Free Will, Part 3

In earlier blogs (Part 1 and Part 2), I answered the first question asked by a friend concerning the free will of man. Here is his follow-up question and my efforts at answering it.

I must admit that I did not intend for this answer to become one concerning irresistible grace, but that is the way the answer went. I pray that this answer helps others come to an understanding of this seemingly difficult and controversial concept in the larger study of God’s sovereignty in election.

Question 2

If man has free will before salvation, what about after salvation? Can he decide to leave the faith?

Answer 2

No more than he could will himself to have two legs after having one amputated.

No more than Adam could “unwill” his decision to rebel by intentionally disobeying God’s commandment not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Adam may have been sorry that he rebelled. He probably repented of his rebellion. But that did not undo the fact that he had actually rebelled. It was a fact of history that could not be repealed.

Man has the ability to make a decision for righteousness – and the ability to acknowledge Christ as Lord for the purpose of salvation – only after he is empowered to do so by the Holy Spirit at the discretion of the Father. (John 3:3)

Man, by his very nature, will never cease to resist the will of God in his own strength and by his own will. (Romans 3:10-12) He is only able to make a decision for righteousness when he is overcome by an infinite grace that is irresistible to the continued defiance of man’s will – thus, irresistible grace and irrevocable atonement (Romans 11:28-29).

Irresistible grace does not mean that God chooses a man and bowls him over with grace against the man’s will, but that God is persistent in applying infinite grace toward the finite and defective will of man until God’s grace, by its very definition overcomes man’s ability to resist.

Here is where evangelism comes into the picture. Here is where there is room for preaching and persuasion. The fact that God’s grace is irresistible once applied should prompt every Christian to a renewed effort at reaching out to lost people.

If He wanted to, God could speak a word and every man would be saved. But God does not work that way in the plan of redemption. God works through men. God causes one man to be saved by the hearing of the Word from one who already knows Christ as Lord.

Our persistence in sharing the Gospel with a lost person equates to the grace of God bearing more and more weight  of grace against the resistance that is natural to man’s being until that man can no longer naturally resist.

Once a man is enabled to see the kingdom of God – more specifically, the person of Christ – he is then able to choose something that he never had the ability to choose before – righteousness!

By the gift of faith from God that now becomes effective in his heart, he can no longer resist plunging full-depth into the previously unperceived riches of the grace of God’s redemption and is immediately baptized into the spiritual realm of eternal blessing and the presence of God.

Then with Paul, he begins to sing, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” (Romans 11.33)

He would no more give back or abandon the gift of faith that redeemed him than he would the new leg he had willed in the place of the one that had been amputated (if such a thing were possible).

In fact, he cannot give back his salvation or abandon his faith, because he is forever preserved within the state of grace by the earnest of the Holy Spirit who now indwells his heart and bears upon his will. (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5)

Free Will, Part 2

This is a continuation from the answer to the question that was asked yesterday: Under what conditions does a man have free will. If you missed Part 1, scroll down or click here. (By the way, if you ever want to comment on a particular article I've written, click on the article title and scroll to the bottom of the page.)

Yesterday I taught that when Adam expressed his free will in the Garden of Eden by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he did not lose his free will; he only lost the ability to choose righteousness. 

As a result, when man expresses his free will - whenever man makes a choice - whether for good or evil, he is always choosing from the realm of unrighteousness. His way is blocked to the Tree of Life until by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit the man is given life and the ability to see the Tree of Life (the kingdom of God, as John put it in John 3.3).

I was reading yesterday in one of my old books – a study of Ephesians by Watchman Nee entitled Sit, Walk, Stand. I read it many years ago (1972, in fact), but have forgotten most of it. Here is a passage from the section on walking:

Since the day that Adam took the fruit of the tree of knowledge, man has been engaged in deciding what is good and what is evil. The natural man has worked out his own standards of right and wrong, justice and injustice, and striven to live by them. Of course as Christians we are different. Yes, but in what way are we different? Since we were converted a new sense of righteousness has been developed in us, with the result that we too are, quite rightly, occupied with the question of good and evil. But have we realised that for us the starting point is a different one? Christ is for us the Tree of Life. We do not begin from the matter of ethical right and wrong. We do not start from that other tree. We begin from Him; and the whole question for us is one of Life. (Nee, Watchman. Sit, Walk, Stand. Christian Literature Crusade:Ft. Washington, PA, 1972, p. 25.)

It’s funny how something I read almost 40 years ago now comes to surface in my current understanding of how God works. I love it.

Free Will

It's been a long  time since I've updated my blog. One of the big changes at church was a new webpage. I have spent most of my time trying to learn how to keep the page current. There are still areas that need to be completed. I am working on these, but progress is slow.

The one area I have learned how to update is the sermon page. You can find sermons there in mp3, Word, and pdf formats.

We also have attempted to start a Facebook page, but that is another challenge that we are still working on. Stop by for a visit.

The reason for the title of this blog: 

I recently had a friend of mine ask me two questions. As usual, my answers were too involved, but I decided to share them with you anyway. Let me know if my answers help or hinder. I will post Question 2 in the next post.

Question 1

Under what conditions does man have free will?.

Answer 1: All conditions. Man always has free will.

·         In the Garden, man had two choices: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Unrighteousness) and all the other trees, including the Tree of Life (Righteousness).

·         Utilizing his free will, man made the choice of unrighteousness, thus forfeiting for eternity the ability to choose righteousness – in other words, he died.

·         From that point on, every choice, whether good or bad, was an unrighteous choice because it was made without the Spirit – it was a choice of death.

·         Even if man could live a life filled with nothing but choices for good, he would still be expressing his will in the realm of unrighteousness. Even good people are dead because of the sin of Adam.

·         By giving life to a man dead in sin, the Spirit restored his ability to choose righteousness. Once he is born again, he is as Adam was – he can see both choices – righteousness as well as unrighteousness.

·         Because of God’s grace, he will choose righteousness.