God Loves… Himself

So it is not irreligious, idle, or superfluous, but in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether of not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation. Indeed, let me tell you, this is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us; our aim is, simply, to investigate what ability ‘free-will’ has, in what respect it is the subject of Divine action and how it stands related to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity, and shall be in worse case than any people on earth…That God’s mercy works everything, and our will works nothing, but is rather the object of Divine working, else all will not be ascribed to God. (The Bondage of the Will, Luther’s Reply to Erasmus)

Here is a quote from R.C. Sproul that gets to the heart of the Reformers teaching on justification:

When we speak of justification by or through faith, we mean that faith is the instrumental cause of justification, not its ground. Justification is per fidem (by or through faith) but never propter fidem (on account of or on the ground of faith). Again we view justification as being propter Christum (on account of Christ). Sola fide (justification by faith alone) is theological shorthand for justification by Christ alone. We are justified by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone…The faith that links us to Christ is not a meritorious work. Indeed, saving faith is itself a gift of God wrought in us by the Holy Spirit.

In The Gospel and the Enslaved Will 44 the issue of what an instrumental cause was dealt with. In this section the connection between the enslaved will and faith as an instrumental cause will be looked at. Just to be clear, the reason that the teaching on the enslaved will was so important during the Reformation was its necessary connection to justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. To the degree that salvation is by grace alone is the degree that the will is enslaved. If we back off of the teaching that the will is wholly helpless in sin apart from grace and leave room for a free-will, then we no longer have a salvation that is by grace alone. “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace” (Rom 11:6).
Whatever actions or choices the soul does or takes that are not of grace are works of the flesh. Yet the slightest work the soul does in salvation denies that grace is totally grace in salvation.

The enslaved will is a necessary teaching to understand what the real issue is. The enslaved will cannot believe and has no ability to believe on its own. It must have grace to save it from itself and its own slavery to unbelief. This is a point that must be understood and rested in. If we hold that the will is free then in some way justification comes to the soul based on faith in the sense that the soul is saved on account of or because of faith. If the will is free, then by definition it is free from the internal working of God on that soul and God only works on souls to salvation by grace alone. So the will has to be free of grace if it is to be truly free. So a free-will is necessarily driven to the position of having salvation come to it on account of faith that comes to it apart from grace. That leaves us with a salvation that is not of grace alone and the slightest work makes grace to be something other than grace.

The faith that saves in accordance with grace is a faith that is an instrument. In other words, grace does not come to the soul because of grace. We can think of an instrument as something that a person uses to accomplish a purpose. Faith is the instrument that God uses to bring grace to the soul. If salvation is totally and wholly of grace, then salvation must not only be purchased by grace but it must be applied by grace as well. When faith is understood as a gift from God and comes to the soul by grace as well, then the picture of what it is and what it does becomes clearer. As Romans 4:16 states so clearly, “For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants.” Salvation is by faith in order that it may be of grace and so that the promise of it is guaranteed to the descendants of Abraham to whom the promise was made.

Salvation is given to the soul by faith in order that it may be totally and wholly of grace. It is not given by faith in order that it may be possible for anyone who can work up something called faith can have. But instead it is in such a way that the promise of God to Abraham can be fulfilled. Faith, rather than being from a so-called free-will, is rather from God and is an instrument in the hand of God to give salvation by grace alone. In Ephesians 2:4-5 God makes sinners alive by nothing but His mercy, love, and grace. A soul that has been raised from the spiritual dead and has spiritual life is a soul that has faith. But the text knows nothing of a free-will in man, but only the freedom of God in His sovereign grace. It then goes on teach us that it is “by grace what you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). Grace saves through faith and a faith that is the gift of God. It is God’s gift that He uses as an instrument to, shall we say, pour grace through. It is not something a soul is able to come up with because true faith must come from a believing heart. The soul is declared just by God based on Christ alone and not on Christ and faith. The soul is justified by Christ alone when God unites the soul to Christ by grace and yet uses faith as His instrument to do so. True faith receives grace and does not earn it in any way. It is an instrument in the hands of God rather than the so-called free-will of man. That way salvation is wholly because of grace.

So it is not irreligious, idle, or superfluous, but in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether of not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation. Indeed, let me tell you, this is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us; our aim is, simply, to investigate what ability ‘free-will’ has, in what respect it is the subject of Divine action and how it stands related to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity, and shall be in worse case than any people on earth…That God’s mercy works everything, and our will works nothing, but is rather the object of Divine working, else all will not be ascribed to God. (The Bondage of the Will, Luther’s Reply to Erasmus)

As we are working through some of the thoughts of Luther’s magisterial The Bondage of the Will we can see how it collides with a lot of modern thinking on justification and the way of salvation. That should not surprise us at all. The Reformation had a lot of religious tradition to break away from and much of that was the use of words and concepts that surrounded and blinded people to the truth. The same thing is true today. People use the same words as the pioneer Reformers did and yet those are being used to blind people to what the Reformers really taught. We must hasten to add that as the Reformers looked back to Augustine so we look back to the Reformers. They are used to help us look at what Scripture actually teaches. In Luther’s book he uses Scripture after Scripture to get at his points. Many of those will be looked at later on, but for the moment we are setting out some of the vital issues. Sometimes it is helpful to set out helpful issues that have arisen in history over how to look at what Scripture says on certain teachings. The battle for the Gospel was not over at the Reformation, but it has to be fought for several times each generation. The Gospel is virtually lost in America if the Gospel spoken of is what the pioneer Reformers actually taught and preached during the Reformation. That is a shocking statement, but it should not surprise anyone when a nation is spiraling downward at a rapid pace to think that the gospel (majority) that has been taught in it for decades and even close to two centuries has been removed from what the Reformation taught.

The difference between a faith that a so-called “free-will” comes up with versus the faith that God gives and then uses to save sinners is quite different. We are no friends to sinners if we do not teach them to look to God for faith rather than themselves. We are no friends to sinners if we do not teach them to look to grace rather than what their own wills can do. We are no friends to God if we teach people a way of salvation that is apart from His work of grace alone. We are no friends of God if we teach that his instrument of salvation (faith) is actually what human beings should use to apply grace to themselves. It is a different gospel. This point is at the heart of Luther’s book and the Gospel of the Reformation. It is also at the heart of the biblical Gospel which is what is truly important. The Gospel as preached by the Reformers is only important to the degree it is biblical.

Romans 8 is crystal clear that there is nothing a fleshly person can do to please God: “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.” Can language be any clearer” In light of Romans 8:7-8 and then the Gospel and the enslaved will, can a fleshly will that is free (free from the grace of God) make a choice that God responds by saving it? Isn’t that the claim of the Pelagian which says that we can will good that comes from ourselves and is not from the internal work of God? This is a tough issues, but we cannot get away from Pelagian teaching of the will no matter what we do as long as we try to hang on to the un-biblical teaching of free-will.

We could even go a step down the road and say that there are only two views of the Gospel. There is the view of the enslaved will as taught by Scripture and the Reformers that must have the soul and the will saved by a grace procured and a grace applied by grace. The other view, regardless of what people call it, is simply a version of Pelagianism which teaches that the will is free and can make choices that are pleasing to God in some way. This is what Arminianism teaches which is why some refer to Arminianism as semi-Pelagianism. But even more frightening, many professing Reformed people seem to hold that view or at least are quite willing to hold hands as if there is no real difference with those who do hold that view. Machen wrote his book in the 1920’s or 30’s on Christianity and Liberalism to show that liberalism was not Christianity. Perhaps a book needs to be written today on other things that are not Christian. If Luther was right about the importance of this teaching on the will, that should be at the top of the list. The teaching of Scripture and Luther on the enslaved will and the Gospel of grace alone hits hard. Let us not water it down and make the gate wider than Christ said it was and is.

So it is not irreligious, idle, or superfluous, but in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether of not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation. Indeed, let me tell you, this is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us; our aim is, simply, to investigate what ability ‘free-will’ has, in what respect it is the subject of Divine action and how it stands related to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity, and shall be in worse case than any people on earth…That God’s mercy works everything, and our will works nothing, but is rather the object of Divine working, else all will not be ascribed to God. (The Bondage of the Will, Luther’s Reply to Erasmus)

The above quote shows the value of knowing what ability the so-called free-will has. He calls it a “crucial issue.” Yet today, as with Erasmus of old, people do not think that this is an important issue. They are satisfied to think of souls being saved by faith in some way without understanding the situation. However, that is incredibly dangerous. In many ways the Reformation was over this very issue. It is so crucial that it divides what justification by faith alone really means versus a justification by faith alone that is very close to what Roman Catholicism teaches. If the will is moved by itself apart from the grace of God alone, then at the heart of it there is little difference between that and what Rome teaches. It is when it is taught that the enslaved will cannot believe and cannot receive Christ that people get upset. It is when it is taught that the will must be acted upon by God for the soul to have faith that people get upset. But this is at the very heart and hinge of the Gospel.

Here is a quote from R.C. Sproul that gets to the heart of the situation:

When we speak of justification by or through faith, we mean that faith is the instrumental cause of justification, not its ground. Justification is per fidem (by or through faith) but never propter fidem (on account of or on the ground of faith). Again we view justification as being propter Christum (on account of Christ). Sola fide (justification by faith alone) is theological shorthand for justification by Christ alone. We are justified by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone…The faith that links us to Christ is not a meritorious work. Indeed, saving faith is itself a gift of God wrought in us by the Holy Spirit.

When the Reformers spoke of faith as being an instrumental cause, they were using the categories of Aristotle. These are very helpful categories. In his book Faith Alone R.C Sproul gives an excellent analogy of that. We can imagine a sculptor making a statue. There is the material cause (that which something is made of; in this case the stone), the formal cause (the design or idea followed; in this case a sketch for the sculptor), the final cause (the purpose for which something is made; in this case the reason the sculptor acts), the efficient cause (the chief agent doing the work; in this case the sculptor), and then there is the instrumental cause (the means or instrument used to make the sculpture, or the sculptor’s chisel in this case). It helps to take a moment and closely reflect on what happens when someone tries to sculpt a statue. In an effort at clarity, let us put this in a different way. 1) There is a rock that one starts with. That is the material cause. 2) There is a design or an idea that one has that will guide the process. That is the formal cause. 3) There is the purpose for which one has for the item made. That is the final cause. 4) There is the person doing the work or sculpting the stone. That is the efficient cause. 5) Lastly, there is the instrument of tool which the sculptor will use to form the stone. That is the instrumental cause.

Faith is the instrumental cause of salvation which is what the efficient cause (God Himself in salvation) uses for the final cause (the purpose for which something is made, and in salvation it is the glory of God). The soul that is saved, which includes the will, is the material cause. The soul is that which something is made of. The analogy stops at some point because God makes His people willing in the day of His power. But in the day of His power He gives faith and uses it as His instrument to save a soul. There is no power in faith itself and there is no power in the soul to use faith itself. There is no ability in faith or in the soul to use faith by itself. God, the only efficient cause, uses faith as His instrument to make in accordance to His own design and for His own purposes a saved soul that has been renewed in the image of Christ. No soul has the ability or freeness of will to do that. God alone can do that and He only does that by His grace because of Christ. The instrument that He uses (not the human) is faith.

The illustration above is certainly limited as are all illustrations and analogies. But when we think of how Scripture speaks of depraved human beings having hearts of stone, the analogy fits quite well. God must use an instrument to break those hard hearts and then something to mold them as He pleases. He uses instruments to do those things and those things do not work on themselves. In the modern day Arminians and professing Reformed folks want faith or the will to be the efficient cause that does the work and for faith to be the instrument in the hands of man. But the Gospel cannot be twisted to allow for such things. John 1:12-13 tells us that the believing soul has been born of the will of God and specifically not of the will of any man. If God is the efficient cause and not man himself, then assuredly faith is the instrument of God to save and not the instrument of man. This shows us the beauty and glory of the Gospel of grace which not only provides grace, but applies it as well. That is because God does it all.

So it is not irreligious, idle, or superfluous, but in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether of not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation. Indeed, let me tell you, this is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us; our aim is, simply, to investigate what ability ‘free-will’ has, in what respect it is the subject of Divine action and how it stands related to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity, and shall be in worse case than any people on earth…That God’s mercy works everything, and our will works nothing, but is rather the object of Divine working, else all will not be ascribed to God. (The Bondage of the Will, Luther’s Reply to Erasmus)

Clearly Luther thought it was of vital importance to know what ability the will has and what it can do with that ability. The will either has some ability and that ability is in certain areas. If we assign the will to such an important area as salvation, then we need to know the extent of its ability. We don’t assign ability in the human will to fly without mechanical aid or many other things. So if we are going to assign it an act and power or ability in the realm of salvation, we need to know much more about it. If the Bible addresses this subject, then we need to know that the Bible says about it and not just assume that the will has ability.

What Luther attempts to show is that the Bible teaches that salvation is of the power and grace of God. Faith is part of that salvation and comes to the sinner by the power and grace of God. Here is a quote from R.C. Sproul that gets to the heart of the situation:

When we speak of justification by or through faith, we mean that faith is the instrumental cause of justification, not its ground. Justification is per fidem (by or through faith) but never propter fidem (in account of or on the ground of faith). Again we view justification as being propter Christum (on account of Christ). Sola fide (justification by faith alone) is theological shorthand for justification by Christ alone. We are justified by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone….The faith that links us to Christ is not a meritorious work. Indeed, saving faith is itself a gift of God wrought in us by the Holy Spirit.

The enslaved will cannot look to itself to do anything in the area of salvation since it has no ability or power to do anything as free and in the area of salvation. The will is in bondage, dead, and can do nothing in the spiritual realm. When people look to the will as free and trust in that will to believe on Christ, they are looking to self to do something that it cannot do and the will of self is not free to do. The will can do nothing spiritual unless it is the object of Divine grace working through it. Faith is the instrument of God in salvation and not the instrument of the will of human souls. This must be made clear or we will not understand the Gospel of grace alone. Grace works faith in the soul as the instrument by which God uses to save the soul. A person can believe in something called justification by faith alone and be closer to Roman Catholicism than the Reformation and Scripture.

Sproul’s quote from above gets at the heart of what Luther was trying to say. We can know in some way that we must have faith to be saved, but we must not look to ourselves for faith or to perform as act of faith. As long as sinners think that their will is free and that faith is up to them, they have not been broken from their pride and self-reliance. They will continue to look to themselves to carry out their duty. What they must see is that justification comes through faith, but it does not come because of faith. Salvation comes to the soul because of Jesus Christ alone. It comes to the soul because of grace alone. Faith comes to the soul by grace alone. Salvation comes to the soul through faith alone because it comes to the soul by grace because of Christ alone.

If human beings ascribe to the soul the ability to do what God alone can do, then they give to themselves some of the glory of salvation which is an act of idolatry. The soul that takes to itself the power to do something that God alone can do is trying to be God to itself. The soul that takes to itself the glory of what God alone should have is a thief and is seeking its own honor which is also an act of idolatry. For a human being to adhere to free-will in the area of salvation is for that human being to be an idolater. It is, therefore, necessary to teach the great truth of faith alone in the context of grace alone because of Christ alone. We are not saved because of our free-will, but because of Christ alone. This comes to the soul because of grace alone. Faith is a gift of God that it may be the instrument of God in salvation so that all of the glory will be His. We must not dare to try to steal His glory. As Luther said, it is “in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether or not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation.” To the degree grace is important in salvation is the degree we must make sure that people understand how the grace of God works on the will. A grace that is all of grace must be declared in the Gospel. If we leave one work for the human soul to do apart from grace, we no longer have grace alone.

Anyway, this is what your words assert; that there is strength within us; there is such a thing as striving with all one’s strength; there is mercy in God; there are ways of compassing that mercy…But if one does not know what this ‘strength’ is—what men can do, and what is done to them—what this ‘striving’ is, what men can do, and what is done to them—then what should he do? What will you tell him to do?…For as long as they do not know the limits of their ability, they will not know what they should do; and as long as they do not know what they should do, they cannot repent when they err; and impenitence is the unpardonable sin…So it is not irreligious, idle, or superfluous, but in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether of not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation. Indeed, let me tell you, this is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us; our aim is, simply, to investigate what ability ‘free-will’ has, in what respect it is the subject of Divine action and how it stands related to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity, and shall be in worse case than any people on earth. (The Bondage of the Will, Luther’s Reply to Erasmus)

Luther points out a key issue here that is widely ignored today. Just what power does the will have? Questions must be raised to those who hold to a so-called free-will. What power does the free-will have? What can a free-will do? What is the will free from? Is it free from God and is it free from grace? A will that is free from grace is doing something apart from grace and so it is a work of the flesh. Romans 8 tells us that the fleshly person cannot please God. So a will that is free from grace is not able to please God in any way. Jesus also said that apart from Him we could do nothing (spiritual). Does the will have the power to apply the grace of God to itself? Once we begin to see things in this light, we can begin to see that the desire to retain a free-will is a desire to be sufficient to apply salvation to our own souls. We may use the language of grace, but we do not really have a biblical grace at that point. This point must be driven home since the Gospel is of grace and grace alone.

Does God act upon human wills and can we say that He acts upon free wills? The soul that is drawn by grace alone is not a free-will as in free from internal influences. It has grace working on and in it. It is not free from the grace and power of God. In fact, it is only to the degree that we accept that the soul is enslaved to sin and is not free that we can believe in grace alone. It should be remembered at all times that the slightest work makes grace to be no grace at all (Rom 11:6). A will that is free from the internal grace of God is a will that is operating according to the flesh and to works. This shows us that Luther’s teaching has a lot of truth to it that a person must deny his or her own free-will in order to rest in grace alone for salvation or for one good work. If by definition a will that is free is free from the internal workings of God, then that will is free from the grace of God as well. So how can a person assert that the will is free from grace and then try to hold to a salvation that is by grace alone? It cannot be done in a consistent way. We must deny our so-called free-wills in order to receive the real free grace of God.

Those whom God calls will come. This is not to say that He drags them kicking and screaming against their will, but that He changes their desires and their loves in order to want to come. But it is His grace drawing them and not the will free of grace that is coming in its own power. This is what Luther would have Erasmus see and what he would want to have us see today as well. This is the heart of the Bible in terms of salvation which is by grace alone. The sinner that is dead in sins and trespasses needs to be made alive in the spiritual realm and so has no freedom in the spiritual realm. The sinner is dead and has no freedom at all in any realm but the realm of death and sin. It must be grace alone that would raise that sinner from the dead and all the glory of it is God’s. This is precisely what Ephesians 2:1-8 sets out. Sinners are not only dead in sin, but they are by nature children of wrath. Before they can do anything in the spiritual realm they must be made alive and have the Spirit. The sinner is not free to make self alive in order to apply grace to self and is not free to bring the Spirit into his or her soul.

What kind of power does a dead person have? Clearly and without question that person has no power at all. What kind of power to act and operate does a person have in the spiritual realm that is dead to the spiritual realm? That person has no power to act and operate in the spiritual realm. What kind of power does anyone have to apply grace to him or herself? No one has any power to apply grace to self or anyone else. Grace must come from God based on Himself and His own glory or it is not grace at all. The teaching of the enslaved will is utterly vital to the Gospel of grace alone. Unless we teach and apply it to the hearts of sinners, we will not teach grace alone in truth.

Anyway, this is what your words assert; that there is strength within us; there is such a thing as striving with all one’s strength; there is mercy in God; there are ways of compassing that mercy…But if one does not know what this ‘strength’ is—what men can do, and what is done to them—what this ‘striving’ is, what men can do, and what is done to them—then what should he do? What will you tell him to do?…For as long as they do not know the limits of their ability, they will not know what they should do; and as long as they do not know what they should do, they cannot repent when they err; and impenitence is the unpardonable sin…So it is not irreligious, idle, or superfluous, but in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether of not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation. Indeed, let me tell you, this is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us; our aim is, simply, to investigate what ability ‘free-will’ has, in what respect it is the subject of Divine action and how it stands related to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity, and shall be in worse case than any people on earth. (The Bondage of the Will, Luther’s Reply to Erasmus)

Luther the Reformer told Erasmus the Roman Catholic that the crucial issue between them was the ability of free-will and what “respect it is the subject of Divine action and how it stands related to the grace of God.” Here Luther sets out three vital points in the issue: 1) The ability that ‘free-will’ has. 2) In what respect the will is the subject of Divine action. 3) How the will stands in relation to the grace of God. These are still the main issues of the day. True enough it is no longer between the pioneer Reformers and the Roman Catholics, but regardless of the names used these are vital issues in relation to the Gospel. This is also why some Reformed people think of Arminians as having given up the essence of the Gospel that shone so brightly during the Reformation and have in essence returned to Rome. Below is a quote from Wilhelmus a Brakel.

There is an infinite difference between the corrupt intellect of man—that is, the Arminians and other proponents of free will—and the Holy Scriptures. The question is: Does the obtaining salvation proceed from man? Is he the only and essential cause of his salvation, or is God the only essential cause and can man, being absolutely incapable, do nothing to obtain salvation? The Arminians will readily admit that God has prepared and accomplished salvation and that God has given and revealed Christ the Mediator. However, they attribute this acceptance and entering in upon that way to the good will and power of man. This could be likened to what transpires on a race track. The government has put the prize on display and has prepared the track. The acquisition of the prize, however, is contingent upon the runners themselves.

In order to protect the idol of man’s own ability and of his good will as being the cause of his own salvation, the Arminians would prefer to do away with the distinction between the external and internal call, between the noneffectual and the effectual call. They would view them as being the same, and thus recognize only one calling. The effect would then not be due to the efficacious operation of God working more in one person than in another. Instead, it would be related to the outcome; namely, that the one person obeys the call by his free will (which enables him either to respond or to reject this call) and thus be saved. Another person will despise and reject this call by the same neutral free will. Scripture, however, rebukes and refutes such foolish thoughts and demonstrates first of all that the calling is effectual unto salvation as a result of God’s purpose, “…who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28); “for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom 11:29). The actual exercise of faith in those who are called proceeds from this purpose. “And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48).

A Brakel refers to the Arminian idea of free will and ability as an idol. This sounds harsh to modern ears that are raised on gracious words that call out peace, peace when there is no peace. However, the Arminian idea of the will has the will free from God and His grace. That idea of the will that is free from God at that point has the will with power that only God has and doing things that only God can do. Assigning to something other than God that power and ability is an act of idolatry. The idea of the will being free from God and applying the grace of God to itself is a hideous notion that is truly nothing short of idolatry. If we think of salvation as being obtained by Christ but now needing to be applied, it is either applied by God or by the man himself. If we say it is the man we are saying that it is a free-will doing the application rather than God. That is idolatry at a high level.

Anyway, this is what your words assert; that there is strength within us; there is such a thing as striving with all one’s strength; there is mercy in God; there are ways of compassing that mercy…But if one does not know what this ‘strength’ is—what men can do, and what is done to them—what this ‘striving’ is, what men can do, and what is done to them—then what should he do? What will you tell him to do?…For as long as they do not know the limits of their ability, they will not know what they should do; and as long as they do not know what they should do, they cannot repent when they err; and impenitence is the unpardonable sin…So it is not irreligious, idle, or superfluous, but in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether of not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation. Indeed, let me tell you, this is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us; our aim is, simply, to investigate what ability ‘free-will’ has, in what respect it is the subject of Divine action and how it stands related to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity, and shall be in worse case than any people on earth. (The Bondage of the Will, Luther’s Reply to Erasmus)

In hearing evangelistic appeals from pulpits and television screens, the appeal is virtually always for people to make a choice or to make a commitment or simply make an act of the will toward Jesus. For Pelagians and Arminians that is quite understandable, but for professing Reformed people to buy into that is simply inexcusable. Jesus said very clearly, in John 6:44, that “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. In the Greek it is dunamai which is a word for ability or power. In other words, Jesus tells the people and us that no one has the ability or power to come to Christ unless the Father draws them. Indeed men are commanded to come to Christ, but the command does not presuppose the power to obey any more than the command to love God with all of our being presupposes that we have the power of love to obey that command in us.

This is a matter of great importance, though indeed Erasmus did not see it as anything more than a minor issue and people are rather clueless about the importance of it today. The older confessions and catechisms spoke of effectual calling which means that God is the one that brings the sinner to Himself rather than the sinner being able to come. The word “effectual” has the idea of enough power. The internal calling of God has enough power to overcome the sinners internal resistance and make them willing in the day of His power. Sinners come to Christ because of the power of an irresistible grace rather than the power of their own will. If the will is indeed free, then it would be free of the internal grace and power of God so it would not be God bringing the sinner to Christ.

The heart of this matter has to do with whose power it is that brings the sinner to God through Christ. The Arminians and the Pelagians think of it as the power of man that brings man to God, though some would assign differing amounts of power to the grace of God in this. The pioneer Reformers said it was God by grace alone that brought man to salvation. The issue over the will and the power of the will is right at the heart of the Gospel of grace alone. When it is said or thought to be a minor issue; that simply means that a person does not understand the importance of this to the Gospel.

Read the words of Luther again: “If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity.” If we think this is a minor issue hardly worth talking about, then it simply shows that most likely we don’t really understand the Gospel of grace alone. A person must understand that s/he is impotent in matters of vital importance and that s/he either will come to Christ in his or her own power or will come to Christ by the grace of God. The Gospel of grace alone has to do with how people come to Christ and how Christ is applied to their souls. It does not just stop at what Christ has accomplished on the cross; it is also how people come to Christ in our day as well. As long as we refuse to tell people of their inability to come we have not explained to them the nature of their depravity or the nature of the grace of God in salvation. If we don’t tell people that God must grant them repentance, we have not explained to them the nature of sinful hearts or the truth of repentance. If we have not explained to them the nature of repentance in the sense that it is God who works it in their hearts, then we have not told them how to repent. It is to be feared that we tell people to repent and they simply think it is in their own power to do so. As long as people think that it is in their own power to repent, they will never truly repent. Teaching people the nature of the will is utterly vital to the Gospel.

Anyway, this is what your words assert; that there is strength within us; there is such a thing as striving with all one’s strength; there is mercy in God; there are ways of compassing that mercy…But if one does not know what this ‘strength’ is—what men can do, and what is done to them—what this ‘striving’ is, what men can do, and what is done to them—then what should he do? What will you tell him to do?…For as long as they do not know the limits of their ability, they will not know what they should do; and as long as they do not know what they should do, they cannot repent when they err; and impenitence is the unpardonable sin…So it is not irreligious, idle, or superfluous, but in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether of not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation. Indeed, let me tell you, this is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us; our aim is, simply, to investigate what ability ‘free-will’ has, in what respect it is the subject of Divine action and how it stands related to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity. (The Bondage of the Will, Luther’s Reply to Erasmus)

Luther demonstrated a vast amount of insight in the above response to Erasmus’ claim that the will had some strength, but it just needed the mercy of God to help it. The historical Reformed view is that the will has no strength in it at all to do any good. It appears that Luther believed that. But notice how clearly the Gospel of grace alone stands out when it is looked at in this light. If the will has no strength, then it is grace alone that saves sinners and actually moves the will. But if the will has some strength, even just a tiny amount, then it is not grace alone that saves sinners. It is grace plus the will. This is a lesson that we moderns should pay close attention to. This should change the way we preach and practice evangelism. How can we assign power to the will either explicitly or just remain silent on the issue when there is no power in the will? We are misleading people if we do not tell them that they have no power of the will and we are not telling them what will really save them. In other words, we are telling them something less than a whole Gospel.

If the Gospel is the Gospel of grace alone, then that needs to be explained and set out clearly. As long as people think that they have power in the will to make the final decision or even make some contribution, we have not set out the Gospel of grace alone to where they understand it. This was what Jonathan Edwards did in the 1700’s and then Asahel Nettleton did so well in the early 1800’s. They strove to deliver people from any hope in themselves because they saw that as long as a person had any hope in the strength of the will that they were under a delusion. If a clear Gospel is to be taught in any age, then we must set out the strength and power of the will so that grace can be seen for what it is and what it does.

Luther points out that if a person believes that the will has some power to do certain things then that person will do them. This is precisely what the preacher sets out to destroy so that the sinner may trust in grace alone. The confidence of the sinner in his own will must be destroyed so that he can see that he has no merit and no work that will contribute to salvation. Grace saves only when it saves without any help in order that grace may be grace (Romans 11:6). As long as the sinner thinks that s/he has some power in the will or free-will to do something pertaining to salvation, s/he will do that. But as long as the sinner thinks s/he has that power of the will to do something, the sinner will never truly repent of self-sufficiency.

It must be grace in the heart enabling it to believe, trust, and love or it would not be a work of human effort. It must be grace in the soul doing this or nothing it would do would be acceptable. There is no choice that a human being can make that is full of evil intents and motives that is acceptable to God. The only thing that can move God is His own name and the unbelieving heart hates Him and all it does falls short of His glory. Yet Genesis 6:5 tells us about the state of the unbelieving heart. Its very intents and motives are evil. The unbelieving heart can do nothing that is anything else but apart from an intent to do evil with motives that are evil. The unbelieving heart cannot do one thing out of pure love. If the heart that chooses God is an unbelieving heart, it chooses with evil intents and motives. It chooses without love which is the Greatest Commandment. Teaching on the impotence of the will, therefore, is not something that is extra or makes one a hyper-Calvinist. It is something that we do in order to preach the Gospel of grace alone. If we do not teach people that their will has no power and it is grace alone that saves, then we are not preaching the Gospel of grace alone. It is vital to the biblical Gospel of God. If we don’t know these things, we know nothing whatsoever of Christianity. If we don’t teach these things to others, then they will know nothing whatsoever of Christianity. It is that vital.

Do we not stand in urgent need of such teaching as Luther here gives us—teaching which humbles man, strengthens faith, and glorifies God—and is not the contemporary Church weak for the lack of it? The issue is clear. We are compelled to ask ourselves: If the Almighty God of the Bible is to be our God, if the New Testament gospel is to be our message, if Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever—is any other position than Luther’s possible? Are we not in all honesty bound to stand with him in ascribing all might, and majesty, and dominion, and power, and all the glory of our salvation to God alone? Surely no more important or far-reaching question confronts the Church to-day (Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will).

The urgent need of the Church is not more methods and more activities, but instead it needs more of God. Those are words that are easy to say and easy to type, but to have more of God is something beyond the power of man. That is precisely what Luther teaches and that is what most everybody in our day will deny. Men want to leave something for themselves to do and some sufficiency in themselves to carry out what they have left for themselves to do. They want to define love and many things in the Bible in order to leave for themselves one little corner to carry out what they have left for themselves to do. Nevertheless, Jesus did say that “apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Apart from love there is not one thing we can do to please God (I Cor 13), yet there is no love but that which comes from God (I John 4:7-8).

In Luther’s Bondage of the Will he goes after the sufficiency of man to do anything. He shows how helpless man is to contribute the smallest part of his own salvation and that salvation is by sovereign grace alone. He shows how that for human beings to bow and receive sovereign grace we must be thoroughly humbled and broken. This is simply another way of saying that the urgent need of the Church today is to preach the depths of man’s inability and impotence before a holy and sovereign God. There is no salvation apart from a deep humbling and brokenness of the soul because grace will have no helpers or enemies in the soul it saves. Saving grace delivers a soul from its pride and self-sufficiency or the soul cannot rest in grace alone. This is why it is an urgent need in the professing Church to teach as Luther did (and all the pioneer Reformers) that the soul must be deeply humbled and broken in order to rest in grace alone.

In the professing Church of today we have a lot of talk about the responsibility of man. That is just one way to sneak in the idea of man’s ability, though the word can be used apart from that. Nevertheless, the ability of man is relied on in what is called the “preaching of Christ” in so many places. The Gospel of grace alone is virtually unknown in the modern times because the humiliation of the soul is virtually unknown. Luther taught that the Gospel of grace alone teaches that God must empty the soul of itself and then bring the soul to itself by grace alone. If we claim that we believe in the inability of the soul, then we must teach that to people and how that is necessary to look to grace alone. Today there is a weak hybrid of those who claim to believe the Reformed teachings who also teach the responsibility of man in such a way that it leaves man with the ability (at least in their own minds) to come to Christ when they please and how they please. Until the Church gets back to preaching the Bible as Luther taught it will always have that weak hybrid as long as anyone tries to claim to be Reformed.

The urgent need of the Church is to discover once again the New Testament Gospel as proclaimed by the Reformers in all of its parts. Part of that seamless Gospel is the utter inability of man as taught by Luther in The Bondage of the Will. It is the true humbling of man that is so desperately needed by the Church in our day. Apart from the humbling of man there is no faith unto salvation and also no strengthening of the Church by faith. Apart from the humbling of human souls there will be no desire for the glory of God out of love for God. The natural man can seek the glory of God in name but in reality be seeking self in some way. Apart from the total inability of man in our preaching of the Gospel there will be no total glory of God in our preaching of the Gospel. As long as we leave some power in the soul we have not sought the humbling of that soul to the degree that it needs to be saved to the glory of God alone. I Corinthians 10:31 tells us that whatever we do we are to do to the glory of God. Part of that is to preach in such a way that the glory is God’s alone in the Gospel. Apart from preaching the total inability of human souls there will be no preaching of the Gospel of grace alone to the glory of God alone. In other words, there will also be no true preaching of faith alone either. This is an urgent need.

To accept the principles which Martin Luther vindicates in The Bondage of the Will would certainly involve a mental and spiritual revolution for many Christians at the present time. It would involve a radically different approach to preaching and the practice of evangelism, and to most other departments of theology and pastoral work as well. God centered thinking is out of fashion to-day, and it recovery will involve something of a Copernican revolution in our outlook on many matters. But ought we to shrink from this? Do we not stand in urgent need of such teaching as Luther here gives us—teaching which humbles man, strengthens faith, and glorifies God—and is not the contemporary Church weak for the lack of it? The issue is clear. We are compelled to ask ourselves: If the Almighty God of the Bible is to be our God, if the New Testament gospel is to be our message, if Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever—is any other position than Luther’s possible? Are we not in all honesty bound to stand with him in ascribing all might, and majesty, and dominion, and power, and all the glory of our salvation to God alone? Surely no more important or far-reaching question confronts the Church to-day (Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will).

The quote from above should force some thinking and re-thinking on major issues of our day. Luther’s book The Bondage of the Will was and is a fair representation of the heart of the Gospel. To put it even more bluntly, to the degree that we reject that book is the degree we reject the Gospel that was proclaimed in the Reformation. Can we really have the New Testament Gospel if we reject Luther’s position in this book? If Luther and the pioneer Reformers preached the New Testament Gospel in its purity, then the degree we fall from that is how far we have fallen from the one and only Gospel of grace alone. We may think that we are okay and have unity with various denominations and various theologies, but if we have fallen from the true Gospel of grace alone then we are united with those who have fallen as well. This is no minor issue and this is not something that should be swept under a rug. It is the Gospel of grace alone that determines what a true church is and what a true believer is. It is the Gospel by which nations can fall as well. How can we prefer denominational unity over the Gospel?

Is Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever? Is the Gospel that Paul preached still the one and only Gospel? Is it so much the one and only Gospel that all who preach a different Gospel will be eternally cursed? Did Luther and the pioneer Reformers preach the Gospel that Paul preached? If so, then all those who preach a different Gospel than Luther and the pioneer Reformers did will be eternally cursed. We want to smooth off the rough edges and broaden the gate into the kingdom wider than Jesus did, but that is unsafe and damning. We must wrestle with the New Testament and Luther’s The Bondage of the Will rather than just assume that all is well.

But, so many argue, we believe in justification by faith alone and so do the Arminians. Aside from the point that it appears that most who think of themselves as Arminian are actually Pelagians, an Arminian cannot believe in justification by faith alone as Luther preached and wrote it. One cannot remain an Arminian and believe what Luther did about justification by faith alone. It is logically impossible. One or the other must be given up. So what can we say about those who claim to be Reformed and seek unity with “Arminians” in the Gospel? One must give up what Luther and the pioneer Reformers taught or they must give up unity with “Arminians.” I use the quote marks around Arminians because I am convinced that Pelagianism is the primary teaching among professing Arminians today.

We live in an age where so many just want to get alone and have drank deeply from the poisoned wells of the thinking that sets out unity as more important than all else. There can be no biblical unity apart from the biblical Gospel, so when people are united in a gospel that is not biblical they are not biblically united. Sure they might use the same words, but that does not mean that they mean the same things. Luther set out that justification by faith alone was important because it safeguarded salvation by grace alone. The Pelagian/Arminian position, despite using the same words of faith alone as Luther did, does not safeguard grace alone. It means something very different. The Pelagian/Arminian position also uses the word “by” in justification by faith alone very differently than Luther and the pioneer Reformers did. The Pelagian/Arminian position uses the word “by” to refer to what the human will can come up with and applies salvation to itself. The pioneer Reformers thought of the will as in bondage and so the word “by” refers to faith as an instrument in the hands of God who applied salvation. That leaves one side thinking of faith as coming from a so-called free-will and the other as faith as coming from God. The two positions are virtual opposites at that point and both cannot be the Gospel of grace alone. The Gospel of grace alone cannot exist with the teaching of free-will. It may not be politically correct to say so, but to preach free-will is to preach that which is opposite of the Gospel. To hold hands with those who preach free-will is to hold hands with what John Owen called an idol and is to hold hands with those who cannot logically hold to the Gospel of grace alone. The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation and is not the power of man to save himself. We must get straight on the Gospel of grace alone or we are alone without the Gospel. Luther had that part right.