Free will, after the fall, exists in name only, and as long as it does what it is able to do it commits mortal sin (Thesis 13 of the Heidelberg Disputation)
Once again the opening salvo is a categorical rejection of what the theologian of glory must maintain if there is to be room “to do our best.” There must be some free will, no matter how miniscule. But the very claim is itself evidence of bondage over against the electing God. The fallen will cannot accept such a God. That is its bondage. The theologian of the cross, however, sees that that is exactly the problem, and therefore recognizes and confesses that, since the fall, free will does not exist in reality. It is an empty name. Perhaps it once existed, but no longer. Since this is the case, furthermore, when the fallen will sets out “to do its best,” it commits deadly sin. This proposition is, of course, a mighty offense. We would normally admit that in doing our best we fall short of the goals we try to reach. But to say that even in trying we commit deadly or mortal sin seems outrageous. This thesis was perhaps the most offensive of all to the papal party in Luther’s day. That is indicated by the fact that it was the only one from this Disputation actually attacked in the bull “Exsurge Domine” threatening Luther with excommunication. Luther’s reply to the bull indicates how important he considered this thesis to be. He said it was “the highest and most important issue of our cause.” (Gerhard Forde, On Being A Theologian of the Cross, comments on Thesis 13)
The will that is free of grace and the influence of God’s grace is completely powerless to do what is morally good in the sight of God. Not only that, but the will that is free of grace has no other option but to be in bondage to sin and so everything that the soul does that does not have grace is sin. Even the best of the works of those who are free of grace are sin. Even the most religious actions of those who are free of grace are sin. This line of thinking, which Luther found in Scripture and Augustine, brought the wrath of Rome upon him. In our day it will also bring the wrath of all those who are religious and trust in a ‘free-will’ rather than grace alone.
When Jesus taught the sovereignty of grace, though not in those words, people became angry. When Paul taught that God was sovereign in giving grace, people became angry. Today, there are very few around who still teach a clear form of grace alone and oppose ‘free-will.’ It still makes people angry from staunch Pelagians to those who consider themselves quite Reformed. It is not a comfortable and easy thing to be taught that all you do and all that you are capable of doing is sin. All that you do in your good works and even if you become the most religious person in the world all you are doing is vile and reprehensible in the sight of God. A person can become Pope or the head of a denomination and be considered quite holy in the eyes of men, but if that person trusts in his or her own will rather than grace alone all that person does is filthy rags in the eyes of God.
What did Paul brag about? Did he brag about his own works and his own religiosity? No, instead he saw those things as detestable and to be repented of. He despised all the things of his very zeal in religion and wanted Christ and Christ alone. He saw himself as the chief of sinners rather than a holy man. He said that men should boast of nothing but the cross of Christ. He said that men should only boast of what God had done through them. No, Paul was no friend of ‘free-will’ which is to say he opposed all that came from sinners themselves and did not come from the grace of God. Paul saw that sinners were by nature children of wrath as such were dead in sins and trespasses. Paul saw that anything that came from people whose very nature was of wrath and were dead in sins and trespasses would be nothing but sin. They could not just choose to have God show grace on them and they could not just choose to be saved. Grace must raise them from the dead and grace must bring life into their souls so that they would be able to come to Christ by grace alone.
Luther, then, was right on track with Jesus and Paul when he saw this as “the highest and most important issue of our cause.” If it is a person’s ‘free-will’ that brings that person to Christ, then grace is no longer the sovereign choice of God. If it is a person’s ‘free-will’ that brings that person to Christ, then it is not grace that brings the person to Christ. We cannot have it both ways. This is why this was so vital to Luther as he looked at Scripture. All things spiritual and good come from grace alone or they do not. If something does not come from grace alone, then how can that please God and where does it come from? Oh how wicked it is for men to assert that some act of man apart from grace alone can please God and even cause a person to be saved. We must not only strongly reject and refuse to teach that great error, but part of rejecting it means that we must also oppose it as a false gospel.
God Loves... Himself 
December 29, 2011 at 10:54 am |
This opposition is so needed on so many fronts isn’t it? Men who deem themselves reformed and consider their systems to be inclusive of the Grace of God, refuse to tell their hearers that it is God who must save them from teh power of sin and not themselves. So many today declare that Repentance is a requirement for salvation to occur rather than an evidence of it. We must instruct men to fear their hearts and detest their best efforts at morality and look to Christ for his Spirit and his life apart from anything that would make them worthy. So many today think that their theology and their human refraining from sin is the basis for God to save them when they die, and therefore they do not excercise saving fearful faith for Christ to put life in them now. That is actually so prevelant it is normative in what most think are calvinistic circles. For the past year I have tried to find a pastor who instructs sinners of this. I am sad to say, I have found none thus far in 4 different states in 2011. This slumber continues and an awakening is needed. May God bless our nations with the truth and awakening deceived unregenerate sensible sinners of
eformed theology from their deception.
December 30, 2011 at 3:48 pm |
You hit at a vital nerve of the modern turning from biblical Christianity and grace. Instead of teaching men to fear their own hearts and detest their own best efforts at morality, our teaching of them is in ways that will not offend them but actually please them. We want them to be moral, so we try to talk them into being moral and motivate them to be moral be the motives of self. In doing so even Reformed people are caught up in teaching people in one sense to refrain from sin so that God will do something for them. Instead of looking to Christ alone for grace, they look to themselves for a choice or a way to refrain from sin. Sinners are saved by grace alone and yet they are also sanctified by grace alone. To use different words, people are declared just by what God does in uniting them to Christ and are sanctified by the life of Christ in them who lives in them by His Spirit. The only true holiness is a holiness that is originated and moved in the soul by grace.