Martin Luther and The Bondage of the Will

Luther's not writing a tweet. He's writing a book. And he's writing a book that actually is a response to a book that Erasmus wrote in 1524 on the freedom of the will.

So he is writing a response to the greatest intellect of the day on one of the most important subjects. And it's that book that we'll be discussing on today's special edition of Renewing Your Mind. Anniversaries often provide an occasion for us to look back, to remember what God has done in the past, and to reflect upon what men of the past taught and stood for.

Well, this year, 2025, marks 500 years since Martin Luther's classic book, The Bondage of the Will, was released. To commemorate this anniversary, Ligonier Ministries published a 500th anniversary edition, which includes an introductory article by R. C. Sproul and study questions. You can own this hardcover volume when you give a donation in support of Renewing Your Mind at renewingyourmind.org.

And in addition, we'll unlock Dr. Sproul's 12-part series on the controversial topic of free will. To discuss the moment Luther found himself in and what key truths he stood for in the pages of the bondage of the will, we're joined by the host of the Five Minutes in Church History podcast and the president of Reformation Bible College, Stephen Nichols. Dr. Nichols, it's great to have you with us in the studio today.

It's great to be with you, Nathan, and especially to be able to have the conversation that we're going to have together.

Well, Dr. Nichols, our listeners likely know Luther as the man who defended salvation by faith alone and the authority of Scripture alone. But this response to Erasmus in the bondage of the will isn't really a new battle or a third battle for him, is it? No, in fact, let's go back to what you just said. Luther is sola fide and sola scriptura.

They're the bedrocks of Reformation theology and the Reformation itself.

So we go back to 1517, and that's of course when Luther posts his 95 Theses. We all know that date, October 31st, 1517. It's Reformation Day. And what Luther is doing is challenging the Roman Catholic Church's doctrine of salvation. They were trusting in works.

They were trusting in human beings to cooperate with the grace of God. and Luther knew himself to be a sinner. He knew himself to be unable to earn or merit, achieve any level of righteousness. And so he was really coming at odds with his church. And he landed on Sola Fide first.

But the church's response to Luther is, by what authority? How do you think you're right and the church is wrong?

So now, this sort of paints Luther into a corner, and he lands on sola scriptura. And so he responds to the church. Very in a bold and courageous way in 1521 at the Diet of Worms or the Diet of Worms. And there, Luther says, My conscience is captive to the word of God. He's not going to trust in popes and church councils because they've contradicted themselves and they've erred.

And so, this idea of the Roman Catholic Church is grace plus works is salvation, reformers respond with sola fide. And then scripture plus tradition equals the authority. Luther's responding with sola scriptura. Then we get to a very important date, almost as important as 1517 and 1521, is 1525. And what we're talking about, Luther publishing his book, The Bondage of the Will.

This just goes deeper into those doctrines of grace and is a way of expressing what sola fide means in all of its implications.

So this is not a new battle. You put that very well. This is not a new battle. This is going deeper in the battle for the true gospel.

Well, before we get into the arguments of the book, can we talk a little bit about the style of the bondage of the will, Luther's tone? I have just a couple of quotes here from Luther that I'll read. I exceedingly pitied you, whose Who were polluting your most elegant and ingenious dictation with such filth of argument, and was quite angry with your most unworthy matter of being conveyed in so richly ornamented a style of eloquence. It is just as if the sweepings of the house or of the stable were borne about on men's shoulders in vases of gold and silver. Away with these useless and misleading tropes, and let us stick to the pure and simple Word of God.

Dr. Nichols, how would you describe Luthus' polemical style? Yeah, I I'll let him describe it. He once said Melanchthon, who was his associate, cuts with the precision of a surgeon. I just swing the axe.

And so, what Luther is doing here is swinging the axe. He had a high respect for Erasmus. He actually dedicates the book to Erasmus. And we probably should say a little bit about who Erasmus is. He's the classic scholar of the Renaissance 16th century.

He was of Rotterdam, so he was of Dutch descent. He taught ancient languages in Cambridge and Oxford. He was also independently wealthy, and so he spent significant time traveling Europe collating Greek text manuscripts from the different monasteries across Europe. And in 1516, he publishes the Greek New Testament. And of course, 1517 is the Protestant Reformation.

So once we get back to the source and back to the text, it's going to lead to the Reformation.

So Luther had a high respect for Erasmus. But he thought that while Erasmus was a critic of the church, his criticism didn't go deeply enough. Erasmus criticized the hierarchy of the church, but he held fundamentally to the doctrine of the church, and primarily the doctrine that salvation is by cooperation. That the will, the human will, can choose good or evil. and that we can prepare ourselves For God's grace to be at work in us.

And then we can come alongside of God's grace and cooperate, work with that grace to achieve righteousness.

So, fundamentally, Erasmus is agreeing with Roman Catholic doctrine, especially the doctrine of salvation. Luther felt like that was the waste of a great mind. Why Erasmus couldn't see that fundamental flaw on this fundamental issue of the will? And so because a lot is at stake, Luther is going to go for it. And he's not going to mince words.

He's going to go for the jugular.

Now, he does end up constructing arguments and he does push on scripture, but this is definitely a polemical text. Is there anything we can learn today from his style? Can those on social media point to Luther and say, hey, my angry tweets, they're totally fine. I think we have to be careful here. For one, Luther has a track record of publication here, and he has a platform that he has earned and can speak from that platform.

I think some folks on social media today haven't gone through the heavy lifting that Luther went through and the deep, intense study that Luther went through to have not just the strong language, but also the substantive argument behind it. Luther's not writing a tweet. He's writing a book. And he's writing a book that actually is a response to a book that Erasmus wrote in 1524 on the freedom of the will.

So he is writing a response to the greatest intellect of the day on one of the most important subjects. And I think that puts it all into context for us. It is one of the most important subjects. And I'm often reminded of the quote from Dr. Sprohl: when the gospel is at stake, everything is at stake.

Right.

So this matters to Luther. This isn't a marginal idea. This isn't something that we can agree to disagree on. The gospel is at stake here. And what Luther was doing, you know, keep in mind, this is before Augsburg and the Augsburg Confession.

You've got Zwingli at Zurich, but this is long before Calvin and Geneva gets established. You're just having the beginnings of the Anglican Church and the beginnings of Reformation. in England. But the Roman Catholic Church its shadow falls across the entire land. There's nothing guaranteeing here that this Reformation is going to succeed as a movement against this behemoth.

Of the Roman Catholic Church. And so for Luther, this isn't, okay, we've been there and now that's been accomplished and now we can move on. For Luther, he is still fighting with every fiber of his being for the gospel to be restored, the true gospel to be restored, in light of this false gospel and this false church, which is still strong. How did Erasmus respond to Luther's boldness, his tone, perhaps brashness? He wrote another book.

So he sends back a two-volume to Luther. But here's what Erasmus does, and Luther picks up on this. Erasmus, he's a sharp intellect. He can be a little slippery. And so, what he does is he wants to say that scripture is not all that clear on a lot of things.

And we need to recognize that there's wiggle room on a lot of theological issues. And so, Erasmus will sort of push that to try to say scripture's not as clear as we think it is.

Now, what do we do?

Well, we have human experience and we have our own thoughts of how it should be.

So going back to Pelagius, who was the first one to sort of bring this argument of the freedom of the will, and he's met by Augustine, of course, so the great Augustine-Pelagian controversy. Pelagius said We can't have moral responsibility. without Freedom. To choose. good or evil.

How can we hold people accountable? If they just say, well, my will's bound to sin, I'm going to sin, and I'm not responsible for it.

So in order to have both a civic good Yes. and moral accountability and responsibility, the will must be free. That's Erasmus' argument. He can write two books on it, but essentially, that's the argument. And so he has to evade scripture to be able to make that argument.

And so what Luther did, he didn't need to write a response to the two volumes, because bondage of the will is the response. This is what scripture teaches. We are dead in sin. We don't choose God. God chooses us.

And scripture is not slippery here. It's not ambiguous. It's very clear.

Now, I invited you into the studio today, Dr. Nichols, not just because you're a church historian or the host of the Five Minutes in Church History podcast, but because you're also the president of Reformation Bible College. And early this year, at your winter conference, the theme was this book, The Bondage of the Church. Of the will. And I would love for our listeners just to hear a brief moment from that conference from one of your faculty members and also the Vice President of Academics, Dr.

John Tweeddell. Here's Dr. Tweeddale now. Paul in Romans chapter 3 verse 23 says, All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, whether you are a Jew or whether you are a Greek, whether you are a man or whether you are a woman, whether you are free, whether you are a slave, whether you are educated or not. You stand condemned before God's perfect and righteous law.

Luther says that Paul's words here in Romans 3:23. Hit us like a thunderbolt. We're shaken to our core. paralyzed by our own guilt. As the standard of God's perfect law crushes us.

in our sin and misery. And Luther says to Erasmus, What say you? How do you respond? In the light of God's righteousness, no one measures up. How will we escape?

We might be able to do some works of the law, but we will never fulfill the law's demands. Not by our merit, not by our confidence. And so where will we go?

Well, Luther insists The gospel proclaims not What we do for God. But what God does for us in Jesus Christ. The righteousness of God that is revealed in the gospel is not the righteousness that we perform. It's the righteousness that God gifts us in Jesus Christ that is yours. By faith alone.

And so here is the question. Will you rely? On your own confidence. Will you rely on your own works? Will you rely on your own choices?

Or will you rely? on the work of Jesus Christ alone. As you stand. before Almighty God. It was a wonderful event here on the campus, and that is what it all boils down to, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. Again, we're right back to the gospel. At the end of Luther's life, he was very dramatic, of course.

So he would say, you could burn all my books. Except two. And it was the small catechism. and bondage of the will. And it's the bondage of the will because it is the gospel.

And I think what Dr. Tweedale said there makes it so obvious to us. This is either the work of God. alone or it is a cooperative work.

Well, let's get into some more specifics of the bondage of the will. What did Luther mean in his preface when he speaks about assertions? Yeah, he's actually responding to Erasmus' preface, and it goes back to what we were saying about Erasmus having latitude or wiggle room on some of these things. And what Erasmus is saying is there are a few things that we can be certain about, but there are a lot of things that Scripture's not so clear about. And so, as theologians, we need to be careful about making assertions, and we have to allow for some latitude.

Luther says Not here, not on this doctrine, and not on the related doctrines, because again, the gospel is at stake. And so Luther is very clear. Where scripture is clear, we must be clear. Where scripture is certain, we must be certain. You know, Luther's not alone here, Nathan.

You could go back to church history. You see this with Augustine and Pelagius. And so Pelagius is wanting to do the same thing. He's wanting to have some wiggle room there with how to understand Scripture. And Augustine once to emphasize scripture.

You could even go back further to the early centuries and the Christology controversies and Athanasius and the folks that he was against. And Athanasius is making a very clear stand because, again, Scripture is also very clear that Jesus Christ is the God-man, two natures in one person. We can move past the reformers and go into the early 20th century and the whole liberalism, fundamentalism, modernism controversy. NCJ Gresson Machin, right in the midst of that. And the liberals were doing the same thing.

They wanted to keep things less than clear. They wanted, again, to have latitude on these things. They wanted to speak about Jesus as a great person, as a great moral teacher. They wanted to talk about the Bible as a good book. But they're not pressing the authority of Scripture.

They're not pressing the deity of Christ or the historicity of miracles. And they're calling it Christianity. And Machin comes along and says, without Christian dogma. without the doctrine, without the assertions, that's not Christianity.

So that's why Luther's preface begins with: let's be clear here, we make assertions. And we see that even today with some Christians being opposed to doctrine and pushing back on doctrine, saying, I'm not religious. I just have a personal relationship with Jesus. Yeah. You know, you see this want to emphasize behavior over beliefs.

I want to emphasize experiences over doctrine. And in one sense, there is the experience that we have with the truth.

So we know that the gospel is true. Jesus Christ is Lord. Scripture is true. But we also know that We put our faith in Christ. And so it's the classic phrase that reverberated through the 20th century: you must be born again.

This is what Christ says to Nicodemus: this is the truth, but you must be born again. There needs to be that personal aspect. Apprehension. and even use the expression embracing. of that truth.

But at the core of it is the truth. And what we've done, and I think what happens a lot in American evangelicalism, is we emphasize the experience to the downplaying of doctrine.

Now in The Bondage of the Will, Luther responds to Erasmus' faulty views of Scripture, of God, free will, sin. Can we just walk through some of those topics? What was Erasmus stating, and how did Luther respond? What was the biblical argument against Erasmus? The question is, who are we?

in Adam. And the answer is, we're not sick. We're dead. If you look at Paul, if you look at the Old Testament, what we have here is very clear. We are dead in our trespasses and sins.

As Paul is establishing his argument in Romans, he gets to Romans chapter 3, he strings together a whole slew of Old Testament quotes that show us in our sinful condition. What happened in Roman Catholicism? that Erasmus is pushing in his book. is we switched the metaphor from dead to sick.

Okay. And so if that's the human condition. Right? The cure is very different. If we are dead in our trespasses and sins, what can a dead person do?

Nothing. It's all of God. If we are sick, well, now we can do something. We can work with the medicine of God's grace to make ourselves better and make ourselves righteous.

So that's where Erasmus starts. He starts with us being sick. He starts with us having a free will. To choose good or evil. And then, once we choose the good, we can continue to be made good.

So it's a faulty view of salvation, it's a faulty view of sanctification. Luther, on the other hand, says the will wants what the will wants. Yeah. and as a fallen will. It wants The self?

And sin. as its satisfaction. Scripture speaks of Salvation is repentance. Paul tells the Thessalonians that they've turned from idols to God.

So picture it this way, Nathan. God is behind you. Yeah. Sin and self is in front of you. Mm-hmm.

And as an unregenerate person, That's all you know. And that's what you desire. Because you are dead in your trespasses and sins.

So, what happens at salvation? A 180 happens at salvation. And now you are turned to God. And now, You desire God and you desire him as your satisfaction. And so that is what happens at salvation.

We who were dead are made alive. We who are turned from God, we make it worse. Alienated. From God, separated, cut off from God. We are now brought near.

Our hearts are turned to him. We were under his wrath.

Now... We are under his mercy and his love and his grace. That's what happens at salvation. And if you don't see human beings as dead, You do not have a proper appreciation for Christ's work, and you will not have a. true, biblically faithful view of salvation.

And so Luther's pushback on free will is not Luther saying that we don't make choices, that we don't have the moral freedom to choose either good or evil. Correct. Because again, we are oriented away from God. The heart is turned from God. But yes, we make choices, and we're even responsible.

For those choices before God. But yeah, make no mistake about it, we are dead. When we think theologically about the bondage of the will, we're often thinking about salvation. But in your answer, you also mentioned sanctification. Yeah, right.

So, because it's about the gospel and because we need to be clear, it is a book that is a very clear statement on the doctrine of salvation. But think about it this way: if you come into salvation with a faulty view of God and a faulty view of the self and sin, you're going to carry that. Through your doctrine of sanctification. This is what happens in Arminianism as well. And if you push it to the extreme in Arminianism, If you are responsible for your salvation, even partly, Then you could possibly lose it.

And so, when we get to how the Wesleys, John Wesley in particular, articulated. Not only can you have Christian perfection, but you can also fall from grace. That is because he's carried that false view with him. A much healthier view and biblical view of sanctification is that we carry that view of our dependence upon God with us through salvation.

So I didn't do anything. to earn or achieve my salvation, I can't lose it. If God saved me and God brought me to himself, I know that I am in his hand. I know that I am eternally secure, resting in the promise of the gospel. And I also know that I still have sin to contend with.

And as Paul tells us, that God is at work in us. And so I can fall back on that too, knowing that God's grace doesn't simply save me, God's grace sanctifies me, and I need to trust in it.

So we carry our view of salvation with us in our thinking of sanctification.

So, Dr. Nichols, if Luther were alive today, where do you think he would see the bondage of the will most denied, even within the church? 'Kay.

Well, we still have the Catholic Church, don't we? And we go back to Trent, and you could say, oh, there's been all these reforms, Vatican II, etc., the Catholic Church. But you go back to the Council of Trent, and Trent affirms the opposite of the reformers. And it doubles down tradition and scripture is authority and Grace and works is salvation. It's the and part that trips them up.

That's still core in Roman Catholic doctrine. And for those listeners who come out of Catholicism or those who have friends or family members who are in Catholicism, you know that this doctrine of salvation as grace plus works is very alive and well in the Roman Catholic Church. And so, as much as Luther pushed back on it in his day, we need to continue to push back on it in our day in light of Catholicism. But we've been mentioning this. I think it also spills into more at home, closer to home, of evangelicalism.

And We don't need to have Thoroughgoing academic training to be able to have these doctrines. But we do need to have these doctrines taught. And the solas are such a helpful construct.

So to teach that God's word is authoritative, inerrant, inspired, to be able to use scripture to show that, as we do in our always-ready events, Nathan, to show that scripture bears scrutiny. We need to teach that. We also need to teach who Christ is as the God-man. This isn't just a doctrine for the academics. This is crucial to who Christ is.

Because at the end of the day, the gospel is who Christ is and what he has done. And so we come to what he has done, and we have to be very clear about what is happening there on the cross. Christ is undoing. What Adam did. And he is doing what Adam could not.

Theologians will call this the passive and active righteousness of Christ. It means that he's not only paying the penalty for sin, he's achieving righteousness. He's achieving perfection. And so you and I can give Jesus our filthy rags, and he gives us, as Dr. Sprohl loved to say, his righteous robe.

Those doctrines have to be taught. There's something about human nature That slips into the Erasmian. Arminian Pelagian view. We like to think that somehow we can accomplish good, or that somehow we are worthy. of God's grace and love.

And somehow we can achieve these things. There's something about human nature, it's our fallen human nature, that as Dr. Twedale was summarizing our fallen condition, people are putting confidence In the flesh. And we know that our confidence is in God alone. In addition to serving as president at Reformation Bible College, you're also professor of apologetics.

Does our understanding of the bondage of the will play into apologetics or even evangelism? Yeah, it shows that the work of the gospel is not the work of the apologist, and it's not the work of the evangelist. It's the work of God.

So we don't save souls. God saves souls. What we can do is point to the scriptures, the truth of the scriptures, point to the existence of God, the testimony of God in this world around us, as even Paul speaks of in Romans chapter 1, as the psalmist speaks of, the heavens declaring the glory of God. We can point to Christ as an historical figure, point to the historicity of the events surrounding Christ, historicity of the events of the Bible. We can point to all of those things.

And the Holy Spirit can use those things. But something we learn in Scripture. is that the Holy Spirit Not only regenerates and brings that new life to us in our dead and fallen state, but the Holy Spirit even convicts of sin. John tells us.

So we have to remember: you know, what is our role here? And what is God's role? And I actually find that very assuring and comforting. Imagine if it was up to how we presented the gospel or how we defended the Christian faith or even how we lived as Christians. Imagine if it were up to those things for someone to come to faith.

That's a bleak proposal.

So there's actually a lot of comfort that can be taken in the sovereignty of God here to know that as I am faithful in proclaiming the gospel, as I'm a faithful witness, God is at work. And God's work is perfect and good and right. What is an area where people tend to misunderstand Luther and the bondage of the will? I think it goes back to something you said earlier: that then we don't make choices. And I think we have to see again.

The issue is not so much choice. As opposed to where is that will be oriented. And as that will is oriented away from God, it is choosing not God. And once that will then is turned, now that will desire God. But I think the issue is choices.

And I think people want to reject Luther's view. Because naturally they feel like they're making legitimate choices. And they feel like these are real choices made in real time, and that causes them to have pause. But we need to see what Luther is saying there.

Well, actually, we need to go see what Scripture is saying there about our fallen state. Our listeners heard earlier that Lignier Ministries published a 500th anniversary edition of The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther, and it's available this week for a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. But Dr. Nichols, it's one thing for a ministry or a publisher to release an anniversary edition of The Bondage of the Will and restate its importance, but why should a Christian take the time to actually read The Bondage of the Will? Yeah.

At a recent Renewing Your Mind live event, our friend Dr. Thomas, one of the questions that came up in the Q ⁇ A after, and Dr. Thomas stressed the reading of Christian books. And he said, give yourself this challenge. Read a Christian book, one Christian book a year.

And then he said, well, one book a month.

So I think it is good for Christians. To read these classic texts.

So there's Augustine's Confessions, there's Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, we mentioned Machin's Christianity and Liberalism. Bondage of the Will is right in that camp. It's one of those classic texts. And there's a reason it's a classic text because it's good for us. And so I think it's good for us to read these books and remind us of these figures from church history, but also just to remind us of God's faithfulness to his church.

And so as God gave faithful teachers at the time of the Reformation and wonderful doctrines are coming to light and the darkness is being chased, we can look out at our own moment and realize that God has done it before. He can do it again.

Well, if you were to pick up a copy of The Bondage of the Will 500 years ago, there would be something missing in that edition compared to this 500th anniversary edition that we've just released. Yeah, that's right, Nathan. This is what excites me about this edition: it's got an introductory article. By Dr. Sproll on Luther's bondage of the will.

There's an interesting story behind that article, isn't there? There is. It's actually the very first thing Dr. Sproll ever got published. And it was published in a theological journal.

And you wouldn't recognize the name because it was published under the name Robert C. Sprawl.

So this was before RC was RC. But the interesting thing about it, Nathan, is I think Dr. Sproul had forgotten about it. We were talking about his first publication, and he said it was an article in Christianity Today. In 1969.

And again, he's Robert C. Sproll, and the article was Existential Autonomy and Christian Freedom. And Dr. Sprohll was telling me that was the first thing he got published.

Well, as I was going through his papers and finding things, I found the journal article, an analysis of Martin Luther's The Bondage of the Will. And it was published in the fall of 1967.

So two years before his Christian Today article, this was published. But there's also another fascinating thing going on here in this article, Nathan. Dr. Sproll ends it with talking about sola scriptura, sola fidei, and solideo gloria. And we know these solas, the five solas, and we have them as our construct to understand the Reformation.

And they're very helpful to get at what the Reformation was fundamentally about and how those doctrines were not just there for the 16th century. They're just as important now at 2025 as they were 500 years ago. Yeah. But it wasn't always the case. In fact, if you go back even up until the 1960s, you don't really see a lot of discussion of the solas as the construct.

You see them, but you don't see them as the construct to get at the Reformation. And in the 70s and 80s, you really start seeing these come on strong, and now it's just a given that we talk about the five solos to get at the Reformation. In a sense, I think Dr. Sprohll was part of that. I think he was part of giving the 20th century church this construct to understand this great work that happened in the 16th century.

And so you can see it in this little article that's in the front of the book. And you also just pick up Dr. Sprohll's appreciation. Luther. You know, he would often say he loved Calvin's mind.

and his brilliant mind, But Luther as a person? And his boldness and just the heroic nature of Luther. just caused Darcy to have a deep admiration for him.

Well, Dr. Nichols, we're grateful for you being in the studio with us today and helping us shine a spotlight on this classic text and understand more of what Luther was getting at and some of the historical context. Yeah, it's been a real pleasure. Thanks. That was Stephen Nichols, a Ligonier Teaching Fellow and the President of Reformation Bible College, discussing Martin Luther and the bondage of the will.

Christians often debate free will, but sadly, many are unfamiliar with the theological consequences of certain positions or the historical debates surrounding this topic.

So it's a privilege to be able to have a conversation like this on Renewing Your Mind and highlight Martin Luther's helpful teaching in the bondage of the will. We'll be keeping with this theme all week as starting tomorrow you'll hear messages from R. C. Sproul's series Willing to Believe.

So if you'd like to dig deeper into the subject of free will, be sure to listen all week, but also to respond to this week's resource offer. When you give a donation at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343, in addition to lifetime digital access to the complete 12-message series Willing to Believe and its study guide, we'll send you a special hardcover 500th anniversary copy of Martin Luther's The Bondage of the Will. It features study questions throughout and contains an introductory essay by Dr. Sproul. It's the one you heard Dr.

Nichols reference in today's conversation.

So give your gift at renewingyourmind.org or use the link in the podcast show notes to show your support and receive this thorough resource package on the topic of free will. And if you live outside of the US and Canada, a global digital offer is available that also includes the series, study guide, and book at renewingyourmind. org slash global. Thank you. Tomorrow, R.

C. Sprawl will continue this theme on the bondage of the will with a message from his series, Willing to Believe.

So make plans to join us Tuesday here on Renewing Your Mind.