In short, Paul sets ‘him that worketh’ and ‘him that worketh not’ side by side and leaves none in the middle between them. He declares that righteousness is not reckoned to him that worketh, but is reckoned to him that worketh not, if only he believes. There is no way by which ‘free-will,’ with its effort and endeavour, can dodge or escape; it must either be numbered with ‘him that worketh’ or with ‘him that worketh not.’ If with ‘him that worketh’, you have heard Paul say that righteousness is not reckoned to it, If with ‘him that worketh not, but believeth’ on God, righteousness is reckoned to it. But then it will not be the power of ‘free-will’, but a new creation by faith, and if righteousness is not reckoned to ‘him that worketh’, it becomes clear that his works are nothing but sins, evil and ungodly in God’s sight. (Luther, Bondage of the Will)
One thing that this text sets out with a great deal of clarity is that righteousness is not reckoned to the one that works, but instead to the one that does not work. This statement, though directly from Romans 4, was a direct, frontal attack on Roman Catholicism in Luther’s day and on any teaching of any time which has the works of human beings contribute in any sense of way to justification. This shows once again how important the doctrine of the enslaved will is in any doctrine of justification. If the will is enslaved, it leaves sinners no way which it can dodge or escape at any point. It throws the sinner upon the mercy and grace of God with nothing in itself to trust in or look to. If the will is not enslaved, but instead has one little island of freedom left to its choice in the realm of salvation, then it can look to itself to do something in the realm of justification instead of resting in grace alone to do all that is needed. That one little something that is left to that one little island of freedom is a work of the flesh.
When Scripture sets out that sinners have righteousness reckoned or imputed to those that do not work but instead to the ungodly, something must be said to bow in humble brokenness or to try to fix a way to get around this text. If the only way of salvation is to have righteousness reckoned or imputed, then the will is not free to do anything of its own to obtain this righteousness and salvation is by grace and grace alone. A will that is free to obtain righteousness, even if on the basis of only one choice, is a completely different conception and way of obtaining righteousness than that of having no way but receiving it by the grace of God. In the modern day this seems overly precise and very harsh, but the Gospel of grace alone and the Gospel of the glory of God alone will not share glory with the wills of human beings.
Righteousness is only obtained by those who do not work (Rom 4:5). To repeat, using different words, righteousness is only given to those who do not work for it and look for it from grace alone. The difference between a true view of the enslaved will and those who leave that one little island of the will that is free enough to make one choice is enormous. It is the difference between working and not working. If the will is free enough to make one choice in order to obtain righteousness, then that will is still free enough to continue working for righteousness. This cannot be in the realm where the glory of God’s grace reigns. It is an overthrow of the biblical teaching of the Gospel. That one little act of the will that is free enough to make a choice means that righteousness is obtained by those who do one work and so Romans 4:5 is overthrown because it says that righteousness is only obtained by those who do not work.
Not only does the text say that “to the one that does not work…his faith is credited as righteousness,” but it says that it “believes in Him who justifies the ungodly.” So a true faith that because of its union with Christ is credited as righteousness is a faith that does not work and believes in Him who justifies the ungodly. The text limits the crediting of righteousness to those who do not work for righteousness and to those who believe in Him who justifies the ungodly. This is a complete overthrow of the one act of the ‘free-will’ to be saved theory. The ‘free-will’ cannot stop working as its very trust in itself is a work. The ‘free-will’ is not consistent with being ungodly in a total sense because it cannot admit that its free-choice is ungodly because if it is free enough to make a righteous choice it is not ungodly. It is also the case that the ‘free-will” looks to itself to obtain righteousness rather than to grace to actually give it by grace alone. The nature of true faith, then, is that it does not have one work to do and so it stops working for righteousness and it looks to God who justifies the ungodly. The nature of true faith is that it looks to God to do all the work in the soul and as such it does not look to itself. So the teaching of ‘free-will’ and the teaching of the enslaved will actually have a different view of the Gospel thought they may use a lot of the same language. We need to wake up and realize that the spirit of Erasmus has many followers while Luther has few. While it is not such a major thing that people follow one man over another, it is the Gospel that Luther fought Erasmus over that is so vital. Luther thought that the teaching of ‘free-will’ was another gospel. Today, that is hardly even a blip on the screen. If Luther was correct about what Paul taught, our day is in deep darkness.
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