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… The doctrine of free justification by faith only, which became the storm-center of so much controversy during the Reformation period, is often regarded as the heart of the Reformer’s theology, but this is hardly accurate. The truth is that their thinking was really centered upon the contention of Paul, echoed with varying degrees of adequacy by Augustine, and Gottschalk, and Bradwardine, and Wycliffe, that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only. The doctrine of justification by faith was important to them because it safeguarded the principle of sovereign grace;’ (“Historical and Theological Introduction” to Bondage of the Will)
These words should act as bombshells in the minds and souls of those who read them. If those words are true, then much of professing Christianity is nothing more than a form of false religion going under the guise of what is true. If those words are true, then much of what passes as Reformed in our day is also false religion going under the guise of orthodoxy and even operating by Reformed Confessions. Paul was so clear in Galatians 1:6-9 that there is only one Gospel. He is also just as clear that there are those (perhaps many) who want to distort the gospel of Christ. When people leave grace alone in truth and not just in grace alone in words, they are deserting Him for a different gospel.
In this post a little more of the quote (see above) is given. Why is it that the doctrines of man’s entire helplessness in sin and the sovereignty of God in grace the very life-blood of Christianity? It is because of how those things are related to Christ and the Gospel of grace alone. Why is it that Evangelical theology stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will? It is because of its inextricable link to the sovereignty of grace and justification by faith alone. What has come down to our modern day is that justification by faith alone is the Gospel, but that is not the whole story. One can read modern books on justification and not realize some of the real issues of the Reformation (as they wrestled with the biblical teaching) on the Gospel. The doctrine of faith alone is only important or even saving to the degree that it protects and sets out justification by grace alone. However, it is not just by any type of grace, but of a free and sovereign grace. In other words, if we don’t teach and preach a Gospel that is inextricably linked to a free and sovereign grace, we are not teaching the Gospel of the Reformation or of Scripture. If we don’t teach and preach a Gospel that is inextricably linked to the bondage of man’s will, then there is no real preaching of the Gospel of grace alone.
Romans 4:16 teaches us why it is by faith: “For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace.” Justification is by faith so that it may be in accordance with grace. Romans 11:6 teaches us what it must be grace and grace alone: “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.” A grace that mixes in a human work in reality, though it may not in words, makes grace to be no longer grace. Grace alone is the only kind of grace that will save the soul. A true faith, then, must be delivered from all hope and faith in self and its own will in order to rest and trust in grace alone. Those who use the language of the Reformation to hide and disguise the truth of grace alone, even though they use the lingo, are worse than those who clearly teach a so-called gospel by works.
I am not sure that it can be stated with enough force in a written medium. The Gospel itself cannot be proclaimed in truth apart from teaching man’s utter helplessness in sin and the sovereign grace that alone can save man from sin. It is not the doctrines alone that must be taught, but the reality of these great truths. It is not just the doctrines that man must give intellectual assent to, but it is the reality of the work of God in the human soul by grace alone. Grace is not just a biblical word that we must know some definition of, but it is a spiritual reality and is of the character of God. It is why and how God works in the souls of human beings. There is no Gospel of faith alone that is apart from a Gospel of grace alone, yet there is no Gospel of grace alone apart from the God who operates by grace alone. The Gospel of grace alone encompasses the activity and character of God who will only save to the glory of His grace alone. That is why it must be by grace alone so that it may be to His glory alone. Those who obscure this great truth are in fact obscuring the glory of God. It matters not what a man professes to be and how orthodox a man is on paper or intellectual assent, if a man is set on obscuring the glory of God that man is in great danger. If a man is obscuring the Gospel of grace alone through a professed orthodoxy and the glory of God in that, then that man is at enmity with God and is worse than those who openly profess heresy.
God Loves... Himself 
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