Luther’s The Bondage of the Will can be read for pleasure only if one reads it without thinking. This book, as one has said about another book, has fingers and claws with which it gets hold of you and makes you hurt. He said it was the very heart of the Gospel and the heart of the Reformation, yet in the modern day we are like Erasmus who desired peace at virtually all cost and did not think of the will as a very important doctrine at all. For Luther there was no preaching the Gospel apart from this teaching of the will. In the modern day it is thought that to preach and teach the bondage of the will is to cross the line into hyper-Calvinism or to simply go beyond the simple Gospel. Below are three quotes from Packer and Johnson from the introduction to The Bondage of the Will:
The whole gospel of the grace of God, he held, was bound up with it, and stood or fell according to the way one decided it…The doctrine of the bondage of the will in particular was the corner-stone of the gospel and the very foundation of the faith…The denial of free-will was to Luther the foundation of the Biblical doctrine of grace, and a hearty endorsement of that denial was the first step for anyone who would understand the gospel and come to faith in God. The man who has not yet practically and experimentally learned the bondage of his will in sin has not yet comprehended any part of the gospel; for this is ‘the hinge on which all turns,’ the ground on which the gospel rests.
While this may seem repetitive, it is simply an effort to drive a point home to myself and any other person that might read this. It is shocking to the modern sensibilities and our desires to be gracious for the purpose of peace that our ears can hardly hear it and our eyes can barely see it. It is almost as if the modern day has been blinded to the Gospel and that in the guise of Reformed theology at times. The Gospel that was preached during the great revival that we know as the Reformation had at its very core the bondage of the human will. It was not just something that a person nodded to after s/he was converted; it was considered the very core of the whole Gospel of the grace of God. To put it another way, the soul that fell away from the teaching of the bondage of the will was considered to have fallen away from the Gospel of the grace of God. The Gospel of the grace of God was bound to it (see the quote above) and could not stand apart from it. Yet in our day we want to have a Gospel of grace without this doctrine of the will. What we can’t seem to see is that if we waffle on the doctrine of the will we waffle on the Gospel of grace alone. If we are ashamed of the doctrine of the enslaved will, we are ashamed of the Gospel of grace alone. If we deny the doctrine of the enslaved will, we deny the Gospel of grace alone. If we think that the doctrine of the enslaved will is not necessary, then we think that the true Gospel of grace alone is not necessary. How we will hear howls of protest from those who hear that, but that is what the Reformers stood for.
If a soul comes to God by grace, then the soul must be worked on and drawn to God by grace. The working and calling of God must bring the soul to Himself or salvation is not completely by grace alone. If the will is not dead and enslaved to sin, it can do some of the work of salvation itself. But if the will can do some of the work of salvation, then salvation does not rest on grace alone. If faith is the requirement for having salvation and Christ, but faith is the work of free-will, then salvation is at least partially by a work of man and is not entirely of grace. This is why the Gospel of the grace of God is bound to the doctrine of the will. If the will is not entirely enslaved to sin and under the dominion of the devil, then the Gospel is not wholly of grace.
Let me quote again: “The denial of free-will was to Luther the foundation of the Biblical doctrine of grace.” Luther was either right or he was wrong. If he was right, then our day needs to repent and preach what he preached. If we do not preach the doctrine of the will that he taught, then we are not going to preach the same justification by faith alone that he taught. If we cannot deny free-will without shame in our presentation and preaching of the Gospel, then we deny the foundation of the biblical doctrine of grace. “A hearty endorsement of that denial was the first step for anyone who would understand the gospel and come to faith in God.” Hardly anyone believes that today. We would rather just tell men to agree that they are sinners (if even that) and then to repent and believe. But how can one understand the Gospel of a whole grace unless a whole grace is needed to save the sinner?
“The man who has not yet practically and experimentally learned the bondage of his will in sin has not yet comprehended any part of the gospel.” How can this statement be true? If this is true, then what of people and “churches” who will not teach this at all? Can we call ourselves Reformed if we deny an essential part of the Gospel of grace alone that the Reformers taught? If the Bible teaches something different, then we must go with Scripture. If we preach a different Gospel than the Reformers did, then we need to quit paying homage to them and quit calling ourselves Reformed or Calvinists. If we preach a different Gospel than the Reformers, we must remember that there is only one Gospel. If this teaching is the hinge on which the Gospel turns, then if we are missing the hinge we have missed the Gospel.
Jesus said this in John 6:44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” The word “can” is a word of ability, so no man has the ability to come to Jesus unless the Father draws him. This is a hard teaching, but it is clear that no man can will to come to Jesus freely. That man must have the Father draw him or he will not come. Later on in John 6 we read how hard that teaching was: 65“And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” 66 As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.” Many left over His words and many will leave over them today. Many religious people left then and they will leave now. But these are still the words of the living God. We must bow in submission to them regardless of what others say or will say. If no one has the ability to come to Christ, then they need to know that. If the true way to Christ is by the drawing of the Father, then that is part of the good news of the Gospel. We need to proclaim the good news as it is set out in the Bible. It is good news that I don’t have to work up repentance and faith by my own ability. Instead, I am to look to Christ alone for the whole Gospel of the grace of God. That includes the ability to come to Christ and faith itself.
God Loves... Himself 
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