Luther began seeking God out of the pride of self-love and when grace overcame him and gave him a love for God Luther lived out of that love. The Reformation was a song to the glory of God in all things. Luther was the one that found that song written in the Scriptures and set it to modern (for him) music. This is to say that the unregenerate sinner desires grace in the sense that s/he desires God to save him or her based on something other than total merit. The sinner might think that some merit must be obtained, but they know that they need something called grace to save them. Luther’s desire for grace brought him into the ways of seeking God and he then found the truth about grace. In his pride of nature he could not think beyond the way of obtaining merit or working for God, but God in His grace taught Luther the true nature of grace. The biblical doctrine of grace will not operate or function according to man, but it must be given according to who God is. Luther had to learn the true nature of grace.
“He himself began with an egocentric conception in his quest for a ‘gracious God.’ His problem was: ‘How can I attain such conformity with the Law of God that I may be sure of acceptance with Him and secure peace for my troubled mind and conscience? He found a gracious God, as we have seen, but not by the way he had sought, not by becoming worthy of God’s approval. Indeed, it was rather the gracious God who found him and took him to Himself, despite his unworthiness and sin. Luther did not win God’s favor by his merits, but God’s unmerited grace overmastered Luther and became the compelling force in his life. To his egocentric question, we might say, Luther received a theocentric answer, which became thenceforward his dominant and all-absorbing theme. We can certainly speak of a Copernican revolution here.” (Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther)
The proud and self-centered heart of human beings wants to be saved, but it wants to be saved from hell on its own merits and in its own way. It will bargain with God to some degree, but ultimately it wants things its own way. Luther sought the grace of God as he understood it, which was from an egocentric way of looking at it, but in that pursuit God taught him from Scripture and experience about the true nature of grace. True grace is all about God. Pride wants to think that grace is all about self. It thinks of God’s greatness and grace as being great because it is focused on man and delivers man from hell. The Bible speaks of grace in differing ways, but one thing about grace is that it is always focused on God. The living and true God who keeps the Greatest Commandment by loving Himself as triune with all of His being will only show grace based on Himself and His own glory. God must show grace based on His love for Himself as triune or it would be idolatry. When human beings want grace based on what they do or on who they are they are asking God to commit idolatry for them. That is pride in its sheer ugliness and hatred of God. Pride is always opposed to God receiving all of the honor and glory.
Luther became God-centered in all that he did because he learned the Gospel at the hands of God’s sovereignty and grace. The Bible knows of no other Gospel than one that is fully centered upon God and His glory. In their pride human beings want grace to be about them, but that is not out of love for the glory of His grace (Eph 1:5-6). If we love God with all of our being we should want to be saved according to a grace that displays His glory in the fullest manner with His love for Himself as triune as the supreme love in the universe. So when “God’s unmerited grace overmastered Luther” it “became the compelling force in his life.” This grace is not one that saves from a future hell and nothing else, but this is a grace that has to do with actually changing the supreme love of the soul. This is a grace that has to do with God living in the soul as His temple and His activity of love for Himself is worked in and shared in the soul. The redeemed soul is one that the triune God dwells in and in some way makes the human soul a part of the activity of the Trinity which is love. This can be nothing else but a grace that is moved by God and His love for Himself. The redeemed soul would want it no other way. The redeemed soul knows that the proud soul is opposed by God and yet the humble soul receives grace.
The soul that has been mastered by grace is a soul that has had its pride defeated by Lord Jesus and will now humbly lay down at His feet. This is a soul that is dominated by grace and is a soul that is absorbed with this theme. After all, Christ was the tabernacle of glory and that glory was full of grace and truth. A soul that is mastered by grace will be a soul that has been mastered by Jesus Christ who is grace incarnate. The soul that is mastered by Christ is a soul that cannot be tired of the grace and truth that the glory of God in Christ was full of. But pride will always be opposed to God’s glory because it is always opposed to true grace and true truth.
God Loves... Himself 
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