Anyway, this is what your words assert; that there is strength within us; there is such a thing as striving with all one’s strength; there is mercy in God; there are ways of compassing that mercy…But if one does not know what this ‘strength’ is—what men can do, and what is done to them—what this ‘striving’ is, what men can do, and what is done to them—then what should he do? What will you tell him to do?…For as long as they do not know the limits of their ability, they will not know what they should do; and as long as they do not know what they should do, they cannot repent when they err; and impenitence is the unpardonable sin…So it is not irreligious, idle, or superfluous, but in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether of not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation. Indeed, let me tell you, this is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us; our aim is, simply, to investigate what ability ‘free-will’ has, in what respect it is the subject of Divine action and how it stands related to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity, and shall be in worse case than any people on earth. (The Bondage of the Will, Luther’s Reply to Erasmus)
Luther points out a key issue here that is widely ignored today. Just what power does the will have? Questions must be raised to those who hold to a so-called free-will. What power does the free-will have? What can a free-will do? What is the will free from? Is it free from God and is it free from grace? A will that is free from grace is doing something apart from grace and so it is a work of the flesh. Romans 8 tells us that the fleshly person cannot please God. So a will that is free from grace is not able to please God in any way. Jesus also said that apart from Him we could do nothing (spiritual). Does the will have the power to apply the grace of God to itself? Once we begin to see things in this light, we can begin to see that the desire to retain a free-will is a desire to be sufficient to apply salvation to our own souls. We may use the language of grace, but we do not really have a biblical grace at that point. This point must be driven home since the Gospel is of grace and grace alone.
Does God act upon human wills and can we say that He acts upon free wills? The soul that is drawn by grace alone is not a free-will as in free from internal influences. It has grace working on and in it. It is not free from the grace and power of God. In fact, it is only to the degree that we accept that the soul is enslaved to sin and is not free that we can believe in grace alone. It should be remembered at all times that the slightest work makes grace to be no grace at all (Rom 11:6). A will that is free from the internal grace of God is a will that is operating according to the flesh and to works. This shows us that Luther’s teaching has a lot of truth to it that a person must deny his or her own free-will in order to rest in grace alone for salvation or for one good work. If by definition a will that is free is free from the internal workings of God, then that will is free from the grace of God as well. So how can a person assert that the will is free from grace and then try to hold to a salvation that is by grace alone? It cannot be done in a consistent way. We must deny our so-called free-wills in order to receive the real free grace of God.
Those whom God calls will come. This is not to say that He drags them kicking and screaming against their will, but that He changes their desires and their loves in order to want to come. But it is His grace drawing them and not the will free of grace that is coming in its own power. This is what Luther would have Erasmus see and what he would want to have us see today as well. This is the heart of the Bible in terms of salvation which is by grace alone. The sinner that is dead in sins and trespasses needs to be made alive in the spiritual realm and so has no freedom in the spiritual realm. The sinner is dead and has no freedom at all in any realm but the realm of death and sin. It must be grace alone that would raise that sinner from the dead and all the glory of it is God’s. This is precisely what Ephesians 2:1-8 sets out. Sinners are not only dead in sin, but they are by nature children of wrath. Before they can do anything in the spiritual realm they must be made alive and have the Spirit. The sinner is not free to make self alive in order to apply grace to self and is not free to bring the Spirit into his or her soul.
What kind of power does a dead person have? Clearly and without question that person has no power at all. What kind of power to act and operate does a person have in the spiritual realm that is dead to the spiritual realm? That person has no power to act and operate in the spiritual realm. What kind of power does anyone have to apply grace to him or herself? No one has any power to apply grace to self or anyone else. Grace must come from God based on Himself and His own glory or it is not grace at all. The teaching of the enslaved will is utterly vital to the Gospel of grace alone. Unless we teach and apply it to the hearts of sinners, we will not teach grace alone in truth.
God Loves... Himself 
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