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).
The quote from above should force some thinking and re-thinking on major issues of our day. Luther’s book The Bondage of the Will was and is a fair representation of the heart of the Gospel. To put it even more bluntly, to the degree that we reject that book is the degree we reject the Gospel that was proclaimed in the Reformation. Can we really have the New Testament Gospel if we reject Luther’s position in this book? If Luther and the pioneer Reformers preached the New Testament Gospel in its purity, then the degree we fall from that is how far we have fallen from the one and only Gospel of grace alone. We may think that we are okay and have unity with various denominations and various theologies, but if we have fallen from the true Gospel of grace alone then we are united with those who have fallen as well. This is no minor issue and this is not something that should be swept under a rug. It is the Gospel of grace alone that determines what a true church is and what a true believer is. It is the Gospel by which nations can fall as well. How can we prefer denominational unity over the Gospel?
Is Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever? Is the Gospel that Paul preached still the one and only Gospel? Is it so much the one and only Gospel that all who preach a different Gospel will be eternally cursed? Did Luther and the pioneer Reformers preach the Gospel that Paul preached? If so, then all those who preach a different Gospel than Luther and the pioneer Reformers did will be eternally cursed. We want to smooth off the rough edges and broaden the gate into the kingdom wider than Jesus did, but that is unsafe and damning. We must wrestle with the New Testament and Luther’s The Bondage of the Will rather than just assume that all is well.
But, so many argue, we believe in justification by faith alone and so do the Arminians. Aside from the point that it appears that most who think of themselves as Arminian are actually Pelagians, an Arminian cannot believe in justification by faith alone as Luther preached and wrote it. One cannot remain an Arminian and believe what Luther did about justification by faith alone. It is logically impossible. One or the other must be given up. So what can we say about those who claim to be Reformed and seek unity with “Arminians” in the Gospel? One must give up what Luther and the pioneer Reformers taught or they must give up unity with “Arminians.” I use the quote marks around Arminians because I am convinced that Pelagianism is the primary teaching among professing Arminians today.
We live in an age where so many just want to get alone and have drank deeply from the poisoned wells of the thinking that sets out unity as more important than all else. There can be no biblical unity apart from the biblical Gospel, so when people are united in a gospel that is not biblical they are not biblically united. Sure they might use the same words, but that does not mean that they mean the same things. Luther set out that justification by faith alone was important because it safeguarded salvation by grace alone. The Pelagian/Arminian position, despite using the same words of faith alone as Luther did, does not safeguard grace alone. It means something very different. The Pelagian/Arminian position also uses the word “by” in justification by faith alone very differently than Luther and the pioneer Reformers did. The Pelagian/Arminian position uses the word “by” to refer to what the human will can come up with and applies salvation to itself. The pioneer Reformers thought of the will as in bondage and so the word “by” refers to faith as an instrument in the hands of God who applied salvation. That leaves one side thinking of faith as coming from a so-called free-will and the other as faith as coming from God. The two positions are virtual opposites at that point and both cannot be the Gospel of grace alone. The Gospel of grace alone cannot exist with the teaching of free-will. It may not be politically correct to say so, but to preach free-will is to preach that which is opposite of the Gospel. To hold hands with those who preach free-will is to hold hands with what John Owen called an idol and is to hold hands with those who cannot logically hold to the Gospel of grace alone. The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation and is not the power of man to save himself. We must get straight on the Gospel of grace alone or we are alone without the Gospel. Luther had that part right.
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