It Depends Not on Human Will

Once upon a time, I was researching some theological issues that were on my mind. In particular I was interested in Freewill. So I typed the word "freewill" (and other variations) into my Bible software to search and see what the Bible taught about the subject. Several hits came up and I read them all in context.

Do you know what I found?

I found lots of verses in the Bible where the word "freewill" was used. Almost everyone of those references were about "freewill offerings." I also found a single passage in Ezra 7 where king
Artaxerxes made a decree that "all they of the people of Israel, and of his priests and Levites, in my realm, which are minded of their own freewill to go up to Jerusalem..." (v:13 KJV)

Do you know what I did not find?

I did not find one didactic passage of Scripture in which a Prophet, The Lord Jesus, or an Apostle laid out any doctrine about God giving man an autonomous freewill that is immune to the influence of the Fall of Adam, in which man could therefore freely choose to accept or reject Jesus.

Let me restate that for clarity: I did not find one place in the Bible were anybody taught about God giving man a "freewill to accept Him or reject Him," nor did I find anything in the Bible about God having to "respect man's freewill choice" as I have heard proclaimed by many modern Evangelicals. The fact is, there's no such teaching in Scripture.

The popular Christian doctrine of "freewill" is a phantom doctrine. It's amazing to me how some Evangelicals place so much doctrinal emphasis on "freewill" when there's not one didactic passage in all the Bible they can point to in support of their theories about it! Please bear in mind that I made this discovery not by reading something a Calvinist wrote, but while I was a Semi-Pelagian!

With my denial of the popular conception of Freewill, am I then saying man is an automaton? To answer that, I shall quote the great Puritan scholar John Owen:

"We grant man, in the substance of all his actions, as much power, liberty, and freedom as a mere created creature is capable of. We grant him to be free in his choice from all outward coaction, or inward necessity, to work according to election and deliberation, spontaneously embracing what seemeth good unto him. Now, call this power free-will if you, or what you please, so you make it not supreme, independent, and boundless, we are not at all troubled." -A Display of Arminianism Ch. 7

We have a liberty to make choices, but those choices will always be dictated by our nature and will never escape God's Providence. If, as the Bible clearly teaches in Romans 6, lost men are slaves unto sin, how then can he have a "freewill" to choose to be saved? Slaves are not free! Those who are slaves to sin must be freed in order to become servants of Christ!

Most Christians will proclaim that salvation is of the Lord. They will affirm that God is to get all the credit. However, almost always, they will qualify that by saying something like "but God has given each human a freewill to choose or reject Him."

What does the Bible say about man's will in relation to being saved? I will provide two very clear statements:

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:11-13 ESV)

Here John shows us that people are Born Again not because of their bloodline, nor because of their own will, but by the will of God!

In Romans 9, when Paul is discussing why God chose and loved Jacob and yet rejected and hated Esau, Paul says this:

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. (Romans 9:14-16 ESV)

Note that last sentence! Paul clearly states that "it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy"!!

We see from these two passages that God is in total control of salvation. God, by the preaching of the Gospel and power of the Holy Spirit, brings dead sinners to life through regeneration thus liberating their fallen, sinful, rebellious will so that they may then freely choose to repent and follow Christ! In this way it is God alone who receives all the praise and glory for the salvation of a sinner.

It is solely because Christ is the author and finisher of our faith that Paul can say:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV)

(It must also be noted that it's not just Reformed theologians who believe man's will is not autonomous. There are many branches of science in which the existence of freewill is debated.)

Soli Deo Gloria!