MARTIN LUTHER AT HIS BEST: ORIGINAL SIN MADE ALIVE FOR THE NEW CREATION & HELPFUL TO THE UNCONVERTED

WE WILL BE READING FROM MARTIN LUTHER’S COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF ROMANS. IN THIS MESSAGE MARTIN LUTHER CONCENTRATES ON ROMANS 4:3,7. THIS COMMENTARY OF MARTIN LUTHER’S IS THE BEST COMMENTARY EVER WRITTEN, IF YOU AREA NEW CREATION FOR MARTIN LUTHER DOES NOT NEED TO STUDY OTHER MEN’S DOCTRINE, BUT HE WRITES EXPERIENTIALLY FROM HIS OWN NEW CREATION. THE NEW CREATION IS PARADOXICAL IN NATURE AND OUR FASTFOOD FREEWILL THEOLOGIANS BEING NATURAL MEN THEOLOGIANS HAVE TO BEND THE SCRIPTURES TO FIT THEIR NATURAL MAN NATURE. BUT A NEW CREATION NEEDS NOT DO THAT BECAUSE HE IS A NEW CREATION AND PARADOXICAL IS NORMAL FOR HIM. JOHN BUNYAN , ANOTHER HEAVY WEIGHT BONDAGE OF THE WILL PREACHER SPENT 12 YEARS IN PRISON FOR PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN ENGL AND IN PRISON HE WROTE ‘GRACE ABOUNDING’ HIS AUTOBIOGRPHY ON HIS SALVATION AND HIS ALLEGORICAL BOOK, PILGRIM’S PROGRESS OF SALVATION WHICH IS THE MOST DEFINITIVEAND ACCURATE ALLEGORY EVER WRITTEN ON SALVATION. JOHN BUNYAN IS CLOSER IN THE BONDAGE OF THE WILL DOCTRINE THAN ALMOST ANYBODY ELSE. MARTIN LUTHER IGNITED THE BONDAGE OF WIIL DOCTRINE IN 1517 BY PUTTING ON THE DOOR THE CASTLE IN WITTENBERG, GERMANY. MARTIN LUTHER WAS ALMOST MURDERED BUT DID NOT LOSE HIS LIFE AS DID PREDECESSOR JOHN HUS. JOHN BUNYAN WROTE PILGRIMS PROGRESS OVER A HUNDRED YEARS AFTER MARTIN LUTHER PUBLISHED HIS BOOK ENTITLED ‘BONDAGE OF THE WILL’ IN 1524 IN RESPONSE TO ERASMUS WHO WROTE ‘FREEDOM OF THE WILL’. LET NOW LISTEN TO HOW MUCH JOHN BUNYAN LOVES MARTIN LUTHERS WRITING ON THE BOOK OF GALATIANS. “But before I had got thus far out of these my temptations, I did greatly long to see some ancient godly man’s experience, who had writ some hundreds of years before I was born; for those who had writ in our days, I thought (but I desire them now to pardon me) that they had writ only that which others felt; or else had, through the strength of their wits and parts, studied to answer such objections as they perceived others were perplexed with, without going down themselves into the deep. Well, after many such longings in my mind, the God, in Whose hands are all our days and ways, did cast into my hand (one day) a book of Martin Luther’s; it was his Comment on the Galatians; it also was so old, that it was ready to fall piece from piece if I did but turn it over. Now I was pleased much that such an old book had fallen into my hand, the which when I had but a little way perused, I found my condition in his experience so largely and profoundly handled, as if his book had been written out of my heart. This made me marvel: for thus thought I, This man could not know any thing of the state of Christians now, but must needs write and speak the experience of former daysBesides, he doth most gravely also in that book, debate of the rise of these temptations, namely, blasphemy, desperation, and the like; showing that the law of Moses, as well as the devil, death, and hell, hath a very great hand therein: the which, at first, was very strange to me; but considering and watching, I found it so indeed. But of particulars here, I intend nothing; only this methinks I must let fall before all men—I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon the Galatians (excepting the Holy Bible) before all the books that ever I had seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience.