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Singapore Moses
It was martin Luther who shook the entire world with the following sound fundamental doctrines ★ "O Lord, open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in Your Law" (Psa 119:18) ★ The Old Testament and the New Testament are the two lips of God to speak to us. The New is concealed in the Old and the Old is revealed in the New. We cannot understand one without the other. ★ We have the shadow in the OT but the substance in the NT (Heb 10:1) ★ The New Covenant, unlike the Old, is not of the letter but of the Spirit (2 Cor 3:6 Rom 7:6). ★ In the OT the Law was written in tablets of stone, but now God writes it in our hearts of flesh (Jer 31:31-33; Heb 8:8-10; 2 Cor 3:3). ★ The ceremonial part of the Law takes a spiritual meaning in the New Testament. For example, the Sabbath speaks of the rest Christ gives to His people here and then in eternity (Mt 11:28; Heb 4:4-10). Similarly God told Peter to eat even the "forbidden" food of the OT to explain to him a spiritual truth, that is, how God can save the non-Jews also (Acts 10:10-16,44,45). ★ The Temple in the OT becomes the people of God and their bodies in the NT. ★ The New Covenant is called a "better" Covenant (Heb 7:22; 8:6). ★ The core of the OT is all about what God "demands" whereas the core of the NT is all about what God "gives." ★ Praise the Lord we are not under Law but under Grace (Rom 6:14). ★ Let us stand firm in the liberty, and not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage (Gal 5:1). ★ In fact, those who attempt to be justified by Law have fallen from Grace (v4). ★ Law and Grace cannot coexist. Ishmael and Isaac cannot dwell in the same house. ★ An old cloth and a new piece should not be stitched together. ★ The new wine cannot be kept in old bottles (Mt 9:16,17). By saying so we do not mean that the Old Testament is irrelevant to us today. Apart from the Law the OT contains prophecy, history and wisdom. "These were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come" (1 Cor 10:11). The OT must be read and diligently studied by every Christian, but the interpretation and application must be always in the light of the NT. I have prayed for an another wave of "reformation" which Martin Luther started and the Lord granted my wish. Thanks for your kind understanding. Respectfully, Selva Moses
Tim Maas
From a Protestant perspective, I would say that the primary changes have been a shift in orientation from people having to approach or deal with God through an earthly intermediary (that is, a priest) to accessing God directly through Christ; and also a growing separation between church and state. A direct relationship between Christians and God had always been the teaching of Scripture (as in 1 Timothy 2:5 and Hebrews 4:16, for example), but it had become corrupted between the time of Jesus and the Reformation (especially after Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire in AD 380) by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in order to maintain its control over the lives and economic resources of the people, and its political power and influence with respect to earthly governments. The Reformation focused on restoring Christianity's emphasis on spiritual (rather than political or economic) matters, and on the personal relationship between each individual believer and the Triune God through faith.
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