You describe the power of ‘free-will’ as small, and wholly ineffective apart from the grace of God. Agreed? Now then, I ask you; if God’s grace is wanting [lacking], if it is taken away from that small power, what can it do? It is ineffective, you say, and can do nothing good. So it will not do what God or His grace wills. Why? Because we have now taken God’s grace away from it, and what the grace of God does not do is not good. Hence it follows that ‘free-will’ without God’s grace is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner and bondslave of evil, since it cannot turn itself to good. This being so, I give you full permission to enlarge the power of ‘free-will’ as much as you like; make it angelic, make it divine, if you can!—but when once you add this doleful transcript, that it is ineffective apart from God’s grace, straightaway you rob it of all its power. What is ineffective power but (in plain language) no power? So to say that ‘free-will’ exists and has power, albeit ineffective power, is, in the Sophists’ phrase, a contradiction in terms. It is like saying ‘“free-will” is something which is not free’—as if you said that fire is cold and earth hot. Fire certainly has power to heat; but if hell-fire (even) was cold and chilling instead of burning and scorching, I would not call it ‘fire’, let alone ‘hot’ (unless you meant to refer to an imaginary fire, or a painted one). Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will
Luther thinks of the free-will and its freedom as a fire with no heat. We can call a fire that is not hot fire, but it is nothing more than an imaginary fire. So the so-called free-will has no effective power which is no power at all and can only be called free in some imaginary way. Scripture is so clear that a sinner that is saved was saved by grace alone and that sanctification is by the power of grace as well. So what does it mean to stand up for a free-will that is not really free? What does it mean for those who say they believe in grace alone to still fight for a free-will when that will cannot do one good thing apart from grace? So Luther pushes us into a corner and does not let us out as he lands blow after blow to the so-called freedom of the will.
In Matthew 12:34 Jesus sets out why a will is not free. “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.” The Pharisees, the ones He was speaking to, were evil. Being evil, they did not have the power or ability to speak what is good. The mouth only spoke that which filled and then came from the heart. Since the Pharisees had evil hearts, they could not speak what was good. Their wills were not free to speak what was good since they had evil hearts. Jesus used the word “can” pointing to the ability of the hearers. The word “can” is a word that points to the ability or power and He told them that because they were evil they had no power or ability to do that which was good.
If people had wills that were free as is supposed today, then Jesus could not have said what He said to the Pharisees in Matthew 12. While it may not be popular today to say things like that, those were the clear and unmistakable words of Jesus. The unbeliever has no power to even say what is good because his heart is evil and all that comes from that heart is evil. What are the only alternatives for the unbeliever? One is to remain in the same state with an evil heart. One can remain in that state giving self to sin or one can remain in that state and become very religious. The Pharisees were very religious and yet had evil hearts. The other alternative is to recognize the state that one is in (by nature evil in heart) and the inability to change that nature. The person must seek God and ask for a new heart.
This is not what people (even professing Reformed) are telling people today. But when we do not tell people this we are misleading them. People do not need to just pray a prayer or walk an aisle or make a decision. They don’t just need to learn more of the Bible or of theology and make a moral transformation. All of those things can be done with evil hearts as the Pharisees had. The Pharisees learned a lot of the Bible and of theology and in many ways (external ways) were very moral. But their hearts remained unchanged and so all they did in life and religion came from an evil heart. Such is the case of every human being today who does not have a changed heart. That human being has no ability to do or speak anything good. As Jesus told Nicodemus, “you must be born again.” That is precisely what must happen to people. They must be born into the kingdom so that their very core and controlling belief is Jesus Christ dwelling in the heart rather than self dwelling in an evil heart. No man has the power to do good until He who is good dwells in the heart by grace. No will is free to do good in and of itself. The idea of a will free to do good is nothing more than an evil heart thinking it can do good rather than grace.
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