POST TENEBRAS LUX ~ AFTER DARKNESS LIGHT

The phrase “post tenebras lux” (after darkness, light), was a rallying cry of the Reformers, It refers to the rediscovery of the biblical truth of the Gospelin a time of spiritual darkness when the church had lost sight of the fundamentals of the gospel, God used a humble monk named Martin Luther to bring about the greatest revival in church history. When he posted his Ninety-Five Theses, Luther became the unwitting catalyst of the Reformation and a champion of the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

Reformed theology is perhaps best known for its understanding that God has, before the foundation of the world, chosen certain sinners for salvation. Eph. 1:3ff is a prominent text which underlies this biblical conviction. Reformed theology teaches that in the fullness of time Christ came and died for the sins of the elect. We call this predestined monergisticregeneration in that the regeneration of an individual predestined or chosen of God is through the Grace of God alone as the only efficient cause of beginning and effecting conversion. (regeneration precedes faith by the Grace of God alone) .The reason we do not cooperate with regenerating grace before it acts upon us and in us is because we can- not. We cannot because we are spiritually dead. We can no more assist the Holy Spirit in the quickening of our souls to spiritual life or the accepting of the Gospel than Lazarus could help Jesus raise him form the dead.

This view is opposed to Synergistic regeneration, which, in its simplest form, argues that the human will cooperates with God's grace in order to be regenerated. (Faith precedes regeneration by the power and will of man not by God alone.)

When we as a church say that we are reformed we are saying that we embrace as biblical this system of theology known as the doctrines of grace. John Knox, John Bunyan, John Newton, Matthew Henry, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, AdoniramJudson, William Carey, C.H. Spurgeon, A.W. Pink, and a host of others held tenaciously to the Reformed Faith and the Doctrines of grace. We must underscore however, that we hold to these truths not because Calvin and these other great men of church history held to them, but because Jesus and the apostles so clearly taught them through the inerrancy of Holy Scripture.

Unfortunately There is a reformation going on in our day in Baptist churches and all evangelical denominations, a reformation of the moving awayfrom its biblical and historical roots to that which is man centered. In an attempt to change the nature of the church from the Household of God described in pastoral epistles to the House of Entertainment with man pleasing worship and shallow theology, in light of this Sinners are being coddled rather than convicted. The Holiness of God the purity of His church and majesty of His word are things of a by-gone era!

This new reformation is behind much of what we see in the modern church today, it is founded by and large upon a belief that the bible is silent regarding the nature and purpose of the church. It is for this cause that many feel the freedom to ‘reinvent the church’. For some reason they seem to argue God has no principles in His Word concerning the corporate life of his people! Therefore the cry of the Christ appointed shepherds (pastor and elders) of not only The Mall Baptist Church but all orthodox church’s must be that of the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah 8:20 To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn (or light).

The true fruit of the regenerated man is that the light of God’s word would be made manifest in all that he dose and profess therefore The phrase “post tenebraslux” (after darkness, light), is just as relevant today as it was in the reformation as the distinctive of the true believer.

Ephesians 5: (ESV)

8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light