What need now of Christ? What need now of the Spirit? We have now found a passage which stops the mouths of all; not only does it clearly assert the freedom of the will, but it clearly teaches also that keeping the commandments is easy! What a fool was Christ, who shed His blood to purchase for us the Spirit, Whom we do not need, in order that we might be able to keep the commandments with ease, when we are so already by nature! (Luther, Bondage of the Will)
These words from Luther should blow the cobwebs from our minds and souls and help us to see what the real issue at hand is. It is not that the teaching of ‘free-will’ is just a little different and perhaps slightly wrong, but it cuts at the very nerve of the Gospel. If the will is free enough to make moral choices apart from Christ, then where does that freedom end? We are either saved by Christ alone or by one or many things plus Christ. The teaching of ‘free-will’ is a direct assault on the Gospel of grace alone and Christ alone.
What can it mean to have a ‘free-will’ in light of what it means to be a spiritual person? Is the will free to understand spiritual things? Is the will free to do a spiritual act apart from Christ? If believers are not free to do one acceptable thing (spiritual fruit) apart from Christ, then how can an unbeliever do one acceptable thing apart from Christ? Is the will free to do what it wants in the spiritual realm when in fact we can only function in the spiritual realm with the fruit of the Spirit? There is a spiritual realm in which all that is done there is by the work and fruit of the Spirit. The reason it is the spiritual realm is because it is the realm in which the Holy Spirit works. True enough there are unholy spirits working, but we would not call them spiritual in the same way.
What is clear at this point is that the will is not free from the work of Christ and is not free from the work of the Spirit. Is the will ever able to do one good thing that is spiritual apart from grace? For the will to be free the will must be free from restraints and helps in order to do what it pleases. But if the will is free from the bondage of sin, then the Scriptures are wrong which teach the absolute bondage of the sinner in sin. If the will is free from the power of grace, then salvation is not of grace alone. So once again it can be seen that ‘free-will’ is an idol that sinners trust in rather than Christ alone and grace alone.
Can the will procure (purchase, obtain, lay hold of) any part of its own salvation? Is the will free to procure any part of its salvation? We can only turn from a teaching like that with disdain and disgust. Christ alone has procured salvation for His people. The will cannot do one thing to earn, merit, or apply salvation to itself. But if Christ alone has procured salvation, then what can the will do to obtain salvation itself? Anything it would try to do would be nothing less than an effort to insert itself into the salvation which Christ alone has purchased and the Holy Spirit alone applies. Oh the darkness that ‘free-will’ brings into the discussion and it attempts to overshadow the work of Christ and the Spirit.
Is the will of God free to save those whom He pleases? ‘Free-will’ teaches us that God cannot save those whom He pleases because the will of man is free to do as man pleases in the realm of salvation. Yet Scripture gives the account that God says that “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION” (Romans 9:15). In other words, God is free to save whom He will. If the will of man is free to save according to its own will, then God is not free. Once again, the idol of the will is clear to see in that man wants to rest and trust in his own will rather than the grace of God alone.
Was Christ free to fully save all those that the Father gave Him to save or not? This shows again how the teaching of ‘free-will’ attacks the work of Christ. In fact, as can be seen in this post, the so-called ‘free-will’ of man is at war with the Trinity and the work of each Divine Person of the Trinity. This is why many Christians of old thought of the teaching of ‘free-will’ as that of something less than Christianity. This is also seen in how grace comes to the human soul. Is the will free to procure any part of grace as it pleases or is grace always in the hands of God to give as He pleases? The doctrine of ‘free-will’ is at war with God and the Gospel of grace. For grace to be grace it must always be at the mere pleasure of God and for there to be no cause in the human being to receive grace. Oh how this awful teaching is at war with God for His glory and many people who call themselves Reformed today still think of Pelagianism (under the guise of Arminianism) as teaching the same Gospel as they do. No, no and a trillion times no. The gospel of ‘free-will’ is now and always will be at war with God’s Gospel of grace alone.
God Loves... Himself 
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