God Loves… Himself

You describe the power of ‘free-will’ as small, and wholly ineffective apart from the grace of God. Agreed? Now then, I ask you; if God’s grace is wanting [lacking], if it is taken away from that small power, what can it do? It is ineffective, you say, and can do nothing good. So it will not do what God or His grace wills. Why? Because we have now taken God’s grace away from it, and what the grace of God does not do is not good. Hence it follows that ‘free-will’ without God’s grace is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner and bondslave of evil, since it cannot turn itself to good. This being so, I give you full permission to enlarge the power of ‘free-will’ as much as you like; make it angelic, make it divine, if you can!—but when once you add this doleful transcript, that it is ineffective apart from God’s grace, straightaway you rob it of all its power. What is ineffective power but (in plain language) no power? So to say that ‘free-will’ exists and has power, albeit ineffective power, is, in the Sophists’ phrase, a contradiction in terms. It is like saying ‘“free-will” is something which is not free’—as if you said that fire is cold and earth hot. Fire certainly has power to heat; but if hell-fire (even) was cold and chilling instead of burning and scorching, I would not call it ‘fire’, let alone ‘hot’ (unless you meant to refer to an imaginary fire, or a painted one).                              Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will

Luther thinks of the free-will and its freedom as a fire with no heat. We can call a fire that is not hot fire, but it is nothing more than an imaginary fire. So the so-called free-will has no effective power which is no power at all and can only be called free in some imaginary way. Scripture is so clear that a sinner that is saved was saved by grace alone and that sanctification is by the power of grace as well. So what does it mean to stand up for a free-will that is not really free? What does it mean for those who say they believe in grace alone to still fight for a free-will when that will cannot do one good thing apart from grace? So Luther pushes us into a corner and does not let us out as he lands blow after blow to the so-called freedom of the will.

In Matthew 12:34 Jesus sets out why a will is not free. “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.” The Pharisees, the ones He was speaking to, were evil. Being evil, they did not have the power or ability to speak what is good. The mouth only spoke that which filled and then came from the heart. Since the Pharisees had evil hearts, they could not speak what was good. Their wills were not free to speak what was good since they had evil hearts. Jesus used the word “can” pointing to the ability of the hearers. The word “can” is a word that points to the ability or power and He told them that because they were evil they had no power or ability to do that which was good.

If people had wills that were free as is supposed today, then Jesus could not have said what He said to the Pharisees in Matthew 12. While it may not be popular today to say things like that, those were the clear and unmistakable words of Jesus. The unbeliever has no power to even say what is good because his heart is evil and all that comes from that heart is evil. What are the only alternatives for the unbeliever? One is to remain in the same state with an evil heart. One can remain in that state giving self to sin or one can remain in that state and become very religious. The Pharisees were very religious and yet had evil hearts. The other alternative is to recognize the state that one is in (by nature evil in heart) and the inability to change that nature. The person must seek God and ask for a new heart.

This is not what people (even professing Reformed) are telling people today. But when we do not tell people this we are misleading them. People do not need to just pray a prayer or walk an aisle or make a decision. They don’t just need to learn more of the Bible or of theology and make a moral transformation. All of those things can be done with evil hearts as the Pharisees had. The Pharisees learned a lot of the Bible and of theology and in many ways (external ways) were very moral. But their hearts remained unchanged and so all they did in life and religion came from an evil heart. Such is the case of every human being today who does not have a changed heart. That human being has no ability to do or speak anything good. As Jesus told Nicodemus, “you must be born again.” That is precisely what must happen to people. They must be born into the kingdom so that their very core and controlling belief is Jesus Christ dwelling in the heart rather than self dwelling in an evil heart. No man has the power to do good until He who is good dwells in the heart by grace. No will is free to do good in and of itself. The idea of a will free to do good is nothing more than an evil heart thinking it can do good rather than grace.

You describe the power of ‘free-will’ as small, and wholly ineffective apart from the grace of God. Agreed? Now then, I ask you; if God’s grace is wanting [lacking], if it is taken away from that small power, what can it do? It is ineffective, you say, and can do nothing good. So it will not do what God or His grace wills. Why? Because we have now taken God’s grace away from it, and what the grace of God does not do is not good. Hence it follows that ‘free-will’ without God’s grace is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner and bondslave of evil, since it cannot turn itself to good. This being so, I give you full permission to enlarge the power of ‘free-will’ as much as you like; make it angelic, make it divine, if you can!—but when once you add this doleful transcript, that it is ineffective apart from God’s grace, straightaway you rob it of all its power. What is ineffective power but (in plain language) no power? So to say that ‘free-will’ exists and has power, albeit ineffective power, is, in the Sophists’ phrase, a contradiction in terms. It is like saying ‘“free-will” is something which is not free’—as if you said that fire is cold and earth hot. Fire certainly has power to hear; but if hell-fire (even) was cold and chilling instead of burning and scorching, I would not call it ‘fire’, let alone ‘hot’ (unless you meant to refer to an imaginary fire, or a painted one).             Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will

Luther thought of the will apart from grace as an ineffective power which, as he so clearly says, is not power at all. The will that is free is free from the grace of God which is the same thing as being free from any power to do good. The will is free from any effective power to do good and so is powerless to do good. The will is not free to do good and so it is constantly and consistently in the power of that which is not good. The will that is not free to do good is always going to do that which is, shall we say, non-good. The soul that trusts in the will to do good is trusting in something that is totally without power and without effect. The soul must trust in grace alone or it is not trusting in the promise of the Gospel and in Christ alone.

As Jesus said (in John 6:44): “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” The word “can” is the word for ability. No one has the ability to come to the Father unless the Father draws that person. No has the ability or power to come to the Father unless the Father exercises power and ability to do so. There is no effective power in the human will that can come to the Father and so the human will is totally ineffective in coming to the Father. The only effective power there is in a human going to the Father is the grace of God in bringing the sinner to Himself. This is the glory of grace. It is grace alone that stands exalted and magnified in the Gospel. It is grace alone that brings the sinner to the Father rather than a will having any power in and of itself to contribute any power or goodness.

If John 6:44 is not persuasive, verses 63-65 are. “63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. 64 “But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” 66 As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.

Jesus was teaching things that were hard for the people to receive. He told them that the flesh profits nothing. Once again, the flesh and all that is from the nature of man has no profit at all. But instead of the profit being from the flesh, it is the Spirit who gives life. In v. 64 Jesus taught them that there were some who did not believe. Verse 65 starts off with the word “for” which shows us why the people in v. 64 do not believe. It is because no one can (has the ability or power) come to the Father unless it has been granted to him by the Father. This is a hard teaching and is rejected in the modern day. But here we have Jesus teaching election and the drawing power of God. It is God who must bring sinners to Himself. Jesus taught them specifically and clearly that their will had no power in the slightest to come to the Father.

Verse 66 shows us what many of the followers (disciples) of Jesus thought about that. They withdrew from Him and did not walk with Him anymore. That is the same reaction that so many people have today. They hear this teaching that they don’t have the power to come to God when they want to and as they please and they go on their way. Many people who profess to be Reformed today will not teach this clear teaching of Jesus as they do not think it is important enough or at least they won’t teach it until they think the people are mature. But Jesus taught it to unbelievers and we see it here. Jesus taught that no man has the power of his own will to come to the Father, but instead all power is with the Father to draw them. That is grace and grace alone and it is hated by so many today even among those who call themselves “Reformed.” It appears that they too will not walk with Jesus anymore on this one. They will stand for certain morals and certain things about God, but they will not walk with Jesus anymore when it comes to this teaching. Can we claim to follow Christ if we do not follow Him?

You describe the power of ‘free-will’ as small, and wholly ineffective apart from the grace of God. Agreed? Now then, I ask you; if God’s grace is wanting [lacking], if it is taken away from that small power, what can it do? It is ineffective, you say, and can do nothing good. So it will not do what God or His grace wills. Why? Because we have now taken God’s grace away from it, and what the grace of God does not do is not good. Hence it follows that ‘free-will’ without God’s grace is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner and bondslave of evil, since it cannot turn itself to good. This being so, I give you full permission to enlarge the power of ‘free-will’ as much as you like; make it angelic, make it divine, if you can!—but when once you add this doleful transcript, that it is ineffective apart from God’s grace, straightaway you rob it of all its power. What is ineffective power but (in plain language) no power? So to say that ‘free-will’ exists and has power, albeit ineffective power, is, in the Sophists’ phrase, a contradiction in terms. It is like saying ‘“free-will” is something which is not free’—as if you said that fire is cold and earth hot. Fire certainly has power to hear; but if hell-fire (even) was cold and chilling instead of burning and scorching, I would not call it ‘fire’, let alone ‘hot’ (unless you meant to refer to an imaginary fire, or a painted one).                       Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will

Luther’s statement that “what the grace of God does not do is not good” is vital to the biblical position. It sets out that what is of grace is good and what does not come from grace is not good. In other words, the will is not free without God’s grace and cannot do one good thing unless it is God’s grace doing it through the human soul. Apart from the grace of God the will is the slave of evil since it has utterly no power to work good and cannot turn itself to do good. As Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). People don’t usually like the word “nothing” in this passage as it destroys any sense of self-sufficiency and self-reliance. The context tells us that this is bearing fruit and it has to do with spiritual things. So the will is not free to bear fruit and is not free to do any spiritual thing apart from the grace of God in it. The will that cannot do those things is not free.

What this teaching does is throw us totally and completely on the grace of God for salvation and sanctification. We cannot look to self and the will of self to do anything good. In terms of salvation we must teach souls not to look to themselves for faith or for any act of the will, but to look to the grace of God alone for all things. In terms of sanctification, we must teach souls to look to grace to work holiness in them rather than to accomplish anything of the will and power of self. If more people would take this book of Luther’s and focus on these few things God might change the world as He did during the time this book was written. But of course all of that is by grace alone as well.

The will cannot turn itself to do good, produce good, or even to wish good. The will of the flesh is and always will be a fleshly will and cannot do good in the slightest. The will that is apart from grace is a will that nothing good can come from. As Paul said, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). Paul did not look to his will or his own power to do what he did, but he looked to grace to do it. It is the grace of God that gives power to the soul and it is the grace of God alone that can give spiritual power to the soul. Apart from that grace all that Paul would have done would have been the works of the flesh as indeed he did as Saul the Pharisee. The works of the flesh can be done with great zeal and great activity, but they are still the work of the flesh. Those are the works that Scripture speaks of as dead works and that we must be cleansed from them in order to serve the living God (Heb 9:14). It is from dead works that we are to repent of (Heb 6:1).

It is when people don’t understand the will and the nature of grace that they are caught up in all sorts of dead works thinking that they are serving God. It is when people trust in something that they can do whether it is an act of the will or a choice or a prayer that they are turning from the grace of God for something that they can do. Not resting in 100% grace but instead an act of the will or a prayer is to refuse grace as a whole and trust wholly in self. Grace is 100% or it is not at all. Grace must totally reign in the soul or it does not reign at all. It is either the will trusting in itself to trust in grace or it is the soul looking to grace alone to do all the work. The Gospel is by grace alone and the will has no power in that at all.

You describe the power of ‘free-will’ as small, and wholly ineffective apart from the grace of God. Agreed? Now then, I ask you; if God’s grace is wanting [lacking], if it is taken away from that small power, what can it do? It is ineffective, you say, and can do nothing good. So it will not do what God or His grace wills. Why? Because we have now taken God’s grace away from it, and what the grace of God does not do is not good. Hence it follows that ‘free-will’ without God’s grace is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner and bondslave of evil, since it cannot turn itself to good. This being so, I give you full permission to enlarge the power of ‘free-will’ as much as you like; make it angelic, make it divine, if you can!—but when once you add this doleful transcript, that it is ineffective apart from God’s grace, straightaway you rob it of all its power. What is ineffective power but (in plain language) no power? So to say that ‘free-will’ exists and has power, albeit ineffective power, is, in the Sophists’ phrase, a contradiction in terms. It is like saying ‘“free-will” is something which is not free’—as if you said that fire is cold and earth hot. Fire certainly has power to hear; but if hell-fire (even) was cold and chilling instead of burning and scorching, I would not call it ‘fire’, let alone ‘hot’ (unless you meant to refer to an imaginary fire, or a painted one).              (Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will )

What Luther does in this paragraph is really demonstrate the utter futility of maintaining a free-will position. If the will does not have the power to do what it wants to do, then it has no power at all. When speaking of the omnipotence of God, we simply say that He is free to do all that He desires to do. At any point that God is not free to carry out what He desires to do is the point He has no power. So the human will that does not have the power to do what it desires is the will that has no power at that point and is under the power of another. It is also true that anything which is ineffective to carry out what it desires has no freedom to do what it desires. A will that is ineffective in doing what it desires has no freedom to do what it desires and so that will is not free at all.

On the other side of the issue is the freedom of God and the power of grace. Scripture is quite clear that God is free to have grace on those He pleases: “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion” (Exodus 33:19). The free-will position, however, gives man the power to decide if God is going to show grace on him or not. Scripture says that God will be gracious to whom He will be gracious and not be gracious to the person who makes a free-will choice for God to be gracious to that person. In another view, the Reformers re-captured the biblical position of salvation by grace alone. Another way of wording that, then, would be that salvation is by the will of God alone and the power of God alone. The only will that is free in this sense is the will that has the power to do what it pleases. The human will does not and the will of God is.

Luther uses this to show that even in the smallest of things the will of the human soul is not free because it cannot command the power of grace. The will of the human soul, even if it had the power of an angel, cannot do the slightest good unless it has grace. If the human soul cannot do the slightest bit of good apart from grace, then the human soul is always in the power of evil to do evil apart from grace. That is not freedom but bondage. As Luther points out, an ineffective power is no power at all. It might seem that one can have a lot of power but simply cannot quite get over a certain limitation. A man that can press 500 pounds over his head has power over the 500 pounds. But if he cannot press 525 pounds, he has no power over the 525 at all. The will that cannot actually carry out the good by itself is not the will that has power to do the good. Human beings are never free to do good apart from grace because they can do no good at all apart from grace.

Luther’s words leave us at the point the Bible does. All human souls are utterly dependent on grace and on grace alone for salvation and sanctification. We are not left in our own hands dependent on our own wills and power. We are in the hands of God and of the real power of grace. That shows that the will is enslaved to sin (all that is non-grace and so not to His glory) and does not have the power to change itself, save itself, or do anything good for itself. All true good must come from God and it comes on the basis of grace alone. The will is not free and it is an attack on grace alone (the only kind there is) to say that it is. It is, as the book by Walter Chantry says, either free will of free grace. One or the other is free, but not both. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is by grace alone and so the will is not and cannot be free. That is why we must teach people their true state and their true nature so that they can see the true Gospel. We have to be saved from our enslaved will and given a new nature. We have to be saved from following what we think is our freedom in order to be slaves of Christ. It is either free-will or free-grace. You choose? No, God chooses.

The true Church has always condemned Pelagianism, yet in the modern day Pelagianism has the majority voice. It does not go around in its own name, yet it is present at the heart of people in every denomination. Though the number of those who profess to be Reformed appears to be increasing, yet the core of the Gospel of the Reformers does not appear to be increasing at all. What that means is that there are many who have the outward dress or shell of Reformed teaching while the core of what they really are is Arminian (which is semi-Pelagian at best) or Pelagian. When the twin truths of man’s enslaved will and sovereign grace are denied in practice (even if not in theory), the Gospel is not being stood for. Luther thought that this was the heart of the Reformation.

The claim that we can do something good by our own will is by definition to be a Pelagian, but so is the practice of it. Nothing good can come from a human soul other than what God works in it. To say or do in practice anything different is to be a Pelagian or a practical Pelagian. If God does not work something in the soul by grace, then whatever the soul does will not be pleasing to God as it is a work of the flesh. If we say that the Gospel that the Arminian preaches is the same as what the Reformed should teach, we have just denied the Reformation in reality. The enslaved will was a teaching that was vital and at the heart of the Gospel that burst forth during the Reformation. Apart from it there is no true teaching of grace alone and therefore no true teaching of faith alone.

It can not be stated strongly enough that apart from the teaching, preaching, counseling, and evangelizing based on the enslaved will there is no way of getting to the truth of the Gospel and no way of presenting the truth of the Gospel of the grace of God. This is not just a nice teaching, it is a necessary teaching. Many want to teach about grace while trying to hide the tough truth of the enslaved will, but they cannot teach a sovereign grace in reality and in the soul apart from this. Sovereign grace is the only kind of grace there is in reality. Apart from this rough and rugged teaching of the enslaved will there is no room for an inner repentance from the depths of the soul. The person hearing preaching or being evangelized will always think of self as the agent of change and the agent of choice apart from a clear presentation on the enslaved will. Pelagians and professing Reformed people have the same result at that point if they do not teach sinners about their enslaved wills.

Who can move the will? It must either be God or the human self. Whatever comes from self (the fleshly self) is sin. When the soul is moved by self and the flesh there is no good that can result. The soul that moves by self has been left of God to itself. The only good that a soul can do must have its origin in God alone who is the only source of true good. The only good that will ever come from the soul has its origin from God and it is worked in and through the soul by God because there is no other source of good. There is no merit for man in that. But until the soul arrives at a point of an experiential knowledge that it is enslaved to sin it will always think that it can do something good of itself. It may even have the theory in its head that it is enslaved, but until that soul arrives at the experiential aspect of it and knows from the depths of the soul that it is enslaved it will always be enslaved to self.

The soul has never been created to be the origin of good because God alone is that. The soul was created to be in utter dependence on God, but in the Fall it left that to be dependent on itself and to be like God. For a soul to rely on Christ alone is for that soul to rely on Christ not only to bring it back to God but also to receive all from God through Christ. The soul that relies on Christ alone relies on Him alone for all good that is received and for all that is to be done. It is the Spirit of Christ alone who can move the soul to love and good deeds. The commands of God are to the soul with Christ as its life and can only be kept with Christ as its life and the fruit of the Spirit.

The soul can do nothing good apart from Christ (John 15) and receiving all fruit and good from Him. The soul cannot even put to death sin unless it is putting sin to death by the Spirit (Romans 8:13). The soul does what it does in the grip of the flesh or in the power of the Spirit. So we are left with those who have enslaved wills and those who are not. Those who truly believe that all have enslaved wills believe that it is true of all people. Those who don’t truly believe in the enslaved will can include those who are Reformed in name all the way down to atheists. Those who truly believe in the enslaved will know that those who are in sin are completely enslaved to sin and have no way of doing the least thing that is not from the enslaved will. As Romans 8:7 teaches, “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.” As John 15 teaches we can do nothing good or spiritual apart from God doing it in us. Anything less from that twin teaching leaves a person in the power of the enslaved will even if that person is religious or Reformed. The Pharisees were very religious, but they were slaves to their own self and self-righteousness. It is still true today.

There are two considerations which require the preaching of these truths…. The second reason is this; faith’s object is things not seen. That there may be room for faith, therefore, all that is believed must be hidden. Yet it is not hidden more deeply than under a contrary appearance of sight, sense, and experience. Thus, when God quickens, He does so by killing; when He justifies, He does so by pronouncing guilty; when He carries up to heaven, He does so by bringing down to hell…Thus God conceals His eternal mercy and loving kindness beneath eternal wrath, His righteousness beneath unrighteousness. Now the highest degree of faith is to believe that He is merciful, though He saves so few and damns so many; to believe that He is just, though of His own will He makes us perforce proper subjects for damnation. (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)

Below some verses are given which clearly show that faith must at least involve things that are not seen. This is necessary to show that because so much of today’s so-called Gospel is about things that are seen. We try to present things as evidence to men as those things which can be seen. We try to present things to them that are easily understood. But the true preaching of the Gospel is about things not seen. The object of faith is not a physical Christ, but a Divine one that cannot be seen and has never been seen.

Hebrews 11:7 By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

Hebrews 11:27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.

Romans 8:24 For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

2 Corinthians 4:18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

1 Peter 1:8 and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.

Faith is in things that cannot be seen with the physical eyes, but instead requires a spiritual nature so that it is the spiritual eyes that see. Faith involves hearing with the spiritual ears and not just the physical ears. Faith involves tasting and seeing that God is good and not just with the physical senses. When we present physical things to the eyes of faith, it is the faith of the natural man and not that of the spiritual. Eternal things cannot be seen with the physical eyes and yet so much of today’s preaching and teaching is about physical things. This demonstrates the need for a preparatory work in and on the soul so that the soul can get beyond understanding all things in the physical realm. If the soul is not moved out of the physical realm, the soul will never have spiritual life and true faith. So when people refuse to teach people that they are unable to have Christ of themselves and of sovereign grace, they are leaving people to themselves and to their own physical senses and a false faith.

When we see things in this light, Luther’s position is seen as biblical rather than extreme. The soul must be humbled because God has promised grace to the humbled. Until a person mourns and despairs of self that person is not humbled. Until a person realizes that salvation is totally and utterly beyond his own powers and efforts, he is not truly humbled and reliant upon sovereign grace to work salvation. In other words, that person still relies upon his senses and his fallen reason to determine things for him rather than God. That person is not and cannot function by faith in the spiritual realm as long as he leans on his senses and fallen reason. It is by grace alone through faith alone that the soul is saved by Christ alone. Apart from the soul being humbled into the dust, it will not have grace alone and faith alone. Apart from the soul being delivered from all hope in self and all hope in the powers of the natural man and of the physical senses, the soul will not be saved. The soul must be thoroughly humbled in order to have faith in the spiritual realm and receive Christ by grace. Luther was absolutely right. Our day is wrong.

There are two considerations which require the preaching of these truths…. The second reason is this; faith’s object is things not seen. That there may be room for faith, therefore, all that is believed must be hidden. Yet it is not hidden more deeply than under a contrary appearance of sight, sense, and experience. Thus, when God quickens, He does so by killing; when He justifies, He does so by pronouncing guilty; when He carries up to heaven, He does so by bringing down to hell…Thus God conceals His eternal mercy and loving kindness beneath eternal wrath, His righteousness beneath unrighteousness. Now the highest degree of faith is to believe that He is merciful, though He saves so few and damns so many; to believe that He is just, though of His own will He makes us perforce proper subjects for damnation. (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)

Unless a person is driven beyond his or her fleshly abilities there is no room for faith. This sounds a bit much, but this is at least part of what Luther is saying. Men and women trust in themselves to believe and trust in themselves to convince others to believe. But in doing so they are not getting beyond the fleshly ability of a person and so there is no true faith at all. For there to be true and spiritual faith in the soul a person must get beyond his own abilities and strength to come up with faith on his own. This is why it is so important to teach people their own inability in the spiritual realm. If people are not driven beyond their own abilities, then they will be Pharisees or libertines or something other than a true Christian. Once again, let me quote from Solomon Stoddard:

There are some who deny any necessity of the preparatory work of the Spirit of God in order to a closing with Christ. This is a very dark cloud, both as it is an evidence that men do not have the experience of that work in their own souls, and as it is a sight that such men are utterly unskillful in guiding others who are under this work. If this opinion should prevail in the land, it would give a deadly wound to religion. It would expose men to think of themselves as converted when they are not (A Guide to Christ).

Here we see what happens when people do not understand the work of the Spirit of God in bringing men to a point where they do not rely on anything of themselves and their own power. The nature of the self, pride, and the flesh are so strong that it will do anything but stop trusting and relying on self. The self and pride will become orthodox and very religious. Self and pride and the flesh will become quite Reformed, but it will not stop trusting in itself. So when people deny the necessity of the preparatory work of the Spirit of God in order to come to Christ what they are doing is shutting off the way of true repentance and faith. Apart from that preparatory work of the Spirit in working in men and bringing them to an end to all hope in self a person will never repent and never truly believe.

What this does, then, is to make men think of themselves as converted when in fact they are not. Instead of being turned from self the modern religion turns men to self or at least leaves men in the power and bondage of self. Yet this serves the devil quite well. He is a self-made devil in the sense that he does what he wants to do and is in the full power of self. The devil loves to use religion to blind the souls of men to the truth. It is no wonder that he would use the fleshly nature to blind men to the way of life which is beyond the fleshly nature. When men think of faith as simply believing a few facts, that is in accordance with the fleshly nature and not spiritual truth.

Thus it is so clear that Stoddard was right in the words he penned in the 1700’s which agree with what Luther penned in the 1500’s. Yet in the modern day Satan has been at work very hard and has restored a lot of the religion of the Pharisees in various forms. The Pharisees were those who looked to themselves to believe and the works they could perform. Oh they believed in predestination, but they were still so focused on themselves and their own works. One cannot deny works for salvation until one denies the ability of human souls to do the works. One cannot deny the ability of human souls to do works until one teaches that human souls must come to an utter end of their rational abilities and five senses to produce faith or anything else. The soul must come to an utter end of itself and be helpless before God before faith will be or can be worked in it by grace alone.

It is the helpless soul that alone can look to God alone. It is the soul under the wrath of God that alone can look to the grace of God alone. It is the soul that has lost all hope in its own ability that can look to the ability of God alone to save it. It is the soul that is hanging over the pit of hell knowing justice cries out for it and it deserves to go there than can look to grace alone for heaven. The soul must be driven beyond its senses and strength to have true faith.

There are two considerations which require the preaching of these truths…. The second reason is this; faith’s object is things not seen. That there may be room for faith, therefore, all that is believed must be hidden. Yet it is not hidden more deeply than under a contrary appearance of sight, sense, and experience. Thus, when God quickens, He does so by killing; when He justifies, He does so by pronouncing guilty; when He carries up to heaven, He does so by bringing down to hell…Thus God conceals His eternal mercy and loving kindness beneath eternal wrath, His righteousness beneath unrighteousness. Now the highest degree of faith is to believe that He is merciful, though He saves so few and damns so many; to believe that He is just, though of His own will He makes us perforce proper subjects for damnation. (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)

“For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21). In this verse the words of the Spirit tell us that the wisdom of the world cannot be a means of coming to know God because in the wisdom of God made it so that the world through it wisdom did not come to know God. But God is pleased to save through the foolishness (to the world’s wisdom) of the message preached saves those who believe. In other words, true faith comes in a way that is not in accordance with the wisdom of the world. This is a vital point if the nature of true faith is to be seen and understood. True faith is not in accordance with the wisdom of the world.

The wisdom of men is either tied to their rational approach or it is tied to their senses. This is not to say that the rational approach and the senses cannot go together, but it is just put this way to make a point. However, to receive grace, which operates in the spiritual realm, a soul must be humbled beyond the fleshly nature in both the rational and the physical senses in order to receive it. Another way to put it is to say that a soul must be humbled from its fleshly nature to receive grace which comes in a spiritual way. This seems to be rather obvious and is certainly self-evident. Men must be humbled into the dust and give up all hope in themselves and in their physical senses in order to receive what can only come by grace. We are told to trust in the Lord with all of our heart and not to lean on our own understanding (Prov 3:5). This would include the worldly wisdom and the way it understands.

All grace that comes to the soul comes through Christ and the soul that is united to Christ. Faith also comes by grace and Scripture sets it out as the work of the Spirit. So we have the Spirit working faith in the soul and the grace that is received only comes through faith. But this is not by the physical senses, but by the faith that operates in the spiritual realm. Jesus told the woman that if she believed she would see the glory of God. This was in John 11 where Lazarus was raised from the dead. So faith beholds the glory of God and sees what the physical senses do not. All the people there that day saw and heard Jesus says words and then Lazarus come out of the grave. But not all saw the glory of God shining forth. Nicodemus and many others saw the miracles that Jesus did, but Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born from above to see or enter the kingdom of God. So the miracles made it obvious who Jesus was and many believed. But that did not mean that they were converted and saw His glory.

2 Corinthians 4:18 sets this out very a great deal of clarity for us: “while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” The things that are seen, that is, the things that the physical eyes can see, are the things which are temporal. But the things which are not seen by the physical eye and yet are the things we look at with the spiritual eye are eternal things. In order for a soul to use faith, then, it must be driven beyond what the physical eye can see and behold spiritual things. It appears that much of Christianity today is simply a fleshly and blind trust in God to do something that the soul wants in the physical realm. But Luther saw ever so clearly that the soul must be driven beyond its physical senses and beyond its fleshly and physical nature in order to have true faith. We miss that today and in missing that we are missing something vital to Christianity.

So in the modern way of evangelizing, we want to be nice to people and tell them things that they can understand as they are and give them something to do that is in their own power. So many who profess to be Reformed say that there are deeper truths but do not want to trouble people with those. However, it seems to be the case that people need to be troubled in order to be driven beyond their fleshly powers and abilities in order that they may have faith in the first place. Until men are driven beyond their own fleshly abilities, there is no room for faith at all.

There are two considerations which require the preaching of these truths…. The second reason is this; faith’s object is things not seen. That there may be room for faith, therefore, all that is believed must be hidden. Yet it is not hidden more deeply than under a contrary appearance of sight, sense, and experience. Thus, when God quickens, He does so by killing; when He justifies, He does so by pronouncing guilty; when He carries up to heaven, He does so by bringing down to hell…Thus God conceals His eternal mercy and loving kindness beneath eternal wrath, His righteousness beneath unrighteousness. Now the highest degree of faith is to believe that He is merciful, though He saves so few and damns so many; to believe that He is just, though of His own will He makes us perforce proper subjects for damnation. (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)

The driving thought of this section of Luther is an awakening shout to modern people who slumber in the throes of their physical senses. Their faith is somehow tied to those and they rest confidently in what their senses tell them. The gospel that is preached and taught today is one that fits very well with a person not having to go beyond his or her own sensory experience. The devil has worked his deceptions in the modern professing Church and so we are deceived. But, if Luther was and is right, then a person must be humbled and broken from the five physical senses in order to arrive at the truth of spiritual faith which is real and saving faith.

Hebrews 11:1 sets out some of the basics of faith: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Clearly, without any real question, faith operates in the realm of things not seen. Hebrews 11:7 goes on to tell us that “By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” Noah believed what God said would happen rather than the things he could see and lived and functioned by what God said rather than according to the world around him.

Speaking of Moses, on the other hand, Hebrews 11:27 tells us that “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.” So on the one hand faith operates by what it does not see and yet on the other hand it operates by what it does see. True and saving faith functions and operates in the spiritual realm by what it sees in the spiritual realm by the eyes of the soul while it does not operate by what the physical eyes see.

We see this illustrated in II Corinthians 5:6-8. “Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord–7 for we walk by faith, not by sight– 8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.” The body is that which those who are not of true faith never want to leave. But Paul (who was full of faith) preferred to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord which he considered to be far better. True faith enables one to live by the character and presence of God rather than by what the human flesh senses, feels, and desires.

So Luther is extremely biblical in teaching us that we must preach the enslaved will in order to teach the things of true faith. A person must come to faith in the things that the eyes cannot see in order to have true faith. What must be truly believed in the spiritual realm is in fact hidden from the physical senses and the way human beings think and operate. This is what is so insidious about many of the things that are going on in the modern professing Church. It is all about the senses and it is all about the things that we can see. It is all about this life and even this physical life. But the teachings of Christ are all about the spiritual realm. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about spiritual things and that have to do with His spiritual kingdom.

The soul that rests on Christ alone cannot rest on the physical things about Christ and what is understood of Christ, but has to see into the spiritual kingdom to see spiritual things. The soul that is going to be saved must be brought to the point of its spiritual death in order to see that it is God who does the impossible according to the physical senses and that is to bring spiritual life to the soul. Faith is far more than a simple intellectual belief, but it is a soul that has been made a new creature in Christ and has spiritual senses. Faith is now the actions of a spiritual life in the soul that lives by spiritual principles and by what the Spirit works in the soul. A soul that has not learned how enslaved it really is in the spiritual realm apart from Christ will not look to Christ alone to be saved from itself.

There are two considerations which require the preaching of these truths…. The second reason is this; faith’s object is things not seen. That there may be room for faith, therefore, all that is believed must be hidden. Yet it is not hidden more deeply than under a contrary appearance of sight, sense, and experience. Thus, when God quickens, He does so by killing; when He justifies, He does so by pronouncing guilty; when He carries up to heaven, He does so by bringing down to hell…Thus God conceals His eternal mercy and loving kindness beneath eternal wrath, His righteousness beneath unrighteousness. Now the highest degree of faith is to believe that He is merciful, though He saves so few and damns so many; to believe that He is just, though of His own will He makes us perforce proper subjects for damnation. (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)

The above insight into faith by Luther is taken directly from Scripture. For example, Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” If we look at this as the biblical definition of faith, then we can see that true faith involves things that are hoped for and yet not seen. True faith, then, has to do with things that the physical eye cannot see. Another way to put it would be to think of faith as the senses of the soul that operates in the spiritual realm and that realm is unseen to the physical eyes. Jesus spoke to those who had hears to hear, but clearly He was speaking to those who could hear spiritual truths. God judges people by bringing blindness to them, but once again that is a spiritual blindness. Faith, then, has to do with spiritual things. Saving faith or spiritual faith is a faith or belief that operates and functions in the spiritual realm.

The truth that Luther brings out here is something that should inform evangelism and sanctification. Evangelism is practiced in the modern day as if people could be saved by bringing truth for the mind and they could simply make a choice for it. But that is far from the truth. Salvation comes to souls that have new hearts and minds and so people have a belief or faith in the spiritual realm. One example can be seen in the miracles of Jesus. It is hard to deny a miracle, though some did. But among those that saw miracles and believed in the physical miracle were many of those that were not truly converted. Those who were converted had eyes to see into the spiritual realm and see the hand of God there. The unconverted would see someone healed and they would have a faith of sorts that was limited to the physical realm. But those who were converted saw the glory of God shining in the spiritual realm. We also have truth that is spiritual and cannot be seen by physical eyes.

Hebrews 11:3 goes on to say that it is “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” This describes for us the real issue with the differences between evolution and creation. The real issue is faith. The unbeliever, whether a professing believer or not, has not capacity for sight beyond what his or her eyes can see. But the world was created out of things which are not visible. It is possible for those without spiritual eyes to have a sense of design from looking at or studying creation but that is not the same thing as having a sense of God and of His glory in creation. A person can believe in creation but not be truly converted.

Luther’s point, however, has to do with why we must preach to men and teach them that they are enslaved to sin and utterly dependant on the sovereign grace of God to save them. Luther says that this is because of the nature of faith. This is such an insightful point that it deserves to have a book written on it. Faith does not come to sinners because they are smart and they respond to an intellectual approach in giving them the facts. True faith is something that must come from God by grace and grace alone. True faith is able to see spiritual things and to hear spiritual things. But spiritual things are the things of the Spirit of Christ and only come to the soul by grace alone. This teaches us another reason why the soul must be deeply humbled in order to receive grace. It is because there can be no faith apart from grace because faith only comes by the sovereign grace of God.

The enslaved will must be taught to men so that they will reach an end of themselves in the natural realm and even their own ability to believe. Apart from men reaching the point of understanding themselves to be dead to spiritual things they will not become dead to their own abilities to see spiritual things. But faith operates in the spiritual realm and does not rely on the physical senses. Faith rests in God and God alone. While it is easier for men to hear information that they are able to deal with in their natural man, they must be brought to an end of that natural man so that they can look to grace alone to give them the ability of faith to operate in the spiritual realm. Apart from teaching men that their wills are enslaved, we will not teach them the way of true faith. It is that important.