To accept the principles which Martin Luther vindicates in The Bondage of the Will would certainly involve a mental and spiritual revolution for many Christians at the present time. It would involve a radically different approach to preaching and the practice of evangelism, and to most other departments of theology and pastoral work as well. God centered thinking is out of fashion to-day, and it recovery will involve something of a Copernican revolution in our outlook on many matters. But ought we to shrink from this? Do we not stand in urgent need of such teaching as Luther here gives us—teaching which humbles man, strengthens faith, and glorifies God—and is not the contemporary Church weak for the lack of it? The issue is clear. We are compelled to ask ourselves: If the Almighty God of the Bible is to be our God, if the New Testament gospel is to be our message, if Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever—is any other position than Luther’s possible? Are we not in all honesty bound to stand with him in ascribing all might, and majesty, and dominion, and power, and all the glory of our salvation to God alone? Surely no more important or far-reaching question confronts the Church to-day (Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will).
Instead of shrinking from the biblical teaching of the Reformation as found in The Bondage of the Will, these God-centered teachings must be proclaimed with conviction and power. Just having them in a creed will not be enough, nor will it do anything other than make us feel good about ourselves. These things and their implications must be preached and taught. The core teaching of The Bondage of the Will, when applied to the heart by the Spirit, will humble man, strengthen faith, and glorify God. These are precisely the things that we have virtually lost in the modern Church. Instead of humbling man in truth, we are careful not to offend him and preserve his pride and self-esteem. Instead of strengthening faith in truth, we strengthen man’s faith in himself and in a false god. Instead of truly glorifying God, we take his name on our lips when we do what we please as we please. We like to think we are glorifying God but that is something that comes by grace as well.
If we are not teaching the principles found in The Bondage of the Will we are not teaching the core of the Gospel as set out in the Reformation. But if we are teaching those principles, then our teaching must strive to see men and women truly humbled. Luther was so clear that until the soul is deeply humbled it is not ready to hear the Gospel. This principle is lost in the modern day. Humility, while it is taught as a virtue, is not just something that we can add on as we please. Humility, in the negating sense, will only come by the work of the Spirit in casting self out as the ruler of the soul. Humility in the positive sense is the life of Christ in the soul. There is no true humility apart from the Divine activity in the soul and yet we have left that for man to do by self.
Faith, interestingly enough, is under attack in the professing Church. When we step away from the principles found in The Bondage of the Will we will not know what true faith is or how to obtain it. Faith is taught as something that men and women must come up with since it comes from a free-will. Those more Reformed say that they know that it comes from God but they want to keep that quiet. If faith is a gift of God and trusting in self is an idolatrous and damning trust of the soul, then why do people want to keep quiet about it? It does make it harder to come up with our goals that we have set out if we do that. When we do not teach the humbling of the soul so that it is totally and wholly helpless to do anything spiritual or pleasing to God, we are not teaching what is in accordance with true faith in Christ. Instead we are teaching faith in the power of man. For true faith to be taught it must teach the helplessness of man and the power of the sovereign God in the soul.
The quote from above mentions glorifying God as one of the things the contemporary Church is weak in. That was written a little over 50 years ago. We are far weaker now. Apart from man arriving at the experiential knowledge of his utter helplessness before God and the true nature of faith in the sovereignty of God and His grace, there will be no true glorification of God as He commanded the professing Church. The principles of the helplessness of man and the sovereignty of God are foundational to the heart of the Reformations soli deo Gloria (to God alone be the glory). Until man is wholly helpless and in the hands of the one and only sovereign God, man cannot glorify God because man can do nothing spiritual that does not come from God by grace alone. Until man is wholly helpless, man does all he does in his own strength. Even when man speaks as if he is doing what he is doing for the glory of God, it is nothing but self doing it. When self does the work in God’s name, it builds even more self-righteousness in doing it because it thinks it is doing it for the glory of God. We live in desperate times.
God Loves... Himself 
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