Communion Meditation – November 2026
Being that we are just one short day…mere hours….after October 31st, it seems proper that we should focus our Communion meditation this morning on the topic of justification. We do dress up and go candy collecting on October 31st, but last night my kids ended each encounter with “Happy Reformation Day!”, or since it was raining “Wet-formation Day!”. There was a mixed reaction to this blessing…some people seemed to understand and others – didn’t.
Reformation day is the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenburg chapel, which historians use as a convenient point in time to mark the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. At the center of that great challenge to Roman Catholicism was the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith alone.
4 How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?5 Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. 6 How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm? – Job 25:4-6
This question gets to the heart of the great conundrum of man’s relationship with God. If God is Holy, how can He have fellowship with sinful man? All people claiming the name of “Christian” agree that Jesus has something to do with, but the agreement tends to end there. What had taken place in the medieval church, which was governed by Roman Catholicism, is that the answer to that question was that man had to work with God to achieve a righteousness which God would accept. By fulfilling the sacraments of the Roman Catholic church, individual could gain enough righteousness to be saved from hell.
Against that system, the Reformers championed the biblical answer, which is that mankind is not saved by any act of his own, but by believing in the saving act of Jesus Christ as our atonement. We are not saved by works, but by faith. Justification by faith alone. Today, as we observe communion, may our faith be strengthened yet again as we remember what Christ has done for us.
