In the last BLOG we looked at Martin Luther’s God-centeredness in all things. The real motivation for Luther was God Himself. Luther fought Catholicism in its externals, but the real battle was the essence of it which was man-centeredness. The real battle over Scripture was the author of Scripture. The real battle over the perspicuity of Scripture was God’s ability to reveal Himself to human beings. The real battle over the Gospel was whether God saved man by Himself. The battle over the will was over the Gospel and grace alone. Luther fought the battle on each front with the focus on God. The men that Luther debated may not have understood the real issue. Perhaps they debated with Luther over theological issues at an intellectual level without understanding that he was defending all things with the glory of God at heart. Perhaps this is the real reason they disagreed at the main points.
“The history of Christianity is a story of continuous conflict between the two contrasted tendencies. In the light of what has been said, it should be clear what is implied by the claim that Luther is a Copernicus in the realm of religion. Religion as he found it in medieval Catholicism was of an essentially egocentric character-despite the presence of certain undeniably theocentric traits in it. His significance in the history of religion is that in him the theocentric tendency fully and unequivocally asserted, or rather reasserted itself. For it had done so at least once before. In primitive Christianity, God was both Alpha and Omega, both the ground and the goal of the religious relationship. Of Him and through Him and unto Him were all things. But this insight early began to be obscured and subordinated to the egocentric tendency that crept in with moralistic and eudemonistic ideas. Such ideas Luther found playing a dominant role in medieval Catholicism.” (Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther)
If the core issue for Luther was God-centeredness in all things, then the modern age can hardly be said to follow Luther in his thinking unless that becomes its focus in all things as well. It is certainly possible, as many have done, to adhere to the theology of Luther (or Calvin) without holding to that theology with the same reasons that Luther did. Unless we have the God-centered view of things that Luther did we will not hold to the same teachings Luther did. Our self-centered approach guts the theology of the Reformation. The pride of human beings has taken the teachings of the Bible which were recovered during the time of the Reformation and have gutted them by making man the center of them. We can have the same outward husk of the teachings the Reformers did and be without the same core or substance which changes everything. The pride of the heart must be humbled and broken so that God is at the very center of all that it thinks and does. Pride in the heart will always rule the heart unless it is broken. This pride will rule the core of theology and it will spoil it altogether.
The battle over the will is not just a small issue because it is at the heart of the denial of the pride of man fighting against God Himself. Is salvation wholly of God or does it depend partially on something man does? This is why Luther fought against the freedom of the will. He saw it as being against the glory of free grace. After Luther Reformed theologians condemned Arminianism as being in principle a return to Rome and a betrayal of the Reformation. “Arminianism was, indeed, in Reformed eyes a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favor of New Testament Judaism; for to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle from relying on oneself for works, and the one is as un-Christian and anti-Christian as the other.”
This is strong, but we need to hear it. “With what right may we call ourselves children of the Reformation? Much modern Protestantism would be neither owned nor even recognized by the pioneer Reformers. The Bondage of the Will fairly sets out before us what they believed about the salvation of lost mankind. In the light of it, we are forced to ask whether Protestant Christendom has not tragically sold its birthright between Luther’s day and our own. Has not Protestantism to-day become more Erasmian than Lutheran? Do we not too often try to minimize and gloss over doctrinal differences for the sake of inter-party peace? Are we innocent of the doctrinal indifferentism which Luther charged Erasmus? Do we still believe that doctrine matters? Or do we now, with Erasmus, rate a deceptive appearance of unity as of more importance than truth?” (Bondage of the Will, Introduction, p. 59). Our pride will lie to us by giving us good reasons not to be God-centered in all things. We are told that we are to be like Christ in being nice. But being nice is not the same thing as love and it certainly is not always God-centered. Our pride shows that the battle between God-centeredness and man-centeredness still goes on. The state of the professing Church demonstrates that the battle still goes on. We must be broken and humbled if we want God.
God Loves... Himself 
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