Geoffrey R. Kirkland
Christ Fellowship Bible Church
This blog is part of a forthcoming eBook that answers "common objections" that people have to the biblical gospel.
Many may suggest that people can make their own choice as to whether or not they will come to God. Many quip that they have a ‘free-will.’ Often this argument comes from an ideology that man is predominantly good and that can has, in and of himself, the capacity, the drive, and the desire to choose what is good for Him spiritually in Christ. This way of thinking also presupposes that God will not -- and cannot -- override man’s will. The conclusion, then, is that God remains on the edge of His seat to see how man will decide and what man will decide and then God will respond -- or act -- accordingly. Man has become sovereign and God has become the passive responder in this ideological way of thinking. Does God really force salvation upon someone? Does God really drag someone who is kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God? Surely our God of love wouldn’t force the gospel upon someone who doesn’t want it right?
Acts 13:48 - “When the gentiles heard this they were glad and glorified the word of God. And as many as were for ordained to eternal life believed.”
John 6:37 - “All that the Father gives to me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out.”
John 6:65 - “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by my Father.”
A few points must be noted.
1. One’s choice is regulated by his nature.— A person certainly has the capacity to make choices. We do so innumerable times each day. But one’s choice is regulated by -- or, bound by -- his nature. If he is a child of God, he has the ability to choose what is good and godly. If he is unregenerate, his nature is at odds with God and thus he cannot choose good or please God.
2. Unregenerate sinners are not able to come to God. — No one can come to the Lord Jesus unless the Father draws that sinner. So bad is the unregenerate sin nature and so foul and so exhaustive and corrupt is the sinful nature we all inherit from Adam that we can not come to God in the least. No man loves God or longs for God or can choose God. None fear God.
3. Unregenerate sinners would never choose Christ. — The rebel who lives in the darkness hates the light and cannot come to the light. In fact, when Jesus, the Lord of glory incarnated Himself and came to earth and proclaimed the gospel, called sinners to repent, declared that He Himself was Messiah, and proved all His claims by miracles, what did unregenerate sinners do but crucify Him.
4. This argument leaves man sovereign over his destiny. God is lowered and man is elevated. But the Bible declares that the Lord reigns and chooses some to be His own. It’s God who chooses.
Whitefield surely stated correctly: “Man has no free-will to go to heaven, but only a free-will to go to hell!” But praise be to God who graciously gives sight to blind eyes and dead souls so as to see the glory of Christ, the need for grace, and the gift of eternal life. Bless God that salvation does not rest on your choice; but rather it rests on His sovereign choice. Salvation does not depend on the man who runs (or works, or chooses) but on God who has mercy (Rom 9:16).