Martin Luther and The Bondage of the Will

Renewing Your Mind

Ligonier Ministries

Religion & Spirituality, Reformed, Study, Jesus, Preaching, Christianity, Scripture, Spirit, Bible, Holy, Theology, Christian, God, Teaching

4.8 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 July 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Is salvation the work of God alone? Or can we earn forgiveness by partnering with His grace? Today, Stephen Nichols joins Nathan W. Bingham to discuss Martin Luther’s thunderous defense of the gospel in his classic book The Bondage of the Will.

Request Ligonier’s special 500th-anniversary of The Bondage of the Will book by Martin Luther with your donation of any amount. We’ll include lifetime digital access to R.C. Sproul’s teaching series Willing to Believe and the companion study guide: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/4167/donate

Live outside the U.S. and Canada? With your donation, get the ebook edition of The Bondage of the Will and lifetime digital access to the Willing to Believe teaching series and study guide: https://www.renewingyourmind.org/global

Meet Today’s Teacher:

Stephen Nichols is president of Reformation Bible College, chief academic officer for Ligonier Ministries, and a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow. He is host of the podcasts 5 Minutes in Church History and Open Book.

Meet the Host:

Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, and host of the Ask Ligonier podcast.

Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Luther's not writing a tweet. He's writing a book. And he's writing a book that actually is a response to a book that Erasmus wrote in 1524 on the freedom of the will. So he is writing a response to the greatest intellect of the day on one of the most important subjects.
0:28.7	And it's that book that we'll be discussing on today's special edition of Renewing Your Mind.
0:31.2	Anniversaries often provide an occasion for us to look back, to remember what God has
0:35.5	done in the past, and to reflect upon what men of
0:38.7	the past taught and stood for.
0:41.5	Well, this year, 2025, marks 500 years since Martin Luther's classic book, The Bondage
0:48.0	of the Will, was released.
0:50.4	To commemorate this anniversary, Ligeneer Ministries published a 500th anniversary edition,
0:56.1	which includes an introductory article by R.C. Sprawl and study questions.
1:01.3	You can own this hardcover volume when you give a donation in support of Renewing Your Mind at Renewing Your Mind.org.
1:08.4	And in addition, we'll unlock Dr. Sprawl's 12-part series on the controversial
1:13.7	topic of free will.
1:16.5	To discuss the moment Luther found himself in and what key truths he stood for in the pages
1:22.1	of the bondage of the will, we're joined by the host of the Five Minutes in Church History
1:26.6	podcast and the President of Reformation Minutes in Church History podcast and the president
1:28.3	of Reformation Bible College, Stephen Nichols.
1:31.2	Dr. Nichols, it's great to have you with us in the studio today.
1:34.3	It's great to be with you, Nathan, and especially to be able to have the conversation
1:39.2	that we're going to have together.
1:40.3	Well, Dr. Nichols, our listeners likely know Luther as the man who defended salvation by faith alone and the authority of Scripture alone. But this response to Erasmus in the bondage of the will isn't really a new battle or a third battle for him, is it? No, in fact, let's go back to what you just said. Luther is Solola Fide and Sola Scriptura. They're the bedrocks of Reformation theology and the Reformation itself. So we go back to 1517, and that's, of course, when Luther posts his 95 Theses. We all know that date, October 31st, 1517, it's Reformation Day. And what Luther is doing is challenging
2:21.1	the Roman Catholic Church's doctrine of salvation. They were trusting in works, they were
2:27.6	trusting in human beings to cooperate with the grace of God. And Luther knew himself to be a sinner. He knew himself to be unable to
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ligonier Ministries, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Ligonier Ministries and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.