Doctrinal truth should be preached always, openly, without compromise, and never dissembled or concealed. There is no offence in it; it is the staff of uprightness. Who gave you the right and power to confine Christian doctrine to particular persons, places, times, and cases, when Christ wills that it should be freely published and reign throughout the world?…Preach the Gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15). (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will).
While there are some (many?) who affirm the words of total depravity agreeing that there is an inability in man, they want to hide that teaching from those they preach what they call “the gospel” to. If Luther and the pioneer Reformers were correct and that the enslaved will is vital to the message of the Gospel, then what we have is a necessary truth being hidden from souls. Well, some say, while it is true that the will is enslaved men don’t need to know that until after they are saved. But if this is a necessary part of the Gospel, then we have not preached the Gospel until we have taught this doctrine. If people are saved from a bound will, they need to know that their will cannot make a spiritual choice until they are saved from the enslavement of that will.
The doctrine of the enslaved will is necessary to two twin teachings that cannot be separated. We have the utter helplessness of man in his sin and the sovereignty of grace. If the will of man is not enslaved to sin, the devil, and to self then man is not utterly helpless as the pioneer Reformers taught who taught on this subject what the Bible teaches. “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,
8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom 8:6-8). There is no way that a non-converted person can please God in any way and that includes making a choice for God. Any choice an un-converted makes will not be a choice for God though it may include God. The will is bound to sin, self, and the devil. When we do not teach people that their will is enslaved we are not teaching them the truth and reality of sin and what they need to be saved from. It is to compromise the truth and to be opposite of the Bible in this area.
The second twin teaching is that of sovereign grace. In one sense this was really the heart of the Reformation. Rome wants to be able to dispense grace as it pleases rather than leave sinners in the hands of God to dispense grace as He pleases. This is true in the matter of justification. The real issue with justification by faith alone as the Reformers taught it was that of grace alone. God justifies whom He will and He does so as He pleases. True and pure grace is sovereign or it is not grace. The only kind of grace in the Bible or in reality is found in Jesus Christ and is absolutely sovereign. There is no other kind of grace.
While man thinks that he can hold off on this teaching what he is doing is denying the fullness of the Gospel and only giving people a part of the Gospel and leaving man in his own hands to dispense salvation to himself. There can be no Gospel preached apart from grace and there is no grace apart from a sovereign grace. This is part of the very glory of God. “For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.” 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (Rom 9:15-16). When Moses cried out to see the glory of God in Exodus 33:13-18, he was given the previous words. In the Gospel of John the very glory of God is seen in Christ and it is a glory of grace and truth. There is no glory in the Gospel apart from the grace of God and the only grace is the sovereign grace of God. When we try to hide from people their bondage to sin and of the sovereignty of grace we are hiding the true glory of the Gospel from them.
The Gospel is all about the grace of God and the glory of God. Sinners are only saved when God shines the light of the knowledge of His glory in the hearts of sinners that they may see that glory in the face of Christ (II Cor 4:6). Sinners need to see the glory of God in saving sinners and not their own glory in salvation. When we present a God that is focused on them it is their glory that is the issue. But when we present the truth of God and how He is focused on Himself and His own glory and only saves by a sovereign grace, then that takes their eyes off of themselves and places it on God. After all, they need to see His glory and not their own. Until human beings see how utterly helpless they are they will not look to a sovereign grace to save them and that is the only kind of grace there is. Holding back the teaching on the enslaved will is compromising the Gospel. We need to repent.
God Loves... Himself 
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