The Roman scheme of salvation might be called the ostrich method: it teaches men the foolish strategy of the bird of the desert, which hides its head in the sand when it sees an enemy approaching, and then imagines the enemy does not exist. Original sin may be disputed out of the Bible by a false interpretation, but it is not thereby ruled out of existence. When face to face with his God—if no sooner, then in the hour of death—every man feels that he is utterly corrupt and worthless, and he will curse any teacher that caused him to believe otherwise. Free will is not created by assertions. Let the apostles of free will only try, and they will find out that their freedom is nil. Catholics denounce Luther for having declared the free will of man to be nothing than a word without substance: we hear the sound when the word is pronounced, and grasp its grammatical meaning, but we do not realize it in ourselves. Every person, however, who has truly come to know himself will side with Luther, or rather with the Bible. Furthermore, to the same extent to which the Roman view exalts man's natural powers for good, it lowers and limits the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit, and begets a false confidence and security that is rudely shaken when the first slip and fall occurs in the person's Christian life. He has never really laid hold of the grace of God, because he has not been taught to trust only to the grace of God to lead and preserve him in the way of life. He will begin to distrust the Gospel as a very inefficient instrument, and this will lead him to become indifferent to it, and finally fall away from it entirely. A real danger of apostasy and despair exists wherever the Roman dogma of man's natural free will is proclaimed.
It is, however, doing Luther a flagrant injustice when he is made to deny that man has no longer any natural reason and will in the secular affairs of this life. Luther used to divide the entire life of man into two hemispheres, the upper embracing man's relation to God, holy things, the interests of the soul here and hereafter, and the lower, embracing the purely human, temporal, and secular interests of man. It is only in the higher hemisphere that Luther denies the existence of free will. Throughout his writings Luther asserts the existence, the actual operation, and the necessity of human free will, though sadly weakened by sin, in the affairs of this present life. It will be sufficient to cite as evidence the Augsburg Confession which was drawn up with Luther's aid and submitted to Emperor Charles V in 1530 as the joint belief of Luther and his followers. "Of the Freedom of the Will," say the Protestant confessors, "they teach that man's will has some liberty for the attainment of civil righteousness and for the choice of things subject to reason. Nevertheless, it has not power, without the Holy Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness, since the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2, 14); but this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the Holy Ghost is received through the Word. These things are said in as many words by Augustine in his Hypognosticon (Book III): 'We grant that all men have a certain freedom of will in judging according to natural reason; not such freedom, however, whereby it is capable, without God, either to begin, much less to complete aught in things pertaining to God, but only in works of this life, whether good or evil. "Good" I call those works which spring from the good in Nature, that is, to have a will to labor in the field, to eat and drink, to have a friend, to clothe oneself, to build a house, to marry, to keep cattle, to learn divers useful arts, or whatsoever good pertains to this life, none of which things are without dependence on the providence of God; yea, of Him and through Him they are and have their beginning. "Evil" I call such things as, to have a will to worship an idol, to commit murder,' etc." (Art. 18.)
Luther has always held that there is a natural intelligence and wisdom, a natural will-power and energy which men employ in their daily occupations, their trades and professions, their trade and commerce, their literature and art, their culture and refinement, yea, that there is also a natural knowledge of God even among the Gentiles, who yet "know not God," and a seeming performance of the things which God has commanded. But these natural abilities do not reach into the higher hemisphere; they cannot pass muster at the bar of divine justice. They do not spring from right motives, nor do they aim at right ends; they are determined by man's self-interest. They come short of that glory which God ought to receive from worshipers in spirit and in truth (Rom. 3, 23; John 4, 23); they are evil in as far as they are the corrupt fruits of corrupt trees. In condemning the moral quality of these natural works of civil righteousness, Luther has said no more than Christ and His apostles have said.
Luther taught the Bible-doctrine that there is in God a hidden will which He has reserved to His majesty (Dent. 29); that His judgments are unsearchable and His ways past finding out (Rom. 11, 33); that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without His will, and that the very hairs of our head are numbered (Matt. 10, 29. 30); that no evil can occur anywhere without His permission (Amos 3, 6; Is. 45, 7). To deny these truths is to reject the Bible and to destroy the sovereign omniscience and omnipotence of God. Those who attack Luther for believing that also the evil in this world is related to God will have to change their bill of indictment: their charge is really directed against Scripture. Luther has, however, warned men not to attempt a study of this secret will of God, for the plain reason that it is secret, and it would be blasphemous presumption to try and find it out. All our dealings with God must be on the basis of His revealed will. If we only will study that, we will be fully occupied our whole life.
As regards the Scriptural doctrine of predestination, that those who ultimately attain to the life everlasting have been chosen to that end, Luther has warned men not to study this doctrine outside of Christ and the Gospel. God has told His children for their comfort amid the vicissitudes of this life that He has secured their eternal happiness against all dangers, but He has not asked them, nor does He permit them, to find out a priori whether this or that person is elect. Jesus Christ is the Book of Life in which the elect are to find their names recorded, and in the general way of salvation through repentance, faith, and sanctification of life they are to be led to the heritage of the saints in light. In his summary of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of Romans, Luther states that by His eternal election God has taken our salvation entirely out of our hands and placed it in His own hands. "And this is most highly necessary. For we are so feeble and fickle that, if salvation depended upon us, not a person would be saved; the devil would overcome them all. But since God is reliable and His election cannot fail or be thwarted by any one, we still have hope over and against sin. But at this point a limit must be fixed for the presumptuous spirits who soar too high. They lead their reason first to this subject, they start at the pinnacle, they want to explore first the abyss of the divine election, and wrestle vainly with the question whether they are elect. These people bring about their own overthrow: they are either driven to despair or become reckless.—Follow the order of this Epistle: First, occupy yourself with Christ and the Gospel, in order that you may learn to know your sin and His grace; next, begin to wrestle with your sin, as chapters 1-8 teach you to do. Then, after you have reached the doctrine concerning crosses and tribulations in the eighth chapter, you will rightly learn the doctrine of election in chapters 9-11, because you will realize what a comfort this doctrine contains. For the doctrine of election can be studied without injury and secret anger against God only by those who have passed through suffering, crosses, and anguish of death. Accordingly, the old Adam in you must be dead before you can bear this subject and drink this strong wine. See that you do not drink wine while you are still a babe. There is a proper time, age, and manner for propounding the various doctrines of God to men." What is there fatalistic about this?
17. Luther a Teacher of Lawlessness.
Luther's teaching on the forgiveness of sin is sternly rebuked by Catholic writers because of its immoral tendencies. They say, when the forgiveness of sins is made as easy as Luther makes it, the people will cease being afraid if sinning.
The danger of the Gospel of the gracious forgiveness of sins being misapplied has always existed in the Church. Every student of church history knows this. Catholic writers know this. Paul wrestled with this practical perversion of the loving intentions of our heavenly Father in his day. After declaring to the Romans: "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," he raises the question: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" He returns this horrified answer: "God forbid! How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" (Rom. 5, 20-6, 2.) Actually there were people in the apostle's days who drew from his evangelical teaching this pernicious inference, that by sinning they gave the forgiving grace of God a larger opportunity to exert itself, hence, that they were glorifying grace by committing more sin. This meant putting a premium on sinning. For God's sake, how can you conceive a thought like that? the apostle exclaims. He repudiates the idea as blasphemous, which it is. To sin in the assurance that sin will be forgiven is not honoring, but dishonoring God and His grace; it is not exalting, but traducing faith; it is not Christian, but devilish. Summarizing the contents of Romans, chapter 5, Luther says: "In the fifth chapter Paul comes to speak of the fruits and works of faith, such as peace, joy, love of God and all men, and in addition to these, security, boldness, cheerfulness, courage and hope amid tribulations and suffering. All these effects follow where there is genuine faith, because of the superabundant blessing which God has conferred upon us in Christ by causing Him to die for us before we could pray that He might do this, yea, while we were yet His enemies. Accordingly, we conclude that faith justifies without works of any kind, and yet it does not follow that we must not do any good works. Genuine good works cannot fail to flow from faith,—works of which the self-righteous know nothing, and in the place of which they invent their own works, in which there is neither peace, joy, security, love, hope, boldness, nor any other of the characteristics of a genuine Christian work and faith." In his Preface to Romans, Luther meets a somewhat different objection to faith: Christians, after they have begun to believe, still discover sin in themselves, and on account of this imagine that faith alone cannot save them. There must be something done in addition to believing to insure their salvation. In replying to this scruple, Luther has given a classical description of the quality and power of faith. This description serves to blast the Catholic charge that Luther's easy way of justifying the sinner leads to increased sinning. Luther says: "Faith is not the human notion and dream which some regard as faith. When they observe that no improvement of life nor any good works flow from faith even where people hear and talk much about faith, they fall into this error that they declare: faith is not sufficient, you must do works if you wish to become godly and be saved. The reason is, these people, when they hear the Gospel, hurriedly formulate by their own powers a thought in their heart which asserts: I believe. This thought they regard as genuine faith. However, as their faith is but a human figment and idea that never reaches the bottom of the heart, it is inert and effects no improvement. Genuine faith, however, is a divine work in us by which we are changed and born anew of God. (John 1, 13.) It slays the old Adam, and makes us entirely new men in our heart, mind, ideas, and all our powers. It brings us the Holy Spirit. Oh, this faith is a lively, active, busy, mighty thing! It is impossible for faith not to be active without ceasing. Faith does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question has been asked, it has accomplished good works; yea, it is always engaged in doing good works. Whoever does not do such good works is void of faith; he gropes and mopes about, looking for faith and good works, but knows neither what faith nor what good works are, though he may prate and babble ever so much about faith and good works."
There has never been a time when the Gospel and the grace of God have not been wrested to wicked purposes by insincere men, hypocrites, and bold spirits. For this reason God has instructed Christians: "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." (Matt. 7, 6.) The danger of misapplied grace is a present-day danger in every evangelical community. Earnest Christian ministers and laymen strive with this misapplication wherever they discover it. Can they do any more?
Rome will say: Why do you not do as we do in our Church? We do not preach the Gospel in such a reckless fashion, we make men work for their salvation. Rome would abolish or considerably limit the preaching of free and abundant grace to the sinner. We recoil from this suggestion because it makes the entire work of Christ of none effect, and wipes out the grandest portions of our Bible. If every abuse of something that is good must be stopped by abolishing the proper use, then let us give up eating because some make gluttons of themselves; drinking, because some are drunkards; wearing clothes, because there is much vanity in dresses; marriage, because some marriages are shamefully conducted, etc., etc.