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)
If God does not reckon righteousness to those who work for it, then we must be careful not to set up any doctrine that calls for a work even if it does not in words. If a doctrine came up in the church that required a work but did not call it that, it would be a false gospel that is hidden underneath orthodox language and as such would be even more dangerous to all those who hold to it. This has already happened and it started early in history, was clear in the Reformation, and has never stopped. In fact, it may be as strong in the professing Church as at any point in history. The doctrine of works has slipped into the professing Church in the guise of ‘free-will’ and goes virtually unchallenged. Even among the professing Reformed who hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith and others there is no real outcry against the doctrine of works that has been brought into the professing Church. In theory, anyway, it is considered to be a doctrinal error but it is not thought to be a direct assault on the Gospel of grace alone. So this teaching has slipped into the professing Church and is working away against the Gospel even by those who would deny it as true in their formal Confession.
A.W. Tozer has written of how our creeds can hide our true hearts from us. Our real creed which we hold deep in our heart can even be unknown to the way we think, but it is still there. So we can hide our real animosity toward the doctrine of grace alone in the heart by a doctrine of grace alone. We can hide our animosity toward the sovereignty of God in giving grace by a creed which affirms God’s sovereign grace. Even in those who deny ‘free-will’ in their creeds can still hold to it deep in their hearts and explain it away in theological language. In other words, the doctrine of ‘free-will’ is a teaching that can be rampant even in those with creedal statements against it. As Jeremiah 17:9-10 teaches us, our hearts are so deceptive that we cannot know what is in them. It is the LORD alone who knows what is in them and He alone can show that to us.
The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? 10 “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds” (Jer 17:9-10).
Romans 4, then, is not just teaching human beings what they must put in their creeds, but it is teaching them about the true nature of God and the true nature of man’s inability. Romans 4 is teaching man that need for the heart to reach the point of not trusting in self or its own choice but to stop working. Romans 4 is not saying that if we have a creed that teaches us to stop trusting in works that we will receive the gift of righteousness, but that if we really and truly have no trust in our works in the depths of our souls and really and truly look to God alone who gives a perfect righteousness to those who trust in Him alone then that person is declared just. But the person is not declared just because of anything that s/he believes as such, but instead it is totally based on what God has done in the soul of that person.
In an effort to be crystal clear, let this be said again. It is what grace does in the soul that matters rather than an intellectual belief alone. The efforts to get people in line with a creed is not unimportant in and of itself, but it is unimportant as compared with having the heart conformed to the work of grace in the soul. A person can believe that s/he must be born again to enter the kingdom, but it is not believing that truth that will work the grace of the new birth in the soul. A person must believe in the Gospel, but it is not just the intellectual belief of a few facts in a creed that saves. The creed describes what God does in the soul to save sinners, but it is not the intellectual belief of those things that saves. God must actually work those things in the soul before the soul is saved. So the soul must actually give up all hope in itself before it can have all hope in the grace of God. So the soul must actually stop working and must actually believe before it actually is granted the perfect righteousness of Christ.
To put it plainly, until a person actually has given up all hope in his or her own ability to contribute to salvation in any way, that person has not stopped working and as such cannot look to grace alone. God alone can work that in a soul and God works by grace alone. Not only must the soul give up all actual hope of contributing to salvation, that soul must actually look to grace and grace alone in truth. Regardless of the creed, a soul must actually be brought to no hope in self to be saved. The ‘free-will’ is never brought to that point and as such is a terrible danger to souls. A person looking to ‘freewill’ is not a person that has stopped working and is not a person that really believes that God justifies the truly ungodly.
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment