Long Before Luther

Where was the gospel before the Reformation? Contemporary evangelicals often struggle to answer that question. As a result, many Roman Catholics are quick to allege that the Reformation understanding of the gospel simply did not exist before the 1500s. They assert that key Reformation doctrines, like sola fide , were nonexistent in the first fifteen centuries of church history. Rather, they were invented by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others. That is a serious charge, and one that evangelica