Thread by @MikeRiccardi_

Packer & Johnston:

“Here was the crucial issue: whether God is the author not merely of justification but also of faith; whether ... Christianity is a religion of utter reliance on God for salvation and all things necessary to it, or of self-reliance and self effort. 1/7

“Justification by faith only is a truth that needs interpretation. The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood until it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia. 2/7

“What is the source and status of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received, or is it a condition of justification which is left to man to fulfill? Is it a part of God’s gift of salvation, or is it man’s own contribution to salvation? 3/7

“Is our salvation wholly of God, or does it ultimately depend on something we do for ourselves? Those who say the latter, as the Arminians later did, thereby deny man’s utter helplessness in sin and affirm that a form of Semi-Pelagianism is true after all. 4/7

“It is no wonder, then, that later Reformed theology condemned Arminianism as being in principle (a) a return to Rome, because in effect it turned faith into a meritorious work, and (b) a betrayal of the Reformation, because it denied the sovereignty of God in saving sinners, 5/7

“...which was the deepest religious and theological principle of the Reformers’ thought. Arminianism was indeed in Reformed eyes a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favor of New Testament Judaism, ... 6/7

“...for to rely on oneself for faith is no different, in principle, from relying on oneself for works, and the one is as unchristian and anti-Christian as the other.” 7/7

— From Packer & Johnston’s introduction to Luther’s “Bondage of the Will.” 🔥