There are two considerations which require the preaching of these truths. The first is the humbling of our pride, and the comprehending of the grace of God; the second is the nature of Christian faith. For the first; God has surely promised His grace to the humbled; that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another—God alone. As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God; but plans out for himself (or at least hopes and longs for) a position, an occasion, a work, which shall bring him final salvation. But he who is out of doubt that his destiny depends entirely on the will of God despairs entirely of himself, chooses nothing for himself, but waits for God to work in him; and such a man is very near to grace for his salvation. So these truths are published for the sake of the elect, that they may be humbled and brought down to nothing, and so saved. The rest of men resist this humiliation; indeed, they condemn the teaching of self-despair; they want a little something left that they can do for themselves. Secretly they continue proud, and enemies of the grace of God. This, I repeat, is one reason—that those who fear God might in humility comprehend, claim and receive His gracious promise.
(Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)
Luther does not leave us any room for doubt what he meant by those that the promise of grace was to. We can repeat the words of Scripture that God gives His grace to the humble, but we can believe something far different about what the Bible means by humble. It would appear that in our day not many believe that a person must be truly humbled in order to be saved. Luther says that a person that is humbled is one that mourns over and despairs of himself. That does not go across well in our day. We want people to just believe some facts about Jesus rather than to be humbled to the point of mourning and despairing of self so that one can actually rest alone on and in Christ with the soul. It is easier on self and easier on those we know to do this. These are things that are impossible for us to do in our own strength and so we shy away from them. The heart of proud and sinful man wants to have facts he can believe or a prayer to pray rather than bow in utter submission to God. Sinful man always wants to leave himself some hope in self rather than to look to God alone. Clearly, this is nothing but pride.
In the modern day many of those who call themselves Reformed have also fallen away from this teaching of Luther and Scripture. They will retain his words of justification by faith alone, but they do not mean the same thing by them. Instead they have fallen into the heart of Arminianism and perhaps even of Pelagianism in simply having men to pray or say they believe. But a person must do more than say a prayer and convince him or herself to believe, that person must have a changed heart in order to have a believing heart. The believing heart is a heart that must be constantly receiving from Christ His grace because the believing heart lives by grace received. So the heart must be thoroughly broken because pride will never receive grace. But that is precisely the evangelism that is practiced by so many. They think that a person that prays a prayer or says that s/he believes is saved apart from being humbled and broken in reality and experience.
This brings us to a thought that is hated even more. In the 1700’s Solomon Stoddard wrote this:
There are some who deny any necessity of the preparatory work of the Spirit of God in order to a closing with Christ. This is a very dark cloud, both as it is an evidence that men do not have the experience of that work in their own souls, and as it is a sight that such men are utterly unskillful in guiding others who are under this work. If this opinion should prevail in the land, it would give a deadly wound to religion. It would expose men to think of themselves as converted when they are not (A Guide to Christ).
Stoddard held to the essence of what Luther taught about the soul needing to be humbled in order to be saved which was the Puritan way of evangelism too. His grandson, Jonathan Edwards, also taught that the soul needed to be deeply humbled and broken before a person could be saved by Christ alone. But this points out a sober truth as to where we are today. Virtually all deny any real necessity of the preparatory work of the Spirit. If they don’t deny it in words, they deny it in practice. But since so many deny that today, what are we to make of what Stoddard says just after that? “It is an evidence that men do not have the experience of that work in their own souls.” If men don’t think that this is necessary, and they were not thoroughly humbled themselves, then they resist this because it did not happen to them. They try to deny it because they rest their hope of salvation on the fact that it does not need to be done. But that simply means that both the minister and those he is “ministering” to are unconverted. When those who are leading the blind are blind, both will fall into a ditch. When those who have no peace are calling out that there is peace when there is no peace, a deadly wound has been given to religion. Ministers and non-ministers alike all think they are saved because they prayed a prayer, believed some facts, had some form of moral reformation, or perhaps have become very religious. But all the religious things they are doing come from a proud heart because they have never been truly humbled. We live in a day of great darkness regarding truly spiritual things.
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