Are We Dirty Or Dead? Revisiting Luther’s Argument For God’s Role In Salvation

Martin Luther reached the peak of his evangelical trajectory with his 1525 book On the Bondage of the Will. That’s where he made his strongest case for justification by grace through faith. The book didn’t come from nowhere; it was a response to Desiderius Erasmus’s criticisms in On the Freedom of the Will. Now, it was Luther’s turn to argue for God’s sovereignty in salvation.

Luther’s view of reality wasn’t fatalistic. Humans aren’t mere puppets. Rather, he acknowledged that while humans were created free to choose good or evil, Adam’s iniquity was passed on to his descendants in the form of original sin and the sinful nature. Human beings are now born spiritually dead and must be resurrected by the Holy Spirit. On their own, they can do nothing that counts as righteousness before God.

Erasmus objected to this view of humanity. His call for a Christian reformation of behavior was rooted in a more optimistic understanding of human nature after the fall. Yes, grace was necessary for salvation, but it was still up to the individual to cooperate with grace. In his long and bombastic response, Luther countered that salvation is entirely of grace, from beginning to end. The resulting argument is both entertaining and enlightening.

Bound Will, Freed Sinner

Luther’s chief Reformation insight was the distinction between law and gospel, or that which we must do and that which has been done for us. According to Luther, Erasmus’s vision of Christianity was an endless slavery to the law rather than the freedom of the gospel.

Erasmus had claimed that the existence of divine commands in Scripture implied humanity’s ability to fulfill them, but Luther asserted the purpose of God’s law was to reveal our inability to fulfill it and to point us to salvation in Christ alone.

Luther wrote, “It is nothing but law, law at its peak, when [Christ] says, ‘Return to me,’ and it is grace when he says, ‘I will return to you’” (196–97). Acknowledging the bondage of the will means standing before God as a beggar with empty hands, receiving everything necessary for salvation as a gracious gift.

This overt dependence on grace isn’t just one way to receive salvation. According to Luther, absolute dependence on God’s grace is essential:

For as long as [a man] is persuaded that he himself can do even the least thing toward his salvation, he retains some self-confidence and does not altogether despair of himself, and therefore he is not humbled before God, but presumes that there is—or at least hopes or desires that there may be—some place, time, and work for him, by which he may at length attain to salvation. (137)

We can never receive as a gift a salvation we think we might at some point be able to earn.

Clarity of Scripture

Yet salvation by grace alone wasn’t the only doctrine at stake in this debate. The two men also butted heads over the clarity of Scripture. Erasmus argued Scripture is so unclear about the issue of free will that the preacher should avoid discussing it for fear of causing social unrest. Luther realized this called into question the nature of God’s Word.

We can never receive as a gift a salvation we think we might at some point be able to earn.

“The Holy Spirit is no Skeptic, and it is not doubts or mere opinions that he has written on our hearts, but assertions more sure and certain than life itself and all experience,” Luther argued (109). Erasmus was, in Luther’s view, contradicting the spirit of Christianity by avoiding plain statements about such an important teaching. “For it is not the mark of a Christian mind to take no delight in assertions,” argued Luther. “On the contrary, a man must delight in assertions or he will be no Christian” (105).

Luther differentiated between two types of clarity in Scripture: the basic, external meaning of the text, and the internal comprehension of its spiritual principles. Therefore, he observed,

If you speak of the internal clarity, no man perceives one iota of what is in the Scriptures unless he has the Spirit of God. . . . If, on the other hand, you speak of the external clarity, nothing at all is left obscure or ambiguous, but everything there is in the Scriptures has been brought out by the Word into the most definite light, and published to all the world. (112)

Thus, the bondage of the will touches on the fundamental need of every Christian to know he or she is loved by God, is justified before him, and will dwell with him eternally. This is no obscure debate for scholars but a theological topic at the heart of the spiritual life of ordinary Christians.

Reformation’s Hinge Point

Though On the Bondage of the Will is often remembered for its colorful insults, Luther also paid Erasmus a compliment, acknowledging he’d put his finger on the central issue of the Reformation: the fully gracious nature of our salvation, accomplished by Christ alone. “You and you alone have seen the question on which everything hinges, and have aimed at the vital spot,” he wrote (333).

The bondage of the will touches on the fundamental need of every Christian to know he or she is loved by God, is justified before him, and will dwell with him eternally.

Luther’s book had a major ripple effect on Reformation theology. It helped to define the Lutheran movement throughout the 16th century and remains a favorite historic text among Reformed Christians. It also had an immediate practical effect, pushing away some members of Erasmus’s scholarly group and reasserting justification by grace alone through faith alone as the Reformation’s central tenet.

On the Bondage of the Will is an academic text full of classical allusions. It’s best approached with a good critical edition. For readers nervous about the scholastic argumentation or the book’s sheer length, take the advice of Luther scholar James Nestingen: Begin with the final portion, in which Luther makes the biblical case for his position, then dive into the opening sections where he critiques Erasmus’s argument and methodology.

The translation by J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston is beloved for its dynamic language. For those who have the time, Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation from The Library of Christian Classics is a solid translation of both books in one volume.

Luther’s response to Erasmus exposes the real fault line of the Reformation. It wasn’t indulgences, papal power, or clerical marriage but whether sinners are merely dirty people who need washing or spiritually dead people who need resurrecting. Luther’s paradox is stunning: Our inability is the key to God’s grace. To be bound to God in love isn’t a burden but the believer’s only assurance of salvation. That’s why On the Bondage of the Will remains as vital now as it was five centuries ago.