The issue being dealt with (the enslaved will) was not a minor issue of the Reformation. It was the issue of the Reformation. It was the issue because apart from it justification through faith alone is not explained by justification by grace alone. If there is no justification by grace alone, then there is no salvation by grace alone either. A person can believe in the words justification by faith alone in some sense without the teaching of the enslaved will, but apart from the enslaved will the Gospel of grace alone as taught by the Reformers is absent. The Reformer’s teaching on justification by faith alone cannot be held without also holding to their teaching on the enslaved will. This cannot be overstated. In fact, as the quote below shows, without this teaching man is at the center of his own justification rather than God. With this teaching God is at the center of justification and all the glory is His.
The doctrine of free justification by faith only, which became the storm-centre of so much controversy during the Reformation period, is often regarded as the heart of the Reformer’s theology, but this is hardly accurate. The truth is that their thinking was really centered upon the contention of Paul, echoed with varying degrees of adequacy by Augustine, and Gottschalk, and Bradwardine, and Wycliffe, that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only. The doctrine of justification by faith was important to them because it safeguarded the principle of sovereign grace; but it actually expressed for them only one aspect of this principle, and that not its deepest aspect. The sovereignty of grace found expression in their thinking at a profounder level still, in the doctrine of monergistic regeneration—the doctrine, that is, that the faith which receives Christ for justification is itself the free gift of a sovereign God, bestowed by spiritual regeneration in the act of effectual calling. (Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will).
This part of a longer quote shows that it is not accurate to think of justification by faith alone in and of itself as the very core or center of the Reformation. The true core was “that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only.” Justification by faith alone was vital only because it was a safeguard to the principle of sovereign grace. We must not hurry by that statement. The importance of justification by faith alone is not because of what it is in and of itself, but because it safeguards the principle of sovereign grace. Even more, and at a deeper level, the sovereignty of grace was expressed in the teaching of monergistic regeneration. Monergistic regeneration is the teaching that God bestows regeneration in His effectual calling and not in the faith of the sinner. The faith that receives Christ alone for salvation is the faith that is the free gift that comes with regeneration.
The teaching of the Reformers at this point is a bombshell to modern theology. We are more concerned with being gracious to those who differ from us than standing firm for the glory of the Gospel of grace alone. Several years ago while visiting Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi Dr. John Gerstner spoke some on Roman Catholicism. One man stated that Dr. Gerstner sounded like he hated Roman Catholics. Dr. Gerstner’s response was close to vehement: “Hate them? I love them. That is why I tell them that they are going to hell.” True love is not the same thing as modern niceness and graciousness. True love will confront and even be provocative at times. True love will be mistaken as hate in modern times. The Gospel is not as easy as modern humans want it to be, but it takes a love like Jesus who told the people the truth even when it made them angry. There will always be the offence of the cross (Gal 5:11). When we are “gracious” enough to take away the offence, we are not speaking with true grace or love at all. True love speaks the truth of the cross.
The truth of the matter is that one cannot hold to the Gospel of grace alone as taught by the Reformers apart from teaching the sovereign grace of God who by grace alone regenerates sinners which by definition is the effectual call and gives faith. There is no effectual call apart from giving faith in regeneration. A teaching that relies on the free-will of man is not teaching the Reformation view of justification by faith alone. A teaching that does not depend on the regenerating act of God to produce faith is not teaching the Reformation view justification by faith alone. In our day we have become so enamored with being gracious and getting along with people that we have to deny the Reformation view of justification by faith alone in order to do so. Indeed we can be unified with people who say they believe in justification by faith alone if we drop our insistence on sovereign and monergistic regeneration, but when we do that we have just dropped the very heart of justification by faith alone. In our day we have done that and have lost the Gospel in the midst of orthodox sounding words. Is that unity and is that really being gracious? Can one be truly gracious without true grace?
God Loves... Himself 
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