And what will the guardians of ‘free-will’ say to what follows: ‘being justified freely by His grace’? What does ‘freely’ mean? What does ‘be His grace’ mean? How will endeavour, and merit, accord with freely given righteousness? Perhaps they will here say that they assign to ‘free-will’ as little as possible, not by any means condign merit. But there are empty words; for what is being sought by means of ‘free-will’ is that merit may have its place…There is no such thing as merit at all, but all that are justified are justified freely, and this is ascribed to nothing but the grace of God. And when righteousness is given, then the kingdom and eternal life are given with it. Where is your endeavour now? And your effort? And your good works? And the merits of ‘free-will’? What use are they? (Luther, Bondage of the Will)
The above statement gets at the real issue. It is whether salvation is by grace plus just a little bit of a will that is free from sin and grace or the view that salvation is by grace and grace alone from beginning to end. If there is nothing that a will can do to assist in justification, in obtaining the righteousness of God, or even in doing the smallest good work, then what good is it to continue to hold to the teaching of ‘free-will’ at any point in the matter? The will is absolutely and totally unable to obtain anything good or pleasing to God by itself. The Gospel is to the glory of His grace alone. Why do people continue to assert a salvation that depends on ‘free-will’ and why do those who think of themselves as Reformed continue to think of the Arminian view as essentially the same message? The two views are not even close to each other.
People want to adhere to some form of ‘free-will’ in order to have some control over their own salvation. It is nothing more than pride and self-reliance and a refusal to bow to the sovereign hand of God. The assertion of a will that is free, even if it is just a little bit free, from the bondage of sin and from the grace of God (have to assert both to obtain a will that is free) is to assert both sides of a view that is against the plain teaching of Scripture. The Word of God declares that man is in bondage to sin (John 8:34), dead in sins and trespasses (Eph 2:1-3), and that apart from Christ no one can do anything spiritual (John 15:5). This leaves man in a totally helpless state and one that is utter need of grace alone to do it all rather than for grace to do most of the work.
The ‘free-will’ of man is of no use at all in terms of salvation because the will of a person that is dead in sins is not free. The ‘free-will’ of man is of no use because the will of a person under the total dominion of the evil one and of the powers of darkness (Col 1:13) is of no use in terms of obtaining salvation. The ‘free-will’ of man is of no use because the will that is free from Christ can do nothing spiritual or good. So what do we have left? The ‘free-will’ of man is of utterly no benefit, but even more, the ‘free-will’ of man is nothing but the figment of the imagination of man and is exactly what the devil wants man to believe. As long as the sinner does not look to grace but instead to his own will for the slightest help, that sinner is not looking to grace alone and assuredly does not understand the very nature of true grace. The ‘free-will’ of man, therefore, is not only of no use whatsoever, but is actually a great hindrance to the things of salvation and sanctification.
Those who preach to a will that is said to be free cannot preach a Gospel of grace alone. Those who preach to the will that is said to be free are deceiving souls as to the very nature of what it takes to be saved. Souls must be delivered from all hope in self rather than keeping some hope in self and the will of self. Those who say that an Arminian gospel is the same as the Reformed Gospel are simply and deceptively wrong. John Owen wrote about that and has never been answered when he wrote that the Arminian idol was the ‘free-will.’ In other words, the Arminian trusts in his ‘free-will’ at some point rather than trust in grace alone. The Arminian looks to his ‘free-will’ rather than looking to grace alone. The Arminian preaches and teaches people to look to their own ‘free-will’ rather than teach them to look to Christ alone and grace alone. The conclusion is really quite clear. Not only is a ‘free-will’ useless for anything good at all, the teaching of it is teaching a different gospel. That which the soul looks to and depends on for something in salvation rather than grace alone is an idol. Oh how our nation has been given over to a different gospel and what a spiritual famine we are in. When God gives a people over to themselves and their ‘free-will,’ He has given them over to a terrible deception as punishment for sin. How we must flee from our ‘free-wills’ in order to flee to God in total dependence.
God Loves... Himself 
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