GODFREY: I really do think that when we asked a very valuable question, "What does it mean to
be Reformed?" there are, of course, a variety of answers that can be given, a variety of answers
that can be justified. But particularly, as we're celebrating a Zwingli anniversary,
a major Reformation anniversary, no, the answer is not if you eat sausage you're Reformed.
I think we have to seek the answer to that in the confessions and catechisms
of the Reformed churches. It's really not a matter strictly for individual definition.
It's not a matter, I think, that we should add to or take from. We ought to ask,
"What has been the consensus of Reformed believers through the centuries?" And that's what we find in
the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, the Canons of the Synod of Dort,
the Westminster Confession, the Westminster Shorter Catechism,
the Westminster Larger Catechism, and maybe on a charitable day, the London Confession.
That would be a different day from today, but I mean on a charitable day
you might add that. So, you know, I think if you are wrestling individually with the question,
"What does it mean to be Reformed?" what would it mean for me to in a full sense say I am Reformed?
Get one of the great Reformed confessions or catechisms and go through it and use it as kind
of a checklist, "How am I doing? What do I think of those things?" and then linger particularly
over the points where you say, "I'm not so sure that's true," because I'm willing to predict
you're wrong and the confession is right. But it's an important point to stop and think and
get out your Bible and see what the Bible says about the matter that you're concerned about.
NICHOLS:
I think one of Dr. Sproul's insights was being Reformed has at the center of it the doctrine of
God and that's where we start. If we look at it existentially from our perspective,
this was Luther's fundamental question, "How can I be right with God?" was the question.
And he wasn't satisfied with the answer that his contemporaries had
and the answer that leads him to who God is which wasn't good for Luther. That was two steps back.
But at the center of the Reformed understanding of doctrine, of the Reformed understanding
of Scripture, is the doctrine of God. But what Dr. Sproul would remind us is
what Reformed folks do is consistently pull that doctrine to the next doctrine,
doctrine of man and to the next doctrine, the doctrine of Christ, and to the next,
the doctrine of salvation, and even right into the doctrine of church and even right into what is our
ultimate mission of worship, that we have at the center of our worship who God is. And we carry
that understanding of God all the way through consistently in our theology which is what our
confessions do for us, head of doctrine after head of doctrine.
FERGUSON: I think, maybe, I can add, just to help Bob Godfrey along here, that for anyone beginning,
a really great place to begin would be in what he revealed his deepest instincts
when he referred to this particular document in his address this morning
that beginning with the catechism would be particularly helpful.
GODFREY:
What is your only comfort in life and in death? I think it's also helpful to...
FERGUSON: I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said this. I apologize in public.
GODFREY: I can dish it out and I can take it. I think it's always important and I think we're
always tempted to forget this, that when we say we're Reformed, we're using an abbreviation.
What our forefathers said was being Reformed is being reformed according to the Word of God, that
the church as they saw it in the sixteenth century had been radically
deformed by moving away from the Word of God,
and the very essence of being Reformed is to allow our thinking and our living and are worshiping
to be reshaped by the Word of God. So, maybe, if we occasionally use the word "reshaped,"
personally, part of the shape I'm acquiring is not to be desirable, but that's a whole another issue.
We are reformed according to the Word of God. That's the point.
That's a round of applause for fat.
THOMAS: I'm not going there.
I do think that whilst the Reformation in the sixteenth century defined the Reformed faith in
terms of how it was different from Catholicism in particular, I think that the Synod of Dort,
just over four hundred years ago defined what is essential to the Reformed faith
and the acronym TULIP. But taking what the Bible says about sin seriously, taking what the
Bible says about election seriously, taking what the Bible defines the work of Christ
to be, defining what the sovereignty of God in regeneration means in effectual calling,
defining the idea of the sovereignty of God in preserving us in perseverance
until final glory, I mean those five truths, I think, are a focus
of what is essential to a biblical understanding of the Reformed faith.