God Loves… Himself

That the protectors of ‘free-will’ deny Christ is proved, not by this Scripture only, but by their own lives. By this doctrine they have made Christ to be, no longer a sweet Mediator, but a dreadful Judge, whom they strive to placate by the intercessions of the Mother and the Saints, and by devising many works, rites, observances and vows, by which they aim to appease Christ so that He may give them grace. They do not believe that He intercedes before God and obtains grace for them by His blood, and ‘grace’ (as is here said) ‘for grace’. And as they believe, so it is unto them. Christ is in truth an inexorable judge to them, and deservedly so; for they abandon Him in His office as a Mediator and kindest Saviour, and account His blood and grace as of less worth than the efforts and endeavours ‘free-will’! (Luther, The Bondage of the Will)

This is a very, very important paragraph in Luther’s book that gets at one of the most important points in the battle of the Gospel of grace alone versus that of ‘free-will’ and its fight to obtain grace by its own work. Three statements in this paragraph go right to the jugular vein of ‘free-will’. 1) “By devising many works, rites, observances and vows, by which they aim to appease Christ so that He may give them grace.” 2) “They do not believe that He intercedes before God and obtains grace for them by His blood, and ‘grace’ (as is here said) ‘for grace.’” 3) “They abandon Him in His office as a Mediator and kindest Saviour, and account His blood and grace as of less worth than the efforts and endeavours ‘free-will’!” The heart of the statements give us the following points: 1) They aim to do something so Christ will give them grace. 2) They do not look to Christ alone to obtain grace by His blood and grace. 3) They count the blood and grace of Christ as of less worth than the efforts and work of ‘free-will’.

The previous paragraph should be seen as exposing ‘free-will’ for what it really is and what it really tries to do in terms of obtaining salvation before God. Most likely those who defend ‘free-will’ will not defend the statements above, yet that is precisely what ‘free-will’ has to do in order for men to be saved through the will. 1) The ‘free-will’ must be exercised, according to those who advocate it, to be saved because God will not force a person to be saved but rather leaves the choice up to them. Therefore, the ‘free-will’ does aim to do something in order to receive grace. 2) The ‘free-will’ looks to itself to obtain grace by its own free action and as such does not look to Christ alone to obtain grace. Therefore, the ‘free-will’ does not look to Christ alone and His blood and grace to obtain grace, but instead to itself and its own action to obtain grace. 3) The ‘free-will’ does not believe that the blood and grace of Christ has enough value to obtain grace without the effort of the ‘free-will’ doing what it can. Therefore, at the point of obtaining faith which grace comes through in order to believe in ‘free-will’ one has to count the blood and grace of Christ as of less worth than the efforts and work of ‘free-will’.

This is truly ‘free-will’ unmasked and set out for what it is. “Free-will’ is nothing less than an idol and a false idol and yet it is thought to be crazy in our world today to deny it a legitimate place at the bar of the Gospel of grace alone. If we think of an idol as that which we supremely trust in, rely on, and love at some point rather than God; then it is glaringly obvious that the ‘free-will’ is an idol for all believe that it must be exercised to obtain salvation. How can one value grace and yet value that which cheapens grace at best and in reality denies grace alone which is true grace? How can one truly believe in grace alone and love grace alone while holding to that which denies grace alone in reality? How can this be possible? It is quite unclear how lovers of grace alone can defend those whose position logically requires them to defend the three statements above, which is clearly a strong denial of grace alone. Perhaps there are many adherents of grace alone who adhere to the words and not to the true position.

What saves the soul apart from Christ, His death and blood, His righteousness, His resurrection, and His continuing offices? While Luther did not mention the Holy Spirit in the paragraph above, yet part of the work of Christ was to obtain the Holy Spirit who would apply the works of Christ to the soul. So the Father chose by grace, The Son purchased the grace, and the Holy Spirit applies the grace to the soul. The Holy Spirit either applies grace to the soul on the basis of the Father’s choice or the soul’s ‘free-will’ choice. The Spirit either applies grace to the soul on the basis of the blood of Christ and purchased grace or according to the ‘free-will’ and its efforts. The Spirit either applies grace to the soul freely by grace or by something the ‘free-will’ does to obtain it. Once again, it can be seen that ‘free-will’ overthrows the work of the Trinity in the Gospel in saving sinners to the glory of God and changes the Gospel to one that is man doing a critical and necessary work for himself. It simply cannot be.
Man must give up all hope in himself and his own will in order to be saved, though indeed that in and of itself must not be viewed as a work to obtain salvation. This is more than something that man must know about, but it is simply what true repentance is. It is man being turned from any and all hope in self to obtain any aspect of grace based on himself or any work that he can do. This is necessary to have a grace that is truly grace rather than one work that enters in to make it grace that is no longer grace (Rom 11:6).

This entry was posted on February 5, 2012 at 6:48 am and is filed under The Gospel and the Enslaved Will. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.