Glossary of Terms

The vocabulary of the Reformation, for readers new to it · 101 terms, defined from Scripture, the Reformers, and the confessions.

Readers who come to the Reformation for the first time meet a great many unfamiliar words: Latin phrases, the names of movements and assemblies, and the terms of theology that the Reformers fought to keep clear. Each entry below gives a plain definition, wherever possible in the words of the Baptist Catechism, the Second London Confession, the Westminster Confession, or the Reformers themselves, followed by Scripture and links to fuller treatments on this site.

Terms of Roman Catholic doctrine and practice, such as indulgence, merit, penance, purgatory, relics, the Mass, and transubstantiation, are defined from Rome’s own documents in the companion Glossary of Catholic Terms. Where a word belongs to both, as with grace and justification, the entry here gives the Reformation’s meaning and links to Rome’s.

Adoption

“An act of God’s free grace, whereby we are received into the number and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 37). Where justification declares the sinner righteous before the Judge, adoption brings him into the family of the Father, with the Spirit “whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15).

See Sanctification and Order of Salvation.

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Anabaptists

From the Greek for “rebaptizers”: the name given by their opponents to the radical reformers who rejected infant baptism and baptized believers on confession of faith. The first such baptisms took place in Zurich on January 21, 1525. Most Anabaptists also held to a church of the regenerate separate from the state, refused the oath and the sword, and suffered severe persecution from Catholics and Protestants alike. Their convictions were set out in the Schleitheim Confession (1527).

English Baptists arose separately in the next century. See Radical Reformation and The Anabaptists.

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Antinomianism

From the Greek for “against law”: the teaching that the moral law has no claim on the believer because he is saved by grace. Luther coined the word in his dispute with Johann Agricola in the late 1530s. Paul answered the error before it had a name: “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid” (Romans 6:1–2).

The believer is not under the law “as a covenant of works,” yet it remains “of great use” to him “as a rule of life” (Second London Confession, 19.6). See Law and Gospel.

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Arminianism

The theology of the Dutch professor Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609) and his followers, the Remonstrants. Their Remonstrance of 1610 taught that election rests on foreseen faith, that Christ died for every man, that grace may be resisted, and that it was uncertain whether a believer could fall away. The Synod of Dort (1618–1619) rejected these articles and answered them in its Canons.

See Calvinism, TULIP, Arminianism, and Calvinism and Arminianism.

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Assurance

The settled confidence of a believer that he is in a state of grace. Those who “truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity … may in this life be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace” (Second London Confession, 18.1). The Council of Trent denied that anyone can know “with a certainty of faith” that he has obtained God’s grace (Session 6, chapter 9).

“These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). See Perseverance of the Saints.

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Atonement

The work of Christ in His death by which He reconciled sinners to God. He executed the office of priest “in his once offering up himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 28). The Reformers taught that He died as the substitute of His people, bearing the penalty their sins deserved (Isaiah 53:5–6; 1 Peter 2:24). This is often called penal substitution.

See Propitiation, Particular Redemption, and The Atonement.

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Baptists

Protestants who hold that baptism belongs only to those who profess faith in Christ, and that it is rightly given by immersion. English Baptists arose among the Separatists in the early seventeenth century and are not the heirs of the continental Anabaptists. The Particular (Calvinistic) Baptists set out their faith in the First London Confession (1644) and the Second London Confession (1677, adopted 1689), and taught it to their children in the Baptist Catechism (1693).

See Ordinance and Baptist History.

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Bondage of the Will

Luther’s name for the condition of the fallen will, from his reply to Erasmus, De servo arbitrio (1525). Fallen man chooses freely in the sense that he does what he wants, but he cannot want God. Man “has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation” and “is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto” (Second London Confession, 9.3).

See Free Will, Total Depravity, The Bondage of the Will, and The Freedom of the Human Will.

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Calvinism

The Reformed system of doctrine associated with John Calvin and his heirs, though it was taught before him and developed after him. It is popularly identified with the five points of the Synod of Dort, but it embraces the whole of Reformed teaching on God, Scripture, the covenant, the church, and the Christian life. Spurgeon would not apologize for the name: “It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else.”

See Reformed, The Five Points of Calvinism, and John Calvin.

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Canon

From the Greek for “measuring rod”: the list of books received as Holy Scripture. Protestants receive the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Old Testament and the twenty-seven of the New, sixty-six in all, as “given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). The church does not create the canon; it recognizes the books God has given.

For the books Trent added in 1546, see Apocrypha in the Glossary of Catholic Terms. See also Sola Scriptura.

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Catechism

From the Greek for “to sound down” or “instruct”: a summary of Christian doctrine taught by question and answer. The Reformers revived catechizing to teach children and households the faith. Luther’s Small Catechism (1529), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), the Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647), and the Baptist Catechism (1693) are among the best known.

For Rome’s Catechism of the Catholic Church, see Catechism in the Glossary of Catholic Terms. See also Catechisms.

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Condign and Congruous Merit

Distinctions of late medieval theology. Condign merit is “merit in the strict sense of the term, as in a moral act performed in a state of grace, and worthy of divine acceptation on that account.” Congruous merit is “merit in a weak sense,” a moral act performed outside a state of grace which is “considered an appropriate ground for the infusion of justifying grace” (McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 397). Luther was trained in this system before he rejected it.

“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us” (Titus 3:5). For Rome’s present teaching, see Merit in the Glossary of Catholic Terms. See also Scholasticism.

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Confession of Faith

A public statement of what a church believes, usually longer and more detailed than a creed. The Reformation produced many, among them the Augsburg Confession (1530), the Belgic Confession (1561), the Thirty-Nine Articles (1571), the Westminster Confession (1646), and the Second London Confession (1677/1689). A confession is a subordinate standard, always under Scripture, “the supreme Judge” of every controversy (Westminster Confession, 1.10).

See Creeds and Confessions.

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Counter-Reformation

Rome’s response to the Reformation, also called the Catholic Reformation. Its chief instruments were the Council of Trent (1545–1563), which condemned the Reformers’ doctrine of justification; the Society of Jesus, founded in 1540; the Roman Inquisition (1542); and the Index of Prohibited Books (1559).

See The Counter-Reformation.

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Covenant

A solemn bond in which God binds Himself by promise to His people. Because the distance between God and the creature is so great, man could never enjoy Him “but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant” (Westminster Confession, 7.1). Reformed theology speaks of a covenant of works made with Adam and broken by his fall, and of a covenant of grace in which God “freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in Him” (Second London Confession, 7.2).

“This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:20). See Federal Headship.

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Creed

From the Latin credo, “I believe”: a brief statement of the essential articles of the Christian faith. The Reformers received the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds as faithful summaries of Scripture, and taught that the true church is not new but stands with the faith “once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3).

See Confession of Faith and Creeds and Confessions.

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Decrees of God

“His eternal purpose according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 10). God so ordains all things that “neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures,” but the liberty of second causes is “rather established” (Westminster Confession, 3.1).

See Predestination, Providence, and Sovereignty of God.

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Diet

An imperial assembly of the Holy Roman Empire, at which the emperor met the princes, electors, and free cities. Three diets shaped the Reformation: Worms (1521), where Luther refused to recant; Speyer (1529), where the evangelical princes made the protest from which Protestants take their name; and Augsburg (1530), where the Augsburg Confession was presented.

See Elector and Councils and Synods.

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Doctrines of Grace

A name for the Reformed teaching that salvation is wholly the work of God’s sovereign grace, often summarized in the five points answered at the Synod of Dort. “Salvation is of the LORD” (Jonah 2:9).

See TULIP and Calvinism.

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Effectual Calling

“The work of God’s Spirit, whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the gospel” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 34). The outward call of the gospel goes to all who hear it; the inward call of the Spirit is never in vain, for “whom he called, them he also justified” (Romans 8:30).

See Irresistible Grace and Regeneration.

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Election

God’s choice, before the foundation of the world, of those whom He would save. They were chosen in Christ “out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto” (Westminster Confession, 3.5). Election is not a cold decree but the fountain of every grace: “he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy” (Ephesians 1:4).

See Predestination and Unconditional Election.

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Elector

One of the seven princes, three of them archbishops, entitled to elect the Holy Roman Emperor. Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, protected Luther after the Diet of Worms and had him hidden at the Wartburg, where he translated the New Testament into German.

See Diet and Martin Luther.

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Evangelical

From the Greek euangelion, “gospel.” Luther and his followers called themselves evangelicals, people of the gospel, and in Germany the word still means Protestant. In English it describes Protestants who hold to the authority of Scripture, the necessity of new birth, and salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

See Gospel and Protestant.

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Expository Preaching

Preaching that sets forth the meaning of a passage of Scripture and applies it, so that the text sets the message. Zwingli began preaching through Matthew verse by verse at the Grossmünster in Zurich on January 1, 1519, and Calvin preached through whole books at Geneva. Ezra’s readers “read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading” (Nehemiah 8:8).

The Spirit makes “the reading, but especially the preaching of the word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 94). See Preaching.

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Faith

“A saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 91). Faith has three parts: knowledge of the truth, assent to it, and personal trust in Christ. It rests on the testimony of God in His Word and is itself His gift (Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 432; Ephesians 2:8). Faith is not a work that earns salvation but the empty hand that receives Christ.

A Christian believes “whatsoever is revealed in the word,” yet “the principal acts of saving faith are, accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life” (Westminster Confession, 14.2). See Sola Fide.

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Federal Headship

From the Latin foedus, “covenant”: the teaching that Adam and Christ each stood as the covenant head and representative of a people. Adam’s first sin is counted to all his descendants, and Christ’s obedience to all who are in Him: “as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).

See Covenant, Imputation, and Original Sin.

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Five Solas

Five Latin phrases that summarize the Reformation’s answer to Rome: Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), Sola Gratia (grace alone), Sola Fide (faith alone), Solus Christus (Christ alone), and Soli Deo Gloria (to the glory of God alone). They were gathered into a set of five in the twentieth century, but each states a conviction the Reformers pressed in their own words.

See The Five Solas.

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Forensic

From the Latin forum, the court of law: legal or judicial. To call justification forensic is to say that it is a verdict, not a process. Allison describes justification as God’s legal declaration that repentant sinners are not guilty but righteous, because the perfect righteousness of Christ is credited to their account (summarized from Allison, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice, 349).

“It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?” (Romans 8:33–34). See Imputation.

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Forerunners

Men and movements before Luther who recovered parts of the gospel or opposed the corruptions of the medieval church, such as Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, and Girolamo Savonarola. They are sometimes called pre-reformers. Wycliffe has been called “the Morning Star of the Reformation.”

See Lollards, Hussites, Waldensians, and Forerunners of the Reformation.

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Formal and Material Principles

Terms for the two great axioms of the Reformation. The formal principle, Sola Scriptura, concerns the source of authority: the written Word of God is the only ultimate source of divine revelation, not Scripture together with Tradition. The material principle, justification by grace through faith alone, concerns the content at the heart of the Reformation (summarized from Allison, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice, 84, 431).

See Five Solas.

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Free Will

A term with several meanings that must be distinguished. Fallen man is free from outward compulsion and acts according to his own desires, and he remains responsible for his choices. But his will is in bondage to sin, so that he cannot of himself choose God or turn to Him (John 6:44; Romans 8:7). “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

See Bondage of the Will, Pelagianism, and The Freedom of the Human Will.

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Glorification

The final stage of salvation, when believers are made perfect in body and soul. At death “the souls of believers are … made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory,” and their bodies, “being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 40). “We shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

See Order of Salvation.

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Gospel

The good news of what God has done in Christ: “how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). It is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16).

Tyndale defined the word for English readers: “Evangelion (that we call the gospel) is a Greek word; and signifieth good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that maketh a man’s heart glad, and maketh him sing, dance, and leap for joy.” See Law and Gospel and The Gospel.

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Grace

Unmerited divine favor, the heart of “the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). The Greek charis could mean charm, favor, or kindness in ordinary speech, and the message of Christ filled it with new content (summarized from The Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible, 840). In the gospel it is the free favor of God toward sinners who deserve His wrath. Grace is not a substance infused into the soul, but God’s kindness in Christ, which both pardons and renews. “If by grace, then is it no more of works” (Romans 11:6).

For Rome’s definition, see Grace in the Glossary of Catholic Terms. See also Sola Gratia and Means of Grace.

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Huguenots

French Reformed Protestants of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They endured the Wars of Religion and the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, which began in Paris on August 24, 1572. The Edict of Nantes (1598) granted them limited toleration, and its revocation in 1685 drove hundreds of thousands into exile.

See The Huguenots.

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Humanism

The Renaissance movement of learning that sought to recover classical and Christian antiquity in its original languages. Its watchword was ad fontes, “to the sources.” Erasmus’s Greek New Testament (1516) put the original text into the Reformers’ hands. Christian humanism was not the modern secular humanism that bears the same name.

See Not the Renaissance and The Greek New Testament.

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Hussites

Followers of the Czech reformer Jan Hus, who was burned at the Council of Constance on July 6, 1415, for teaching Wycliffe’s doctrines and opposing indulgences. The Hussites gave the cup to the laity in the Lord’s Supper and preached in the Czech tongue. Their heirs, the Unity of the Brethren, later joined hands with the Reformation.

See The Hussites and Forerunners.

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Iconoclasm

From the Greek for “image breaking”: the removal or destruction of images used in worship. Images were removed from the churches of Zurich in 1524 under Zwingli, and from many Reformed churches after him, in obedience to the second commandment (Exodus 20:4–5). Luther opposed the riotous image-breaking at Wittenberg in 1522, insisting that the Word must first change hearts.

See Regulative Principle and Veneration in the Glossary of Catholic Terms.

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Imputation

Reckoning something to a person’s account (Latin imputare; Greek logizomai), as Paul asked Philemon to charge Onesimus’s debt to him (Philemon 18; summarized from Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 600). In the gospel our sins are imputed to Christ, and His righteousness is imputed to believers: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Luther called this an “alien righteousness”: not a righteousness that belongs to us by nature, but one that comes to us from outside ourselves. R. C. Sproul regarded imputation as the one point on which no compromise with Rome is possible (summarized from Sproul, Are We Together?). See Justification and Forensic.

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Incarnation

From the Latin for “in flesh”: the eternal Son of God becoming man. Christ took “to himself a true body and a reasonable soul; being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 25). He “was and continueth to be God and man in two distinct natures, and one person for ever” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 24). “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

See Mediator and Trinity.

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Inerrancy

The teaching that Scripture, as originally given, is without error in all that it affirms. Because it is the Word of God, who cannot lie (Titus 1:2), it is “the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience” (Second London Confession, 1.1).

See Sola Scriptura.

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Irresistible Grace

The fourth point of TULIP, also called efficacious grace: when God calls His elect by His Spirit, He does not fail to bring them to Christ. Sinners resist the outward call, but the Spirit takes away the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh, so that they come “most freely, being made willing by His grace” (Second London Confession, 10.1; Ezekiel 36:26).

See Effectual Calling and Monergism.

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Justification

“An act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 36). To justify is not to make righteous but to pronounce, accept, and treat as just. It is a forensic term, a verdict of acquittal that settles the legal status of the person justified (summarized from J. I. Packer, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 643–644). God justifies “not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous” (Second London Confession, 11.1).

Calvin called justification “the main hinge upon which religion turns,” and Luther said of it, “Of this article nothing can be yielded or surrendered.” For Rome’s definition, see Justification in the Glossary of Catholic Terms. See also Justification and Roman Catholic Salvation.

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Law and Gospel

The distinction between God’s commands and God’s promises. The law shows the sinner his sin and drives him to Christ; the gospel gives him Christ. Luther put it in a sentence: “The law says, ‘do this,’ and it is never done. Grace says, ‘believe in this,’ and everything is already done.” Tyndale wrote, “The law goeth before, and the evangelion followeth.”

See Antinomianism and Law and Gospel.

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Liberty of Conscience

The freedom of the believer’s conscience from every human law in matters of faith and worship. “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to his word, or not contained in it” (Second London Confession, 21.2). Luther at Worms did not claim a free conscience but one “captive to the Word of God.”

“We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). See The Diet of Worms and Church and State.

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Limited Atonement

The third point of TULIP, better called particular redemption or definite atonement: Christ died to secure the salvation of His elect people, and His death accomplished what it intended. The Good Shepherd “giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11), and Christ “loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25). Its sufficiency is infinite, and the gospel is freely offered to all.

See Atonement and The Five Points of Calvinism.

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Lollards

Followers of John Wycliffe (d. 1384) in England, who read and copied the Scriptures in English and opposed transubstantiation, pilgrimages, and the wealth of the clergy. The statute De haeretico comburendo (1401) was aimed at them, and many were burned. Lollard communities still survived when Tyndale’s New Testament reached England.

See The Lollards and Forerunners.

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Lord’s Supper

The ordinance instituted by Christ on the night He was betrayed, in which bread and wine are given and received to show forth His death. The worthy receivers are “not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 102). The Reformers rejected the Mass as a sacrifice, but differed among themselves over the manner of Christ’s presence, and could not agree at the Colloquy of Marburg (1529).

“For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come” (1 Corinthians 11:26). For Rome’s teaching, see Eucharist and Transubstantiation in the Glossary of Catholic Terms.

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Lutheran

The churches that follow Luther’s reformation, confessing the Augsburg Confession (1530) and the other documents of the Book of Concord (1580). Luther disliked the name; his followers at first called themselves evangelicals. Lutherans and the Reformed agree on justification by faith alone but differ on the Lord’s Supper, the person of Christ, and worship.

See Lutheran versus Reformed.

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Magisterial Reformation

The Reformation carried out with the support of the civil magistrate, by princes and city councils: the work of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Bucer, Cranmer, Knox, and their colleagues. The term distinguishes it from the Radical Reformation, which rejected any union of church and state.

See Reformation Branches and Reformers and Contrasting Approaches.

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Marks of the Church

The signs by which a true church may be known. The Reformers named the pure preaching of the gospel and the right administration of the sacraments; the Belgic Confession (Article 29) added the exercise of church discipline. Where these are found, Christ’s church is present, whatever its size or antiquity.

See Church Discipline and Purity.

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Means of Grace

The ordinary channels by which God gives and strengthens faith. Christ communicates the benefits of redemption by “his ordinances, especially the word, baptism, the Lord’s supper, and prayer; all which means are made effectual to the elect for salvation” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 93). They work “not for any virtue in them, or in him that doth administer them, but only by the blessing of Christ, and the working of the Spirit in those that by faith receive them” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 96).

Compare Ex Opere Operato in the Glossary of Catholic Terms. See also Ordinance and Prayer.

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Mediator

One who stands between two parties to reconcile them. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). God ordained His Son “to be the mediator between God and man; the prophet, priest, and king” (Second London Confession, 8.1): a prophet who reveals God’s will, a priest who offered Himself once and intercedes for us, and a king who rules and defends His people (Baptist Catechism, Q. 26–29).

See Solus Christus and Priesthood of All Believers.

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Monergism

From the Greek for “one working”: the teaching that God alone is the effective agent in regeneration and salvation. Allison explains that monergism names a single source of redemption, God alone rescuing fallen human beings, and that evangelical theology, following the Reformation, holds to monergistic salvation while Catholic theology holds to a synergistic one (summarized from Allison, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice, 422).

See Synergism and Sola Gratia.

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Mortification

The putting to death of sin in the believer by the power of the Spirit. “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Romans 8:13). Calvin taught that repentance consists of mortification of the flesh and vivification, the quickening of the Spirit (Institutes 3.3.5, 9). John Owen urged the believer to make it his daily work: “be killing sin or it will be killing you” (Of the Mortification of Sin, chap. 2).

See Sanctification and Repentance.

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Ninety-Five Theses

Luther’s propositions for academic debate on the power and efficacy of indulgences, dated October 31, 1517, the day traditionally counted as the beginning of the Reformation. The first thesis set the course: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ [Matt. 4:17], he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

See The Ninety-Five Theses and Indulgence in the Glossary of Catholic Terms.

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Nonconformist

An English Protestant who would not conform to the worship and government of the Church of England as required by law. After the Act of Uniformity, about two thousand ministers were ejected from their pulpits on August 24, 1662, St. Bartholomew’s Day, among them many of the greatest Puritan preachers. The term later covered Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and others.

See Puritans and Nonconformity.

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Order of Salvation

In Latin, ordo salutis: the logical order in which the benefits of Christ are applied to the sinner. Its backbone is Paul’s “golden chain”: “whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). Reformed theology commonly orders election, effectual calling, regeneration, faith and repentance, justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance, and glorification.

See Union with Christ and Lutheran versus Reformed.

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Ordinance

Something appointed by Christ to be observed by His church. Baptists prefer the word for baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which are “ordinances of positive and sovereign institution, appointed by the Lord Jesus, the only lawgiver, to be continued in his church to the end of the world” (Second London Confession, 28.1). Baptism is a sign of the believer’s “fellowship with him, in his death and resurrection; of his being engrafted into him; of remission of sins; and of giving up into God, through Jesus Christ, to live and walk in newness of life” (Second London Confession, 29.1).

See Sacrament, Lord’s Supper, and Sacraments.

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Pelagianism

The teaching of the British monk Pelagius (fl. c. 400), who denied that Adam’s sin corrupted his descendants and held that man can obey God without inward grace. Augustine opposed him, and the church condemned his doctrine at Carthage (418) and at Ephesus (431). The Reformers saw in Rome’s doctrine of merit a revival of the same spirit.

See Semi-Pelagianism and Pelagius.

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Perseverance of the Saints

The fifth point of TULIP: those whom God has accepted in Christ, effectually called, and sanctified “can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved” (Second London Confession, 17.1). They persevere because God preserves them. “They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28).

See Assurance.

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Prayer

“An offering up our desires to God, by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, believing, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgments of his mercies” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 105). Because Christ is the only Mediator, believers pray to God through Him alone, not through the saints.

See Means of Grace and Communion of Saints in the Glossary of Catholic Terms.

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Predestination

God’s eternal ordaining of the final destiny of men and angels. “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated, or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of His glorious grace; others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of His glorious justice” (Second London Confession, 3.3). The doctrine was taught by Augustine and held by Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin alike.

“So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” (Romans 9:16). See Election and Decrees of God.

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Presbyterian

From the Greek presbyteros, “elder”: churches governed by elders, both teaching and ruling, gathered in ascending courts of session, presbytery, synod, and general assembly. John Knox’s reformation established Presbyterianism in Scotland in 1560, and the Westminster Assembly (1643–1653) produced its classic standards.

See Presbyterianism and Church Polity.

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Priesthood of All Believers

The teaching that every Christian has direct access to God through Christ, the one High Priest, and is himself a priest to offer spiritual sacrifices. “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9). Luther pressed the point in 1520: between clergy and laity “the only real difference is one of office and function, and not of estate” (To the Christian Nobility).

See Vocation, The Priesthood of All Believers, and Priest in the Glossary of Catholic Terms.

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Propitiation

A sacrifice that turns away wrath by satisfying justice. Christ is the one “whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood” (Romans 3:25), and “he is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2). At the cross God is both “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

See Atonement and Mass in the Glossary of Catholic Terms.

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Protestant

From the Protestation of the evangelical princes and cities at the Second Diet of Speyer on April 19, 1529, against a decree that would have ended the spread of the Reformation in their lands. The word is positive as well as negative: to protest is to testify. It came to name all the churches that broke with Rome over the gospel.

See Evangelical, Diet, and Protestant Family Tree.

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Providence

“God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 14). Nothing happens by chance: God governs “from the greatest even to the least,” to the praise of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy (Second London Confession, 5.1; Matthew 10:29–31).

See Decrees of God and A Unique Providence.

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Puritans

English Protestants of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who sought to complete the Reformation of the Church of England. J. I. Packer describes Puritanism as the movement that sought further reformation and renewal in the Church of England than the Elizabethan settlement allowed (summarized from Packer, A Quest for Godliness, chap. 3). The name was first used in the 1560s, and it began as a term of scorn (Beeke and Pederson, Meet the Puritans, introduction).

Among them were Richard Sibbes, Thomas Goodwin, John Owen, Richard Baxter, Thomas Watson, Thomas Brooks, and John Flavel. See Nonconformist, Separatists, and The English Puritans.

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Radical Reformation

The movements of the sixteenth century that sought to go further than Luther and Zwingli, rejecting infant baptism, the union of church and state, or both. It included the Anabaptists, spiritualists, and others, some of whom held serious errors about the Trinity or the person of Christ. The name was popularized by the historian George H. Williams.

See Magisterial Reformation and The Radical Reformation.

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Reformation

The recovery of the gospel and the reform of the church according to Scripture in the sixteenth century. It is traditionally dated from Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses on October 31, 1517, and spread from Wittenberg to Zurich, Geneva, Strasbourg, France, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland. The Reformers did not claim to found a new church but to restore the old faith of the apostles.

See Forerunners, The Reformers, and Timeline.

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Reformed

The branch of the Reformation that grew from Zurich and Geneva under Zwingli, Bullinger, and Calvin, and spread to the Palatinate, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, Scotland, and England. Its classic standards include the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dort, and the Westminster Confession. Particular Baptists share its doctrine of salvation.

See Calvinism, Lutheran, and Presbyterian.

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Regeneration

The new birth: the work of the Holy Spirit by which a sinner dead in sin is made alive and given a new heart. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). It is God’s work alone, for the sinner is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), and it is the root from which faith and repentance spring.

See Effectual Calling, Monergism, and Baptism in the Glossary of Catholic Terms.

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Regulative Principle

The Reformed teaching that God is to be worshiped only in the ways He has appointed in Scripture. “The acceptable way of worshipping the true God, is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imagination and devices of men … or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures” (Second London Confession, 22.1). The second commandment forbids worship “by images or any other way not appointed in his word” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 56).

Lutherans and Anglicans generally held a normative principle, permitting what Scripture does not forbid. See Iconoclasm and Lutheran versus Reformed.

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Repentance

“A saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of and endeavour after new obedience” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 92). The Greek metanoia denotes an inward change of mind, affections, and commitment, rooted in the fear of God and sorrow for sin, which with faith in Jesus Christ issues in an outward turning from sin to God in all of life; it is the gift of God (Acts 11:18; summarized from Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 1012).

Thomas Watson put it simply: “Repentance is a grace of God’s Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed” (The Doctrine of Repentance, chap. 2). Luther’s first thesis made it the whole life of the believer, not a sacrament of the priest. For Rome’s teaching, see Penance and Contrition in the Glossary of Catholic Terms.

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Righteousness

Conformity to God’s law and character. The Hebrew ṣāddîq and the Greek dikaios, translated “righteous” or “just,” originally meant “straight” or “right” and referred to what accords with law or social norm; the verb dikaioō carries the forensic sense of declaring righteous (summarized from Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 1033). Man has none of his own to offer God (Romans 3:10), but God gives His righteousness to all who believe (Romans 3:22).

“And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians 3:9). See Imputation.

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Sacrament

From the Latin sacramentum, “oath”: in Reformed usage, one of the “holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, immediately instituted by God, to represent Christ and his benefits” (Westminster Confession, 27.1). The Reformers recognized only two, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, because only these were instituted by Christ in the gospel. Many Baptists prefer to call them ordinances.

For Rome’s seven, see Sacraments in the Glossary of Catholic Terms. See also the article Sacraments.

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Sanctification

“The work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 38). Justification is a single act, complete at once; sanctification is a lifelong work, never complete in this life. The two are distinct but never separated, for both flow from union with Christ.

“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). See Mortification and Union with Christ.

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Scholasticism

The method of theology taught in the medieval universities, which used logic and the philosophy of Aristotle to organize doctrine by careful questions and distinctions. Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Gabriel Biel were its masters. Luther, trained in it, attacked its use of Aristotle in theology in his Disputation against Scholastic Theology (1517).

See Condign and Congruous Merit and Humanism.

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Semi-Pelagianism

The view, associated with John Cassian in the fifth century, that the first movement toward God begins with man and is then aided by grace. The Second Council of Orange (529) condemned it. The Reformers held that the late medieval teaching that God gives grace to those who do what lies within them came close to it.

See Pelagianism and Synergism.

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Separatists

English Puritans who despaired of reforming the Church of England from within and withdrew to form independent congregations of professing believers. Robert Browne led an early group in the 1580s. The Pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 were Separatists, and English Baptists emerged from their ranks.

See Puritans and The Separatists.

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Sin

“Any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 17; 1 John 3:4). Sin is not only wrong acts but a corrupt nature from which they spring: the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and “the corruption of his whole nature” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 21). “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

See Total Depravity, and for Rome’s distinction, Mortal Sin and Venial Sin in the Glossary of Catholic Terms.

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Sola Fide

“Faith alone”: sinners are justified by faith alone, apart from works, because faith receives Christ and His righteousness. “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28). Calvin answered the charge that this makes works needless: “It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone” (Antidote to the Council of Trent).

See Justification, Sola Fide, and Faith and Works.

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Sola Gratia

“Grace alone”: salvation is from beginning to end the free gift of God, owing nothing to human merit or cooperation. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

See Grace, Monergism, and Sola Gratia.

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Sola Scriptura

“Scripture alone”: the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and life, and the final judge of every teaching of church, council, or tradition. “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience” (Second London Confession, 1.1). It does not mean that Christians ignore the creeds or teachers of the church, but that all are tested by the Word (Acts 17:11; Isaiah 8:20).

At Worms, Luther would not recant “unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason.” See Sola Scriptura, Formal and Material Principles, and Tradition in the Glossary of Catholic Terms.

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Soli Deo Gloria

“To the glory of God alone”: the end of salvation and of all of life is the glory of God, not of man. “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever” (Romans 11:36). Because the believer’s whole life belongs to God, ordinary work is done for His glory too: “whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

See Vocation and Soli Deo Gloria.

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Solus Christus

“Christ alone”: Christ is the only Mediator, and His finished work is the only ground of salvation, without the addition of saints, priests, or merits. “Neither is there salvation in any other” (Acts 4:12). Zwingli wrote in 1523, “Christ is the only way to salvation for all who were, who are, and who shall be.”

See Mediator and Solus Christus.

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Sovereignty of God

God’s absolute rule and authority over all things. “He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth” (Daniel 4:35), and He “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Ephesians 1:11). God’s sovereignty does not cancel human responsibility; Scripture teaches both.

See Providence and Sovereignty and Responsibility.

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Synergism

From the Greek for “working together”: the teaching that salvation results from the cooperation of divine grace and the human will. Allison describes Catholic theology as viewing salvation as a cooperative venture between divine grace and human effort, aided by grace, to merit eternal life (summarized from Allison, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice, 51). Arminian theology is also synergistic in the matter of conversion.

Sanctification, by contrast, rightly involves the believer’s working, for “it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). See Monergism.

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Synod

From the Greek for “a meeting” or “assembly”: a gathering of ministers and elders to decide questions of doctrine and church order. Reformed and Presbyterian churches are governed in part by synods, following the pattern of the council at Jerusalem (Acts 15). The Synod of Dort (1618–1619) is the most famous.

See Councils and Synods.

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Theology of the Cross

Luther’s term, from the Heidelberg Disputation (1518), for knowing God where He has revealed Himself: in the suffering and shame of the crucified Christ. The theologian of glory seeks God in works, power, and speculation; the theologian of the cross finds Him in weakness. “true theology and recognition of God,” Luther said, “are in the crucified Christ.”

“But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23). See Theology of the Cross.

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Total Depravity

The first point of TULIP: sin has corrupted every part of human nature, so that by nature we are “utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil” (Second London Confession, 6.4). It does not mean that every person is as wicked as he could be, but that no part of him is untouched by sin and that he cannot save himself.

See Sin and Bondage of the Will.

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Trinity

The one God existing eternally in three persons. “There are three persons in the godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one God, the same in essence, equal in power and glory” (Baptist Catechism, Q. 9). The Reformers received the doctrine as taught in Scripture and confessed in the ancient creeds (Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14).

See Creed and Incarnation.

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TULIP

An English acronym for the five points of Calvinism: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints. The points summarize the Canons of the Synod of Dort (1618–1619), though the acronym itself dates only from the early twentieth century, and Dort began with election, not depravity.

See Doctrines of Grace and The Five Points of Calvinism.

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Two Kingdoms

Luther’s teaching that God rules the world in two ways: through the civil government, which restrains evil by the sword and law, and through the church, which rules by the Word and the gospel. The two must not be confused, for Christ’s “kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), yet believers are to honor the magistrate as God’s servant (Romans 13:1–4).

“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). See Church and State.

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Unconditional Election

The second point of TULIP: God’s choice of His elect does not depend on anything foreseen in them, whether faith, works, or perseverance, but only on His free grace and good pleasure. Faith is the fruit of election, not its cause: “as many as were ordained to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48).

See Election and Arminianism.

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Union with Christ

The spiritual bond by which the Holy Spirit joins the believer to Christ through faith, so that all that Christ is and has becomes his. Justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification all flow from it. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20). Luther described the exchange: “Let faith step in, and then sin, death, and hell will belong to Christ, and grace, life, and salvation to the soul.”

Tyndale said that by grace we are “plucked out of Adam, the ground of all evil, and graffed in Christ, the root of all goodness.” See Union with Christ.

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Vernacular

The common language of a people, as opposed to Latin. The Reformers translated the Bible and the liturgy into the vernacular so that the people could hear and read God’s Word for themselves: Luther’s German New Testament appeared in September 1522, and Tyndale’s English New Testament in 1526. Tyndale vowed that a plowboy should know the Scripture.

See Vulgate, Translation of the Bible, and The Tyndale Bible.

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Vocation

From the Latin vocatio, “calling.” Medieval usage reserved the word for priests, monks, and nuns; the Reformers taught that every lawful station in life, as parent, farmer, magistrate, or servant, is a calling from God in which to serve the neighbor. A Christian, Luther wrote, “does not live in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbour; … in Christ by faith, in his neighbour by love.”

“And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men” (Colossians 3:23). See Priesthood of All Believers and Vocation.

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Vulgate

The Latin translation of the Bible made chiefly by Jerome in the late fourth century, which became the Bible of the Western church through the Middle Ages. On April 8, 1546, the Council of Trent declared it the “authentic” text for public use. Erasmus’s Greek New Testament exposed its errors in places, such as the rendering of “repent” as “do penance” (Matthew 4:17).

See Vernacular, Humanism, and The Bible.

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Waldensians

Followers of Valdes (Peter Waldo), a merchant of Lyon who began preaching poverty and the Scriptures in the vernacular in the 1170s. Condemned and persecuted, they survived in the Alpine valleys of Piedmont and joined the Reformation at the Synod of Chanforan in 1532.

See The Waldensians and Forerunners.

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