It is the Reformation rediscovery of the gospel that actually makes Christmas and Easter worth celebrating. Sola fide is what takes the amazement of the incarnation, the wisdom of the cross, and the glory of the resurrection, and applies it all to us. It’s what does justice to the person and work of Christ. If we get the gospel wrong, Easter and Christmas mean nothing (and benefit nothing) to the person who seeks to be made right with God.

It’s October again and the 31^st is just around the corner. I don’t mean it’s time to get ready for trick-or-treats, unless of course you use this as a time to share the gospel with Reformation themed tricks, treats, or tracts, when a herd of children, looking like ghouls, arrive on your doorstep. Sadly, some ministers are hesitant to celebrate this momentous event in church history. On the one hand, some ministers humbug it as an almost idolatrous celebration because, from their perspective, this period of church history seems to have been elevated and prioritized over other important time periods in church history. On the other hand, other pastors’ views of the ‘regulative principle’ seem to have prohibited them from celebrating the reformation given it’s not a prescribed day in Scripture.

Of course, with anything there are generally legitimate extremes that need to be cautioned against. Church history did not commence when Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses criticizing the sale of indulgences, and there is no requirement to officially celebrate the Reformation. In the end, it depends on motives. No doubt, any Reformation celebration can become divorced from the reality of what was at stake for the Church. Coming from a culturally Reformed heritage does not give us a step-up into heaven.

What is the point of celebrating the incarnation of Jesus Christ at Christmas, or the substitutionary atoning sacrifice of the cross and resurrection at Easter, if we get the God-ordained means of receiving these truths—faith alone (sola fide)—wrong? The gospel is the good news of the person and work of Christ. That is, who He is (Christmas) and what He did (Easter)—to be a little simplistic. If, after hearing this good news, we trust in Christ—alone, we are saved by God’s grace through that faith in Christ (Eph. 2:8). But, if we get the incarnation wrong or Christ’s work of salvation wrong, then we have no right to the name of ‘Christian.’

The Reformation restored the true meaning of Christmas and Easter in its rediscovery of the biblical gospel. To varying extents, the old heresy of Pelagianism had made its way back into Roman Catholic theology with the teaching that ‘God would not deny His grace to those who do what is in them.’ That is to say, God has promised to give us grace when we do what we can to move toward Him. In today’s language we might say, ‘God helps those who help themselves’, or even ‘God looks down the corridor of time and chooses those who first choose Him’.

Don’t let the mention of grace fool you. Sure, the Roman Catholic church is not a church which teaches that we are saved by works. But it is a church which says we are saved by grace in addition to works—God’s grace in addition to our works. This still undermines the gospel of grace alone, through faith alone. The wave of the hand ‘Jedi mind-trick’ in saying ‘nothing to see here’ by the Roman Church did not deceive Luther. He smelled a Pelagian rat; he understood that to ‘do what is in us’ was to depend on our ability to do ‘good works’ and, if that wasn’t bad enough, the ‘free will’ story was invented in order to carry out these good works.

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