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)
If the soul has the ability to keep one command of God by its own freedom, then why couldn’t it keep all the commands of God? Luther points out that if the soul is free to keep the commands God, then in reality there is no absolute need of Christ and of the Spirit. Why did Christ need to go to the cross to purchase the Spirit for those who can already keep the commandments by their old nature? This is a cutting point that goes to the nature of sanctification as well. It seems as if many believe (at least practically) that the sinner is declared just by grace and then in many ways left to his or her own devices in the matter of sanctification. That position is just as bad as those who believe that one can be saved by works as well.
The Pelagian (Arminian) position really turns the Gospel of grace alone upside down. The only cause that God needs to save a person is Himself and His own glory. In fact, if God saved a person for something in themselves that would make God an idolater as He would not be doing all out of love for Himself and His own glory. This shows that the Pelagian (Arminian) position has turned grace into something that is no longer grace (Rom 11:6). Any work, no matter how slight, makes grace to be no longer grace. An act of the human will that is not of grace is an act of human flesh and so is a work of the flesh. God cannot be moved by a work of the human will/flesh rather than Himself and His own glory. The only reason that God saves sinners is to the praise of the glory of His grace (Eph 1:6). God bestows His grace on sinners only for the sake of His glory in Christ Jesus. The Pelagian (Arminian) position is inconsistent with a salvation that is by grace alone.
God the Father loved the Son and sent the Son to save sinners for the glory of His own name. Jesus Christ went to the cross primarily out of love for the Father. The Holy Spirit applies salvation as He is breathed forth from the Father and the Son. Pelagianism (Arminianism), then, tries to bring another aspect into salvation that gives God a reason or cause other than Himself to save sinners. In other words, Scripture teaches that God will not share His glory with another. “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images” (Isaiah 42:8). “For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; For how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another” (Isa. 48:11).
The verses above show how much God loves His glory and how much He protects it. The gospel according to Pelagianism (and Arminianism), despite the protests to the contrary, is a message that involves human beings providing God a cause to save and so they share in the glory. As Romans 3:26-27 says in setting out why God saves and why He does not, it is for the demonstration of His righteousness and there is no room for boasting at all. “For the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Where then is boasting? It is excluded.” The case, it would seem, is closed. God does not save for any reason found in human beings, but He finds all the reasons and causes necessary to save in Himself. This totally excludes all boasting and glorying of human beings in their own choices or merit.
The Gospel that trumpeted out of the Reformation is the Gospel that rings forth during times of true revival. The Pelagianism of Finney could bring about moral reformation as such, but it could not be a message of true sovereign grace. If the grace preached is not sovereign grace, then it is no grace at all. There is no other kind of grace that can save sinners. In fact, the Bible knows of no other kind of grace at all because the only kind of grace there can be is a sovereign grace. The grace that takes sinners who are dead in sins and can do nothing to save themselves is a grace that is moved and caused by God Himself. Oh the danger souls are in who listen to those who preach in accordance with ‘free-will’ and those who will not deny it. The soul will either look to grace alone or it will look to itself for something. The soul that looks to itself for something, including an act of the will, is a soul that is not looking to Christ alone and is not resting in grace alone. ‘Free-will’ is at war with God and His Gospel of grace alone. We must wake up to this Trojan horse that has been brought into the walls of the city and befriended it by those claiming to be defenders of the Gospel.
God Loves... Himself 
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