I'm a Protestant, are you?

As part of my ‘day’ job, I often ask people their church or faith affiliation. A gentleman said recently, when I asked what church or faith his wife belonged to, “she was a Protestant, that’s a Christian, right?” This made me think about the significance of the word, Protestant. Dictionary.com, defines it as, “any Western Christian who is not an adherent of a Catholic, Anglican, or Eastern Church.” That is what a Protestant is, not a Catholic, Anglican, or Eastern (Orthodox) adherent. The word comes from German, French, and Latin words that meant, “bearing a public witness.” Most people believe it means protest, as in protesting the Roman Catholic Church. Of course, to Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other great Reformers, it was.

In 1517, a Catholic Priest, in Germany, nailed a protesting document to his door. This priest, Martin Luther, became one of the catalyst of the most powerful movement the Church had not seen in 1500 years, at least since the days of the Apostles. Luther was protesting practices of the Church, including the selling of indulgences. In the teaching of the Catholic Church, an indulgence is "a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1471). Luther was not protesting indulgences as much as the abuse and belief in them.

For Christians today, that fall under the banner ‘Protestant’, what does that all mean. It is safe to say, many Christian Denominations today hold to diverse and differing doctrines and teachings. Some they hold strongly, others, even by their own admission, are not as important. Some practices and beliefs, would include: Baptism; whether by immersion or sprinkling, Spiritual Gifts; for today or ceased, and End Times; debatable timelines, occurrences, and spiritual connotations, are just a few ideas that even within denominations can be debatable. Today, what would be a defining doctrine or belief that most, if not almost all, Protestants could adhere to. That may not be so easy to determine, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

Christ is central to Protestantism, and the truths about Him are the central aspects and teachings that unite Protestants. Paul states an essential of our faith, 1 Corinthians 15:3 (NLT) “I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said.” In this verse is our first (by my counting) great Protestant truth: Jesus died for our sins. The Hebrew writer said, Hebrews 1:3 (NLT) “The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.” Faith in Christ alone, as salvation, was at the very heart of Protestantism start. "This one and firm rock, which we call the doctrine of justification," insisted Martin Luther, "is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the understanding of all godliness.” (Selected passages from Martin Luther, "Commentary on Galatians (1538) as translated in Herbert J. A. Bouman, "The Doctrine of Justification in the Lutheran Confessions," Concordia Theological Monthly 26 (November 1955) No. 11:801. ctsfw.edu) Sola fide, Latin for Faith Alone, is the bedrock of our faith, in Christ alone.

Next, is the great truth of the resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15:4 (HCSB) “that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” on this foundation rest the proof of His divinity and that death had no hold on him, Acts 2:24 (NLT) “But God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip.” Jesus claimed to be the great I Am, and this admission of divinity was not overlooked, John 8:58-59 (KJV) “Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. (59) Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.” That day, those in attendance, knew all too well what Jesus was claiming. John Calvin said of the great truth of the resurrection, “The nature of it is better expressed in the words of Paul, 'Who (Christ) was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification," (Rom. 4:25) as if he had said, By his death sin was taken away, by his resurrection righteousness was renewed and restored. For how could he by dying have freed us from death, if he had yielded to its power? how could he have obtained the victory for us, if he had fallen in the contest? Our salvation may be thus divided between the death and the resurrection of Christ: by the former sin was abolished and death annihilated; by the latter righteousness was restored and life revived, the power and efficacy of the former being still bestowed upon us by means of the latter . . . In these words we are not only urged by the example of a risen Saviour to follow newness of life, but are taught that by his power we are renewed unto righteousness.”

To these two great truths, that is Jesus died for our sins (and faith alone in it is salvation) and the resurrection, I would add that He was born of a virgin. Jesus was miraculously born, unlike any other birth in all of history. ““...The Virgin birth denotes particularly the mystery of revelation. It denotes the fact that God stands at the start where real revelation takes place – God and not the arbitrary cleverness, capability or piety of man. In Jesus Christ God comes forth out of the profound hiddenness of his divinity in order to act as God among us and upon us. That is revealed and made visible to us in the sign of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, but it is grounded upon the fact signified by the Virgin birth, that here in this Jesus God himself has really come down and concealed himself in humanity. It was because he was veiled here that he could and had to unveil himself as he did at Easter...” (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.2 pp. 182-183). John said it like this, John 1:14 (KJV) “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” Only in a miracle, virgin, birth could God become man.

And, so upon these essentials, I would stake the claim that any Protestant could agree with me. Other doctrines or truths are important, maybe even essential in your mind (and probably a lot are in mine, too), but upon these 3 essentials, what makes us Protestants are our common core, our common faith. They may express themselves in different worship styles, Bible translations, or dress codes, but we hold to these truths as we gather as the CHURCH, united in the simplicity of our Faith. Jesus, born of a virgin, died for our sins, raised again, we can unite on these, can we not?