I want to clarify “free-will,” just for a moment. When I was young, thinking of “free- will,” I believed, “I get to choose whether I do good or bad!” Doesn’t “free-will” mean that? Well, yes, yes it does. However, there is a caveat… (What!? What is this dark magic?) When we choose what we do, we choose that which our heart desires… well at least I do. Think about yourself looking at a cookie jar. Your mom has told you, “you can’t have one till after dinner.” But if I were staring at that cookie jar from noon till 6pm I’d be saying, “Yeah, right! I’m having a cookie. Mom’ll never know!” Why? Because deep in my heart, I desire that cookie more than obeying my mom. I choose the cookie because it feels so right having it.

Honestly, though, that scenario is 100% of life. We use our feelings as a basis for our life’s choices. What Martin Luther is saying is that in our “free-will,” without the Holy Spirit, we cannot avoid that cookie as long as we are sinful man. “But what about all the good things people do!” you might be asking. In response I would say, “what about all the bad things people do?” We do good to prove that our hearts aren’t hardened. But we can’t. We can’t prove it, and we can’t beat it. We still have a feeling of guilt deep within our guts as we sit alone in our room at night. We still do what’s wrong, so we’re stuck. Nothing we can physically do can get us out of the muck we are in. Our “free-will” pulls us further and further into the mire and we slowly sink to the bottom. We can’t earn a way out, and we could never deserve it. How do you measure your bad to know how much better your good is? We need an iustitia aliena (u-ste-tea-a a-lee-enna), or an alien righteousness, a righteousness that is not our own. If we can’t make ourselves righteous, which we can’t, we need someone else to give us righteousness. There is Someone who offers sinners iustitia aliena and He gives it willingly.