God Loves… Himself

What is the source and status of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received, or is it the condition of justification which it is left to man to fulfil? Is it a part of God’s gift of salvation, or is it man’s own contribution to salvation? Is our salvation wholly of God, or does it ultimately depend on something that we do for ourselves? Those who deny the latter (as the Arminians later did) thereby deny man’s utter helplessness in sin, and affirm that a form of semi-Pelagianism is true after all. It is no wonder, then, that later Reformed theology condemned Arminianism as being in principle a return to Rome (because in effect it turned faith into a meritorious work) and a betrayal of the Reformation (because it denied the sovereignty of God in saving sinners, which was the deepest religious and theological principle of the Reformer’s thought). Arminianism was, indeed, in Reformed eyes a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favour of New Testament Judaism; for to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle from relying on oneself for works, and the one is as un-Christian and anti-Christian as the other (Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will).

The free act of the will apart from God (even just a little bit) is a flat out denial of the sovereignty of God (wholly) in saving sinners. While some may give it lip service and say they believe in both a free-will and a sovereign God, that is like believing in a pan of frozen boiling water. It simply cannot be. The human will cannot be free from God in a choice and yet have God be sovereign over it at the same time. The human will cannot be free from God to choose salvation for itself and have a salvation that is by grace alone at the same time. A free-will choice for salvation is a denial of biblical faith. It is a different conception of faith than the Reformers taught. If justification is “by” faith alone in the sense that it is because of faith, then that is a work. But the Reformers taught that “by” in the phrase ‘justification by faith alone’ meant that faith was the instrument that received Christ or grace alone. Faith is not rewarded, but instead is an instrument that receives. The instrument itself is a work of grace as well.

In the modern climate where it is demanded that a person be gracious to all, it is hard to state the so-called bald facts of the Gospel and its exclusive nature in the gracious and winsome manner that moderns expect and call for. However, Paul stated in the context of the exclusivity of the Gospel that if he strove to please men he would not be a bond-servant of Christ (Gal 1:10). It is entirely possible (and probable) that the desire to be gracious to all is simply a way of pleasing men. When wrestling with the issues of the Gospel, it is not gracious (according to grace and truth) to try to please men when they are not in line with the Gospel. Arminianism, though in reality it is a form of semi-Pelagianism, was found to be a betrayal of the Reformation. Has Arminianism changed? Have the doctrines of the Reformation changed? Has the Gospel of grace alone changed? Maybe we need to wonder if the modern day way of looking at the Gospel has departed from both Scripture and the Reformation. The Gospel of grace alone is offensive to Pelagians even if they call themselves Arminians and even perhaps Reformed.

Martin Luther and the Reformers fought all forms of Pelagianism in the Reformation and were willing to die for the Gospel of grace alone. Later Reformed thinkers thought that Arminianism was in principle a return to Rome for the following reasons: 1) It turned faith from an instrument that received grace to one of a meritorious work. 2) It denied the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. 3) It relied on self for faith which was in reality to rely on self for a work. Logically speaking, Arminianism is a flat-out denial of the Gospel of grace alone. That sounds ungracious, but the real issue has to do with how true it is. It is not unbiblical to tell a person that s/he does not believe in the true Gospel of grace alone. In fact, it is to be a man-pleaser to accept a person who denies the Gospel rather than offend the person. True love will offend with the true Gospel and the true Gospel is offensive.

There is no way around the issue. Our broad tent may allow us to have more folks in the tent, but it also drives out the living God who only dwells where the true Gospel is. Could it be that in our land today that we deny the true Gospel of grace alone because we have so focused on justification by faith alone that we have forgotten the broader principles that it fits within? If we yank justification by faith alone out of its corresponding principles of the utter helplessness of man in sin and the sovereignty of God in giving grace, we have a different doctrine than the Reformers did. The doctrine of the will is not just some mysterious teaching on the will, it is vital to the teaching of grace alone and Christ alone. That means that it is vital to justification by faith alone as well. We live in a day that holds to something called justification by faith alone while denying what the Reformers meant by it. As the country is swirling down to the pit, surely it is obvious that the Gospel the majority preaches is dead wrong.

‘Justification by faith only’ is a truth that needs interpretation. The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood till it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia (Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will).

If the above statement is true, and if the teaching during the Reformation was true, the teaching of sola fide or justification by faith alone needs to be visited again in our day. This is not just some extraneous principle; it has to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. While it is not thought to be gracious or winsome to go around saying that those who hold to differing theologies have compromised the teaching of the Reformation, it is still something that needs to be preached across our land. While it may be thought that to be against unity to say that those with a different theology have compromised the Reformation, yet if there is no unity in the Gospel there is no true unity. The following quote immediately precedes the quote above in the original book.

What is the source and status of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received, or is it the condition of justification which it is left to man to fulfil? Is it a part of God’s gift of salvation, or is it man’s own contribution to salvation? Is our salvation wholly of God, or does it ultimately depend on something that we do for ourselves? Those who deny the latter (as the Arminians later did) thereby deny man’s utter helplessness in sin, and affirm that a form of semi-Pelagianism is true after all. It is no wonder, then, that later Reformed theology condemned Arminianism as being in principle a return to Rome (because in effect it turned faith into a meritorious work) and a betrayal of the Reformation (because it denied the sovereignty of God in saving sinners, which was the deepest religious and theological principle of the Reformer’s thought). Arminianism was, indeed, in Reformed eyes a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favour of New Testament Judaism; for to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle from relying on oneself for works, and the one is as un-Christian and anti-Christian as the other (Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will).

If the above quote is accurate about the beliefs of the Reformers, then we live in a day that teaches virtually the opposite of the truths taught in the Reformation. Indeed it uses the same words in many places, but it does not teach the same content. The justification or Gospel that the Reformers taught was that the source of faith was God Himself and there was no other source. If faith is simply a condition that is left up to a man to fulfill apart from God, which a free-will has to be if it is truly free, then that is man’s contribution to salvation and it is that on which salvation turns. This is not a salvation or justification that depends wholly on God. The classical and biblical teaching on justification is that God declares just those who have their sins cleansed and have a perfect righteousness. Of course that can only happen by grace alone and Christ alone. But if all of that depends on one act of man’s free will then that one act of faith is a meritorious act in some way and justification is not on the basis of Christ alone and grace alone. That is removing faith from the broader principles of Scripture and of the Reformation. That leaves a justification and salvation which depends on one choice or act of the will rather than grace alone. It is not a salvation that is wholly of God that depends on nothing in man and nothing man can do.

The Arminian position denies the utter helplessness of man in sin. If those who hold that position at any point affirm the utter helplessness of man in sin, then they are no longer Arminians. The Arminian position, even if it takes the name of Arminius, is inescapably part of the Pelagian system in some way. There is no semi-Reformed position. A person believes in grace alone from the depths of his or her soul or s/he does not. But all other positions that are not Reformed are on a sliding scale of Pelagianism. So Arminian thinking is inevitably a form of Pelagianism and so it is semi-Pelagianism in some way. But even if the Arminian denies that faith is meritorious in some way, those are just words that deny the logical and inevitable conclusion of his or her position. If justification depends on the act of a free-will and by definition the will to be free has to be free from the internal acts of the irresistible grace of God, that act that God responds to with salvation has merit in it. That position, despite the protestations of the professing Protestants who hold to it or stand by those who do, is a betrayal of the Reformation. More importantly, it is to fall from grace in the sense that it is a fall from grace alone. If there is only one Gospel and that Gospel is the Gospel of grace alone, we must not turn a blind eye to this vital issue. One drop of poison is enough to spoil a pure glass of water. The smallest work, even if verbally denied to be meritorious, is enough to make grace to be no longer grace (Romans 11:6). This is a matter of eternal importance.

If the will can come up with it own faith, then faith is the work of something other than grace. Yet all things come to the soul through faith. So if free-will is that which by definition means that the will is free from the internal work of God in the soul and He always works good in the soul by faith, that means that God gives grace when man comes up with his own faith. Surely we can see that something is very wrong with that picture. But even more, for the whole of the Christian life that leaves man dependent on his own will rather than completely reliant on the grace of God. But Scripture is so clear that man is not dependent on his own will but is totally dependent on the will of God for all good. Apart from Christ man can do nothing (John 15:4-5).

The doctrine of justification by faith alone does not exist apart from its connection with other truths. It must be in accordance with the character and nature of God and the character and nature of the sinner. The nature of the sinner is that s/he is dead in sins and trespasses and has no spiritual ability at all. The nature of God is that He is under no obligation to anyone at all and cannot be brought into their obligation in any way other than Himself. He operates in the spiritual realm saving sinners by grace and grace alone to the glory of His name alone. Any view of justification that takes away from His grace and glory is not of God. The enslaved soul is the teaching of Scripture of the spiritual nature of human beings and a God who does all by grace alone to His glory alone is foundational to any teaching about God. Justification by grace alone through faith alone starts with sinners who are helpless and dead and have no way to help themselves other than crying out to God to save them. Justification by grace alone through faith alone has a God who saves sinners by grace alone and all the glory is His. A view of justification by faith alone that does not leave room for grace alone and to His glory alone is at best a deficient view of the Gospel of Scripture and to the Gospel that God spoke through the Reformers and changed the world with.

‘Justification by faith only’ is a truth that needs interpretation. The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood till it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia (Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will).

The above statement should have a book written about it. We are in a nation and perhaps world today that has virtually lost its view of the truth of justification because it does not think that justification by faith only needs interpretation and needs to be seen in the broader principle of grace alone. When we do not interpret justification by faith alone in its broader principle, we are not left with the Gospel of the Reformation but we are left with an easy believism, a rational teaching, or perhaps some form of Pelagianism. But justification by faith alone is not rightly understood till it is seen as anchored in grace alone. In other words, the Gospel itself is not understood until it is seen in light of grace alone. But it is not just seen in light of grace alone, it must be anchored in grace alone. When the words “justification by faith alone” are used with the words “grace alone” and justification is not understood or anchored in grace alone, the Gospel is virtually lost if not absolutely lost. The devil loves to hide the truth in the folds of other truths. Justification by faith alone is a teaching that is heresy apart from understanding it as anchored in grace alone. It is not simply a scholastic teaching that if the brain can comprehend the teachings of it and say they are true then a soul is saved. That is salvation by a rational understanding alone.

The grace that saves a soul is the grace of an active God who really acts in the soul. It is not just believing a few facts about Jesus and about grace, but instead it is the living God who really and actively works in the soul and gives the soul true spiritual life and Christ Himself is that life. A justification that comes to the sinner by believing a few facts is not the same justification that comes to the soul by the work of grace in the soul. It is true that justification is a legal declaration whereby the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the sinner, but this is not apart from the work of grace in giving the soul life and uniting the soul to Christ. Justification cannot be separated from the glorious teaching of the fact that all of salvation is the work of God’s sovereign work of grace and that grace is not just to be believed in by an act of the mind but it is a work in the soul as well. The work in the soul by God cannot be done by the sinner in the least of its acts. The soul must be regenerated and become spiritual before it can be a soul that does anything spiritual. Faith must be an act of the spiritual man since a work of the flesh is still the work of the unregenerate flesh. The soul must be united to Christ before it can bear spiritual fruit which can only come from the vine through the branches. The will that is free of the grace of God acting in it is a will that is free from any spiritual good at all. We must abide in Christ to bear fruit. If we are to abide in Christ to bear fruit, then we must be united to Him. Faith is a fruit of the Spirit and not of the flesh. The will can never do that work.

From The Gospel and the Enslaved Will 15 it can be seen with that justification by faith alone must be seen in a broader picture. If it is not seen in light of justification by grace alone, it will be seen in a remarkably different way. But not just in a little bit of a different way, but a way that is different from the Gospel. If it (justification by faith alone) is not seen as fitting in with justification by grace alone as the Reformers understood it, then even justification by grace alone can be understood in a drastically different way. If justification is simply said to be by faith alone and by grace alone today, that is thought to be enough by people today. However, it is not. Apart from understanding the utter and total helplessness of the soul in sin, even the teaching of justification by grace alone will be distorted to a great degree. If we don’t understand justification by faith alone and by grace alone in the context of the deadness and helplessness of man in sin, we will understand the Gospel a lot differently than the Reformers did. Apart from the helplessness of man in sin we will think of God as supplying the Gospel by grace and faith as what man supplies. We may even give that (faith as a gift) lip service to some degree, but apart from a sovereign grace that raises men from the dead and also gives faith as a gift, we don’t believe in a true justification by grace alone. Instead we believe (practically) in a God who alone provides grace rather than provided and applied by grace alone. At the heart of that is a different Gospel than the Reformers preached.

If the soul is able to apprehend Christ by itself, then the soul has the ability to apply grace to itself and that is a work of the soul in the most important realm that does not come by grace alone. If the soul has a free-will (by definition a free soul is free from the internal work of God), then that soul is not saved by grace alone but is free from God and has the power to apply grace to itself. If the soul is free from the internal influence of God and has the power to choose and apply grace to itself, then it is not really dead in sin and does not need to be raised from the dead by the sole working power of God in regeneration. If the soul is not saved from eternity past through all eternity future by grace and grace alone then it is not saved by grace alone. Ephesians 1 and 2 knows nothing of a salvation that is from anything but grace alone. The whole Bible is the same way as well. The demand for the soul to believe is not a demand for the soul to regenerate itself which is necessary to believe. The demand for the soul to believe is not a demand for the soul to give itself belief. It is simply a demand for the soul to be a believing soul which lives by grace alone. But God alone can give the grace of faith and all the grace for a believing soul to live.

To the Reformers, the crucial question was not simply, whether God justifies believers without works of Law. It was the broader question, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether God is to be thought of as saving them by free, unconditional, invincible grace, not only justifying them for Christ’s sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith. Here was the crucial issue; whether God is the author, not merely of justification, but also of faith; whether, in the last analysis, Christianity is a religion of utter reliance on God for salvation and all things necessary to it, or of self-reliance and self-effort. ‘Justification by faith only’ is a truth that needs interpretation. The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood till it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia (Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will).

The crucial issue is whether God is the author of faith and not justification only. This drives home the point that God did not just provide what is needed for justification and the sinner believes in order to apply it to self, but that God is the author of the faith or belief as well. Christianity, to teach a Gospel of grace and grace alone, teaches the “utter reliance of the sinner on God for salvation and all things necessary to it.” If the sinner is not taught an utter reliance on God for salvation and all things necessary to it, that sinner will trust in himself and his own “self-reliance and self-effort.” Oh, one might argue, “I do not teach that a sinner is to trust in himself but to believe.” But does that sinner trust in himself to believe or in God to grant Him a believing soul? If the sinner trusts in himself to believe, then the sinner is not trusting in God for salvation and all things necessary to it. This is not just some small issue, but instead it is at the heart of the Gospel and of the glory of that Gospel as declared in justification by grace alone through faith alone to the glory of God alone as the Reformers preached. It is also what Ephesians 2:4-8 declares: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)… 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” If I come up with faith on my own and so am saved, I have something to boast about. The Gospel, however, teaches that justification is by grace and grace alone. We are His workmanship and not our own.

In the last post on the Gospel and the Enslaved will, I quoted Packer and Johnson from the Introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will. I then made a couple of comments on it. Part of that is reproduced in the quote below:

The true core was “that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only.” Justification by faith alone was vital only because it was a safeguard to the principle of sovereign grace. We must not hurry by that statement. The importance of justification by faith alone is not because of what it is in and of itself, but because it safeguards the principle of sovereign grace.

The point or the main point of justification by faith alone from the Reformers point of view was to safeguard the principle or doctrine of justification by faith alone. This drives us to an important question. If we don’t believe or are ashamed to stand for and teach sovereign grace, how can we truly believe in justification by faith alone as the Reformers believed? When a Pelagian or Arminian claims to believe in justification by faith alone, and yet denies sovereign grace, we know that the person making that claim does not understand justification in the same way it was understood by Luther and the Reformers. Those who claim to be Reformed and yet are willing to join hands with Pelagians in some understanding of the Gospel cannot believe it as the Reformers believed it either. In our day when unity and tolerance is thought to be more important than truth, the Gospel is being sold out in the interests of unity. In our day when it is thought that to be gracious is more important than to state the truth with clarity, the Gospel is being sold out in less than clear thinking though in a very nice way. But the Gospel is still not being declared with clarity if at all. Sovereign grace is a necessary teaching for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

To the Reformers, the crucial question was not simply, whether God justifies believers without works of Law. It was the broader question, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether God is to be thought of as saving them by free, unconditional, invincible grace, not only justifying them for Christ’s sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith. Here was the crucial issue; whether God is the author, not merely of justification, but also of faith; whether, in the last analysis, Christianity is a religion of utter reliance on God for salvation and all things necessary to it, or of self-reliance and self-effort. ‘Justification by faith only’ is a truth that needs interpretation. The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood till it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia (Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will).

In the quote above I underlined and highlighted the words “broader question” to make a point. To the Reformers the main issue was not (though vital) whether God justifies sinners apart from works of the Law, but what they were justified apart from the Law for and by. If the sinner is justified apart from the Law and yet is not helpless in sin, then that is something different entirely from those who teach that sinners are wholly helpless in their sin and to be saved God must save them by His unconditional and free grace. Unless sinners are wholly helpless in their sin then they are not raised from the spiritual dead but from the spiritually sick. Unless sinners are wholly helpless in their sin then they are not wholly reliant upon the Holy Spirit to make them alive to bring them to faith. If the Holy Spirit is not the One who gives them faith itself, then God is not the author of faith (Heb 12:2). It was important to Luther that in order for grace to be grace that sinners had to be utterly helpless in their sin and God has to be the author of their justification and their faith. The broader question must be taken into consideration if we are to hold to justification by faith alone as the Reformers did.

All of these things are involved in what the Gospel and Christianity are in the last analysis. Is the sinner to utterly rely on God for all things or look to self for something? If we don’t teach sinners their helplessness in sin and of the source for faith we are not teaching justification by faith alone as the Reformers taught. One may decide that they were wrong in this matter, but at least we should be clear that we don’t teach what they taught even if we use the same words. Justification by faith alone (sola fide) cannot be understood in and of itself but must be taught and can only be understood in its relation to (sola gratia). To put it a different way, justification by faith alone cannot be understood in relation to itself and it cannot stand alone by itself. It must be understood in relation to the broader principle of justification by grace alone. As Romans 4:16 teaches, justification is by faith in order that it may be in accordance with grace. It is not justification by faith alone if it is not also and more importantly justification by grace alone. It is not justification by faith or grace alone apart from the sovereign grace of God to those who are utterly helpless in their sins. We have gone far astray from this in our day. But we are nice about it.

The issue being dealt with (the enslaved will) was not a minor issue of the Reformation. It was the issue of the Reformation. It was the issue because apart from it justification through faith alone is not explained by justification by grace alone. If there is no justification by grace alone, then there is no salvation by grace alone either. A person can believe in the words justification by faith alone in some sense without the teaching of the enslaved will, but apart from the enslaved will the Gospel of grace alone as taught by the Reformers is absent. The Reformer’s teaching on justification by faith alone cannot be held without also holding to their teaching on the enslaved will. This cannot be overstated. In fact, as the quote below shows, without this teaching man is at the center of his own justification rather than God. With this teaching God is at the center of justification and all the glory is His.

The doctrine of free justification by faith only, which became the storm-centre of so much controversy during the Reformation period, is often regarded as the heart of the Reformer’s theology, but this is hardly accurate. The truth is that their thinking was really centered upon the contention of Paul, echoed with varying degrees of adequacy by Augustine, and Gottschalk, and Bradwardine, and Wycliffe, that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only. The doctrine of justification by faith was important to them because it safeguarded the principle of sovereign grace; but it actually expressed for them only one aspect of this principle, and that not its deepest aspect. The sovereignty of grace found expression in their thinking at a profounder level still, in the doctrine of monergistic regeneration—the doctrine, that is, that the faith which receives Christ for justification is itself the free gift of a sovereign God, bestowed by spiritual regeneration in the act of effectual calling. (Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will).

This part of a longer quote shows that it is not accurate to think of justification by faith alone in and of itself as the very core or center of the Reformation. The true core was “that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only.” Justification by faith alone was vital only because it was a safeguard to the principle of sovereign grace. We must not hurry by that statement. The importance of justification by faith alone is not because of what it is in and of itself, but because it safeguards the principle of sovereign grace. Even more, and at a deeper level, the sovereignty of grace was expressed in the teaching of monergistic regeneration. Monergistic regeneration is the teaching that God bestows regeneration in His effectual calling and not in the faith of the sinner. The faith that receives Christ alone for salvation is the faith that is the free gift that comes with regeneration.

The teaching of the Reformers at this point is a bombshell to modern theology. We are more concerned with being gracious to those who differ from us than standing firm for the glory of the Gospel of grace alone. Several years ago while visiting Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi Dr. John Gerstner spoke some on Roman Catholicism. One man stated that Dr. Gerstner sounded like he hated Roman Catholics. Dr. Gerstner’s response was close to vehement: “Hate them? I love them. That is why I tell them that they are going to hell.” True love is not the same thing as modern niceness and graciousness. True love will confront and even be provocative at times. True love will be mistaken as hate in modern times. The Gospel is not as easy as modern humans want it to be, but it takes a love like Jesus who told the people the truth even when it made them angry. There will always be the offence of the cross (Gal 5:11). When we are “gracious” enough to take away the offence, we are not speaking with true grace or love at all. True love speaks the truth of the cross.

The truth of the matter is that one cannot hold to the Gospel of grace alone as taught by the Reformers apart from teaching the sovereign grace of God who by grace alone regenerates sinners which by definition is the effectual call and gives faith. There is no effectual call apart from giving faith in regeneration. A teaching that relies on the free-will of man is not teaching the Reformation view of justification by faith alone. A teaching that does not depend on the regenerating act of God to produce faith is not teaching the Reformation view justification by faith alone. In our day we have become so enamored with being gracious and getting along with people that we have to deny the Reformation view of justification by faith alone in order to do so. Indeed we can be unified with people who say they believe in justification by faith alone if we drop our insistence on sovereign and monergistic regeneration, but when we do that we have just dropped the very heart of justification by faith alone. In our day we have done that and have lost the Gospel in the midst of orthodox sounding words. Is that unity and is that really being gracious? Can one be truly gracious without true grace?

In speaking of the Reformers, in the Introduction to Luther’s The Bondage of the Will, Johnson and Packer said this:

On other points, they had their differences; but in asserting the helplessness of man in sin, and the sovereignty of God in grace, they were entirely at one. To all of them, these doctrines were the very life-blood of the Christian faith. A modern editor of Luther’s great work underscores this fact: ‘Whoever puts this book down without having realized that evangelical theology stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will has read it in vain.’

This needs to be emphasized over and over. The doctrines of man’s helplessness in sin and the sovereignty of God were considered to be the very life-blood of the Christian faith. Could it that that evangelical theology stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will? If that is true, then evangelical theology is at an exceedingly low ebb in the modern world. Even where people say they believe it, they don’t believe it as something vital. While people will speak of preaching a gospel, if they leave this out they are not preaching the same Gospel as the Reformers did. The theology and Gospel that the Reformers taught was built on the twin truths of the utter helplessness of man in sin and the sovereignty of grace. There is no pure grace apart from a sovereign grace. Apart from those twin truths the Gospel of grace alone has little if any meaning. A person helpless in sin that does not deserve anything but eternal hell cannot be saved by anything but a sovereign grace (the only kind of true grace).

What we have in modern America is a failure to teach the utter helplessness of man in sin. This means that there is no true background to set out the real nature and glory of grace in salvation from its purchase by Christ to its application by the Spirit. While grace is used in words, the very nerve of grace has been cut when the enslavement of the will is not preached and taught. God saves sinners to the praise of the glory of His grace (Eph 1:6) and He will not share His glory with anyone. The very attempt to share in His glory in salvation is sin because one definition that Scripture gives us of sin is that it is to fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).

The Gospel is a Gospel of pure and glorious grace apart from any work or any contribution of the human being at all. As an older writer said, the only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin we are saved from. Since the Reformation we have turned faith into a work because anything that comes from the human will apart from the Holy Spirit is a work of the flesh. If we concede that the act of the human will is free then we have to say that it is also free from God. But if the will is free from God, then it is doing something good and acceptable apart from the Christ and the Spirit. The office of faith is to receive grace, for as Romans 4:16 sets out it is by faith in order that it may be in accordance with grace. Yet, if we look at Romans 11:6 we see that if there is one work involved that makes grace to no longer be grace. Grace is at 100 percent or it is not grace at all.

If the will is not enslaved to sin then the will can do one work apart from the work of God in the soul and free from Christ and the Holy Spirit. This destroys the biblical teaching of what true grace is and so it destroys the truth and purity of the Gospel of grace alone. When that happens, evangelical theology has fallen. The doctrine of free-will is not compatible with the Gospel of grace alone. It is either free grace or free-will and not a combination of the two. Not only does the twain not meet, but they cannot meet because they are complete opposites. A will that is free is a will that is free from the internal working of grace and so that will cannot be saved by grace alone. The will cannot operate freely apart from God and His grace and yet work by grace alone. The will cannot do its work by a choice of the flesh and yet work by the fruit of the Spirit at the same time. A work of the will which is free from the fruit of the Spirit by grace is a will that functions and operates by the flesh.

Surely it is easy to see that the doctrine of the enslaved will is essential to evangelical theology. The Gospel of grace alone can be proclaimed to an enslaved will, but grace alone cannot be proclaimed in truth to a “free-will.” The “gospel” that is proclaimed to a free-will depends on the choice of that will that is apart from a pure and undiluted grace. Romans 9 is quite unpopular today, yet verse 16 and other verses set out the Gospel of grace with great clarity. “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” There it is. It does not depend on the man who wills, but instead it depends on God who has mercy. Verse 18 goes on to say this: “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.” That verse is necessary to understand grace. For salvation to be by grace alone, it must depend on the will of God alone. Free-will cannot say that salvation depends on the will of God alone, but instead it depends on man. That is not pure grace and so it is not the Gospel of grace alone.

In the last post I quoted from Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will. This thought must be developed and seriously looked at. For the moment, however, the statement preceding that one must also be looked at.

Historically, it is a simply matter of fact that Martin Luther and John Calvin, and for that matter, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, and all the leading Protestant theologians of the first epoch of the Reformation, stood on precisely the same ground here. On other points, they had their differences; but in asserting the helplessness of man in sin, and the sovereignty of God in grace, they were entirely at one. To all of them, these doctrines were the very life-blood of the Christian faith. A modern editor of Luther’s great work underscores this fact: ‘Whoever puts this book down without having realized that evangelical theology stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will has read it in vain.’

Luther’s great book, The Bondage of the Will (The Enslaved Will), was not just what Luther wrote about a metaphysical and abstract philosophical teaching. It was at the very heart of the Gospel. Apart from this teaching there is no justification by grace alone through faith alone. Apart from this teaching there is no Gospel of sovereign grace and nothing but pure and sheer grace. Apart from this teaching there is no grace that can make us break forth in true doxology as Paul did. Apart from this teaching there is no praise to the glory of His grace because it is grace that has been poured out and lavished on sinners who were dead in their sins and trespasses. Instead we have fallen into human-centered thinking and so we have lost the true idea of deadness in sin and of true grace.

All of the leading Protestant theologians at the beginning of the Reformation took up this issue and there they stood. The enslaved will was at the very heart of the Gospel of grace alone at the Reformation and it is at the heart of the biblical Gospel today. There is no true Gospel apart from it. It matters not how Reformed a person says that s/he is, apart from a whole-hearted acceptance of this doctrine at the core of the Gospel neither that person nor any other holds to the same teaching that the Reformers did. It is so easy to say that I believe in a certain doctrine here and those doctrines there, but apart from the enslaved will the true Gospel is not believed nor taught.

We must learn the depths of depravity before we can learn the heights of grace. We must learn our helplessness in sin before we can see the power of God in salvation. The sinner must see that s/he has no hope in self in order to rest completely on Christ alone. The sinners must see that s/he has no strength and no ability to trust in Christ in order that the very belief that must be exercised can be wrought in the sinner by God. Until a sinner is broken from any trust, hope, belief, or anything else in self that sinner will look to self for some little something that s/he can do rather than look to Christ alone. If all we do is tell sinners to believe and we don’t help them see their utter helplessness and inability in their sin, they will not look to grace alone for salvation. How important was this teaching to the Reformers? From Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will once again:

The doctrine of free justification by faith only, which became the storm-centre of so much controversy during the Reformation period, is often regarded as the heart of the Reformer’s theology, but this is hardly accurate. The truth is that their thinking was really centered upon the contention of Paul, echoed with varying degrees of adequacy by Augustine, and Gottschalk, and Bradwardine, and Wycliffe, that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only.

If the sinner’s entire salvation is by free (uncaused by the sinner) and sovereign (caused by God alone) grace alone, then there is nothing in the sinner that can move God and nothing that the sinner can do to move God to save him or her. The teaching of so many today that all a sinner must do is to have an intellectual belief in the facts of the Gospel is to go against the Gospel of the Reformation which taught that the sinner must be wholly saved (all aspects of the soul) and wholly by God. The faith that a sinner must have comes from regeneration and not from the sinner who is dead and cannot do it. The Gospel of grace as preached and taught by the Reformers who went back to Scripture as their primary source was that grace purchased and grace applied. The dead sinner can do nothing to purchase the smallest part of salvation and the dead sinner can do nothing to apply it either. It is God’s grace and grace alone that saves. The slightest work of the human soul (even so-called faith) makes grace to be non-grace (Rom 11:6). The slightest human work, therefore, makes for a salvation that is not of grace alone.

Can we believe that what Luther wrote has any meaning for today? If Luther set forth the Gospel of Jesus Christ in truth, then the Gospel which does not change is the same Gospel today. We cannot dismiss the teaching of Luther on the enslaved will any more than we can dismiss what he wrote on justification by faith alone. It is his teaching on the enslaved will that interprets justification for us. In quoting from Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will, this startling quote is given to us:

The doctrine of free justification by faith only, which became the storm-centre of so much controversy during the Reformation period, is often regarded as the heart of the Reformer’s theology, but this is hardly accurate. The truth is that their thinking was really centered upon the contention of Paul, echoed with varying degrees of adequacy by Augustine, and Gottschalk, and Bradwardine, and Wycliffe, that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only. The doctrine of justification by faith was important to them because it safeguarded the principle of sovereign grace; but it actually expressed for them only one aspect of this principle, and that not its deepest aspect. The sovereignty of grace found expression in their thinking at a profounder level still, in the doctrine of monergistic regeneration—the doctrine, that is, that the faith which receives Christ for justification is itself the free gift of a sovereign God, bestowed by spiritual regeneration in the act of effectual calling. To the Reformers, the crucial question was not simply, whether God justifies believers without works of Law. It was the broader question, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether God is to be thought of as saving them by free, unconditional, invincible grace, not only justifying them for Christ’s sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith. Here was the crucial issue; whether God is the author, not merely of justification, but also of faith; whether, in the last analysis, Christianity is a religion of utter reliance on God for salvation and all things necessary to it, or of self-reliance and self-effort. ‘Justification by faith only’ is a truth that needs interpretation. The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood till it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia.

What is so utterly vital to see in this quote is that they have it precisely right. It is not just if a person believes in justification by faith alone; it is also what they believe about the doctrine of the will that drives them to understand grace alone. There is no belief of justification by faith alone as Luther and the Reformers set it out apart from a deep belief in monergistic (mono = one, gistic = worker) regeneration and God being the sole worker in regeneration. There is no belief of justification by faith alone as Luther and the Reformers set it out apart from a free (uncaused by man), unconditional, invincible grace that raises sinners from the spiritual dead to bring them to faith. We cannot believe what they believed about the Gospel of justification by faith alone apart from believing what they believed about the things necessary to and for that Gospel.

Could it be that in our day when there is a growing use of the phrase justification by faith alone that in reality we are far from what the Reformers taught about it in its fullness? Could it be that the Gospel is virtually lost in our day in the midst of so much religious talk? Can we speak of ourselves as Reformed or as the children of the Reformation when we don’t adhere to the crucial issues of the Gospel as the Reformers did? Could it be that Rome has triumphed in a major way in the world today with people adhering to its so-called gospel without getting people to submit to Rome itself? There is no preaching of the same Gospel that Luther preached without preaching and teaching people about their enslaved will. The real issue, as we know, is the Gospel Paul preached for there is no other Gospel. But did God pour out revival in the days of the Reformation and shake the world with a false gospel in that time? How we must be on our knees with the Scriptures and our departed teachers to be sure we teach the same Gospel. While it is far easier to fit in with political and denominational people if we don’t, the Gospel demands that we do so. We cannot please men and God at the same time when the Gospel is at stake.

6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel, 7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! 10 For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ (Gal 1:6-10).

In the deepest sense for the will to be free it must be free from God. Can there be a will that is free from the will of the all-present, all-wise, and all-powerful God? Can anything happen apart from His sovereign will and perfect wisdom? If the will is free from God, then what is it enslaved to? These questions may not be common ones, but they point to ultimate reality. In an effort to get at the reality concerning the will, we can ask several more questions. What is it that moves the will? Is it the power of grace or the power of self? Is it the power of the life of Christ in the soul or the power of self? Is it the power of love in the soul or the power of self? If the will is free to make choices according to itself, then it is free from God to do those things. But if the will is free of God, it is also “free” from the power of grace, the life of Christ, and true love. Surely no will can do one spiritual act apart from the life of God in the soul exercising Himself in and through the soul by grace, Christ, and love.

Scripture is absolutely clear on the fact that God is absolutely sovereign over all things. A bird cannot fall from the sky apart from His sovereign will. A lion will not eat if the Lord has shut its mouth. Large fish will swallow and vomit human beings at His direction. Fire will not consume bushes or human beings apart from His will. As Psalm 127:1 puts it, “Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain.” Lamentations 3:37 puts it with clarity: “Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, Unless the Lord has commanded it?” Proverbs 16:9 shows us the sovereignty of God over the mind and plans of man: “The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.” According to Daniel 4:35 man is as nothing and God does as He pleases. “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’” Just how free is man and the will of man in light of these verses?

If the sovereign and all-present God who never sleeps does as He pleases at each point of space and time, then how free can man be? As Jonathan Edwards has pointed out so clearly, we are free to will according to our nature. This is simply to say that God does not force human beings to do things against what they desire, but human beings will in accordance with the nature of who they are in their hearts. The will is enslaved to its nature and cannot desire or choose anything that is against it, or at least it cannot carry out a desire that is against its nature. The human soul is either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ because the human nature cannot do anything but act according to its nature. If the nature is sinful, it will always sin even in its most religious actions. If the human soul has been delivered from its sinful nature, then the person has Christ as his or her life and is a love-slave of Christ. There is no absolute or libertarian freedom of the will, but instead the will is always bound to either sin or Christ.

The will that is bound to sin is an enslaved will. It may feel free to the sinner, but it is bound fast in its love for sin. Not only is it a slave of sin, but it is a slave to the devil and is a child to the devil. Jesus taught us in John 8:34 that “everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” Paul taught that salvation is to be delivered and freed from the bondage of the kingdom or dominion of darkness (Col 1:13). We are also taught in Ephesians 2:1-3 that the soul is dead in sins and trespasses, which is to be in bondage as well. The Gospel is the Gospel of the kingdom as well as the Gospel of God and the Gospel of grace. It is also the Gospel of the glory of God. The Gospel of the kingdom is the good news of the reign and rule of Christ in the soul. This is good news because the soul that is enslaved to sin, self, and the devil is in true bondage with debts of sin that it cannot pay. The soul cannot free itself because only grace can free the soul from its sinful nature to which it is bound. The soul which is born of flesh is enslaved to the will of the flesh and cannot do anything beyond the limits of its bondage.

The bondage of the soul to sinful flesh and the fleshly nature is one that pride blinds the soul to. It is a devilish bondage to hide the depths of bondage and chains of bondage to those in bondage. If they could but see what held them in bondage they would seek the Lord and cry out to Him to be free from their bondage (salvation). The children of Israel groaned in their bondage to the Egyptians and the Lord heard them. Until men and women understand the depths of the bondage of their wills they will not cry out to the Lord to deliver from that bondage. They will seek to escape hell by praying a prayer, but they will not seek the Lord to be free of their bondage. So they will perish in their bondage even if they have been deceived by religion and by many who tell them the so-called modern gospel. But they will not have been delivered from their true bondage so they will enter into eternal flames while still in bondage. It is there that they will see how they have been deceived about their slavery but it will be too late. There is no true peace with God apart from a release from the bondage of the enslaved will.