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)
According to Luther, and in accordance with the Gospel that went forth during the Reformation, the grace of salvation was only to the humbled. Luther went on to describe what he meant by that. In light of that, it is important to keep two things in mind. One, Luther thought that his views on the enslavement of the will were necessary teachings to the Gospel. Two, the grace given to the humbled was nothing less than the grace that is the grace that justifies by grace alone. The whole point of a justification by faith alone was to teach the truth of justification by grace alone and by Christ alone. So the grace that goes to the humbled is the grace that saves. There can be no question about this at all. For what it is worth, this was the Puritan method of evangelism. The soul had to be thoroughly humbled before it could receive grace.
The salvation that Luther and the Reformers preached and taught was by grace alone. It is true that in the modern day it is justification by faith alone that gets the press. But if we read The Bondage of the Will with some degree of care it is obvious that the reason sinners are saved by faith alone is so that they may be saved by grace alone. The soul that is full of pride and self, whether it is recognized by self or not, is not a soul that can receive grace alone. The soul full of pride is a soul that will rest in itself in some way or something it does. It will trust in itself to believe or come up with just a small amount of faith. The pride in the soul will blind the soul to itself. So the soul must be thoroughly humbled or it will not and cannot receive grace alone. It will not even understand grace alone thought it adheres to it in some creedal form.
If what has been said by Luther about the utter need for the soul to be humbled is correct, then we live in a dark day indeed where little to nothing is said about this necessary preparatory work of the Spirit of God. If this humbling of the soul is at the very heart of justification by faith alone as taught by Luther, then we are far, far away from teaching the same Gospel that he taught. This would mean that there are vast numbers of people in the pews who think that they believe and even believe in justification by faith alone as a doctrine. But even more, as Solomon Stoddard said, “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…It would expose men to think of themselves as converted when they are not (A Guide to Christ).
It is just like the devil himself to hide the glory of the truth from the eyes of sinners by the truth itself. The devil does not care if people hear the words of some of the truth of the Gospel because he can deceive people with the truth. The devil hides the glory of the Gospel from people and so they are not saved (II Cor 4:4). One of the ways this is done is to hide the glory of sovereign grace from people. After all, Scripture teaches us that sinners are saved to the praise of the glory of His grace (Eph 1:5-6). There is no other kind of grace but sovereign grace. When we hide the teaching of the enslaved will from people we are hiding their true enslavement from them and so they cannot see the power, beauty, and glory of sovereign grace which is the only kind of grace there is. So their souls remained unhumbled as they remain under the power of the blinding pride of their hearts. They believe in the words of justification by faith alone and so they are deceived about their salvation because their hearts have not been truly and thoroughly humbled. They believe in grace, but cannot truly rely on sovereign grace alone because they are still in the grip of their pride because they have not been truly humbled.
It is a horrible state of darkness that parallels the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:23. “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! When the humility that is in the soul is pride, how great is the blinding power of that pride. When the faith that is in the soul is by pride, how blind are those who have that proud faith. They are, as the Pharisees, doubly lost. When God sends famine, at times He sends severe famines. We are in a severe spiritual famine.
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment