God Loves… Himself

Since, therefore, we have lost the meaning and the real reference of this glorious term, or, rather, have never grasped them (as was claimed by the Pelagians, who themselves mistook the phrase) why do we cling so tenaciously to an empty word, and endanger and delude faithful people in consequence? There is no more wisdom in so doing than there is in the modern foible of kings and potentates, who retain, or lay claim to, empty titles of kingdoms and countries, and flaunt them, while all the time they are really paupers, and anything but the possessors of those kingdoms and countries. We can tolerate their antics, for they fool nobody, but just feed themselves up—unprofitably enough—on their own vainglory. But this false idea of ‘free-will’ is a real threat to salvation, and a delusion fraught with the most perilous consequences.                                  Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will

The concept and idea of ‘free-will’ has been lost and according to Luther was lost even in his day. Luther saw it as an empty word, that is, without any real meaning in one sense. But in using this term the false ideas that it conveys deludes even faithful people. Why should people continue to use the term since it deludes even faithful people? If it deludes the faithful it utterly deceives those who are not. Why would we want to deceive those we are proclaiming the Gospel to? While it may be the case that the term ‘free-will’ could be used if it is extensively explained both as to what it is and what it is not, it would be much simpler and more accurate not to use the term at all.

So many today want to say things like free-will and God’s sovereignty as if both things can be true. In fact, the sovereignty of God may describe  His free-will, yet man cannot truly be free in the way that people naturally think of when they hear the term since God is sovereign. The whole concept of ‘free-will’ is from a humanistic idea of a people that are centered upon humanity. That is patently false and is really a form of idolatry. Human beings are created by God and for God. They can only find their true meaning and the limits of the so-called will according to who He is. There is no such thing as free-will in the universe when human beings are either slaves of the devil and sin or slaves of Christ. Those who are slaves of the devil are actually slaves of self rather than having a freedom of self. The self is in slavery to the devil and self. The devil works through the human self in order to carry out his will, while Christ lives in His people and works in them to do according to the will of God. In other words, the self is never free from the bondage of sin and the devil until it is translated into the kingdom of Christ. When it is in the kingdom of Christ, it is then a slave of righteousness. Whether the soul is the slave of the devil or of God the soul has no power to do good apart from Christ and that which comes from Christ. The will is never free, then, to do good. Christ alone is free to do good and to do it through His people.

Luther spoke of those who were in fact paupers and yet would lay claim to kingdoms and countries. He thought of those as rather harmless in one sense and yet filled with vainglory. In other words, there were people who were beggars who owned nothing and yet would try to pass themselves off as those who owned countries and kingdoms. That is much like human beings who claim to have “free-will’ in our day. God alone has ‘free-will’ in any meaningful sense of the word and yet human beings think of it as obvious that they have it. Yet it is far less for a pauper to lay claim to a kingdom and much riches than it is for a human being to lay claim to ‘free-will” which God alone has in any meaningful way. Indeed paupers filled themselves with pride in their claim to have kingdoms, but so do human beings who fill themselves with pride in their claim to have ‘free-will.’ It is nothing more than an attempt to ascend to the throne of God when it is seen for what it really is. It is man being like God.

But to go on, the idea of human beings having ‘free-will’ is a real threat to salvation. It is not that people have ‘free-will’ to choose to be saved and so to deny this ‘free-will’ is dangerous to evangelism, but to assert it is what is the real threat to salvation. It is a threat because it is “a delusion fraught with the most perilous consequences.” A person who thinks that s/he can repent and believe as s/he pleases is a person who thinks that s/he can do what God alone can do as s/he pleases. That person will trust in self rather than in God to save. That person will put off seeking God to be born again trusting in self to be able to do it when it wants to. Oh how Pelagianism and its forms (including Arminianism) are so destructive to the true Gospel. Luther, who in a sense re-discovered justification by faith alone thought of the teaching of ‘free-will’ as a threat to salvation. Yet today those who call themselves Reformed have no problem of thinking of ‘free-will’ as no real threat to truth and the Gospel. We have descended into spiritual darkness once again that at least rivals the time of Luther and the Reformation. However, in our day this teaching of ‘free-will’ is widespread and has brought about mass delusion. Perhaps we are more deceived.

It is a settled truth, then, even on the basis of your own testimony, that we do everything of necessity, and nothing by ‘free-will’; for the power of ‘free-will’ is nil, and it does no good, nor can do, without grace…It follows, therefore, that ‘free-will’ is obviously a term applicable only to the Divine Majesty; for only He can do, and does (as the Psalmist sings) “whatever he wills in heaven and earth’ (Ps. 135:6). If ‘free-will’ is ascribed to men, it is ascribed with no more propriety than divinity itself would be—and no blasphemy could exceed that! So it befits theologians to refrain from using the term when they want to speak of human ability, and leave it to be applied to God only. They would do well also to take the term out of men’s mouths and speech, and to claim it for their God, as if it were His own holy and awful Name. If they must at all hazards assign some power to men, let them teach that it must be denoted by some other term than ‘free-will’; especially since we know from our own observation that the mass of men are sadly deceived and misled by this phrase. The meaning which it conveys to their minds is far removed from anything that theologians believe and discuss. The term ‘free-will’ is too grandiose and comprehensive and fulsome. People think it means what the natural force of the phrase would require, namely, a power of freely turning in any direction, yielding to none and subject to none. Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will

It is an enlightening thought of Luther’s to say that theologians should refrain from using the term ‘free-will’ in reference to men and only claim it for God. What do people think they have when they are told that they have a ‘free-will’ or if it is just assumed that they have one? Does the natural man, even if some things are explained to him or her, assume that s/he has the power to do as s/he pleases? The natural man that is dead to spiritual things would assume that s/he has the power to do what is needed unless it was clearly explained to him or her. Much like the Ethiopian eunuch who was asked by Philip if he “understand what” he was “reading?” The reply to this was this: “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” How are people to understand their own nature and inability if no one explains it to them? How will people understand the sovereignty of true grace if no one explains it to them? But today in the flight from biblical teaching we want people to make a decision for Jesus and call it an act of faith. We want people to pray a prayer and call it faith. But we don’t explain to them from Scripture their sinful nature, their inability, and the truth of grace. Even among so-called Reformed circles these things are not considered to be essential or important.

What happens when we use the term “free-will” and don’t explain what it means? As Luther points out, people just assume that it means that they can turn any direction they please and that it all depends on them. What if someone tells them that they are dead in their sins without explaining it to them? They will come up with their own idea of what that means and so it is the same thing as teaching error. What happens if we don’t teach people that being dead in sin means that they are unable to repent and believe unless God gives them a new heart? They will just assume that they can repent and believe in their own strength and power and they will perform some acts that they believe is true repentance and faith from their own power and so they will be greatly deceived. There is a great deception going on in our day because people will not teach the truth. If we teach the truth the Arminians and Pelagians will not like it and people will not fill our buildings, or at least that is what we think. But if we don’t teach the truth at this essential point we will be filling our buildings with unbelievers and will have deceived them.

If, as Luther says, nothing good can really be done by using the term ‘free-will,’ then why is it still being used? If nothing beneficial can be done by using it, but really only cause harm, then great harm has been done and is still being done by those who use it. But even more, if we don’t declare the truth that the opposite of ‘free-will’ is true; we will also be doing great harm. Many people are being deceived today by those who have the name “Reformed” but who in fact are to some degree or another Pelagian in their hearts. When we don’t tell people the truth of the nature of their own hearts, they will remain deceived about who they really are and the power that they think they have. If they are never brought to an end of their own self-sufficiency and power they think they have, they will never repent of their pride and self and so will never truly see the need of a new heart and a real faith in Christ. It is that serious and Luther believed that. He really believed that.

If they must at all hazards assign some power to men, let them teach that it must be denoted by some other term than ‘free-will’; especially since we know from our own observation that the mass of men are sadly deceived and misled by this phrase. The meaning which it conveys to their minds is far removed from anything that theologians believe and discuss. The term ‘free-will’ is too grandiose and comprehensive and fulsome. People think it means what the natural force of the phrase would require, namely, a power of freely turning in any direction, yielding to none and subject to none.  Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will

Luther was very concerned about what people thought the term ‘free-will’ meant. It is thought to be virtually heretical (if not fully heretical) even by many people who think of themselves as Reformed to deny free-will. But Luther understood that to use the term without a lot of definition and clear teaching people will misunderstand what is meant. Notice that he uses the language that “if the must at all hazards assign some power to men.” He is afraid that when we assign power to men it is a great hazard to do so. Luther was far less afraid of hyper-Calvinism (what we would call it today) than he was of assigning power to human beings by using the term ‘free-will.” He thought that the meaning conveyed to the minds of the people would be far different than what the theologians meant by it. But today the theologians evidently believe much of what the people then misunderstood.

While it is the standard today for people to fight if one does not want to use the phrase ‘free-will,’ that comes from a human-centered point of view. Luther was God-centered and so he was afraid that people would think of their own power too highly in light of the sovereignty of God. Today people are afraid of human beings and want to water down the sovereignty of God in order to make people feel better. Indeed we are so backwards in our day that we have seeker-sensitive churches and seeker-sensitive services that do nothing but water everything down so that the so-called seeker will be comfortable. While the term “seeker-sensitive” is old, the idea is still prevalent. But we are supposed to seek God first and foremost. We are supposed to seek God above all things. When the church is at worship it is supposed to seek God in spirit and truth rather than make seekers comfortable. If a person is truly seeking God, then that person will not be comfortable. The presence of a holy, holy, holy God is not comfortable to anyone outside of Christ at any time, and believers are uncomfortable when God comes among His people.

The natural man understands the term ‘free-will’ as the power to turn himself and choose what he wants to. He thinks that he can choose to do good as he pleases and that he can choose God for salvation as he pleases. The term ‘free-will’ in that sense is utterly opposed to the Gospel of grace alone and that was what Luther fought. He defended the grace and glory of God and not human beings. Human beings have to understand God in truth in order to understand themselves. The priority must be to defend the freedom and sovereignty of God at all costs rather than the so-called ‘free-will’ of man which is so misunderstood and vaults man to the throne of God. If preachers are going to be faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in any day the common idea of ‘free-will’ must be taken on and attacked in order for people to understand the Gospel.

The Belgic Confession sets this out with clarity:
Therefore we reject all that is taught repugnant to this concerning the free will of man, since man is but a slave to sin and has nothing himself unless it is given him from heaven. For who may presume to boast that he of himself can do any good, since Christ saith, No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him? Who will glory in his own will, who understands that to be carnally minded is enmity with God? Who can speak of his knowledge, since the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God? In short, who dare suggest any thought, since he knows that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves, but that our sufficiency is of God? And therefore what the apostle saith ought justly to be held sure and firm, that God worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. For there is no will nor understanding conformable to the divine will and understanding but what Christ hath wrought in man, which He teaches us when He saith, Without Me ye can do nothing.

The language of this Confession is stark and clear. It sets out what is true and what is false. It leaves us with virtually no wiggle room at all. Man is a slave to sin and has nothing unless it is given him from heaven. No one of himself can do any good thing. No one can be or do or understand anything conformable to the divine will but what Christ does in the person. The Confession here is quite clear in denouncing the so-called ‘free-will’ of man in many ways. It allows for no good to come from a man other than what Christ has worked. So clearly there can be no good choice of a human soul to make for God unless Christ has worked in that soul a new heart. The teaching of the enslaved will is necessary to the Gospel of grace alone that comes from the one and only Sovereign God.

It is a settled truth, then, even on the basis of your own testimony, that we do everything of necessity, and nothing by ‘free-will’; for the power of ‘free-will’ is nil, and it does no good, nor can do, without grace…It follows, therefore, that ‘free-will’ is obviously a term applicable only to the Divine Majesty; for only He can do, and does (as the Psalmist sings) “whatever he wills in heaven and earth’ (Ps. 135:6). If ‘free-will’ is ascribed to men, it is ascribed with no more propriety than divinity itself would be—and no blasphemy could exceed that! So it befits theologians to refrain from using the term when they want to speak of human ability, and leave it to be applied to God only. They would do well also to take the term out of men’s mouths and speech, and to claim it for their God, as if it were His own holy and awful Name. If they must at all hazards assign some power to men, let them teach that it must be denoted by some other term than ‘free-will’; especially since we know from our own observation that the mass of men are sadly deceived and misled by this phrase. The meaning which it conveys to their minds is far removed from anything that theologians believe and discuss. The term ‘free-will’ is too grandiose and comprehensive and fulsome. People think it means what the natural force of the phrase would require, namely, a power of freely turning in any direction, yielding to none and subject to none.                       Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will

If the will does nothing good and can do nothing good apart from grace, then clearly the will is not free to do good apart from grace. The will, therefore, is not free. The term “free-will,” therefore, is a term that really can only be used of God. The will that is free, that is, has the power to do as it pleases, can only be ascribed to God alone and ascribing it to human beings is blasphemy in that regard. While it may be the case that it is not improper to refer to the will as free in certain limited regards, this is not how most people use or understand the term. Luther is getting at what people usually understand the term to mean. Most people think of ‘free-will’ as meaning the freedom to do what a person pleases to do. But the Bible does not assign that power to human souls at all. God alone can do as He pleases and be subject to no one else.

Luther spoke of how it is blasphemy to assign the power to do what the will pleases to human beings. In this he is looking at things from a God-centered perspective. In the modern day human souls are the focus of self and thought to have virtually boundless ability to do as they please and resist God as they please. But Luther saw that as man taking self to the throne of God. In other words, the teaching of ‘free-will’ was no minor issue to Luther. In fact, he had no use for the term as people used it and thought that it was ascribing to man what should only be ascribed to God. Yet today we have people who think of themselves as Reformed building bridges to Arminians if not Pelagians while they get angry at those who stand on the teaching of election and the bondage of the will. We truly live in amazing times.

The Belgic Confession speaks very clearly to this as well:

Therefore we reject all that is taught repugnant to this concerning the free will of man, since man is but a slave to sin and has nothing himself unless it is given him from heaven. For who may presume to boast that he of himself can do any good, since Christ saith, No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him? Who will glory in his own will, who understands that to be carnally minded is enmity with God? Who can speak of his knowledge, since the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God? In short, who dare suggest any thought, since he knows that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves, but that our sufficiency is of God? And therefore what the apostle saith ought justly to be held sure and firm, that God worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. For there is no will nor understanding conformable to the divine will and understanding but what Christ hath wrought in man, which He teaches us when He saith, Without Me ye can do nothing.

So we have Luther and the Belgic Confession speaking with a great deal of clarity on this issue. All teaching concerning the free will of man in salvation was repugnant to the writers of that confession. While it was at the very least repugnant to the writers, to Luther it was blasphemous. That was what the Reformed people used to believe. What does it say about our day? To say the least we have fallen a long way.

Note, however, that if we meant by ‘the power of free-will’ the power which makes human beings fit subjects to be caught up by the Spirit and touched by God’s grace, as creatures made for eternal life or eternal death, we should have a proper definition. And I certainly acknowledge the existence of this power, this fitness, or ‘dispositional quality’ and ‘passive aptitude’ (as the Sophists call it), which, as everyone knows, is not given to plants or animals. As the proverb says, God did not make heaven for geese!                                   Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will

Luther hits on a vital point here and that is getting at what the will is and its location among the real powers that control things. Human beings have a will which makes them subjects by which the Spirit can work on them and live in them in order that they may will to love God and be instruments of His glory. Human beings have a will that makes them subjects with obligations that have to do with eternal life and eternal death. Luther thinks of this as a ‘dispositional quality’ or ‘passive aptitude.’ These are things that animals and plants do not have. However, neither is a ‘free-will’ something that humans have that makes them like God.

Human beings are fallen into sin and as such are governed by self and pride. The original temptation given to Eve was that she would be like God. In this human beings are still given over to it and this teaching regarding the will demonstrates this as clearly as anything does. The modern idea of a ‘free-will’ would never even enter the mind of a person that had never fallen. A person that had never fallen would not want a ‘free-will’ as described by so many philosophers and theologians. That person would recognize that it is the desire to be like god and that to be free would be to be free of the power and wisdom of God’s grace and love and to be left to the power of self. This would be intolerable to the soul that loved God in truth and love. The soul that loves God does not want to be free as such but instead to be a slave of the living God and a slave to His grace and love. In that slavery is true freedom to love to the glory of God where the will that is free (so-called) is in real bondage to self and pride.

In this we have an analogy in the Scriptures with life. All are commanded to give up their lives so that they may have true life, yet if they do not they will lose their lives. In giving up and denying one form of life one finds true life, yet if one seeks what is thought of as life on this planet one loses real life. So those who desire their ‘free-will” will find that they are in real bondage, yet those who desire to be the slaves of Christ will find true freedom. The will is not and never will be free to love and live to the glory of God apart from the power of grace and love in the soul. It was never made to be free in that sense. Neither was the will made to be able to choose and control grace and love our of a libertarian freedom. The human soul was made to be at the feet of God and to be at His pleasure.

There is no libertarian freedom anywhere in all existence. God is utterly free to do all He pleases in one sense, but He is not free to be holy and then to do something that contradicts His holiness. The devil is always restrained by the hand of God and the devil cannot choose to do good and to love. Human beings are always ruled over and the slaves of either the devil or Christ. There are no other choices and there are no other powers. Human beings are born dead in sin and trespasses and so their dispositions and aptitudes are towards sin and only sin. It takes the new birth by the hand of God to be rescued from the dominion of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of the Beloved Son (Col 1:13). There is no freedom to do that for self. No human being is more powerful than the devil and cannot rescue self from self and the devil. Only God can do that. Yet after the human being has been rescued there is also no power to live in love and holiness but that of the grace of God. So human beings were not and never will be free. We are always ruled over by another and are always in one kingdom or another.

This teaching of Luther from the Bible should wake up those who are living as if they have free-will regardless of their theological profession. “Free-will” as commonly taught is really a form of bondage and is teaching people that they can do what they cannot do. It is as dangerous as it is popular. Human beings simply do not want to face the fact that when they live as if they have ‘free-wills’ they are actually a demonstration of the fall where humanity wanted to be as God. The devil wanted to be as God and then deceived human beings into believing that. The deception goes on.

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

The doctrine concerning the freedom of the will cannot be separated from the concept of the power of the will. The will is not free to carry out what it desires if it does not have the power to do so. The natural man hates the teaching on the bondage of the will and anything that does away with his freedom, but Scripture is what sets out the truth of the matter and not the desires of fallen man. If the Bible says that those in the flesh or those whose minds are set on the flesh is death and hostile toward God, then that is the truth of the matter and not what human beings desire to be the case.

Romans 8:6 puts the matter out of reach in many ways for those who assert freedom of the will. “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” The text gives us two options for the soul. That mind that is set on the flesh is a mind that is in spiritual death. The mind that is set on the Spirit is a mind that is set on spiritual things and partakes of the fruit of spiritual things (life and peace). Verse 7 starts off with the word “because” and gives us a reason that verse 6 is true. That reason is that the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God and does not subject itself to God. The last part of verse 7 tells us why the mind does not subject itself to the law of God, “for it is not even able.” The mind set on the flesh is not free to choose as it will, but instead it has no ability to do so.

The heart wants to rise against that and assert its freedom. It does not want to admit that it has no ability to subject itself to the law of God. It reasons that it does not lie, steal, and does not commit adultery. In doing so, it thinks, it loves God. But the soul is to do what it does and not to do what it does not do out of love for God. The simply doing and not doing according to command does not mean that the soul loves God. It may simply mean that it does not want to be punished for doing or not doing against a particular command. The mind set on the flesh is hostile to God and does not love God in what it does. The mind that is hostile to God cannot love God and has no freedom or ability to do so because it has no power to love what it hates. The soul that is set on the flesh cannot please God in any way, shape, form, or fashion in reality.

Until a human being has some grasp of what original sin (his or her own) and the bondage of sin that entails a human being (self) does not understand the Gospel. Salvation is not just from some sin and hell in the future, it is from a heart that is hostile to God and hates God. Salvation is from a sinful nature that cannot please God in any way. A heart that is hostile to God and dead in its sins and trespasses is a heart that is not free to love and obey God. This heart cannot please God in any way and that includes an act of belief or faith. The soul is not saved because it believes, but it is saved when and only when the hostility of it toward God is taken away. Only then is there an ability and power in the soul to please God when it is grace that is working in the soul to do so. Only then is the soul a true image of God. The enslaved will is a necessary teaching as the dark background upon which the glory of sovereign grace is displayed so that human beings may behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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