For if we are justified without works, all works are condemned, whether small or great; Paul exempts none, but thunders impartially against all. (Luther, Bondage of the Will)
Luther, in his statements like the one above, was himself thundering against all works and any one work for salvation. His work, from which the above quote came from, was a defense of the biblical teaching on The Bondage of the Will. He wrote that work to defend the doctrine of justification by faith apart from works which was necessary in order to maintain the doctrine of salvation by grace alone. In other words, the teaching of the bondage of the will was and is the connection between two main teachings He was absolutely sure of. Those two teachings He thought were the main springs of Christianity. One, that man was totally and utterly helpless in sin. Two, it was a verity that grace alone could save and that grace was a sovereign grace. The teaching that man has a ‘free-will’ denies both of those teachings and as such is an attack on the Gospel of grace alone. Luther wrote his book in a defense of the Gospel itself. Since Luther saw that the doctrine of the bondage of the will was necessary to maintain the Gospel because it is the point where the depravity of man and the grace of God connect. The Gospel of grace apart from works is not a teaching that falls in some vacuum, but instead it is all about the character of God and the nature of human beings. Paul and Luther thundered against all works and any one work for salvation because any work or all works undermined the truth of the Gospel of grace alone.
Romans 3:24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
Gal 5:2 Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you 3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. 4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Titus 3:7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
In the verses above it is quite clear that sinners are justified by grace and grace alone. There is no work possible when something is by grace alone. If a person seeks to be justified by works of the law or a work of the law, that person has fallen from grace in the sense that the person is not seeking justification on the basis of grace alone. Remember, Paul started off the book of Galatians stating that if an angel or anyone else preached a different gospel, that person was to be eternally cursed (Gal 1:6-8). The Judaizers believed that one could not be saved apart from being circumcised. So it is this one work that Paul is primarily going after in the book of Galatians.
It is quite clear from Galatians 5:2-4 that this one work of circumcision did not mean that it was grace plus one little thing, but Paul said that those who did that one little thing had fallen from grace as a way of salvation but that they were also under obligation to keep the whole Law. This is a powerful and even stunning point made by Paul. There are two ways of salvation. One is totally, wholly, and only by grace alone and the second is totally, wholly and only by works alone. There can be no mixing of the two at all. To seek justification by grace alone means that the soul must leave all works behind and look to grace alone. To seek justification by works alone means to leave grace behind and seek it by works alone. It is one or the other, it cannot be by both. If the soul wanted to rest or trust in one work, then the soul was obligated to the system of works for salvation. The soul could not try to add one work to grace because that would mean it was no longer by grace alone and that one work meant that the soul had only one way of salvation left to it and that was by works.
Indeed Luther and those who believe that he was accurate on what he wrote on the Gospel may sound crazy and very narrow. But are they narrower than the Bible itself? No, Scripture sets out two ways of salvation and two only. One is by grace alone where Christ has earned salvation as a whole and gives it by grace alone. The second is by the works of each individual person. To have grace alone a person must give up all works in every sense for justification. Adding one work to grace means that the person has fallen from grace alone and is now obligated to works as a system for salvation. That is why Paul and then Luther so thundered on these subjects. That is why Luther was so opposed to the teaching of ‘free-will.” That one little act of the so-called ‘free-will’ moved a person from trusting in grace alone to a system of obligation to works apart from grace. It is that important and it is that vital. A person that allows for a theology that asserts ‘free-will’ to be considered as the Gospel is not standing for the Gospel of grace alone. It would be to be thought of as gracious while it attacks the truth of grace itself.
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