When William Tyndale was charged and then later executed, one of the heresies he was charged with was his denial of ‘free-will.’ Tyndale was burned at the stake in October of 1536 which was eight years before Luther died. It was stated in the more modern (1957) introduction of Luther’s Bondage of the Will that true Christianity stands or falls with the doctrine of the will. This was at the heart of the Reformation and was and is a truth that a person must truly hold to in order to hold to the Gospel as Luther and the Reformers did. In being burned at the stake as he was Tyndale reminds others of what happened to John Wycliffe in 1428 though he died in 1384. His remains were dug up and burned as a heretic. Wycliffe strongly desired for the people to read the Bible in their own language. Tyndale desired that as well. Both men were outlaws and put their lives on the line in order to get the Word of God to ordinary people.
In our day a lot of noise has been made over the inerrancy of Scripture, yet not as much over the Gospel that the Bible teaches. Tyndale and Wycliffe wanted the Scriptures to go out, but both stood firm on justification by faith alone. Wycliffe got into trouble early on because of his teaching on predestination. One cannot logically or consistently believe in predestination and free-will at the same time. The point, however, is that both Wycliffe and Tyndale were those who believed strongly in the Scriptures and then both were persecuted over what the Bible actually taught. Luther translated the Bible into German and also believed fervently in the bondage of the will and predestination.
It is easy to stand for inerrancy in the modern day though one may be thought a fool to do so. It is also rather easy to believe in predestination if one does not push that too hard. But it is still hard to truly hold to the bondage of the human will. The men of old were persecuted and excommunicated not only for their beliefs about the Bible, but because of what the Bible taught about predestination and free-will. The religious institutions did not like it in their days and they do not like it in our day. The doctrine of ‘free-will’ is, in the words of John Owen, the Pelagian idol. Oh how men trust in their idol rather than God. Oh how angry men get when their idol is challenged. While some will attack the Bible itself to get rid of its teaching on the sovereign God, the sovereignty of grace, and the bondage of the human will, others will hold to inerrancy on the one hand and attack the biblical teachings with the other. The Gospel of free-grace is hated by those who deny Scripture and those who hold to inerrancy with tenacity.
In the modern day lip-service is given to inerrancy while the teachings of the Bible are denied. There are those who claim to believe in the depravity of human souls and the bondage of the will but they will not take a stand on these issues as vital to the Gospel. They join hands with those who are best practical Pelagians and decry those who truly hold to the bondage of the will as hyper-Calvinists. The Gospel is at best weakened and watered down when this happens, but one could speculate that political expediency in denominations is considered more important than the doctrine of the will. However, to Luther and Tyndale (and perhaps Wycliffe) the doctrine of the will was vital to the Gospel. It was Rome who persecuted them and charged them with heresy because they denied the freedom of the human will, yet today people have rejected the heart of the Reformation by rejecting (at least in practice) the bondage of the will.
We need to seek the Lord to raise up men who are fear God and not men. We need to seek the Lord to rise up men who are not in love with the honor, positions, and finances that are found in many denominations. We need men like Wycliffe, Tyndale, and Luther who will declare the bondage of the human will so that they can preach a real Gospel of grace alone through faith alone. Until the Lord gives men in our day real convictions that they are going to live and die by regardless of the wind blowing in the denominations and regardless of the finances and honor given by the denominations, we will not hear the Gospel in our day. In order for our day to see a true repentance and a true revival, the true Gospel must be preached. Until men reach the point of caring for nothing but the glory of God they will not preach the bondage of the will with power which is what must happen for the Gospel to be truly taught. Instead people want unity rather than truth. They want words instead of power. They want honor and friends in high places instead of the power of God from on High. Wycliffe, Tyndale, and Luther loved their God and the Scriptures enough to translate the Scriptures into the common language upon the pains of death. But they also loved the Gospel enough to preach against ‘free-will’ and in doing so they were persecuted even more. After all, why translate the Scriptures if they were not willing to die for what the Scriptures taught? May God help us in our own day to wake up to the truth of the bondage of the will and its necessary connection to the Gospel. We can proclaim an inerrant Bible and even study it a lot, but if we miss the bondage of the will we miss the Gospel itself.
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