Change. The very word conjures a variety of images. Change wears a number of faces.

There's no denying that we live in a world full of change. As I write, this truth looms vividly large. Especially now, when Christmas lights have been taken down and the dust of a new year has settled. The sands of time come and go, and in each season leave some dead on its shores. Though the pounding of time on the beachheads of our lives appears to re­main thuddingly constant, subtle changes are continually left in its wake.

Presently, we are acutely aware of such change. Rev. Lamain is gone. We feel his absence in Grand Rapids, on the pulpit, at meetings, and in these pages. Be it through death, retirement or infirmity, five of our nine Curatorium members will no longer be with us this coming season. Such changes have a disheartening feeling conjoined to them. Somehow things will not be the same.

And this is not all. Change means much more than the removal of familiar names and faces. Change touches the very fabric of society. Today we live in a society of "instants" – from instant coffee to instant gratification. We live in a world which is rapidly becoming more computerized and secularized by spiralling change.

Indirectly, such changes bear their imprint on the church as well. The church's task of functioning in a contemporary society while simultaneously retaining unchangeable truth is one which calls for constant vigilance and dependence on God. Moreover, the rapidity of contemporary society increasingly places issues before the church which the church has never been compelled to address before. Many of these issues the church can neither afford to bypass nor in good conscience avoid. How must the church properly address "change"?

Some respond to change by feeling threatened.

For them, change spells decay; older spells better. For them, avoidance ought to be the church's stand in the face of modernity's issues rather than confrontation and transformation. Others always seem ready for change. They relish new beginnings, and are eager for the church to speak out on a large variety of "relevant" issues. But often they are weak on perseverance. They fall prey to the adage: "To begin is easy; to maintain, hard."

Happily, some assistance on the matter of the church addressing change is afforded us by the Reformers. Living at the commencement of the modern age, the Reformers also found themselves in a swirl of change.

It cannot be denied that, when the Reformers graced the church scene, they advocated change. They understood all too well that the sterility of lack of change often led to corruption. They were intimately acquainted with the power of tradition in the Roman Catholic Church. They knew that ecclesiastical custom quickly became ecclesiastical law, and even doctrine, when left unchecked.

Nevertheless, our forefathers didn't advocate change for change's sake. Though it is true that "change" is implicit throughout Luther's 95 Theses, his challenge to the church was neither one of reckless change nor of change apart from an unchangeable foundation.

Rather, the Reformation principle was simply this: Let us change and continue to change in order to model the church as closely as possible after the unchangeable Word of God. In short, "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Is. 8:20).

This, then, must be our unchangeable principle in a world and church full of change: Scripture alone.

But what about contemporary issues on which Scripture does not speak directly? In the rapidly changing world in which they found themselves, the Reformers responded to this critical concern in a three-pronged manner.

First, they said, the reformed church must ever be reforming. By this they meant to say that the church must always be striving to approximate closer to the principles and guidelines of Scripture in both her doctrine and walk – hence the subordina­tion of doctrinal standards to Scripture.

Second, modernity's issues must be passed through the sieve of Scripture's general guidelines and broad sweeping principles. In other words, the Reformers would teach us moderns that both contemporary science and new ethical concerns must be sifted by scriptural axioms rather than having Scripture be sifted by them as humanism and modern Christendom often advocate. For example, Scripture must not be subjected to the theory of evolution, but evolution must be subject to the criteria of Scripture.

Third, in all non-essentials of the Christian faith, the church may offer interpretation directives based on scriptural guidelines, but must also allow the believer freedom of conscience. The well-known motto of the Reformation and Post-Reformation era was this: "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love."

Thus, the aim of the Reformers was simple: to form, under the Spirit's blessing, a membership that reads the Bible, knows the Bible, and lives the Bible. Hence, they stressed sanctified education to drive them closer to God and Christ via the applied Word of God.

That's what we also need: To be made conformable by the Spirit to God, Christ and Scripture. Then we will not advocate change for change's sake in the church, for against such Scripture warns, "Meddle not with them that are given to change" (Prov. 24:21b), but we will seek grace that God may change us after the similitude of Christ. We will yearn for the church to believe and walk scripturally – always reforming and striving after truth. We will pray that the church may live on the growing edge of Scripture by relishing living orthodoxy while fearing dead orthodoxy.

Let us seek grace to retain the old landmarks of intense loyalty to Scripture that our forefathers have set up (Prov. 22:28). Let us maintain unequivocally the doctrines of sovereign grace confirmed so vividly on scriptural grounds by our forefathers in our Catechism, Confession, and Canons. And when we are not unanimous on answers to every non-essential question posed, but are honestly searching to learn what the Bible says and how this applies to church life, let us not despair, for precisely this is what Calvin denominated being faithful "Berean members" of the church militant (Acts 17:11).

The Reformers sought radical change in the church because the corrupt medieval church had drifted from the mooring of God's unchangeable Word. Happily, we do not face the degree of corrup­tion that they encountered; in fact, we may be grateful that the truths they expounded remain central to our belief system. Let us pray that these truths of grace may be engraven experimentally in our hearts and lives, enabling us to confess with Luther through divine application, "Doctrine is heaven."

Inevitably intertwined with the need for church purification, the Reformers also confronted sinners with the need for radical change in their lives because they needed to be born again. After all, this is what the word conversion really means: change. But again, as in the church sphere, not change for change's sake. Rather, true conversion is change from a "self-ward" life to a "Godward" life. In principle, it reverses the change we brought upon ourselves through our covenant head Adam in paradise.

This radical change of conversion which each of us needs initially and continually, is only possible because the unchangeable Word of God flows forth from Jehovah Who is unchangeable in His ever-living essence. "For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed" (Mal. 3:6). This was the comfort of the Reformers, and this comfort must also become ours. For it is only through an unchangeable God that we can be graced with true preparation for an unchangeable future with and in Him.

Let this be our prayer for our 1985 world of change: "Lord, change me – change me radically. Give me a new heart. Raise me from the dead. Convert me and keep me converted. Conform me to Thy image. Change me Godward. Let my priority be Thy glory, Thy Name, Thy kingdom."

Though we know not what the future holds, all shall be well if we know the Holder of the future in a saving way through Jesus Christ. To know and continue to know this Holder, constant personal change and self-examination are essential. May we never run beyond Jeremiah's petition, "Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned" (Lam. 5:21).