Have we not grown used to an Erasmian brand of reaching from our pulpits—a message that rests on the same shallow synergistic conceptions which Luther refuted, picturing God and man approaching each other almost on equal terms, each having his own contribution to make to man’s salvation and each depending on the dutiful co-operation of the other for the attainment of that end?—as if God exists for man’s convenience, rather than man for God’s glory? Is it not true, conversely, that it is rare to-day to hear proclaimed the diagnosis of our predicament which Luther—and Scripture—put forward: that man is hopeless and helpless in sin, fast bound in Satan’s slavery, at enmity with God, blind and dead to the things of the Spirit? And hence, how rarely do we hear faith spoken of as Scripture depicts it—as it is expressed in the cry of self-committal with which the contrite heart, humbled to see its need and made conscious of its own utter helplessness even to trust, casts itself in the God-given confidence of self-despair upon the mercy of Jesus Christ—‘Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief!’ Can we deny the essential rightness of Luther’s exegesis of the texts? And if not, dare we ignore the implications of his exposition? (Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will).
The vast majority of pulpits in modern America appear to be Erasmian rather than Lutheran. The deepest question, however, has to do with what Scripture really teaches. This gets to the last two sentences from the quote above. Was and is Luther’s exegesis correct or not? If his exegesis was and is correct, then Luther taught the Bible accurately on this subject and his teaching on it is still the biblical teaching. If it was and is wrong, then let us deny the heart of the Reformation because that is what the teaching concerning The Bondage of the Will really was and is. Let us not give lip service to Luther as a great man if he was and is wrong about the heart of the Gospel. The Erasmian brand of preaching that seems to be virtually the exclusive message today is in direct conflict with the heart of the Gospel proclaimed in the Reformation as set out by Luther in The Bondage of the Will.
The message proclaimed today is that God has done all He could do and the issue now rests with man. Whether a person says that or not that is what people hear. If the preacher is not clear that God is not on equal terms with and is not waiting on man to do something so that He (God) can save men, fallen man will always think it depends on himself. The Gospel is not dependent on the cooperation of man because it is the Gospel of grace alone. If a human soul is to be saved, it must be saved in total dependence on God or salvation is not by grace and Christ alone. God is not standing by at the convenience of man just waiting to save man. The Erasmian position is that God is just waiting on man to believe or make a choice of the will so that God can save the man. But that is utterly unbiblical and even blasphemous. Man should see the Lord and wait on the Lord to save him. There is simply no other way of salvation other than God saving man at His own pleasure rather than waiting on the pleasure of man to do so.
We are told that man is a responsible being and we are to treat him as such. It is true that man is responsible before God, but we must ask what that means. We must know that to have responsibility is not the same thing as to have ability. We must also search out what we are responsible to do and not do. We are not responsible to do in the sense that we have ability to do anything to contribute to salvation in the least. We are not responsible to come up with anything that puts God under some obligation or for man to obtain merit before God. But until we repent of our synergistic preaching or implications of our preaching we are not preaching the Gospel of grace alone with clarity. We can tell people that they are dead in their sins, but unless we explain what that means those who are dead will not understand it in the least. We can proclaim to people that they are totally depraved, but they will not understand that either unless we say what it means and what it don’t mean. Neither will they understand those things without specific application to their own hearts.
Erasmian preaching can be nice and gracious and treat man as if he had a free will even if we deny it in our theory. While Erasmus believed those things, unless we state with clarity and conviction with specific application to the soul the opposite we will still be Erasmian in our practice. We will be practical Erasmians. There are so many who claim to believe Reformed theology and yet they are truly Erasmian in practice. There is no real difference between those who agree with Erasmus in theology and those who don’t refute those beliefs with clarity. The fallen nature of man will always hear with fallen ears and until we declare his fallen nature in this area we have not declared his fallen nature at all. In other words, we will have no position to preach the Gospel of grace alone.
God Loves... Himself 
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