New Year's Vows: Are They Biblical? Part 2

New Year's Vows: Are They Biblical? Part 2
Wednesday, February 11, 2026 by Dr. James W. Walraven

Categories: Contemporary issues / Scripture discussion / Thought for Today / Truth telling

What about religious reformation? Have attempts at religious reformation been any more successful than personal attempts to reform? Admittedly, the dynamics are a bit different, as we are looking more at institutions than just individuals. Nevertheless, every institutions is collectively made up of individuals.

When Martin Luther posted the 95 theses on the Wittenburg

Church door in 1517, was his goal to start a new church? No. His goal was to reform the Roman Catholic Church, to rid the Roman church of entrenched unbiblical practices

How did the Roman church respond? Rome declared Luther a heretic and kicked him out. In contrast, the Roman Catholic counter-reformation (Council of Trent 1545–1563) upheld most of the man-created traditions that they biblically needed to get rid of.

The Roman Council of Trent confirmed: papal authority; the denial that Scripture alone was the basis of the Christian faith; that salvation was not through faith alone but also through works; that tradition was central to the Christian faith. The counter reformation confirmed: (1) the belief in Purgatory; (2) the role of priests as intermediaries to God (3) the veneration of Mary; (4) the role of the Saints; (5) the place of relics; among other things.

In essence Rome affirmed almost all their unbiblical practices. The problem was that biblically speaking, the church had strayed far away from biblical truth. In response, they started persecuting and seeking to kill those who were following Scripture alone, those who were denying papal authority and the Roman Church’s traditions.

“Reform,” in and of itself, doesn’t appear to work, does it? We may vow to reform, but as God through Paul indicates, and the studies about New Year’s resolutions show, we cannot carry those vows out. I am also thinking of a line from the movie “Les Misérables,” spoken by Inspector Javert, “Reform is a discredited fantasy.” The movie overall is a wonderful treatment of grace versus rigid law. But for success to be possible, biblically speaking, something must happen to us first.

What does the Bible have to say about our natural human state?

Romans 7:5 (NAU): For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.

Ephesians 2:1–3 (NAU): And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

All of us, at first, were slaves to sin; there are no exceptions. All of us were dead, dead in our sins. That which is dead cannot make itself alive. Can your favorite dead dahlia come back to life? No. In and of ourselves, neither can we.

As Revelation 1:5 tells us, it is Jesus who releases us from our sins.

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