And I wish the guardians of ‘free-will’ would be taught by this passage [John 1:5, 10-13, 16] to recognize that when they assert ‘free-will’ they are denying Christ. For if I obtain the grace of God by my own endeavour, what need have I of the grace of Christ for the receiving of my grace? When I have the grace of God, what do I need besides? The Diatribe said, and all the Sophists say, that we obtain the grace of God by our own endeavour, and are thereby made ready to receive it, not, indeed, as of condignity, but as congruity. This is plainly to deny Christ. It is for His grace, the Baptist says, that we receive grace…Thus it is that the ungodly Sophists, together with the Diatribe, deny the Lord Christ, who bought us, more than ever the Pelagians or any heretics ever did! So utterly does grace refuse to allow any particle or power of ‘free-will’ to stand beside it! (Luther, The Bondage of the Will)
Luther makes the shocking claim that those who assert ‘free-will’ actually deny Christ. This is a bomb in the laps of those who hold to ‘free-will’ in our day as well, but it is also a bomb in the laps of many Reformed people today who say that while the Reformed truths are true the distinctions are not vital to Christianity. Yet Paul said that to add work to grace makes grace no longer to be grace (Rom 11:6). Paul did not specify or distinguish where it was okay to add grace and not okay to add grace, but at the least the implication is that if one adds to grace at any point it makes grace no longer to be grace. In John 1:16 we see that it is grace for grace.
If the sinner does obtain grace by his or her own endeavor, then what does that do to the biblical teaching of grace alone? It destroys it. It is easy for people to see that Roman Catholics do a lot in order to receive grace, but it is not so easy for them to see that ‘free-will’ teaches that it is necessary for the soul to do at least one work if not many in order to obtain grace. If the will is free, it is free of grace and so it is not grace that moves the will but rather it is the natural man that moves the will of his or her own flesh. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6). This should be driven home to every soul. If the soul of any human being who was born of the flesh is born again according to an act of that same flesh flesh, then that soul is not born of the Spirit but of the flesh. It is a soul obtaining grace by an act of the flesh. This is not biblical teaching.
Luther points out that if we have the ability to obtain grace of ourselves then we have no need of the grace of Christ in order to receive grace. If the soul is able to obtain grace by itself, then why does it need a continuing Mediator? It is not as if the ‘free-will’ stops working for grace as soon as it has obtained it the first time, but instead it is taught that grace is continually obtained by an act of the ‘free-will.’ We are always at the point of how grace is obtained by the soul. The soul either obtains it by an act that is free of grace and of depravity when it obtains saving grace or it is grace alone that gives the soul grace. The saved soul is to live by grace and so must receive grace in accord with how it first received grace. The soul that received grace by an act of the ‘free-will’ is bound to constantly receive grace by an act of the ‘free-will’ and as such it boils down to a system of grace received by works. But the biblical teaching is that the soul receives grace by grace and so the soul is always completely and utterly dependent on Christ alone for grace alone.
It can surely be easily and clearly seen that a system that starts off with an act of the ‘free-will’ is one that must continue based on acts of the ‘free-will’ as well. Roman Catholicism set up a whole system that made grace obtainable by acts of the ‘free-will’ though that is not what they would say about it. But boiled down their system makes grace available to the person who will do certain things. While there is a difference with ‘free-will’ Protestants, still the issue is that men and women are said to obtain grace by what they do. We have what some call “means of grace,” and that is not totally off base, but using the means of grace is not dependent on the ‘free-will’ but rather the grace of God. Indeed sinners are to use the means of grace, but in no way does that obligate God to give grace as any obligation on God’s part makes it something less than grace.
Luther puts it this way: “So utterly does grace refuse to allow any particle or power of ‘free-will’ to stand beside it!” This is very correct. The biblical doctrine of grace alone refuses any help from anything of anybody and that includes the slightest particle or power of the ‘free-will.’ Grace to be grace must be free of merit, ability, or sufficiency of the human soul at any point and of any kind. Grace must never be watered down as if it depends on the ‘free-will’ of a human being to act in order to receive it. That is simply to make grace to no longer be grace as it makes grace dependent on the fleshly act of the human soul.
God Loves... Himself 
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