What does it mean to be reformed?
The Presbyterian Church of Australia (PCA) is often described as being a ‘reformed’ church.
What does that mean?
History
Part of the answer is historical. Our roots lie in the Protestant reformation of the 16th century. The message of God’ grace was rediscovered by figures such as Martin Luther and John Calvin and they sought to re-form the existing church back on its gospel roots. Sadly, the Roman Catholic church refused to budge from its beliefs and practices. That left no option but a reluctant split which gave rise to the Protestant churches.
Specifically, the PCA arose from the Scottish reformation of 1559 when God used John Knox and others to reform the national Church of Scotland along reformation lines. Scottish missionaries took their reformed faith to the mission fields of later eras. ‘Church of Scotland’ was an inappropriate name in the mission setting and so its export branding was ‘Presbyterian’, named after a form of church government in which elders were central.
However, the history does not capture the essence of ‘reformed.’ Equally so, there are non-Presbyterian churches which are rightly called reformed. To understand the term ‘reformed’ we need to look at certain emphases in beliefs and in the practices arising from them.
Beliefs
Reformed churches are aligned with core Christian beliefs going back to the earliest church. These include belief in God as trinity, the divine and human nature of Jesus, the sacrificial and stoning death of Jesus, his resurrection and ascension, along with his return and the reality of judgement to eternal punishment or eternal life. Agreement to these beliefs makes the PCA ‘catholic’ in the sense of holding to the best of the common Christian tradition that goes back to the Bible.
These core beliefs also link reformed Christianity to the evangelical movement which arose in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth. That movement fuelled evangelism and social reform at home and missions abroad. There are churches which are evangelical but not reformed. However, the particular emphases of reformed churches align quite naturally with the evangelical movement and its core beliefs and its concern that all people hear all the gospel.
Three core emphases
Conviction that God rules, saves and speaks lie at the heart of the reformed understanding of Christianity.
- God rules The Bible explains what it means to call God ‘Lord’ by describing him as the one ‘… who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will’ (Eph 1:11). Or, as Augustine put it: ‘God is called ‘Almighty for one reason only, that he can do whatever he pleases’. Because God is all good, this is good news for all of creation including needy people.
- God saves The followers of Jesus once realised the impossibility of people saving themselves and asked the agonising question ‘Who then can be saved?’ . The answer from Jesus is as clear as it is comforting: ‘What is impossible with people is possible with God’ (Luke 18:27).
This gives rise to the reformed teaching that God started saving his people before creation and then did everything necessary to provide that salvation in Jesus. But he did not then stand back and hope that some believed in Jesus. Instead, he chose people for saving faith, brought them to faith and keeps them in the faith to the end. His act of saving predates the cradle and postdates the grave.
- God speaks Left to ourselves, we might know that there is a god, but we can discover little about what he is like. This arises from our limitations and creatures and from the wilful sin than blinds our hearts and minds (Rom 1:19-23).
Thankfully, God speaks. He speaks in creation, for the heavens show his glory to all people (Ps 19:1-6). He speaks in Jesus who is his last word to humanity (Heb 1:1-2). Jesus shows us God in a way that we can understand. God also speaks to us in Scripture which is his Spirit-breathed word in written form (2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:21).
Belief that God rules, saves and speaks is common to all Christians and especially to evangelicals. A particular understanding of each of these gives reformed churches their distinctives. To read more about them, follow these links to the core documents of the PCA: https://presbyterian.org.au/download/wcf-australian-version-2019/, and https://presbyterian.org.au/download/general-assembly-of-australia-code-book. (Within this second reference, use the table of contents to find the 1901 Basis of Union.)
What is the PCA? Christian – yes! Biblical – yes! Apostolic – yes! Catholic – Yes! Protestant – yes! Evangelical – yes! And ‘yes’ – also reformed.
David Burke,
Moderator-general,
March 2025.