Because we need it. I mean that in two ways. First, we have a hard time grasping grace because we are sinners, and sin begins with pride. All of us, from the most pious saint to the most egregious sinner have within us a little Pelagius. We think ourselves, even when our lips confess otherwise, essentially good. Sure, we sin, who doesn’t? But by any reasonable standard, we think in the secret places of our hearts, we’d pass the test.
Those other people, the ones who score below us on the test, they need grace. And of course, those who score higher than us, they’re the self-righteous ones. If everyone were like me, recognizing my imperfection, but striving to do well, the world would be a happy place.
While the world denies the reality of sin, or pawns it off on others, we believers say we believe in it, but fail to own it. We put a check mark beside the doctrine of total depravity. Yet we lack a heart persuaded of the deep truth contained in “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.” The former is confessing a doctrine, the latter confessing our wickedness.
Second, we have a hard time with grace because we NEED it. The little Pelagius in us hates both dependence upon others, and even more so to acknowledge that dependence. How often do even believers speak of their salvation as if they simply decided to join the winning team? We say, “I came to Christ” or “I made Jesus Lord of my life.” Which misses the hard truth that He came to us. And He imposed His Lordship upon us by the unbidden, regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. We are not saved because we recognized His goodness, but because He recognized our badness.
This is precisely why Luther unleashed his biblical wisdom and acute invective against Erasmus in his Bondage of the Will. We tend, if we are aware of the controversy at all, to see the dialogue between the two as a kind of intramural debate between Luther, the Protestant who grasped God’s sovereignty in our salvation and Erasmus, the Protestant who denied God’s sovereignty in our salvation.
Luther didn’t see this conversation as a distraction from the battle he was waging with Rome. Rather he understood that this battle is the battle between Rome and Protestantism. Luther praised Erasmus, the Romish apologist, in the midst of his verbal assault, for at least dealing with the heart of the matter.
But even we who identify with Luther, who confess God’s sovereignty, are not in the clear. Too often when we confess our utter dependence on God’s grace the devil is there to congratulate us for our theological acumen. The moment we begin to think well of ourselves we’ve demonstrated why we need grace.
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief (I Timothy 1:15). That’s what grace is all about- not that God grades on a curve such that we can pass, but rather that He sent His only begotten Son to pass the test, and receive our due for our failure. He sent His Spirit to give us life, while we were dead in our trespasses and sins. All I brought to the table was the need. And what I need is grace.