This paper was read by the Rev F.S. Leahy, Minister of Cregagh Road Reformed Presbyterian Church, Belfast, at a public meeting held last April in Westminster Chapel, London, under the auspices of the Reformation Translation Fellowship (RTF). From Evangelical Quarterly: An International Review of Bible and Theology 06 Oct 1962 Rev F.S. Leahy had several…

For Christians in the Western world, Reformation Day is a reminder of the wonderful retrieval of the centrality of the gospel and of the theological reality of justification by faith. Sinners were to be understood as being pardoned in the eyes of God, the perfect judge, solely based on the righteousness of Christ being imputed to those who, by grace, believe in Him. In a period where acts and duties were seen as meritorious and contributive to salvation, such thinking was antithetical to popular thought, by moving individuals from dependency upon themselves to a righteousness that was outside them, and could only be found outside them. This revelation of looking at how one related to God through Christ, by faith that had been graciously God-given, was momentous. It was a total paradigm shift that was aptly summarised through the later Genevan Reformation slogan, ‘Post Tenebras Lux’ (After darkness light).

Many of us enjoy missionary stories. We are gripped as we follow the exploits of missionaries like William Carey, John Paton or Jim Elliot who did heroic deeds in exotic places and saw the gospel spread into the dark corners of this world. Acts is the greatest missionary story of all time. Its title –…