means either historically or theologically. Actually, the reformers during the 1500s and 1600s had many, many things that they would say were praiseworthy of Roman Catholicism, including its theology as well as in its hierarchy and in its structures and even in its worship practices. Oftentimes different branches within a reformed Protestant Christianity have many shared tenets with Roman Catholicism, and so it is very unfair and unhelpful to just think of the Reformation as being purely opposed to anything that is Roman Catholic.
Folks caricature what it means to be reformed as a particular period in history, tradition, persuasion, or theological approach and to lift it above where it ought to be. To prioritize it or to place it in a place that it otherwise ought not to be, whether that's a person, a movement, or a particular moment in history, to raise it above where it otherwise ought to be. Those are caricaturizations of what it means to be reformed. Reformed does not mean being anti-all roman catholic things, and it does not mean following the teachings of men as the replacements for the word of God. The overemphasizing of the teachings of men in place of the word of god that's not what it means to be reformed, so if that's not what reformed means
How We Get Our Definition of Reformed
The Christian Reformed Church of North America's (CRC)website, in their piece Reformed Accent, says if you think of the worldwide church as a body, then you can imagine denominations as individual organs, each organ contributing to the proper functioning of the body. Each performs a unique function. Another example is to imagine a room full of English speakers from different corners of the world such as Georgia, Australia, Britain, South Africa, Scotland, and Toronto; each speaks the same language, but their accents make them sound very different. Sometimes we refer to our particular emphasis as speaking with a reformed accent. Three words that figure prominently within a reformed accent are sovereign and included in the broader scope of worldwide Christianity, yet each of those reformed traditions and each of those different traditions within Christianity at large each performs different roles. That's the analogy that the CRC is making: that through the use of accents, we're all speaking the same language but sound a little bit different with the point of emphasis.
The five points of emphasis to being reformed are: that you are creedal, affirm the five solas of the protestant reformation, that a reformed church or person is confessional, they are covenantal, and last, they have Calvinistic soteriology.
To be creedal means that reformed churches, historic movements, and individuals uphold the historic creeds of the church. Particularly the early creeds of the church, which are the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. These three are the base three creeds that, generally speaking, reformed churches uphold, use in worship, and use in training new believers or new members of their churches. These are the three creeds that are joint summary statements of what is believed and accurately summarized taught in the sacred scriptures.
The five solas are the summary statements of foundational truths as revealed in god's word that drove and continued to drive reformation and evaluation of churches and theology. The five solas are Sola Scriptura- Scripture Alone, Sola Fide- faith Alone, Sola Gratia- By Grace Alone, Sola Christus- By Christ Alone, and Sola Deo Gloria- Glory to God Alone. Those five solas are foundational both to what it means to be protestant but also what it means to be Reformed.
Reformed means confessional. The confessions were a byproduct largely of protestant reformed churches attempting to maintain the bible as the highest authority inside the church as the rule and guide for Christian living rather than a church tradition. Reformed churches are often first creedal, then second confessional. The confessions were documents that were not nearly as historic as the creeds but were written during the 1500s and 1600s.
Reformed churches are oftentimes covenantal. This is a perspective which views the God of the Bible as operating in relationship to all of humanity based on Covenants. This is a particular perspective that sees God as having bound himself, as having made promises and extended those promises both with blessings and with curses to mankind. There are a couple of different terms, covenants, that get spoken of in Covenant Theology. This is a perspective that observes these Covenants not as being something that is outside of the scriptures but of what's taking place inside the scriptures. That part of being reformed means to always be going back and looking at the scriptures, whether it's the creeds that are summarizing what's taught in scripture, whether it's the confessions which are again summarizing and then putting into practice principles that are available in scripture, or it's having a perspective of looking at the whole story of scripture to see how God operates with mankind. Taking a look at all of God's word that drives itself and derives from how God has revealed he will obligate himself and engage himself and reveal himself to humanity.
Calvinistic soteriology is often summarized with the acronym of tulip. TULIP (Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, Perseverance of the saints) is a helpful summary statement to summarize some of what Calvinistic Soteriology is. Soteriology is just a fancy word to discuss what it means to be saved, or the study of salvation. The reformed understanding of becoming saved is that it is only through faith in Christ that anyone can be made right with God. There is nothing that you or I can contribute other than our sin to actually enter into right relationship with God. You and I are at a complete and total loss to be able to affect or to be able to contribute in any way towards the positive movement of rectifying our relationship with God. We are dead in our sins and our trespasses. It is only by God's grace and by God's mercy to us through Christ Jesus that we can become made sons and daughters of God. That we can be made righteous in God's eyes. The only way that we can get to that status is because of God's grace and God's mercy. It's because of God's activity, not because of anything that we ourselves bring to the table.
This brings us back to the beginning of our discussion and the question: what does it mean to be reformed. For us here at Redeeming Family, the definition that we use means to be reformed in a theological sense, having particularly defined distinctives regarding what the Bible says about who God is, what He's done, and why that matters.
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