God Loves… Himself

‘By the law is the knowledge of sin,’ says Paul (Rom. 3:20). Here he shows how much and how far the law profits, teaching that ‘free-will’ is of itself so blind that it does not even know what sin is, but needs the law to teach it! And what can a man essay to do in order to take away sin, when he does not know what sin is? Surely this; mistake what is sin for what is not sin, and what is not sin for what is sin! Experience informs us clearly enough how the world, in the person of those whom it accounts its best and most zealous devotees if righteousness and godliness, hates and hounds down the righteousness of God preached in the gospel, and brands it heresy, error, and other opprobrious names, while flaunting and hawking its own works and devices (which are really sin and error) as righteousness and wisdom. By these words, therefore, Paul stops the mouth of ‘free-will’, teaching that by the law it is shown sin, as being ignorant of its sin; so far is he from allowing it any power to make endeavors towards good (Luther, Bondage of the Will).

The will of man is so blind that it does not know what sin is. Can the will of fallen man know what it means to repent and believe in its fallen and blind state? The will cannot know that and indeed must have the teaching of Scripture to set it out and declare it. The will of man is dark and must have the light to shine and teach it about itself and what repentance and faith truly are (is?). If we are taught by Scripture what it means to be dead in sins and trespasses, then we will know that a dead person does not have a ‘free-will.’ If we are taught by the Spirit the inward truth of what it means to be dead in sins and trespasses, then we will know that we have no power in and of ourselves to change our own hearts so that we can repent and believe.

The power to repent and believe is assuredly beyond the power of sinful man. Human souls are completely and totally in the hand of God and He must give the soul the power of life to repent and believe. But does the soul that is in darkness know that? No, when the soul that is dead in sin hears the command to repent and believe, it just assumes the Pelagian doctrine that it must have the power to do so. In other words, the human soul is in such darkness that it does not know what true repentance and faith are. It does not know its own state in death and what it would take for it to repent and believe. What is the great danger of not instructing souls about this truth?

Jonathan Edwards tells us the danger by saying this: “If you imagine that you have it in your own power to work yourselves up to repentance, consider, that you must assuredly give up that imagination before you can have repentance wrought in you” (Seeking God, International Outreach). Luther instructs us that the soul does not even know what sin is until it is instructed by the law. This tells us that until a soul knows what sin really is and the depths of its own sin and inability, then it needs to hear more of the law. Not only hear more of the law, but hear more of the law teach it of its own inability. Until a soul has reached the point of knowing that it cannot work its own repentance, it has not reached the point of looking to grace alone to work this in it.

Ephesians 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

In the text above there is no hint of the ability of man, any light in man, or any ‘free-will’ in man. There is nothing but the mercy, love, grace, life, and power of God. In verses 1-3 of Ephesians 2 we see that man is dead in sins and trespasses and is under the power of the lusts of the mind and of the flesh. But starting in verse 4 it all becomes about God and what He does. God takes the dead sinners and makes them alive. It is not about the sinners ‘free-will,’ but instead it is about God’s rich mercy and great love. It is God who raises sinners from the dead and seats them with Christ. Again, we don’t see even a hint of the ability of man or of the ‘free-will’ of man. It is God that does this in order to show the riches of His grace, and yet not a word of the worth or ability of man. Is it because man works up faith so that God will do this? No, this faith itself is a gift of God. Salvation is by grace alone and not one shred of it (even the smallest of shreds) is by the will or merit of man. The Gospel is that of a God who makes sinners alive by grace, and so we must teach sinners not to trust in their own wills. It is grace alone.

‘By the law is the knowledge of sin,’ says Paul (Rom. 3:20). Here he shows how much and how far the law profits, teaching that ‘free-will’ is of itself so blind that it does not even know what sin is, but needs to law to teach it! And what can a man essay to do in order to take away sin, when he does not know what sin is? Surely this; mistake what is sin for what is not sin, and what is not sin for what is sin! Experience informs us clearly enough how the world, in the person of those whom it accounts its best and most zealous devotees if righteousness and godliness, hates and hounds down the righteousness of God preached in the gospel, and brands it heresy, error, and other opprobrious names, while flaunting and hawking its own works and devices (which are really sin and error) as righteousness and wisdom. By these words, therefore, Paul stops the mouth of ‘free-will’, teaching that by the law it is shown sin, as being ignorant of its sin; so far is he from allowing it any power to make endeavors towards good (Luther, Bondage of the Will).

Luther drives a point home that is really another stake against those who adhere to ‘free-will’ and the gospel that depends on it. It should be pointed out that Luther drives this point home not only to those who adhere to ‘free-will’ but also those that do not fight against it. The doctrine or teaching of ‘free-will’ stands opposed to Paul and what he taught about the law, sin, and the Gospel. The will is not free from the law in its need to be taught what sin is. The will must be taught what is sin and so it is blind to the nature of sin. The will must also, then, listen to what the Bible teaches on the bondage of the will. If the will thinks it is free to keep the law or to make a choice in terms of salvation, then it must be free enough to make choices so that it can keep the law. How, then, can the will that must be taught by the law what sin really is, actually strive toward keeping the law in its own freedom?

The teaching of ‘free-will’ is simply opposed to what the Bible says about the extent of sin. It (’free-will’) wants to be free to determine what is good and evil (following the lie of the Serpent to Eve) and so it wants the freedom of ability to do what it thinks is good and evil. The will that thinks it is free, therefore, is deluded and deceived. The will that thinks it is free is blind to the true nature of sin and the bondage of that sin and is blind to the true glory of the grace of God. The will that thinks it is free is deceived at that point and those who will not try to instruct them are not trying to lead people out of the bondage of their sin and instruct them in the way of true grace.

Thomas Watson wrote to this point: “Examination of a man’s self is difficult because of self-love. As ignorance blinds, so self-love flatters. Every man is ready to think the best of himself. What Solomon says of love to our neighbor is most true of self-love; it hides a multitude of evil (Prov. 10:12). A man looking upon himself in Philautae speculo, in the mirror of self-love, shall think his virtues appear greater than they are and his sins lesser. Self-love makes one rather excuse what is amiss than examine it” (Heaven Taken by Storm). A soul that is dead in its sin of pride and self-love wants to delude itself regarding its own ability and power of the will. It thinks and feels that it is free, and so it will fight to the death to stand for its freedom. But Scripture tells us that the soul is not free to determine what sin is and is not free to obtain good at any point on its own. It is delusional to think it does.

Richard Baxter tells us that “A proud heart hath so little experimental sense of the great accusations which Scripture bringeth against the corrupted heart of man, that it is easily drawn into any heresy which denieth them: as about our original sin, and misery, and need of a Saviour; about the desperate wickedness of the heart, and man’s insufficiency and impotency to good, yea, averseness from it” (Baxter’s Practical Works, Vol 1). Why are so many people who claim to be Reformed so reticent to stand and preach the depravity of man as the Bible sets it out? Unless we preach the bondage of the will we cannot teach the sovereignty of grace. Unless we stand against the freedom of the will we cannot stand for the doctrines of grace in reality.

Jonathan Edwards put it this way: “If you imagine that you have it in your own power to work yourselves up to repentance, consider, that you must assuredly give up that imagination before you can have repentance wrought in you” (Seeking God, International Outreach). As long as a person thinks of self as having the power of a ‘free-will’ (choice and ability) to repent and believe; Edwards teaches us that the person cannot have true repentance and true faith worked in him or her. This is not just some metaphysical nicety, this is vital to the Gospel. If we are to instruct souls as to the nature of sin and of how to be truly delivered from that bondage, we must teach them in such a way as to drive them from all hope in themselves and that includes the teaching of ‘free-will.’ The Gospel of grace alone is at stake in this issue. But if true, the Gospel of grace alone is not being preached very much today.

‘By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight’ (Rom. 3:20)….Had he said, the Jewish people, or the Pharisees, or certain ungodly persons, he might have appeared to be leaving out some who by the power of ‘free-will,’ and by the help of the law, were not altogether unprofitable. But when he condemns the very works of the law, and makes them ungodly in God’s sight, it becomes clear that he is condemning all that were mighty in zeal for the works of the law. And none were zealous for the works of the law but the best and most excellent men, and that only with their best and most excellent faculties, that is, their reason and their will. If, then, those who exercised themselves in the works of the law with the highest zeal and endeavour of reason and will, that is, with all the power of ‘free-will,’ and had the help of the wlaw as a God-given aid, instructing and spurring them on—if they are condemned for ungodliness, as not being hereby justified, and are declared to be ‘flesh’ in God’s sight, what then is left in the entire human race which is not ‘flesh’ and ungodly? For all who are of the works of the law are condemned alike. It makes no difference whether they exercised themselves in the law with the highest zeal, or with lukewarm zeal, or with not at all. They all could perform only works of the law; and works of the law do not justify; and if they do not justify, they prove that those who work them to be ungodly and merit the wrath of God! These things are so clear that none can whisper a word against them (Luther, Bondage of the Will).

The Reformation was in one sense a battle over authority, the nature of God, the nature of man, and the Gospel. In the doctrine of the will all four of these teachings are involved. What authority will the soul listen to over how much power the human will has or does not have? Will the soul listen to Scripture or to its own pride that screams out that God does not rule over it? Will the soul listen to the character of God rather than its own pride? Will the soul listen to the Gospel of grace alone or instead listen to the voices of its pride and of fallen philosophy? How does the soul view itself and what Scripture says about it? What the heart of the Reformation was over is still the heart of the problem in churches today. It is constantly the battle with what authority, the nature of God, the nature of man, and the Gospel.

The four issues listed above can in one sense be boiled down to two. It has to do with the nature of God and the nature of man. It is the pride of man that fights against the authority of the Word of God. It is the pride of man that wants God to be less than sovereign. It is the pride of man that wants the nature of man to be less depraved. It is the pride of man that wants a Gospel that depends on some little something (at least) of what man can do. The proud heart hates the Gospel of grace alone because proud man cannot control that in the slightest. In Scripture and in life we can see the battle of the gods (the true God versus proud souls) all day and every day.

Even among those who profess to be Reformed in the modern day there is a great hesitancy to bow in submission to a truly sovereign God and admit that man can do nothing (good or spiritual) apart from Christ. While the confessions speak of the obligation of man, now we want to allow for human responsibility. If the word “responsibility” is used as a synonym for “obligation,” then there is no problem. But too often a Pelagian can use the word “responsibility” and Reformed people will agree. There is no room for human ability to fit along with grace in the Gospel and regardless of a person’s theological title (Reformed or…) no room for human ability should be allowed. When Scripture speaks of no flesh being justified in His sight by the works of the law (as in the Luther quote above), it is making an enormous statement. All the acts (even the very best) of human souls, that is, the best acts of the mind, affections, will, are worthless in terms of justification. In other words, the soul (including the will) has no power at all to keep the Law in a way that saves or partially saves.

The only thing that a soul can do that does not have the grace of God is keep the law. But keeping the law does not save fully or in part. The law has no power to save and the soul has no power to keep the law if Christ Himself is not the life of that soul. The will is not free to make the law a way to be saved or a partial way to be saved. The will is not free to keep the law in order to make it possible to do anything toward saving itself. The will is not free to be saved by grace alone and yet have a small or large part in that salvation. The will is not free to do one good thing or one partially good thing apart from grace in the soul. When Jesus said in John 15:5 that “apart from Me you can do nothing,” He meant it. The will is not free to do one good thing apart from the grace that flows from the throne of God through Christ to His people. If anyone teaches otherwise, that person teaches a false Gospel contrary to the authority of Scripture, the nature of God, the nature of man, and the Gospel.

‘By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight’ (Rom. 3:20)….Had he said, the Jewish people, or the Pharisees, or certain ungodly persons, he might have appeared to be leaving out some who by the power of ‘free-will,’ and by the help of the law, were not altogether unprofitable. But when he condemns the very works of the law, and makes them ungodly in God’s sight, it becomes clear that he is condemning all that were mighty in zeal for the works of the law. And none were zealous for the works of the law but the best and most excellent men, and that only with their best and most excellent faculties, that is, their reason and their will. If, then, those who exercised themselves in the works of the law with the highest zeal and endeavour of reason and will, that is, with all the power of ‘free-will,’ and had the help of the wlaw as a God-given aid, instructing and spurring them on—if they are condemned for ungodliness, as not being hereby justified, and are declared to be ‘flesh’ in God’s sight, what then is left in the entire human race which is not ‘flesh’ and ungodly? For all who are of the works of the law are condemned alike. It makes no difference whether they exercised themselves in the law with the highest zeal, or with lukewarm zeal, or with not at all. They all could perform only works of the law; and works of the law do not justify; and if they do not justify, they prove that those who work them to be ungodly and merit the wrath of God! These things are so clear that nonce can whisper a word against them (Luther, Bondage of the Will).

When the Scripture sets out that “by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight,” it means something. It tells us that the law is utterly powerless to justify a person and Scripture clearly says that the law was not even given for that reason. The law was given in order to make sin known. So if the law was not given in order to justify a person, then why is it that we still think that there is something that a ‘free-will’ can do in salvation? What can the will do that is not in accordance with the law? Doesn’t it follow that if no one can do anything according to the law in order to be justified that there is nothing that a person can do in order to be justified? If the will is not free to justify itself, then what can the will do to partly justify itself or contribute to its justification?

When the Scripture sets out that no one will be justified by the deeds of the law, it is telling us that on person can be justified by the deeds of the law. That is a universal statement and it does not leave any single person out. When the Scripture tells us that no one will be justified by the deeds of the law, it includes all the works of the law as well. Not of deed is left out and not one law is left out. All deeds and all laws are included in the statement. But, as Luther points out, many will think that they are more moral and have a better will than others. But Scripture tells us without equivocation that no one can do this. No one has the power of the will to do this. The law was not given in order that by keeping it men may be justified by it. The will has no power to keep the law and cannot do one deed in accordance with keeping the law.

Sinners are left utterly and totally helpless in utter need of grace and grace alone to save them. When God decides to save a sinner, He does not do so based on what the sinner can do and what the sinner’s will can perform. God needs no one but Himself in order to save sinners. God started off with a dead womb in the case of Sarah and that ended with Abraham and Sarah having Isaac the child of promise. God started off with a virgin with Mary and He needed no help in the conception of Jesus. In much the same way God starts off with sinners who are dead in sins and trespasses, who are by nature children of wrath, and who are in the bondage of sin. God does not need any help and if He did the sinners could not help Him. He is totally sufficient to save by His grace alone and sinners are totally without the slightest shred of sufficiency in themselves.

The Scriptures are constant in the witness to the total sufficiency of God and the total insufficiency of human souls. When the sinner looks to self to be saved, that sinner is not looking to the total sufficiency of God. When the sinner looks to self to just believe in Christ to be saved, the sinner is not looking to Christ alone to be saved. The Gospel of grace alone is virtually unknown in our land today while the gospel of works (whether one work of faith or many works) goes on boldly being proclaimed. Pelagianism is widely taught and Arminianism is as well. Each of those systems looks to self to do something in order to be saved, whether they use that language or not. “Reformed” people will not teach the utter helplessness of man to sinners in need of salvation, so people continue to look to self. Where are those who will drive men to the end of self so that they may look to Christ alone? They are afraid that they will run people off or make some in the denomination angry. So they don’t preach the Gospel.

Paul now proceeds to put on record that he is speaking of every man, and of the best and most excellent men most of all. These are his words: ‘that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight’ (Rom 3:19-20). How, pray, are all mouths stopped, if a power that gives us a degree of ability is left to us? One could then say to God; it is not the case that there is nothing at all here; here is something which You cannot condemn, seeing that you have given it a degree of ability. Its mouth at least will not be silenced, nor will it be subject to Your wrath. For if the power of ‘free-will’ is unimpaired and capable of effective action, it is false to say the whole world is guilty and answerable before God. This power is no small thing in a small corner of the world, but is the most excellent thing and the most universal; and its mouth must not be stopped! (Luther, Bondage of the Will)

The focus of this section will be on one sentence of Luther: “How, pray, are all mouths stopped, if a power that gives us a degree of ability is left to us?” In the modern day we are more afraid of offending men than God. We walk around quietly and with great care in order not to “offend” anyone that we are trying to “win for Christ.” So instead of telling these people the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help us God, we water things down in order to make it more palatable for their sinful and self-centered hearts. If the point of the Law, according to Paul, is to shut the mouths of men and that the whole world would be guilty before God, then who are we not to apply the Law in its real application to the souls of men so that their mouths would be shut when they see just how guilty and helpless they are before God? They will not see the depths of their guilt until they see their helplessness.

Samuel Walker (born 1714) was a man greatly used of God during his life. He was a minister from 1738-1746 in churches and then in 1746 he became pastor of a church in Truro. He had been a pastor in Truro for about a year (which means he was a pastor for 8-9 years) before he was converted. He tells us that he had historical notions of the doctrines of the gospel, and he knew that a person needed the work of the Spirit. He said that he knew these things “notionally,” but he did not know or teach them practically. He came under increasing conviction of sin and was led to finally know the truth. After so many years of being deceived by his own heart, he then began to search the hearts of those around him and proclaim the true Gospel. This brought intense persecution.

What we want to note at this point is that as long as we leave souls with even a little wiggle room they will take it. As long as we leave them the slightest bit of ability they will use it to deceive their own hearts and deceive themselves about their own work, ability, and salvation. Samuel Walker taught people the necessity of coming to a point of recognizing and coming under the weight of their own sin and original sin. He describes it thus: “That it is a state of impotence as to all conversion towards God, both because God being unknown, there can be no motive to turn unto Him, and also because under the bias of corrupt nature the will does freely and continually choose only the things contrary to Him” (Practical Christianity Illustrated, International Outreach).

As long as the soul thinks it has a little power to choose or a little ability to come to Christ, it will continue to trust in that little ability and remain unbroken and unhumbled. A soul that has that little power to choose or that little ability to come to Christ will not and cannot trust in Christ alone and grace alone. This is the dirty little secret that people don’t want to let out of the closet in the modern day. We think that if people are preaching the truth about Christ and are holding out Christ as the way of salvation that they are orthodox. But they are not. It matters not how much one preaches Christ and the depths of orthodoxy in terms of doctrine if one does not set out to teach people (experimentally) that they are truly dead in sin and have no power or ability in themselves. One can be quite Reformed in all doctrines and yet miss it all by missing this one vital link. So many Reformed people today are friendly with Pelagians and Arminians and link arms to work with them in the Gospel, but in doing so they miss this vital point. Men must be brought to an utter end of all hope in self and all hope in their own ability before their mouths will be shut. Until that happens they will not be at a place where they truly can look to Christ alone by grace alone. They will still look to themselves and when you try to mix grace with one little work you end up with no grace at all. Either the whole world is totally guilty or it is not. Either the whole world has its mouth shut totally or it does not. In order to preach the grace of the Gospel and the Christ of the Gospel we must preach in order to drive men from themselves totally. Until men’s mouths are totally shut they cannot rest totally in Christ.

Paul now proceeds to put on record that he is speaking of every man, and of the best and most excellent men most of all. These are his words: ‘that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight’ (Rom 3:19-20). How, pray, are all mouths stopped, if a power that gives us a degree of ability is left to us? One could then say to God; it is not the case that there is nothing at all here; here is something which You cannot condemn, seeing that you have given it a degree of ability. Its mouth at least will not be silenced, nor will it be subject to Your wrath. For if the power of ‘free-will’ is unimpaired and capable of effective action, it is false to say the whole world is guilty and answerable before God. This power is no small thing in a small corner of the world, but is the most excellent thing and the most universal; and its mouth must not be stopped! (Luther, Bondage of the Will)

We have to think just a little in order to follow Luther at this point. While Luther appeared to be something like a volcano at times and erupt into words, this book is not one of those times. He shows that he is a man capable of precise reasoning in places. In places like the section above, we see a man who looks past just the appearance of words and looks to what they mean and what must be true since they are true. What must be true since it is true “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God”? What is true, Luther tells us, is that for the mouth to be stopped in truth and reality then there must be no ability of the will left to do good.

There is an undercurrent going on here that may not be obvious to the one that reads Scripture or Luther quickly. Is there nothing in the world that is good? God created the world and all things in it and then declared it good. After the fall, however, is there anything good left? Is there an island in the will of human beings that is not fallen and therefore is free to do good as it pleases? Is there an island left in the will of human beings that has enough good to choose good and do good as it pleases? Romans 3:12 has already dealt with that: “ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.” The Scripture speaks and tells us that there is none (no one) who does good, not even one. One would think that the case would be closed at this point. If no one does good, then can we say that all human beings are free to do good but that they just don’t want to? The Divine declaration is that no one does good. In other words, what God calls good as opposed to man no man does it because no man can do it.

Luther goes on to point out that not all mouths would indeed be stopped if man can do good of his own will in which there is some little island of good left. If some little degree of ability to do good is left in man, then it is not the case that the mouth of men are closed. Men could simply step out and start doing good and show God that they are good and can do good and so show that they have ability to do so. They could then run their mouths about that rather than close them. They could run their mouths and say that they do have good in them and that they are not totally reliant upon Christ and upon the Gospel to be saved. They could run their mouths and say that they have good in them and that they can do righteous things and not depend utterly on Christ for righteousness. They could run their mouths and say that they don’t need grace alone to bring them to Christ and they don’t need Christ alone as a sacrifice for all that they have done (just some) and they don’t need the imputed righteousness of Christ alone (they have some good works that come from that ability in their will) to be declared righteous.

Luther helps us dive to a deeper depth of the words in Romans 3 and see that for those words to be true there can be no ability of the human will to do good. Can any human being be justified in His sight at any point and time? Can any human being be justified in His sight for any one good thing done? Can any human being be partially (even a very little) justified in His sight because that human being can do good from that little island of goodness left in the will so it has the ability to do good? As with Sodom and Gomorrah, God was willing not to destroy the place for the few righteous in it. If there is any good left in a will so that it is free to do good, then it is not true that God can declare the whole human as having no good and no ability to do good. The assertion of ‘free-will’ stands opposed to Scripture, the teaching of total depravity, and the Gospel of grace alone and Christ alone. It is like yeast which will permeate all things that it is around and eventually take over the Gospel. That is precisely what it has done in the United States. It has permeated every aspect of biblical truth and so many are willing to think of it (‘free-will’) as part of orthodoxy now. But in reality what it does is strike at the very roots of historic and biblical Christianity.

It is certainly what God aims at in the disposition of things in redemption, (if we allow the Scriptures to be a revelation of God’s mind) that God should appear full, and man in himself empty, that God should appear all, and man nothing. It is God’s declared design that others should not “glory in his presence;” which implies that it is his design to advance his own comparative glory. So much the more man glories in God’s presence, so much the less glory is ascribed to God.

By its being thus ordered, that the creature should have so absolute and universal a dependence on God, provision is made that God should have our whole souls, and should be the object of our undivided respect. If we had our dependence partly on God, and partly on something else, man’s respect would be divided to those different things on which he had dependence. Thus it would be if we depended on God only for a part of our good, and on ourselves, or some other being, for another part: or if we had our good only from God, and through another that was not God, and in something else distinct from both, our hearts would be divided between the good itself, and him from whom, and him through whom, we received it. But now there is no occasion for this, God being not only he from or of whom we have all good, but also through whom, and is that good itself, that we have from him and through him. So that whatsoever there is to attract our respect, the tendency is still directly towards God, all unites in him as the centre. (Jonathan Edwards, God Glorified in Man’s Dependence)

It is utterly vital to see what Luther and Edwards teach on this issue. Luther blasts away at ‘free-will’ because he knows that salvation is by grace alone and as long as human souls rest in any amount in their ‘free-will’ they will not look to grace alone. Edwards is setting out how vital it is that human beings should depend totally on God and be in utter dependence upon Him. He does this for the same reasons that Luther does, though in a different way. As long as human souls have any dependence on themselves (‘free-will’ is depending on self for something), they are not depending totally on God and His grace.

The human soul is born dead in sin and trespasses. The very nature of sin is seen in its pride and independence as it lives for itself and by itself. The human soul wants to depend on itself rather than God which is the soul doing what it does to its own glory which is sin (Rom 3:23). This is one reason why God hates self-righteousness so much. It is not that human beings can earn righteousness in and of themselves, but it is the human soul trying to be righteous in its own strength and being independent of God which is the soul trying to be like God. God alone is self-existent and thus has no need of anyone or anything other than Himself. He has created human beings in total dependence upon Himself for anything spiritual or good, yet they have struck out on their own in an effort to depend on themselves. This is what Eve did when she looked upon the fruit and saw that it was desirable to make one wise (Genesis 3).

The Gospel is not just God’s effort to save men from hell, but the Gospel is the way of God to save men from their own dependence on self and to depend on Him entirely. The Gospel comes to sinners who are totally unable to save themselves in any way or to contribute the smallest thing to their salvation. If the sinner has one little spot of power in him or her that is good enough to do one thing apart from God, then salvation is not totally and utterly of God and the sinner is not in utter dependence upon God and His grace alone.

While some may thing God is egotistical in being like that, the reality of the matter is that it describes God for who He really is. He is absolutely sovereign and He is absolutely self-existent in all ways. There is no source of good or of spiritual life or power that does not come from Him. When man tries to assert his ‘free-will’ or independence, man is lying about the reality of who God is and who man is. The Gospel in reality brings proud man to his knees and on his face in turning him from any hope in self or any dependence in self. Grace is not God’s helping man out in places where man cannot help himself, but grace is God stripping man of any hope in self and turning man back to an utter dependence on Him. The doctrine of ‘free-will’ is nothing more than an act of defiance in independence on man’s part in the face of God who alone is independent. How sinners must be brought off of any dependence on themselves in any way (including any hope or dependence on their so-called ‘free-will’) in order to depend totally on God and His grace alone. Until the sinner is resting in grace alone apart from himself in all ways that sinner is not trusting in Christ alone and is rebellion against God and the Gospel of God.

It is certainly what God aims at in the disposition of things in redemption, (if we allow the Scriptures to be a revelation of God’s mind) that God should appear full, and man in himself empty, that God should appear all, and man nothing. It is God’s declared design that others should not “glory in his presence;” which implies that it is his design to advance his own comparative glory. So much the more man glories in God’s presence, so much the less glory is ascribed to God.

By its being thus ordered, that the creature should have so absolute and universal a dependence on God, provision is made that God should have our whole souls, and should be the object of our undivided respect. If we had our dependence partly on God, and partly on something else, man’s respect would be divided to those different things on which he had dependence. Thus it would be if we depended on God only for a part of our good, and on ourselves, or some other being, for another part: or if we had our good only from God, and through another that was not God, and in something else distinct from both, our hearts would be divided between the good itself, and him from whom, and him through whom, we received it. But now there is no occasion for this, God being not only he from or of whom we have all good, but also through whom, and is that good itself, that we have from him and through him. So that whatsoever there is to attract our respect, the tendency is still directly towards God, all unites in him as the centre. (Jonathan Edwards, God Glorified in Man’s Dependence)

The Gospel of grace alone to the glory of God alone stands supreme and all other doctrines must fall at its feet and be crushed. So the heart of proud man must fall and be crushed to the dust that it may an instrument of God’s glory. Scripture is clear that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (Jam 4:6). God will not dwell with the proud, but with the contrite and the lowly (Isa 57:15). There is nothing in the grace of God that looks upon human souls and waits for it to move first or waits for it to become worthy. No, no, and an eternity of no after no must be written in response to that. The grace of God is what works in dead sinners to give them a desire after spiritual things. The grace of God is what works in sinners to make them alive. The grace of God is what works in sinners to give them faith and life. The grace of God is what works in sinners to give them love so that they can even do one thing that is good. There is nothing that a sinner can do apart from true love that is good, but the only source and origin of love in the universe is God Himself and He only gives love for Himself by grace alone.

It sounds so cruel and harsh in the modern world to speak of nice, kind, and learned men as Arminians or Pelagians and then go on to attack that position. But what must be seen is that the Pelagian system is an open attack on the grace of God while the Arminian system is a disguised attack on the grace of God. If we are to love grace and the glory of the grace of God we must stand against all that is opposed to His grace. Romans 11:6 tells us without the slightest equivocation that grace and works cannot be mixed: “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.” Putting a few extra words in a sentence can help explain what the meaning is. “But if it is by grace [alone], it is no longer on the basis of works [or any work or human effort at all], otherwise grace is no longer grace.” What is of grace can have no basis or part with human works as a basis for merit in the slightest. One drop of the poison of human works is deadly to pure grace.

In order to make this clearer it must be seen that by works simply means the human soul or will doing something apart from grace to obtain or receive grace. What that really means, then, is that a work is something a human does while grace is what God does. The will of man being involved in salvation that is apart from grace (by definition what a ‘free-will’ is) is then the human being doing something and God not doing something. So by simple definition it is salvation by the grace of God plus the work of man. It is the work of the human soul or will and so is a work. Clearly, then, this is at odds with what Edwards shows us (in the quote above). The soul that truly depends on God alone must depend on grace alone and that dependence or faith includes the faith and dependence itself. The soul that looks to itself for one choice of a ‘free-will’ is looking to itself for faith and so is a work that it believes God will respond to. In other words, apart from the total dependence of the sinner on Christ alone for all things by grace alone there is no salvation by grace alone to the glory of God alone. One drop of the choice of the human will that is free from grace (‘free-will’) makes the will dependent on itself and not on God alone. That destroys justification by grace alone and so the biblical teaching of faith alone as well. That is what both Pelagianism and Arminianism ends up doing.

It is certainly what God aims at in the disposition of things in redemption, (if we allow the Scriptures to be a revelation of God’s mind) that God should appear full, and man in himself empty, that God should appear all, and man nothing. It is God’s declared design that others should not “glory in his presence;” which implies that it is his design to advance his own comparative glory. So much the more man glories in God’s presence, so much the less glory is ascribed to God.

By its being thus ordered, that the creature should have so absolute and universal a dependence on God, provision is made that God should have our whole souls, and should be the object of our undivided respect. If we had our dependence partly on God, and partly on something else, man’s respect would be divided to those different things on which he had dependence. Thus it would be if we depended on God only for a part of our good, and on ourselves, or some other being, for another part: or if we had our good only from God, and through another that was not God, and in something else distinct from both, our hearts would be divided between the good itself, and him from whom, and him through whom, we received it. But now there is no occasion for this, God being not only he from or of whom we have all good, but also through whom, and is that good itself, that we have from him and through him. So that whatsoever there is to attract our respect, the tendency is still directly towards God, all unites in him as the centre. (Jonathan Edwards, God Glorified in Man’s Dependence)

The desire man has to keep some semblance of control and some decision in the matter of salvation is an attack on the complete sufficiency of God and the complete and utter dependence of human beings on God and His sufficiency. Human beings do not want to wait on and be utterly dependent on the grace of God, but instead they want to do it all of themselves or perhaps have God do all that they cannot do. Either way, the human soul is not completely dependent on God. When the soul tries to keep something of a ‘free-will’ so it can choose as it pleases, what it is doing is trusting in self. Its real trust is in self, though it says it is trusting in God. But it is trusting in itself to trust in God. This is not faith in Christ alone, but is instead faith in self to trust in Christ. It is not faith in grace alone, but is instead faith in itself to trust in grace.  One can hold to a creed of justification by faith alone, but unless the soul is looking to God for grace to give it faith as well it is not really looking to grace alone but to its own faith.

God saves sinners to the praise of the glory of His grace, but sinners want to be saved in a way that they can share in some of the glory. What they don’t realize is that God will not share His glory with another. So when they look to their so-called ‘free-will’ in the things of salvation, they are not looking to grace alone and they are not looking to a Gospel that is to the glory of God alone. The Gospel must be proclaimed in such a way that shows how utterly men are dependent on God and His grace alone so that the Gospel would be to His glory alone. Yet when ‘free-will’ sticks up its ugly head, what we see is that human beings share in that glory. Men and women clap for those who have made decisions to be saved, rather than bowing before the shining forth of the glory of God in salvation. Men and women give testimonies to their choices rather than to the grace of God, though indeed they give some words to the grace of God, but the focus is still on their choice. After all, if we believe in a ‘free-will’ then it was our choice that made the final decision. It was our choice that everything hinged on.

Jonathan Edwards saw so clearly that for salvation to be by grace alone it must mean that sinners are dependent on God alone and in all ways. Martin Luther saw so clearly that the Gospel cannot be of grace alone and Christ alone if the will is free. There has never been a Gospel that has been anything other than by grace alone. There never will be a Gospel that will be anything but by grace alone. That means that the salvation of sinners has never been dependent on their ‘free-wills’ and it never will be either. Whatever is of grace is of grace. Whatever is of works is of works. Whatever a will does that is free of grace (for a will to be free it must be free of grace) is a will that is moved by the self and by the flesh. God will not share His glory with another. The Gospel of grace alone is antithetical to the teaching of ‘free-will.’ This is one reason that we are in such a dark time in our modern day. We focus on the so-called ‘free-will’ of man rather than on the free grace of God. We focus on the ‘free-will’ of man by trying to persuade man based on fleshly reason, entertainment, music, and appealing to what man naturally likes. While we can obtain many decisions like that, they are but decisions of the flesh and in doing so we are destroying the preaching of the Gospel of grace alone. If we will not seek to destroy all the dependence men have in themselves and their ‘free-will,’ we cannot preach the Gospel of grace alone.

Moreover, if Paul were not understood to affirm lack of potency, his argument would be without force; for Paul’s whole aim is to make grace necessary to all men, and if they could initiate something by themselves, they would not need grace. As it is, however, they need grace, just because they cannot do this. So you see that by the terms of this passage [Rom 3:9ff] ‘free-will’ is utterly laid low, and nothing good or upright is left to man; for he is declared to be unrighteous, ignorant of God, a despiser of God, turned away from Him and unprofitable in His sight (Luther, Bondage of the Will).

The issue of ‘free-will’ is simply a philosophical issue that is not derived from a text of Scripture apart from the assumption of man. It simply must be admitted that Paul is attempting to drive men to the point of seeing that they cannot do what needs to be done and that it is grace alone that saves. Men need grace because they cannot keep one part of the Law. There is nothing left to the human soul except the proclamation of grace and grace alone. As long as human beings leave one shred of good or of potency to the human will, they will not look and rest in grace alone. In other words, we can have a doctrine of grace alone that men will hold to in their brains and even have affections rise at the thought of it. But until a man has been broken from any hope in self and has nothing to rely upon that man will not look to Christ alone. The man may admit that he cannot do it of himself and that he needs Christ, but as long as he thinks that it is in his own power to look to Christ he will look and trust in himself to some degree. In reality, he will trust in himself to trust in Christ.

The man that is trusting in himself to trust in Christ is a man that is not looking to grace alone. Salvation is by grace alone from the very first to all eternity. It is not just that God must provide grace and must help man take the medicine, but man is dead and cannot apply the medicine. A dead man has no power to trust in himself and no power to take the medicine. This is no horrible doctrine to those who see what they are by nature. They are dead in sins and trespasses and by nature are children of wrath. This is a doctrine of great hope to souls like that. They see that they cannot do one thing for themselves and that God’s grace must reach them where they are and that they are utterly without strength to do one things. So when those souls that recognize what they really, really are begin to see the hope of the Gospel of grace alone, it is truly good news.

As long as preachers and teachers leave people any hope in themselves and in their so-called ‘free-will,’ those preachers and teachers are leaving men hope in themselves and are not teaching grace alone. It may be the case that churches would empty out if men taught the truth of this, but there is no hope apart from grace and grace alone. Perhaps the pews would be emptied if we taught the truth of grace alone, but then again that is better than teaching people a false gospel that depends on ‘free-will.’ There are people who hate the doctrines of Calvinism and there are people who love the doctrines of Calvinism, but people from both sides of that debate truly hate the teachings of grace alone that leave men helpless in sin. While there are great intellectual admirers of Calvinism, that is a different thing than the application of these great truths to the heart. Men of great pride and self-assurance can hold to the doctrines of Calvinism, but when their pride is pricked they will not endure the truth about themselves. They will then try to use the doctrines of sovereign grace to protect their own proud and dead hearts.

We live in a day where the doctrines of Calvinism are said to be on the rise, but until men are preaching against ‘free-will’ and the potency of the will of man so that grace alone can truly be taught in something other than words, the Gospel of grace alone will languish. We live in a day where the doctrines of grace are taught more widely than before, but until these are applied to the heart in an effort to destroy all hope in man’s pride, self and will the Gospel of grace alone will languish. There may me a great “revival” of doctrine and of conservative teachings in our day, but apart from teaching men that they have no hope in themselves and striving to see men emptied of hope in their minds and wills the Gospel of grace alone will languish. We hear of a need for truth, and that is indeed very needful, but that same truth must be adhered to from a broken heart where confidence in self has been destroyed. There appears to be so many that hold to the doctrines of grace from a proud and confident self-reliance. These things cannot be. “Perhaps no one has yet been truthful enough about what “truthfulness” is” (Nietzsche).