The teaching that used to be considered as absolutely vital and yet is ignored today is the teaching on the impotence, utter helplessness, and the spiritual inability of man. It is this that Luther was referring to when he wrote The Bondage of the Will. It is this doctrine that Luther thought was the real issue between Semi-Pelagianism (now called Arminianism) and the doctrines of the Reformation. It is because of this teaching that Luther thought Semi-Pelagian teaching was worse than Pelagianism. It is this issue that is the so-called continental divide between Arminian theology and Reformed theology regardless of the title of the theology that a person holds to. If a person in reality denies the bondage of the will and the spiritual inability and helplessness of man, that person is an Arminian or Pelagian in reality. In the modern day we have allowed sloppy thinking and the desire to please men to allow us to cover over these issues and virtually ignore them in the Gospel and everyday life.
A.W. Pink sets out how important this really is.
“It is of the utmost importance that people should clearly understand and be made thoroughly aware of their spiritual impotence, for thus alone is a foundation laid for bringing them to see and feel their imperative need of divine grace for salvation. So long as sinners think they have it in their own power to deliver themselves from their death in trespasses and sins, they will never come to Christ that they might have life, for “the whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” So long as people imagine they labor under no insuperable inability to comply with the call of the gospel, they never will be conscious of their entire dependence on Him alone who is able to work in them “all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power” (II Thess 1:11). So long as the creature is puffed up with a sense of his own ability to respond to God’s requirements, he will never become a suppliant at the footstool of divine mercy.”
The importance of the above statement as it sets out the meaning of Luther and the other Reformers can hardly be ignored. In other words, it is absolutely vital to tell people and teach them so that they understand with clarity and are thoroughly aware of their spiritual impotence. It is only when this is done that they will begin to understand the need for divine grace to save them totally and not just make up what they cannot do. In the modern day people think that salvation is in their own hands and power to obtain so they go on in life thinking that they can do it as they please. So they go on living at enmity with God and hardening their hearts in sin while thinking that at any moment they can be saved if they will just pray a prayer or make a decision. The evangelism that teaches this is no friend of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that saves by grace alone through faith alone. Let us never think for a moment that the teaching concerning the human will is nothing less than utterly vital.
Pelagian and Arminian theology deny the spiritual impotence of human beings to various degrees. To the degree that any person, whether professing to be Reformed or not, denies how utterly vital this is to the Gospel, is the degree that person denies grace alone and Christ alone in justification by faith alone. In other words, to deny the impotence and helplessness of the human will in the Gospel is to deny Christ alone, grace alone, and faith alone. Mr. Portela does not set these things out like this, but in fact he must deal with issues like this for his article to even be intelligible. It is not the theological heading as such that is important, it is the Gospel that is important. By definition the Arminian and the Pelagian deny the utter spiritual impotence of the human being. If Luther (and Scripture) is right about the nature of the Gospel and the vital link that human inability has to the Gospel, then we cannot ignore this issue any longer and should never have ignored it to begin with.
Again, it is not prideful to consider a person who asserts that a human being denying the Gospel is not a Christian. It is not prideful to assert that a person who holds to Pelagianism is not a Christian. Where are we to draw the line? Justification by faith alone in all of the ways it is taught is not in and of itself the Gospel. It is the heart of the Gospel and when it is set out in light of other biblical teachings the glory of God shines through the Gospel. However, we are left again with the Arminian question. We can only say that any person who asserts human ability in the Gospel is not teaching or believing in a Gospel of total grace.
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