INTRODUCTION

With this post I hope to make available a little series of adult catechism classes that I did last year. You can read the outlines and listen to some of the audio here.

This series asks the question, “What does it mean to be a Reformed Christian?” Note that well. It does not ask, “What does a Reformed Christian believe.” The difference is that the latter is a question of principle, while the former is a question of practice. Put another way, the former is a matter of our entire existence, as the verb "to be" signifies, while the latter is a matter of one part of that existence, namely, our beliefs. What I assume, then, are the principles and beliefs of Reformed theology as expressed and defined in the Reformed confessions (E.g., Three Forms of Unity/Westminster Standards) while offering an approach to how those doctrines should and must affect how the Reformed believer thinks and acts before God (coram Deo) and before humanity (coram homnibus).

In essence, to be a Christian in the Reformed expression of the Christian Faith is summed up in the poetic words of David: “I am yours; save me” (Ps. 119:94). What David said one thousand years before the coming of our Lord, the Reformation Heidelberg Catechism echoed in its first question and answer:

What is thy only comfort in life and death?
That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ, who with his precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and redeemed me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to live unto him.

As a Reformed believer I humbly, yet confidently, assert that “I,” with all that I am (“body and soul”) and with my whole existence (“life and death”), belong to Jesus Christ—the Savior who has satisfied the justice of God due my sins, delivered me from the possession of the devil, and preserves me unto eternity. By his work of redemption as Lord of the covenant he says to me, “You are mine,” and in response I can say as the covenant servant, invited into covenant partnership, “I am yours.” Being Christ’s, then, means that I am made by him willing and ready to offer myself unto him as a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

The purpose of this series on what it means to be Reformed is threefold:

• first, to know who we are in Christ as his possession;
• second, to know what it means to be a Reformed believer;
• third, to know how to live this identity out before the face of God and the world.

We will accomplish this with a very basic outline, for ease of memorization. After opening with a discussion of what it means to be Reformed in the next post, we will alliterate the rest of our subject with three “W’s”: the Reformed life is a life in water, in worship, and in the world.