Since, therefore, we have lost the meaning and the real reference of this glorious term, or, rather, have never grasped them (as was claimed by the Pelagians, who themselves mistook the phrase) why do we cling so tenaciously to an empty word, and endanger and delude faithful people in consequence?… But this false idea of ‘free-will’ is a real threat to salvation, and a delusion fraught with the most perilous consequences…If we do not want to drop this term altogether—which would really be the safest and most Christian thing to do—we may still in good faith teach people to use it to credit man with ‘free-will’ in respect, not of what is above him, but of what is below him. That is to say, man should realize that in regard to his money and possessions he has a right to use them, to do or to leave undone, according to his own ‘free-will’—though that very ‘free-will’ is overruled by the free-will of God alone, according to His own pleasure. However, with regard to God, and in all that bears on salvation or damnation, he has no ‘free-will’, but is a captive, prisoner and bondslave, either to the will of God, or to the will of Satan.
Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will
These words of Luther, once again, get at the very heart of Christianity. Language and words are so misleading and can lead to such danger that we must be very careful. Luther tells us that the term ‘free-will’ deludes faithful people and is a real threat to salvation and is a delusion fraught with the most perilous consequences. It is so easy to read over those words and go on. But if those things are true, then why do ministers just throw out these words with ease and not explain them? If the very idea of ‘free-will’ is so dangerous, then why don’t ministers labor to show how false, threatening, and even delusional that the idea is? Perhaps it is true that almost no one really believes what Luther taught in his day (the foundation of the Reformation) was and is true. Perhaps we do nothing but give lip-service to this great work on The Bondage of the Will and give it no real heed at all. To do so, however, is to ignore at our great peril what Luther said about the real Gospel.
In the modern day it appears that ministers are afraid to take on this issue of the will. If we teach people the truth about it, that will run them out of the churches. But if we don’t teach on this issue, it will put their souls and our own in great peril. For Luther there was no preaching of the Gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone apart from teaching on the bondage of the will. For Luther, then, souls are put in great peril when this is not taught because there is no Gospel apart from it. This should be pounded on over and over from the pulpits across the land but now we are told that it is not important to the Gospel. Perhaps it is not important to the so-called gospel that is preached across America today, but it is utterly vital to the biblical Gospel of grace alone.
The blunt truth of the matter is that souls have no ‘free-will’ in terms of true salvation and are in the hands of the one and only sovereign God who can do with them as He pleases. Each and every soul is either a slave of Christ or a slave of the devil. Each and every soul is under the dominion of either Christ or the devil. Each and every soul is either in the kingdom of God or of the devil. There is no third option. There is not an option that a soul is under the dominion of his or her own free-will. No soul is a slave to his or her own will in terms of ultimate reality, though that is what it appears to be like. Slavery to the self is really slavery to the devil who is the ultimate in sinful self.
If we do not teach the truth about the inability of the soul, we will not teach a Gospel of grace alone. If we do not teach people their utter peril of trusting in their own ‘free-will,’ then we will not teach people the utter necessity of resting in Christ alone for all things and that includes faith. If we call people to Christ without instructing them of the peril of coming to Christ in their own strength, they will be deluded. It appears that the “shepherds” in our land are so afraid of teaching this that the Gospel is virtually lost in our land and we are given over to the children of libertines and Pharisees. But these things are part of the perils of souls who do not teach the truth about the will. In America the Gospel of grace alone has virtually been lost, and that is true among those who think they are the theological sons and daughters of the Reformation. Part of the problem is that we no longer think it is important stress the fact that human souls are not free but are in bondage. Perhaps that is one aspect of human souls being in bondage.
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