The Bondage of the Will

For Luther, preaching gives both internal and external certainty (givable, possessable, shareable). Certainly only comes when both law and gospel are preached absolutely, not simply to affect the hearers psychologically. These two words are God’s movement from accusation to promise, hiddenness to revelation. God is not the “yet will be” of the law, but the “here I am” of His promised mercy. When God hides, my feeling or experience is uncertainty. When God reveals by preaching absolutely, my feeling or experience is certainty. Certainty comes outside by a preacher, who is the instrument of God’s work/word, and thereby actually elects to salvation. Our certainty is in Christ’s fulfillment of the law, making the law neither agreeable nor without accusation, but completely ends the law, freeing me from sin, death, and the devil. The boldest contradiction and opposites are the sub contrario of the preaching of the cross.

So, to Judas, he did everything just as we do with will. His will was not doing what it did because of divine coercion. He willed to betray Christ, to kill Christ, to eradicate His God, and all according to the law. He figured Christ must die for the sake of justice to preserve the order of the law. There is no need to make excuses for God, with dueling wills, coercion, etc. Everything in time depends on whether God is preached or not. Judas was thrown upon God’s awful Divine Majesty. The religious leaders answered his cry for mercy with more law leading to death. The only difference between Judas and Peter in betrayal is that Peter got a preacher of the promise to end the law’s accusation with the Gospel.

This means that God desires this seed to be preached in all nations, and thereby to elect his chosen. Everything depends upon Christ, the seed, being the “Who” that makes the promise rather than an imaginary election by the “what” of the command. And it is a good thing, as Luther keeps saying, that our eternal life does not depend upon either our will or God’s law. God’s purpose in Abraham’s trial is to crush the head of the serpent in Abraham himself—to be God for him (preached), and not God in himself (unpreached), crushing the serpent’s head.

A real, present, active, external Word must be delivered to His intended hearers. Opposition comes when a will is met who is not given God’s promise, even when the promise is spoken unmistakably in his presence. God will not be ignored, but more importantly, His forgiveness for His elect will not fail. At first blush of the sinner, God’s external Word preached is not received as freedom from sin but as an intruder, an opponent, and an enemy. Moses didn’t even like the Word he was given to preach at first. Finally, though, God will not let evil live in a peaceful kingdom without being raided by His external Word.

Satan’s “peaceable kingdom” collapses into conflict and fury whenever the Gospel is preached with its frightening freedom. God makes promises beyond the law. God cannot lie or be thwarted. The law does not dictate the terms of divine power. Satan is a liar who wagered everything on God’s righteousness as a pure command that humanity must fulfill. Sinners would be freed from their false dream of escape through obedience. But then Christ stops adhering to the rules (law) and irrationally and unlawfully grants His absolution to the ungodly, electing the unrighteous unfairly and inequitably.

Even if He hides Himself in a room in the house and does not want access to be given to anyone, do not draw back but follow. If He does not want to listen, knock at the door of the room; raise a shout! For this is the highest sacrifice, not to cease praying and seeking until we conquer Him. He has already surrendered Himself to us so that we may be certain of victory, for He has bound Himself to HIS promises and pledged His faithfulness with an oath, saying (John 16:23): “Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, He will give it to you in My name” (AE6:140). […] These are hidden and wonderful things and known only to those who have the promises, in which they are vexed and humbled. Nevertheless, in that humiliation they come forth as victors even over God Himself. (AE6:143).

“The truth is rather as Christ puts it: He that is not with me is against me (Matt. 12:30). He does not say: he that is not with me is not against me either, but is in an intermediate position! For if God is in us, Satan is out of us, and then it is present with us to will only good. But if God is not in us, Satan is, and then it is present with us to will only evil. Neither God nor Satan permits there to be in us mere willing in the abstract, but as you rightly said, we have lost our freedom and are forced to serve — sin — that is, we will sin and evil, and speak sin and evil, we do sin and evil!” (Packer, 147)

“God has no time for your practitioners of self-reformation, for they are hypocrites […] Now that we have actually come, not just to the doctrines of scripture . . . but to the awful secret of God’s Majesty — that is, as was said, the question why does He work as He does — here you break down the barriers and burst in all but blaspheming! What indignation against God do you not display because you may not see the reason and design of his counsel!”

The human will is placed between the two like a beast of burden. If God rides it, it wills and goes where God wills, as the psalm says: “I am become as a beast [before thee] and I am always with thee” [Ps. 73:22 f.]. If Satan rides it, it wills and goes where Satan wills; nor can it choose to run to either of the two riders or to seek him out, but the riders themselves contend for the possession and control of it. (AE33:64–66)

On the surface of it, the problem can be stated quite simply and logically. If God rules all things by absolute necessity, what ability or freedom does the creature possess to do anything at all on its own either to gain rewards or make to just retribution for misdeeds?