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)
To the Reformers, the crucial question was not simply, whether God justifies believers without works of law. It was the broader question, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether God is to be thought of as saving them by free, unconditional, invincible grace, not only justifying them for Christ’s sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith. Here was the crucial issue; whether God is the author, not merely of justification, but also of faith; whether, in the last analysis, Christianity is a religion of utter reliance on God for salvation and all things necessary to it, or of self-reliance and self-effort. (“Historical and Theological Introduction” to Bondage of the Will)
In the previous BLOG (The Gospel and Enslaved Will 137) the crucial question from the paragraph just above was looked at. The Reformers, then, thought the crucial question went beyond whether God justifies believers without works of the law. They thought that it was crucial to set out that sinners were wholly helpless in their sin and that God saved them by a free and unconditional grace. Even more, they said that it was a crucial part that God raises sinners from the death of sin to bring sinners to faith. Does God justify sinners without works of law? Many in the theological world today would give a resounding yes, but they will not go as far as the Reformers did in what that meant to the Reformers. To the Reformers for or a sinner to be truly justified without works of law meant that the sinner had to be wholly helpless in sin and that God raised the sinner from spiritual death in order to bring the sinner to faith. Does God justify sinners without works of law? If we mean by that what the Reformers meant, then the theological world responds with a resounding silence. But if we cannot agree with what the Reformers meant by God justifying sinners without works of law, then we do not preach the same Gospel that they did.
We can see the issue at stake by what was and is the crucial issue. That is whether God is not only the author of justification but of faith as well. To put it in different words, the crucial issue is whether “Christianity is a religion of utter reliance on God for salvation and all things necessary to it, or of self-reliance and self-effort” in all or part of it. If God has provided all things necessary for salvation but faith itself, then man is reliant on self and the efforts of self for faith. That means that man does not rely on God for all things and is not wholly helpless in sin. The issue, then, is not just over the words of whether justification is by faith alone, but indeed it goes to the depths of man’s helplessness and the depths of the grace of God in giving faith.
Is this really a crucial issue to the Gospel? If it is crucial to the Gospel as preached by the Reformers, were they wrong about the Gospel or is our modern day wrong? When it is taught that it does not matter where faith comes from or if a person knows whether that is important or not in our day, that runs counter to the Gospel as taught by the Reformers. That is quite counter to what Luther teaches in The Bondage of the Will. Luther did not think that the utter helplessness of man was an unimportant part of teaching, but he thought that his book was at the very heart of the Reformation teaching. He told Erasmus “that you alone, in contrast with all others, have attacked the real thing, that is, the essential issue. You have not wearied me with those extraneous issues about the Papacy, purgatory, indulgences and such like—trifles, rather than issues—in respect of which almost all to date have sought my blood (though without success); you, and you alone, have seen the hinge on which all turns, and aimed for the vital spot.” The crucial issue to the Gospel has to do with the bondage of man’s will in sin and upon the utter helplessness of man in sin. This was far more crucial to Luther than the teaching on the Papacy, purgatory, and even indulgences. This was the crucial issue of the Gospel because it is necessary for the soul to be saved by a sovereign grace alone. To the degree, then, that these things are not taught in our day is the degree that the crucial issue to the Gospel is missed. This also shows how men can be orthodox in words and yet by leaving this out they are leaving out what is crucial to the Gospel and so they are more dangerous than those who openly teach salvation by works. It is not only wrong to withhold this teaching from souls; it is to be worse than the Pelagians who openly teach that it is wrong. Apart from this crucial issue the Gospel is nothing more than words and faith is nothing more than the work of the soul that is free from grace, and that is true even if the person professes to be Reformed. That is true even if the person teaches justification by faith alone. In fact, apart from teaching the utter helplessness of man and sinners coming to the realization of that about themselves, the orthodox teaching of justification by faith alone is not orthodox and is deceptive. The Gospel is hidden with orthodox words in our day.
God Loves... Himself 
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