God Loves… Himself

For several articles we have been looking at the first reason that Luther gave for preaching the enslavement of the willand sovereign grace to sinners. Hopefully the point was made that apart from teaching people the enslavement of their will we have no way of driving them to the point of helplessness in themselves and so that they can even see what it means to rely on sovereign grace which is the only kind of grace that there is. The next quote is from Luther giving the second reason we should preach the truth of the enslavement of the will and the sovereign grace of God.

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)

Luther’s point here virtually destroys the modern way of evangelism and preaching. In the modern day we don’t want to teach people the hard things because we don’t want to run them off. We think that if they like us they will hear us and we can get them to make a commitment to Christ and then we will teach them the hard things later. However, the fear of them leaving is always there so we never quite get around to it. What Luther writes here is simply full of wisdom and of a man who has seen God by faith.

Until a person has reached the end of self, that person will look to self and to the senses and experiences of self. In modern preaching and evangelism those are the things that people are taught to look to. A person must actually come to a biblical faith and that faith must actually be in God through Christ. That faith cannot only be because a person has intellectually believed the facts of the Gospel and then made a commitment, but a person must actually be united to Christ and so receiving from Christ. One important aspect of faith is that it receives grace from God purchased and mediated by Christ. But to receive grace a person must be emptied of self, merit, and self-righteousness. Self always wants to trust in self in some way, so until self is denied grace will not be received. Salvation is by faith in order that it may be by faith (Rom 4:16).

The object of saving faith is hidden from the senses of the physical body. This is the reason that the believer walks by faith. We walk by faith because we walk by what the soul receives from God rather than what the senses and the worldly system built on those senses teach us. Many have faith in God for external things, but they have a sort of rational faith or a worldly faith. Luther’s great insight should be meditated on deeply: “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.” Paul said of Abraham that “In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, “SO SHALL YOUR DESCENDANTS BE.” 19 Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb; 20 yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God” (Rom 4).

In Hebrews 11 we see Abraham again. He was looking ahead to a city whose architect was God (vv. 8-10). He was going to slay Isaac because he believed the promise of God so much that he thought that God would raise Isaac from the dead in order to keep His promise (11:17-19). What we see, then, is that faith functions and operates in the spiritual realm. It operates at a hidden level in terms of the physical realm. That shows us that in order for a person to have true faith that person must reach the end of what his physical senses can inform him or her of and be driven to the spiritual realm. The senses of human beings cannot understand how God could make a promise through Isaac and then how God would command that Abraham would offer Isaac as a sacrifice. Only the soul that sees beyond the physical realm and its senses could understand how Abraham could do what he did in complete faith in the promises of God. Until a soul arrives at the point of death to self and trusting in its sense it cannot have true faith in Christ. It cannot believe beyond what it can see. Teaching the enslavement of the will and sovereign grace, therefore, are necessary teachings to the Gospel of grace alone through faith alone.

There are two considerations which require the preaching of these truths. The first is the humbling of our pride, and the comprehending of the grace of God; the second is the nature of Christian faith. For the first; God has surely promised His grace to the humbled; that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another—God alone. As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God; but plans out for himself (or at least hopes and longs for) a position, an occasion, a work, which shall bring him final salvation. But he who is out of doubt that his destiny depends entirely on the will of God despairs entirely of himself, chooses nothing for himself, but waits for God to work in him; and such a man is very near to grace for his salvation. So these truths are published for the sake of the elect, that they may be humbled and brought down to nothing, and so saved. The rest of men resist this humiliation; indeed, they condemn the teaching of self-despair; they want a little something left that they can do for themselves. Secretly they continue proud, and enemies of the grace of God. This, I repeat, is one reason—that those who fear God might in humility comprehend, claim and receive His gracious promise.    (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)

The great danger that is produced by those who will not work to see that souls are humbled and brought to despair of themselves is that the soul that does not despair of itself will always look for one little thing that depends on self rather than rest in grace alone. So regardless of whether a person is professing to be Reformed or not, if there is left in the soul one little thing for the soul to do the soul will rest in that one little thing. What is the great danger of that? The soul must despair entirely of self in order to wait for God to work in the soul. What is the great danger of that? Salvation is the work of God in the soul by grace alone. The activity of the self will spoil grace since grace must never have the addition of anything to it or it is no longer grace (Rom 11:6). As Luther points out, the truth of self-despair or the teaching of the enslaved will is “published for the sake of the elect, that they may be humbled, brought to nothing, and so saved.” Luther’s strong belief in publishing his book The Bondage of the Will was that it was explaining justification by grace alone. Until a soul is utterly emptied of self and has no hope in self it will not look to grace alone to be saved. It will always leave something for itself to do so it may lean on self, even a little.

Those who are uncomfortable with the teaching of grace alone will condemn this teaching. That is in order that they may rely on themselves and excuse themselves in their own eyes in terms of their ministries because they did not teach this. Once a person sees the need for the soul to be utterly humbled and to lose all hope in self, it sees that leading people in a prayer or encouraging them to exercise choice is not only false but misleading people so that they trust in themselves rather than grace. It is not just a teaching, but it is also guiding souls to a deeper and deeper mistrust of self so that the inner person is really doing it. A soul must not just accept the facts that s/he must have no trust in self, but the soul must actually have no trust in self. Those who are not saved by the truth are also not humbled past the point of trusting in self. Many outwardly great things in religion can be done without this teaching, but the Gospel cannot be preached without it. The good news is to be preached to the poor, that is, the poor in spirit. As Luther points out, those who resist this work (whether in theology or in their hearts) “secretly they continue proud, and enemies of the grace of God.” No one is an enemy of the grace of God if grace is seen as that which supplies salvation where man can accept or refuse it as he pleases and when he pleases.

The soul that arrives at the intellectual understanding that the soul must be delivered from all hope in itself in order to rest in grace alone is rare today. But even rarer, it appears, is the soul that understands that the actual deliverance from all hope in self is something that actually must happen to the soul. This is the work of grace in the soul. Being delivered from all hope in self is not the work of self, but is the work of grace in its work of irresistible grace. It is in this light that we can understand that Luther viewed those who condemned the teaching of self-despair as enemies of the grace of God. These are hard words, but they are true words. Those who teach that the soul does not have to be brought to an utter end of itself in despair of any help or hope in self are enemies of the grace of God in truth. They are, despite their creeds, enemies to the truth of justification by faith alone. The denial of the Spirit’s work of convincing men of the depths of their sin is a denial of irresistible grace and practically a denial of the Gospel of grace alone. One can be orthodox in creed without this, but one cannot preach grace alone without it.

There are two considerations which require the preaching of these truths. The first is the humbling of our pride, and the comprehending of the grace of God; the second is the nature of Christian faith. For the first; God has surely promised His grace to the humbled; that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another—God alone. As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God; but plans out for himself (or at least hopes and longs for) a position, an occasion, a work, which shall bring him final salvation. But he who is out of doubt that his destiny depends entirely on the will of God despairs entirely of himself, chooses nothing for himself, but waits for God to work in him; and such a man is very near to grace for his salvation. So these truths are published for the sake of the elect, that they may be humbled and brought down to nothing, and so saved. The rest of men resist this humiliation; indeed, they condemn the teaching of self-despair; they want a little something left that they can do for themselves. Secretly they continue proud, and enemies of the grace of God. This, I repeat, is one reason—that those who fear God might in humility comprehend, claim and receive His gracious promise.  (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)

Luther teaches us as he wrote to Erasmus that a person must be humbled before salvation because God has promised grace to the humble. Until a person “realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works,” that person is not truly humbled. In other words, a person must come to the end of all that self is and all that self can do in order to be truly humbled. Until a person “depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another—God alone,” that person is not humbled. So to have true humility hinges on at least two things. It hinges on the inward self leaving all hope in self and resting in the sovereign grace of God. These are the two points that Luther hammers at.

The soul that does not rest in sovereign grace alone is the soul does not utterly despair of any hope in self and so has some hope that it can make the smallest contribution to salvation itself. Many souls, in other words, look to themselves for the tiniest act. It is “a position, an occasion, a work” that the soul has planned which shows that the soul does not depend on God and His grace alone but still has the tiniest reserve for self which is really a mountain of pride rather than a small amount. The mountain of pride still trusts in itself to so some little thing (in its own way of thinking) but in doing that it is refusing to give up all hope in self. In that case self has reserved some hope in itself and that reservoir of self and pride desires control and sufficiency. The truly humbled soul has finished with self to the point that it despairs of self. Only the soul that despairs of self can depend entirely on God and wait for God to work in it. Luther said that such a soul “is very near to grace for his salvation.”

This shows with great clarity why the twin truths of the enslavement of the will and the sovereign grace of God must be taught clearly and openly. Or, as Luther puts it, “these truths are published for the sake of the elect, that they may be humbled and brought down to nothing, and so saved.” These great truths are taught for the sake of the elect and not for those who will hate these things and leave religious organizations (called churches at times) over them. Of course unregenerate men who hate God will be offended by these truths which set out the helplessness of man and the sovereignty of grace which is the only kind of grace. But the truth must be taught so that some sinners will be saved. In our day, however, we are so afraid of offending anyone that the truth is watered down so that it is palatable to even very wicked people.

When people have a great sickness and are dying, it is not kind or loving to tell them some syrupy message that withholds the truth from them about their condition so that they can see what they need to be delivered. It is also far from kind and loving to refuse to tell people of the strong medication that is needed to cure their disease. We would think that physicians and nurses were monsters if they did this to dying people. Yet preachers across the land are doing this to the souls of people and they are far worse. The popular message of the day is positive and all within the power of man. It is nothing but poison to the soul, however. People love to hear things about how much is in their power if only they will do something or if they will only believe, but it is poison to their souls. Those who profess to be Reformed know these things intellectually, but for the sake of numbers they will not teach them clearly with sharp points to drive them into the souls of the hearers. This is to hold back necessary truths from souls. It is a monstrous wickedness.

The greatest criminals in our land are not the serial killers as they are called, but the smiling preachers who delude souls and deceive them about their salvation by not preaching the whole truth. People take oaths in our land when they are about to testify in court. They swear that they will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Yet ministers will stand before God and dying souls and tell jokes rather than the only antidote to the wrath of God that they are under. They will preach something about the Gospel but not the Gospel itself. They will preach about sin but not sin itself and not what must happen for true repentance to occur. Our land is full of preachers who may be orthodox in creed, but they still cry out peace, peace, when there is no peace. They are more concerned with the number of people in the pew and the dollars coming in than they are to preach the offensive Gospel. They are, behind their expensive suits, nice hair, and smiling faces, criminals of the worst kind. Their judgment will also be far worse than the ones they are deceiving. They are loved by all in this life, but in eternity they will suffer eternal shame and hatred by all. For eternity they will wish they had preached the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But for now, they love the honor of men more than the truth of the Gospel. They are vile and wretched criminals.

There are two considerations which require the preaching of these truths. The first is the humbling of our pride, and the comprehending of the grace of God; the second is the nature of Christian faith. For the first; God has surely promised His grace to the humbled; that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another—God alone. As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God; but plans out for himself (or at least hopes and longs for) a position, an occasion, a work, which shall bring him final salvation. But he who is out of doubt that his destiny depends entirely on the will of God despairs entirely of himself, chooses nothing for himself, but waits for God to work in him; and such a man is very near to grace for his salvation. So these truths are published for the sake of the elect, that they may be humbled and brought down to nothing, and so saved. The rest of men resist this humiliation; indeed, they condemn the teaching of self-despair; they want a little something left that they can do for themselves. Secretly they continue proud, and enemies of the grace of God. This, I repeat, is one reason—that those who fear God might in humility comprehend, claim and receive His gracious promise. (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)

According to Luther, and in accordance with the Gospel that went forth during the Reformation, the grace of salvation was only to the humbled. Luther went on to describe what he meant by that. In light of that, it is important to keep two things in mind. One, Luther thought that his views on the enslavement of the will were necessary teachings to the Gospel. Two, the grace given to the humbled was nothing less than the grace that is the grace that justifies by grace alone. The whole point of a justification by faith alone was to teach the truth of justification by grace alone and by Christ alone. So the grace that goes to the humbled is the grace that saves. There can be no question about this at all. For what it is worth, this was the Puritan method of evangelism. The soul had to be thoroughly humbled before it could receive grace.

The salvation that Luther and the Reformers preached and taught was by grace alone. It is true that in the modern day it is justification by faith alone that gets the press. But if we read The Bondage of the Will with some degree of care it is obvious that the reason sinners are saved by faith alone is so that they may be saved by grace alone. The soul that is full of pride and self, whether it is recognized by self or not, is not a soul that can receive grace alone. The soul full of pride is a soul that will rest in itself in some way or something it does. It will trust in itself to believe or come up with just a small amount of faith. The pride in the soul will blind the soul to itself. So the soul must be thoroughly humbled or it will not and cannot receive grace alone. It will not even understand grace alone thought it adheres to it in some creedal form.

If what has been said by Luther about the utter need for the soul to be humbled is correct, then we live in a dark day indeed where little to nothing is said about this necessary preparatory work of the Spirit of God. If this humbling of the soul is at the very heart of justification by faith alone as taught by Luther, then we are far, far away from teaching the same Gospel that he taught. This would mean that there are vast numbers of people in the pews who think that they believe and even believe in justification by faith alone as a doctrine. But even more, as Solomon Stoddard said, “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…It would expose men to think of themselves as converted when they are not (A Guide to Christ).

It is just like the devil himself to hide the glory of the truth from the eyes of sinners by the truth itself. The devil does not care if people hear the words of some of the truth of the Gospel because he can deceive people with the truth. The devil hides the glory of the Gospel from people and so they are not saved (II Cor 4:4). One of the ways this is done is to hide the glory of sovereign grace from people. After all, Scripture teaches us that sinners are saved to the praise of the glory of His grace (Eph 1:5-6). There is no other kind of grace but sovereign grace. When we hide the teaching of the enslaved will from people we are hiding their true enslavement from them and so they cannot see the power, beauty, and glory of sovereign grace which is the only kind of grace there is. So their souls remained unhumbled as they remain under the power of the blinding pride of their hearts. They believe in the words of justification by faith alone and so they are deceived about their salvation because their hearts have not been truly and thoroughly humbled. They believe in grace, but cannot truly rely on sovereign grace alone because they are still in the grip of their pride because they have not been truly humbled.

It is a horrible state of darkness that parallels the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:23. “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! When the humility that is in the soul is pride, how great is the blinding power of that pride. When the faith that is in the soul is by pride, how blind are those who have that proud faith. They are, as the Pharisees, doubly lost. When God sends famine, at times He sends severe famines. We are in a severe spiritual famine.

There are two considerations which require the preaching of these truths. The first is the humbling of our pride, and the comprehending of the grace of God; the second is the nature of Christian faith. For the first; God has surely promised His grace to the humbled; that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another—God alone. As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God; but plans out for himself (or at least hopes and longs for) a position, an occasion, a work, which shall bring him final salvation. But he who is out of doubt that his destiny depends entirely on the will of God despairs entirely of himself, chooses nothing for himself, but waits for God to work in him; and such a man is very near to grace for his salvation. So these truths are published for the sake of the elect, that they may be humbled and brought down to nothing, and so saved. The rest of men resist this humiliation; indeed, they condemn the teaching of self-despair; they want a little something left that they can do for themselves. Secretly they continue proud, and enemies of the grace of God. This, I repeat, is one reason—that those who fear God might in humility comprehend, claim and receive His gracious promise.
(Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)

Luther wrote this classic work defending the Gospel of grace alone which comes to the sinner through faith alone. This book set out the heart of the Gospel and was the heart of the Gospel proclaimed during the Reformation. It was the Gospel that turned the world upside down. Luther was sure and loud about the utter necessity of the soul being humbled and broken before the soul would and could come to the point of experientially understanding that it was beyond hope in and of itself. The soul must arrive to the point that from the deepest part of the soul it is thoroughly persuaded that it cannot make contribute anything to its own salvation and that includes faith. That position is necessary for the soul to even understand what grace is and to rest in sovereign grace alone. What happens when people, even those who speak of total depravity and sovereign grace, do not teach that the soul must be humbled and broken to that degree? In the 1700’s Solomon Stoddard addressed that when he wrote this:

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).

It is not that this humbling of the soul is just something that a few people must go through, but it is what all souls must go through if they are to be converted. God does not just write a few things down in a book and try to get people to agree that they are true or say that they believe those things are true, but He works these things into the depths of their soul and so the belief of the soul actually mirrors what is going on in the soul. God does not just promise grace and expect people to stand back and believe that they have it, but instead He works this grace in their souls. So the humbled soul must not just believe a few things, but instead it is to actually be broken from itself and its pride and so be brought to its face in utter emptiness of self before it will receive grace in reality.

Faith is not just a belief that the brain has, but it is the core and deepest controlling belief of the soul. Until a soul is broken from pride and self-love, it will always trust in itself to believe a few things revealed about God. The biblical doctrine of grace demands nothing less from the soul than to be utterly broken with no help or hope in or from self. Can really have true faith unless it “depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another—God alone” and nothing of self? What does it mean to believe on Christ apart from depending absolutely on Christ for the will, counsel, pleasure, and work of God to save it? But in our degenerate and frighteningly shallow age that is under the spiritual judgment of God we accept as true that all a soul must do is to believe some facts with the brain. The Bible is quite clear that a person must be born from above and become a new creature in Christ Jesus in order to be saved. Oh how religion has received its deadly wound by those who deny that the soul must be thoroughly humbled by grace before it can receive grace. We have little more than a religion of self in our day. What else can it be when the soul doesn’t have to be truly broken and humbled from self?

There are two considerations which require the preaching of these truths. The first is the humbling of our pride, and the comprehending of the grace of God; the second is the nature of Christian faith. For the first; God has surely promised His grace to the humbled; that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another—God alone. As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God; but plans out for himself (or at least hopes and longs for) a position, an occasion, a work, which shall bring him final salvation. But he who is out of doubt that his destiny depends entirely on the will of God despairs entirely of himself, chooses nothing for himself, but waits for God to work in him; and such a man is very near to grace for his salvation. So these truths are published for the sake of the elect, that they may be humbled and brought down to nothing, and so saved. The rest of men resist this humiliation; indeed, they condemn the teaching of self-despair; they want a little something left that they can do for themselves. Secretly they continue proud, and enemies of the grace of God. This, I repeat, is one reason—that those who fear God might in humility comprehend, claim and receive His gracious promise.
(Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)

Luther does not leave us any room for doubt what he meant by those that the promise of grace was to. We can repeat the words of Scripture that God gives His grace to the humble, but we can believe something far different about what the Bible means by humble. It would appear that in our day not many believe that a person must be truly humbled in order to be saved. Luther says that a person that is humbled is one that mourns over and despairs of himself. That does not go across well in our day. We want people to just believe some facts about Jesus rather than to be humbled to the point of mourning and despairing of self so that one can actually rest alone on and in Christ with the soul. It is easier on self and easier on those we know to do this. These are things that are impossible for us to do in our own strength and so we shy away from them. The heart of proud and sinful man wants to have facts he can believe or a prayer to pray rather than bow in utter submission to God. Sinful man always wants to leave himself some hope in self rather than to look to God alone. Clearly, this is nothing but pride.

In the modern day many of those who call themselves Reformed have also fallen away from this teaching of Luther and Scripture. They will retain his words of justification by faith alone, but they do not mean the same thing by them. Instead they have fallen into the heart of Arminianism and perhaps even of Pelagianism in simply having men to pray or say they believe. But a person must do more than say a prayer and convince him or herself to believe, that person must have a changed heart in order to have a believing heart. The believing heart is a heart that must be constantly receiving from Christ His grace because the believing heart lives by grace received. So the heart must be thoroughly broken because pride will never receive grace. But that is precisely the evangelism that is practiced by so many. They think that a person that prays a prayer or says that s/he believes is saved apart from being humbled and broken in reality and experience.

This brings us to a thought that is hated even more. In the 1700’s Solomon Stoddard wrote this:

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).

Stoddard held to the essence of what Luther taught about the soul needing to be humbled in order to be saved which was the Puritan way of evangelism too. His grandson, Jonathan Edwards, also taught that the soul needed to be deeply humbled and broken before a person could be saved by Christ alone. But this points out a sober truth as to where we are today. Virtually all deny any real necessity of the preparatory work of the Spirit. If they don’t deny it in words, they deny it in practice. But since so many deny that today, what are we to make of what Stoddard says just after that? “It is an evidence that men do not have the experience of that work in their own souls.” If men don’t think that this is necessary, and they were not thoroughly humbled themselves, then they resist this because it did not happen to them. They try to deny it because they rest their hope of salvation on the fact that it does not need to be done. But that simply means that both the minister and those he is “ministering” to are unconverted. When those who are leading the blind are blind, both will fall into a ditch. When those who have no peace are calling out that there is peace when there is no peace, a deadly wound has been given to religion. Ministers and non-ministers alike all think they are saved because they prayed a prayer, believed some facts, had some form of moral reformation, or perhaps have become very religious. But all the religious things they are doing come from a proud heart because they have never been truly humbled. We live in a day of great darkness regarding truly spiritual things.

There are two considerations which require the preaching of these truths. The first is the humbling of our pride, and the comprehending of the grace of God; the second is the nature of Christian faith. For the
first; God has surely promised His grace to the humbled; that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realises that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another—God alone. As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God; but plans out for himself (or at least hopes and longs for) a position, an occasion, a work, which shall bring him final salvation. But he who is out of doubt that his destiny depends entirely on the will of God despairs entirely of himself, chooses nothing for himself, but waits for God to work in him; and such a man is very near to grace for his salvation. So these truths are published for the sake of the elect, that they may be humbled and brought down to nothing, and so saved. The rest of men resist this humiliation; indeed, they condemn the teaching of self-despair; they want a little something left that they can do for themselves. Secretly they continue proud, and enemies of the grace of God. This, I repeat, is one reason—that those who fear God might in humility comprehend, claim and receive His gracious promise.
(Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)

This is one of the most powerful arguments presented by Luther and which shatters the thought that travels through much of modern preaching and evangelism. For Luther free-will was not only something that should not be preached in the Gospel, but the opposite must be preached in order for men to be saved. In Luther’s way of thinking the enslaved will must be taught so that men could be humbled from their pride and then they could comprehend the grace of God. So apart from teaching the enslavement of the will and men’s utter helplessness in sin men will not be humbled from their pride and so will not rest in sovereign grace alone.

If Luther was and is correct about this, the ramifications for the modern day are beyond enormous. Across America there seems to be but very few who teach what Luther said was utterly necessary. Pelagianism and Arminianism make up the vast majority, but those who claim to be Reformed are just like the Arminians when it comes to preaching and evangelism. It seems as if the vast majority of the professing Reformed will even argue against telling people that they are dead in their sins in evangelism. It is not enough to just tell a person that s/he is dead in sins and trespasses as information alone is not enough. It is not enough for a person just to be able to repeat that s/he is dead in sins and trespasses. The person must come to an experiential understanding of what that means and from the depths of the heart bow before the one and only sovereign God as dead and utterly helpless before Him. It is not enough for a person to hear or even believe that s/he is proud in heart, but a person must come to the experiential understanding of that. A person must feel the weight of pride in the heart and come to hate that pride in his or her own heart. It is only then that a person can really be turned from pride.

The promises of God are only to the humble. The proud soul, then, must be humbled to obtain the promises of God. Yet this is denied when people say that all a person must do is believe. It is true that a person must believe, but a proud person cannot believe. Only the humble truly believe in and on Christ. It is the humble and contrite that God is said to dwell with (Isa 57:15) and to look on with favor (Isa 66:2). Jesus called those who were weary and heavy-laden to Himself (Mat 11:25-30). He said that only those who were turned and become like children would enter the kingdom (Mat 18:1-3). There are not promises to the proud and that includes those who believe in some way in Christ and yet have not repented of a proud heart. Pride kills true faith (Hab 2:4) while it breeds many kinds and types of faith that deceives hearts that are full of pride even if that pride is covered in a false humility with acts of false love. The heart is wicked and deceptive and only God can open it to where the truth of it can be seen.

Grace is promised to the humble alone. The proud will not and cannot receive grace. The proud will stand upon their own faith, their own love, and their own humility and ways. The proud will stand on their own doctrine whether it is Pelagian, Arminian, or Reformed. It is their doctrine and it is their way. But the inward work of sovereign grace is not truly loved by the proud regardless of the doctrinal stance. The professing Calvinist can hate the sovereignty of God in truth while professing love for it at conferences and in public. A person must be saved by the inward working of grace and not just profess to believe certain things about it. Only the humble do that.

You say that a flood-gate of iniquity is opened by our doctrines. So be it. Ungodly men are part of that evil leprosy aforementioned, which we must endure. Nevertheless, these are the very doctrines which throw open to the elect, who fear God, a gateway of righteousness, an entrance into heaven, and a road to God! If, as you advise, we should keep off these doctrines and hide the word of God from men, and leave them all to labour under a false assurance of salvation, never learning the fear of God and true humiliation, and so never coming through that fear to true, saving grace and love—why, then we should have shut our flood-gate to some purpose; for in its place we should set open before ourselves and everyone else broad gates, yes, gaping chasms and raging whirlpools, to take us down not only into sin, but into the very depths of hell! Thus we too should fail to enter heaven ourselves, and hinder others who were entering (cf. Matt. 23:13). (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will).

The above quote by Luther should open minds to reality. Parts of the modern professing Church has eschewed the so-called seeker oriented part in theory, but have swallowed some of its practices. We are being taught to be gracious and winsome rather than to teach the truth. The truth of God will always be hated by people in this world. The truth of God will always have its rough edges when applied to the hearts of those who hate Him. The Law of God, when spiritually applied to the consciences of sinners, will evoke unpleasant responses. We cannot expect to have peace in this world unless we are enough like it to pare the rough edges of biblical truth down to where men will not be offended at it. To achieve peace within denominations, churches, and with other people we attempt to pare down the Word of God and make it palatable. But this is to hide the truth from people. Professing Calvinists want to be accepted and have honor among their denominations as well, so they take the rough edges off their teaching which is to make it just like the others at the heart of it. But this is to hide the truth from people for the sake of our comfort and ease and so we can have honor in our denominations. This is idolatry (John 5:44).

The preacher of the Gospel must constantly keep God as the focus and not humans. There is no true love for human souls or good done to human souls apart from the glory of God being the true focus. When human beings focus on sinners and they know that they are the focus then the idea is left with the sinner that God is focused on him or her. That is the heart of idolatry. Sinners must repent of their self-centeredness and of their very selves and become God-centered in order to be converted. If that is correct, and certainly Jesus said that we must deny self in order to follow Him, then a focus on the sinner and giving the impression that God is focused on the center is to communicate that which is opposite of the Gospel. When the doctrines and teachings of the Gospel are watered down in order to make them palatable to man and so we can be more gracious, what we have done is to think our graciousness is stronger and better than the grace of God. It is also to hide the truth about God and His Word from men and to leave them in their self-centeredness. It is a very self-centered thing to do on our part. It is also an idolatrous thing to do on our part as we would rather have men like and honor us than to hear the truth of God.

The love of men is a massive cause for stumbling in our day. Our society and culture is awash with niceness and politeness rather than love. So the professing Church has been filled with the same thing as well. This means that preachers are fired for teaching the truth, but violating what many think of as love. But in fact the brutal truth of it all is that man is man-centered rather than God-centered and has been washed off the biblical rock with humanism. The Gospel of grace alone must be preached or we are not preaching the Gospel. The doctrines of man’s utter helplessness in sin and of sovereign grace must be preached or the Gospel is not being preached. Oh how so many want to hide these necessary truths under a biblical cloak these days, but the reality of it is that if the Gospel is to be preached these cannot be hidden. Oh how deceitful our hearts are to try and hide the truth from men while making religious excuses for it. It is the Pelagian heart that is ashamed of these things and wants to hide them. It is the Pelagian heart (even if wrapped in Reformed clothing) that thinks these things can be hidden from souls and then spring it on them later after they are more mature. The Gospel is offensive when it is preached in truth!

Those who love the honor and praise of men rather than God should wake up and realize that they are idolaters and not preachers of truth. In order to be a true preacher of the Gospel a person must preach the truth of God and about God. It is actually hatred for souls if we are willing to try to please them rather than God. Indeed when we try to hide the truth of these things from people we are shutting the door to the truth to them and to ourselves. That is precisely what lovers of self do, even if they have the form of truth and orthodoxy. It is, after all, just a form.

You say that a flood-gate of iniquity is opened by our doctrines. So be it. Ungodly men are part of that evil leprosy aforementioned, which we must endure. Nevertheless, these are the very doctrines which throw open to the elect, who fear God, a gateway of righteousness, an entrance into heaven, and a road to God! If, as you advise, we should keep off these doctrines and hide the word of God from men, and leave them all to labour under a false assurance of salvation, never learning the fear of God and true humiliation, and so never coming through that fear to true, saving grace and love—why, then we should have shut our flood-gate to some purpose; for in its place we should set open before ourselves and everyone else broad gates, yes, gaping chasms and raging whirlpools, to take us down not only into sin, but into the very depths of hell! Thus we too should fail to enter heaven ourselves, and hinder others who were entering (cf. Matt. 23:13). (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will).

Erasmus was fearful that if the doctrines of grace and of the enslaved will were taught a lot of sin would result. Luther did not see that as a problem as such, but that these are the doctrines who throw open the Gospel to the elect and show the road to God. Luther did not see it as a problem at all to boldly teach the enslaved will of man and the grace of God because that taught men the truth. It stripped some of their false assurance of salvation whereas the method of Erasmus hid the word of God from men and left them in their false assurance of salvation. Not only that, they would never learn the true humiliation of the soul and so never coming to the point of really understanding and bowing to saving grace and love.

Luther believed that a soul must be thoroughly humbled before it could be saved. It must be emptied of all hope in self and to despair of any hope that self could contribute one thing to salvation. In many ways coming to the experiential part of that is what total depravity applied to the soul really is. It is relatively easy for souls to come to an understanding of what total depravity means, but it is impossible for the soul to come to the point of utter helplessness in itself and looking to grace alone apart from grace doing the work in the soul. The soul must be emptied of self so that it can be filled with Christ. As long as we do not teach the truth about the enslaved will we will not be preaching to souls what they need to experientially understand in the depths of their souls about themselves and then learn of true grace and love.

It may be the case that some people will misunderstand and misapply what it means to have an enslaved will and what it means to be saved and sanctified by grace alone. But that cannot mean that the truth should be withheld or hidden from people. The truth must be preached for the Gospel to be preached. The Gospel will always be ridiculed and made fun of. But the Gospel of grace alone must be preached because that is the only Gospel that there is and the one and only God is the One that shines forth His glory in the Gospel. People who hate the truth will be hardened to it, but that says nothing evil about the truth itself. The position of Erasmus was that of a moralist who believed that external morality was what was good. But in Scripture the Pharisees were external moralists and they were lost. Jesus was accused of many things as well, but He kept on preaching the truth. Indeed the truth will harden people and God will blind many to the truth, but the truth must be preached. When man pares down the truth of the Gospel to make it more palatable to the ungodly, the truth and glory of the Gospel is gone.

Whenever the truth of God is hidden from people in order to produce an external morality, a false way of salvation is presented to souls. That means that the fallen hearts of human beings will find refuge in false gospels and error. It is, to use the thought of Luther, to shut the gates to some immorality but it is also to open the gates wide to hell. It would be to hide the truth of the Gospel and of true morality and leave men in a religious morality which is a form of morality that God hates. What happens, then, is that a gate to a form of immorality is shut but it opens other gates that are far worse. Man’s way always does that. Another problem is that not only does it shut the door to heaven (so to speak) for others, but it also means that the preachers are preaching a false gospel and are shutting the door on themselves as well. Hiding this truth has massive ramifications for eternal souls and His glory.

There is no good reason to hide the truth of God from human souls. Those who hide the truth of the enslaved will from others are guilty of hiding a very important truth that is necessary to understand the Gospel of Christ alone and of grace alone. Sure some think that this is going too far, but according to Scripture souls are saved by grace and grace alone. Anything necessary to that is a necessary teaching. We had best not hide it from people.

In the last BLOG we looked at how the biblical use of the word “faith” is really shorthand for Christ. This shows us that salvation is by Christ alone and those who focus on faith as if it moves God to save or allow for man to trust in himself to come up with faith are really misleading people as to the true nature of the Gospel. While there are several today who will at least agree that God is sovereign and that faith is His gift, they don’t think this is important enough to talk about in evangelism. It is almost as if they think this is a truth that needs to be seated in the corner while important doctrines take center stage.

Here, I see, you are taking the view that the truth and usefulness of Scripture should be measured and decided according to the feeling of men—to be precise, of the ungodliest of men; so that nothing henceforth will be true, Divine and wholesome but what these persons find pleasing and acceptable; and what is not so will at once become useless, untrue and harmful. What else do you here plead for, but that the words of God may thus depend on, and stand or fall by, the will and authority of men? (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will).

When men decide to hold back truths that are very vital to the Gospel of grace alone as the enslaved will is, they are being just like Erasmus. While they will not admit that they are like Erasmus, they are. They are afraid of offending ungodly men while they are not afraid of offending a thrice holy God. Scripture is quite clear that men are dead in sins and trespasses and cannot contribute one thing to salvation. Dead men have nothing to contribute. Scripture is quite clear that the will of man cannot contribute one thing in salvation.

John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Romans 9:15 For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.” 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

Scripture is explicit that man’s will cannot save, but only the will of God can. It goes to pains in these verses to show that it is not the man who wills that is saved. It is the will of God that saves man. It is the compassion and mercy of God that saves man. When we focus on the will of man we take our eyes off of the grace of God who will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. The conclusion Paul draws in Romans 9:16 is taken from Romans 9:15. He is quite unconcerned about offending the ungodly by these verses. Instead, He takes the passage from Exodus 33 and makes a startling conclusion. Because God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy and will have compassion on whom He will have compassion, it does not depend on the man who wills. We must let Paul’s premises and conclusion settle into our minds and hearts and have our thinking developed by Scripture rather than the fear of offending ungodly men who have the breath of life in their nostrils rather than the power of life itself.

Because God will save by grace alone rather than any other way, salvation does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but instead on God who is the One who shows mercy. If the Gospel of grace alone depends on our teaching a salvation that is of grace alone and it is God who shows this grace to whom He pleases, then we must not teach a gospel that is dependent on the will of man in any way. If the apostle Paul teaches us with clarity and power that because God shows mercy to whom He will that the will of man (free-will) has nothing to do with his own salvation, then we must teach the same thing if we are going to preach the Gospel of grace alone as Paul did. If we are going to preach a Gospel that is truly all of grace alone, then we must preach a Gospel that is of Christ alone. Yet if we follow John and Paul on this matter, we can see that we cannot preach the Gospel of Christ alone and grace alone unless we teach that man’s will cannot contribute one thing to salvation. If we teach that, it will involve teaching the utter helplessness of man in sin so that the sovereign grace of God can be declared.

It is true that if we preach this way and evangelize this way we will offend the ungodly whether they claim to be Christians or not. But we cannot preach the true Gospel of grace alone as Paul did without offending the ungodly. So if our goal is not to offend the ungodly, we should realize that the real problem is that we are unwilling to suffer for the Gospel of grace alone. The real issue of offending others is that we want to be liked and honored. But as Jesus said, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” (John 5:44). If we are more concerned about running people off than seeking the presence of God, He is gone already and most likely we are not preaching the Gospel of grace alone in truth. What this teaches us is that there are many ministers who need to repent and believe the Gospel before they can preach it. This is not limited to Arminians and Pelagians, but to those who profess to be Reformed as well.