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Reformation means standing against the spirit of the age, so pastors and church leaders must join together to encourage, equip, and embolden one another in the work of the Reformation. Most importantly, a society brings the Word of God and prayer to bear on the leaders themselves, strengthening them for the work of a faithful shepherd.

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Reformation starts in your local church community. The Reformation Societies are the means to achieving the renewal of the Church, which is our Lord’s Bride. Furthermore, our Gospel is timeless in its message, relevance, and sufficiency for the building of Christ’s Church, the same yesterday, today, and forever. The Biblical standard of Gospel preaching, teaching and worship are embodied in the Solas of the Protestant Reformation and are now stated in the Cambridge Declaration of 1996. For in Scripture alone, we learn of a salvation that is by grace alone, received through faith alone, because of Christ alone, and in all this, to God be the Glory alone. Here We Stand, like-minded in His service and confident in His Work.

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John Newton wrote about this atoning grace in his diary. Newton had been heavily involved in the slave trade and was guilty of many crimes against humanity and sins against God. As he lamented his lost and sinful condition he was weighed down with shame and tempted to despair.

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The symbolism of the blood is further clarified by its function in the Old Testament rituals of atonement. The high priest would take the blood and sprinkle it on the atonement cover, also called the mercy seat. The mercy seat was the golden lid on the Ark of the Covenant, located in the Most Holy Place of the temple, which was the earthly location of the Divine Presence. The mercy seat itself was a place of divine judgment, because the ark underneath the mercy seat contained the law of God, which the people had broken. Sprinkling blood on the mercy seat, therefore, was a way to put the blood of the atoning sacrifice between the holy God and his sinful people.
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Blood is mentioned again in connection with propitiation, which is a third term for atonement. God presented Jesus, or put him forward, “as propitiation” (Rom. 3:25). Some translations prefer to speak here of “the sacrifice of atonement,” but the proper word to use is “propitiation.”
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The way God justifies sinners is on the basis of the perfect life and sacrificial death of Jesus Christ: “When God justifies sinners, he is not declaring bad people to be good, or saying that they are not sinners after all. He is pronouncing them legally righteous, free from any liability to the broken law, because he himself in his Son has born the penalty of their law-breaking.”[1] The payment of this penalty satisfies God’s justice and thus provides the legal basis for our justification. As Paul will say a little later in Romans: “We have now been justified by his blood” (Rom. 5:9).
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Redemption is not the only aspect of salvation in Romans 3, however. There is also justification—a term for atonement that comes from a court of law. Reformation Christianity is sometimes criticized for focusing too much on the doctrine of justification by faith. Yet this is one of the main doctrinal themes of the New Testament, where the vocabulary of justification occurs more than two hundred times, including in this passage. Not only are we redeemed from sin, but we are also “justified freely by his grace” (Rom. 3:23).