The primary reason that we must hold to the will as enslaved to sin and no ability to do anything spiritual is because of the beauty of God’s grace in salvation. Any human ability in the Gospel and coming to Christ detracts from the grace of God. The grace of God is unmixed glory that shines out of the triune God in Christ with blazing glory and beauty. When humans bring in human ability or work(s) into the Gospel, it sullies the purity of grace and makes it to be something other than grace. The grace of God comes to sinners that are dead in sins and trespasses and who are by nature children of wrath (Eph 2:1-3). There is nothing in the sinner that is attractive to God or worthy to Him. There is no ability in the dead sinner. If that sinner is to be made alive and delivered from his or her deadness in sin, that will be by grace alone. The only ability as sinner has is to sin.
Ephesians 2 goes on to speak of grace, but chapter 1 has already set out that God saves sinners to the praise of the glory of His grace (1:6). He does not diminish His glory by having sinful humans help Him save them. It would be less than a pure and holy grace to do so. Did Luther really think that “The doctrine of the bondage of the will in particular was the corner-stone of the gospel” was true? Yes, for until a person understands that the will is in bondage to sin and the devil that person would trust in self to some degree. It was because God is God-centered and not man-centered. It is because God manifests the glory of His grace in sinners based on Himself rather than sinners. To assert that God saves sinners because they respond to Him destroys the biblical teaching of grace apart from works. By definition God saves by grace rather than anything found in man. If God responds to something in man or what man does and so gives salvation, then salvation is not utterly of grace and grace alone. As Romans 11:6 puts it, “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.”
Romans 9 teaches this: “15 For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.” 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” Verse 15 is a quote from Exodus. Verse 16 is Paul’s application of it. If God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy and compassion on whom He will have compassion, then it does not depend on the will or works of man. It all depends on God’s mercy and compassion. Despite the clear teaching of Scripture on these things, man does not want to depend on grace in all things. Even those who say salvation is totally the work of grace want to leave the application of that salvation up to men. But salvation is not totally and wholly of grace unless the grace is applied by grace as well.
We move on to see again a quote of Packer and Johnson: “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.” Here is a massive statement that we have to seriously deal with. To put it plainly, the first step to understanding the Gospel and coming to faith in God is to deny our free-will. The free-will says, though Reformed folks brain says differently, that it will act and apply grace to itself. A free-will says that God will save me if I make a choice. The free-will preacher tells those things to people. The professing Reformed simply tell people to repent and believe, but that can be using biblical words without biblical content.
“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.” This is a haunting statement. This quote tells us that not only must a person intellectually learn about the bondage of the will in sin, but s/he must have an experimental knowledge of that in the soul. It is not just that this doctrine is true, but that this doctrine must be felt in the weight and burden of my sin. Apart from that, a person has not comprehended any part of the Gospel. This is a massive statement that shows how much the Gospel has been hidden from our generation. Jesus invited all who were weary and heavy-laden to come to Him (Mat 11:28). This is the person that is weary of the burden of sin and it is heavy to him or her. This is the person who has given up trying to deal with his or her sin and feels the utter bondage of it. John 7:37 puts it like this: “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” Those who are thirsty for life are those who are weary of sin which is death.
One can accuse Luther of many things, but beating around the bush is not one of them. He gets to the heart of the issue and holds it before our eyes. It is not just a theoretical proposition that a person must learn about to know about his or her sin and then what grace really means, but the person must feel the weight and power of sin itself and the utter helplessness of self in sin to really know the power of sin and the need of grace.. This is the person that looks outside of self to the power of another because that person experientially knows that s/he has no power to come to Christ. That person looks to Divine help to bring him or her to Christ because they are now like a little child in the hands of the Divine Potter (Mat 18:1-4). Unless one is converted and becomes like a child, that person will not enter the kingdom. It is not just a prayer or an act of the will, that person must be converted and become like a child. This is a person that rests in grace to bring him or her to Christ and then to save him or her completely by grace. It is to experimentally learn the depths of our own depravity so that the depths of grace may be rested on in all ways. It is grace alone that gives a new heart and draws the sinner to the Father through Christ by the Spirit.
God Loves... Himself 
July 6, 2013 at 8:45 pm |
This first paragraph is so beautiful. We forget it is not just being orthodox but it is the glory of God in the riches of His grace creating new hearts and wills that were once in bondage to sin and self. Mercy and wisdom so rich…
Thank you for writing these things.