The guardians of ‘free-will’ have exemplified the saying: ‘out of the frying-pan, into the fire.’ In their zeal to disagree with the Pelagians they start denying condign merit, and by the very form of their denial they set it up more firmly! By word and pen they deny it, but really, in their hearts, they establish it, and are worse than the Pelagians upon two counts. In the first place, the Pelagians confess and assert condign merit straightforwardly, candidly and honestly, calling a spade a spade and teaching what they really hold. But our friends here, who hold and teach the same view, try to fool us with lying words and false appearances, giving out that they disagree with the Pelagians, when there is nothing that they are further from doing! ‘If you regard our pretences, we appear as the Pelagians’ bitterest foes; but if you regard the facts and our hearts, we are Pelagians double-dyed.’ (Luther, Bondage of the Will)
On other points, they [Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Bucer] had their differences; but in asserting the helplessness of man in sin, and the sovereignty of God in grace, they were entirely at one. To all of them, these doctrines were the very life-blood of the Christian faith. A modern editor of Luther’s great work underscores this fact: ‘Whoever puts this book down without having realized that evangelical theology stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will has read it in vain.’ (“Historical and Theological Introduction” to Bondage of the Will)
The very life-blood of Christianity flows through the veins of man’s entire helplessness in sin and the sovereignty of God in grace. As future quotes will show, to the Reformer’s “the doctrine of justification by faith was important to them because it safeguarded the principle of sovereign grace.” In other words, one can be very precise in the language of holding to something called justification by faith alone but if one denies sovereign grace one denies the whole reason for justification by faith alone. In other words, if the Church stands or falls on the doctrine of justification by faith alone, then it also stands or falls by what justification by faith alone was meant to preserve.
The doctrine of the Gospel of grace alone is at stake in these issues and yet those who are supposed to stand firm on these great truths say they personally believe them but that one does not have to believe them to be saved. That is tantamount to saying that one does not have to believe the Gospel to be saved. But if the Reformer’s thought that sovereign grace was preserved by justification by faith alone, yet modern people think that people can believe in justification by faith alone without believing in sovereign grace, then perhaps we don’t believe in the same Gospel as the Reformers did. Perhaps the professing Reformed in our modern day are holding to a form of the Gospel and yet don’t have it.
If indeed “evangelical theology stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will,” then how many people really hold to evangelical theology today? Apart from the bondage of the will there is no helplessness of man in sin and there is no real sovereignty of grace. Perhaps we should use plainer language than the quote did. Biblical Christianity stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will. This is very strong language, but that does not mean that it is not true. It does not sound gracious, but it is the only teaching that is consistent with the Gospel of grace alone. The Pelagian has much to do to be saved, which does not allow for a sovereign grace to save by grace alone. The Arminian has one work of the ‘free-will’ to do, at least in theory, which leaves salvation in the hands and choice of the human rather than in the hands of sovereign grace. So Arminianism denies both elements of the life-blood of Christianity. It denies the helplessness of man in sin and it denies the sovereignty of grace.
Where should that leave those who claim to follow the Reformers? It leaves them completely out of step with the Reformers and it leaves them being against the Reformers. “With what right may we call ourselves children of the Reformation? Much modern Protestantism would be neither owned nor even recognized by the pioneer Reformers.” We could go on even farther and say that not only would much of modern Reformed thinking not be owned nor recognized by the pioneer Reformers, but would be fought against too. Luther would recognize much of what is going on how as something he fought against in his time. He would would have something to say to those who profess to be Reformed and yet are in alliance as brothers to those who deny the helplessness of man in sin and the sovereignty of grace. He would say, as he did centuries ago, “By word and pen they deny it, but really, in their hearts, they establish it, and are worse than the Pelagians.” We need to take that to heart today and in all periods of time until Christ returns.
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