Chapter 7
THE
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD AND THE HUMAN WILL
"It is God which worketh
in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure"
Philippians 2:13
Concerning the nature and the
power of fallen man s will, the greatest confusion prevails
today, and the most erroneous views are held, even by many of God’s children.
The popular idea now prevailing, and which is taught from the great majority of
pulpits, is that man has a "free will", and that salvation comes to
the sinner through his will co-operating with the Holy Spirit. To deny the
"free will" of man, i.e. his power to choose that which is good, his
native ability to accept Christ, is to bring one into
disfavor at once, even before most of those who profess to be orthodox. And yet
Scripture emphatically says, "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him
that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy" (Rom. 9:16). Which shall we
believe: God, or the preachers?
But some
one may reply, Did not Joshua say to Israel, "Choose you this day whom ye
will serve"? Yes, he did; but why not complete his sentence?—"whether
the gods that your fathers served which were on the other side of the flood, or
the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell" (Josh. 24:15)! But why
attempt to pit scripture against scripture? The Word of God never contradicts
itself, and the Word expressly declares, "There is none
that seeketh after God" (Rom. 3:11). Did not Christ say to the men of His
day, "Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life" (John 5:40)?
Yes, but some did "come" to Him, some did receive Him. True and who
were they? John 1:12, 13 tells us; "But as many as received Him, to them
gave He power to become the sons of God, to them that believe on His name:
which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God"!
But does not Scripture say,
"Whosoever will may come"? It does, but does this signify that
everybody has the will to come? What of those who won’t come? "Whosoever
will may come" no more implies that fallen man has the power (in himself) to come, than "Stretch forth thine hand"
implied that the man with the withered arm had ability (in himself) to comply.
In and of himself the natural man has power to reject Christ; but in and of
himself he has not the power to receive Christ. And why? Because he has a mind
that is "enmity against" Him (Rom. 8:7); because he has a heart that
hates Him (John 15:18). Man chooses that which is according
to his nature, and therefore before he will ever choose or prefer that which is
divine and spiritual, a new nature must be imparted to him; in other words, he
must be born again.
Should it be asked, But does
not the Holy Spirit overcome a man’s enmity and hatred when
He convicts the sinner of his sins and his need of Christ; and does not the
Spirit of God produce such conviction in many that perish? Such language
betrays confusion of thought: were such a man’s enmity really
"overcome", then he would readily turn to Christ; that he does not
come to the Saviour, demonstrates that his enmity is not overcome. But that
many are, through the preaching of the Word, convicted by
the Holy Spirit, who nevertheless die in unbelief, is solemnly true. Yet, it is
a fact which must not be lost sight of that, the Holy Spirit does something
more in each of God’s elect than He does in the non-elect: He works in them
"both to will and to do of God’s good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).
In reply to
what we have said above, Arminians would answer, No; the Spirit’s work of
conviction is the same both in the converted and in the unconverted, that which
distinguishes the one class from the other is that the former yielded to His
strivings, whereas the latter resist them. But if this were the case, then the
Christian would make himself to "differ", whereas the Scripture
attributes the "differing" to God’s discriminating
grace (1 Cor. 4:7). Again; if such were the case, then the Christian would have
ground for boasting and self-glorying over his cooperation with the Spirit; but
this would flatly contradict Ephesians 2:8, "For by grace are ye saved
through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God".
Let us
appeal to the actual experience of the Christian reader. Was there not a time
(may the remembrance of it bow each of us into the dust) when you were
unwilling to come to Christ? There was. Since then you have come to Him. Are
you now prepared to give Him all the glory for that (Ps. 115:1)? Do you not
acknowledge you came to Christ because the Holy Spirit brought you from
unwillingness to willingness? You do. Then is it not also a
patent fact that the Holy Spirit has not done in many others what He has in
you! Granting that many others have heard the Gospel, been shown their need of
Christ, yet, they are still unwilling to come to Him. Thus He has wrought more
in you, than in them. Do you answer, Yet I remember well the time when the
Great Issue was presented to me, and my consciousness testifies
that my will acted and that I yielded to the claims of Christ upon me. Quite
true. But before you "yielded", the Holy Spirit overcame the native
enmity of your mind against God, and this "enmity" He does not
overcome in all. Should it be said, That is because they are unwilling for
their enmity to be overcome. Ah, none are thus "willing" till He has
put forth His all-mighty power and wrought a miracle of grace
in the heart.
But let us now inquire, What
is the human Will? Is it a self-determining agent, or is it, in turn, determined
by something else? Is it sovereign or servant? Is the will superior to every
other faculty of our being so that it governs them, or is it moved by their impulses and subject to their pleasure? Does the will
rule the mind, or does the mind control the will? Is the will free to do as it
pleases, or is it under the necessity of rendering obedience to something
outside of itself? "Does the will stand apart from the other great
faculties or powers of the soul, a man within a man, who can reverse the man and
fly against the man and split him into segments, as a glass snake
breaks in pieces? Or, is the will connected with the other faculties, as the
tail of the serpent is with his body, and that again with his head, so that
where the head goes, the whole creature goes, and, as a man thinketh in his
heart, so is he? First thought, then heart (desire or aversion), and then act.
Is it this way, the dog wags the tail? Or, is it the will, the tail, wags the
dog? Is the will the first and chief thing in the man, or
is it the last thing—to be kept subordinate, and in its place beneath the other
faculties? and, is the true philosophy of moral action and its process that of
Gen. 3:6: ‘And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food’
(sense-perception, intelligence), ‘and a tree to be desired’ (affections), ‘she
took and ate thereof’ (the will)." (G. S. Bishop). These are questions of
more than academical interest. They are of practical
importance. We believe that we do not go too far when we affirm that the answer
returned to these questions is a fundamental test of doctrinal soundness.[1]
1. The Nature of the Human
Will.
What is the Will? We answer,
the will is the faculty of choice, the immediate cause of all action. Choice necessarily
implies the refusal of one thing and the acceptance of another. The positive
and the negative must both be present to the mind before there can be any
choice. In every act of the will there is a preference—the desiring of one thing rather than another. Where there is no
preference, but complete indifference, there is no volition. To will is to
choose, and to choose is to decide between two or more alternatives. But there
is something which influences the choice; something which determines the decision.
Hence the will cannot be sovereign because it is the servant of that something.
The will cannot be both sovereign and servant. It cannot be
both cause and effect. The will is not causative, because, as we have said,
something causes it to choose, therefore that something must be the causative
agent. Choice itself is affected by certain considerations, is determined by
various influences brought to bear upon the individual himself, hence, volition
is the effect of these considerations and influences, and if the effect, it
must be their servant; and if the will is their servant
then it is not sovereign, and if the will is not sovereign, we certainly cannot
predicate absolute "freedom" of it. Acts of the will cannot come to
pass of themselves—to say they can, is to postulate an uncaused effect. Ex
nihilo nihil fit—nothing cannot produce something.
In all
ages, however, there have been those who contended for the absolute freedom or
sovereignty of the human will. Men will argue that the will possesses a self-determining
power. They say, for example, I can turn my eyes up or down, the mind is quite
indifferent which I do, the will must decide. But this is a contradiction in
terms. This case supposes that I choose one thing in preference to another,
while I am in a state of complete indifference. Manifestly,
both cannot be true. But it may be replied, the mind was quite indifferent
until it came to have a preference. Exactly; and at that time the will was
quiescent, too! But the moment indifference vanished, choice was made, and the
fact that indifference gave place to preference, overthrows the argument that
the will is capable of choosing between two equal things.
As we have said, choice implies the acceptance of one alternative and the
rejection of the other or others.
That which determines the will
is that which causes it to choose. If the will is determined, then there must
be a determiner. What is it that determines the will? We
reply, The strongest motive power which is brought to bear upon it. What this
motive power is, varies in different cases. With one it may be the logic of
reason, with another the voice of conscience, with another the impulse of the
emotions, with another the whisper of the Tempter, with another the power of
the Holy Spirit; whichever of these presents the strongest motive power and
exerts the greatest influence upon the individual himself,
is that which impels the will to act. In other words, the action of the will is
determined by that condition of mind (which in turn is influenced by the world,
the flesh, and the Devil, as well as by God), which has the greatest degree of
tendency to excite volition. To illustrate what we have just said let us
analyze a simple example—On a certain Lord’s day afternoon a friend of ours was suffering from a severe headache. He was anxious to visit
the sick, but feared that if he did so his own condition would grow worse, and
as the consequence, be unable to attend the preaching of the Gospel that
evening. Two alternatives confronted him: to visit the sick that afternoon and
risk being sick himself, or, to take a rest that afternoon (and visit the sick
the next day), and probably arise refreshed and fit for the
evening service. Now what was it that decided our friend in choosing between
these two alternatives? The will? Not at all. True, that in the end, the will
made a choice, but the will itself was moved to make the choice. In the above
case certain considerations presented strong motives for selecting either
alternative; these motives were balanced the one against the other by the
individual himself, i.e., his heart and mind, and the one
alternative being supported by stronger motives than the other, decision was
formed accordingly, and then the will acted. On the one side, our friend felt
impelled by a sense of duty to visit the sick; he was moved with compassion to
do so, and thus a strong motive was presented to his mind. On the other hand,
his judgment reminded him that he was feeling far from well himself, that he badly needed a rest, that if he visited the sick his
own condition would probably be made worse, and in such case he would be
prevented from attending the preaching of the Gospel that night; furthermore,
he knew that on the morrow, the Lord willing, he could visit the sick, and this
being so, he concluded he ought to rest that afternoon. Here then were two sets
of alternatives presented to our Christian brother: on the
one side was a sense of duty plus his own sympathy, on the other side was a
sense of his own need plus a real concern for God’s glory, for he felt that he
ought to attend the preaching of the Gospel that night. The latter prevailed.
Spiritual considerations outweighed his sense of duty. Having formed his
decision the will acted accordingly, and he retired to rest. An analysis of the
above case shows that the mind or reasoning faculty was
directed by spiritual considerations, and the mind regulated and controlled the
will. Hence we say that, if the will is controlled, it is neither sovereign nor
free, but is the servant of the mind.
It is only as we see the real
nature of freedom and mark that the will is subject to the motives
brought to bear upon it, that we are able to discern there is no conflict
between two statements of Holy Writ which concern our blessed Lord. In Matthew
4:1 we read, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to
be tempted of the Devil;" but in Mark 1:12, 13 we are told, "And
immediately the Spirit driveth Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the
wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan". It is
utterly impossible to harmonize these two statements by the Arminian conception
of the will. But really there is no difficulty. That Christ was
"driven", implies it was by a forcible motive or powerful impulse,
such as was not to be resisted or refused; that He was "led" denotes
His freedom in going. Putting the two together we learn, that He was driven,
with a voluntary condescension thereto. So, there is the
liberty of man’s will and the victorious efficacy of God’s grace united
together: a sinner may be "drawn" and yet "come" to
Christ—the "drawing" presenting to him the irresistible motive, the
"coming" signifying the response of his will—as Christ was
"driven" and "led" by the Spirit into the wilderness.
Human
philosophy insists that it is the will which governs the man, but the Word of
God teaches that it is the heart which is the dominating center of our being.
Many scriptures might be quoted in substantiation of this. "Keep thy heart
with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life" (Prov. 4:23).
"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts,
adulteries, fornications, murders," etc. (Mark 7:21).
Here our Lord traces these sinful acts back to their source, and declares that
their fountain is the "heart," and not the will! Again; "This
people draweth nigh unto Me with their lips, but their heart is far from
Me" (Matt. 15:8). If further proof were required we might call attention
to the fact that the word "heart" is found in the Bible more than
three times oftener than is the word "will," even
though nearly half of the references to the latter refer to God’s will!
When we affirm that it is the
heart and not the will which governs the man, we are not merely striving about
words, but insisting on a distinction that is of vital importance. Here is an
individual before whom two alternatives are placed; which will
he choose? We answer, the one which is most agreeable to himself, i.e., his
"heart"—the innermost core of his being. Before the sinner is set a
life of virtue and piety, and a life of sinful indulgence; which will he
follow? The latter. Why? Because this is his choice. But does that prove the
will is sovereign? Not at all. Go back from effect to cause. Why does the
sinner choose a life of sinful indulgence? Because he prefers
it—and he does prefer it, all arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, though
of course he does not enjoy the effects of such a course. And why does he
prefer it? Because his heart is sinful. The same alternatives, in like manner,
confront the Christian, and he chooses and strives after a life of piety and
virtue. Why? Because God has given him a new heart or nature. Hence we say it
is not the will which makes the sinner impervious to all
appeals to "forsake his way," but his corrupt and evil heart. He will
not come to Christ, because be does not want to, and he does not want to
because his heart hates Him and loves sin: see Jeremiah 17 :9!
In defining the will we have
said above, that "the will is the faculty of choice, the immediate
cause of all action." We say the immediate cause, for the will is not the
primary cause of any action, any more than the hand is. Just as the hand is
controlled by the muscles and nerves of the arm, and the arm by the brain; so
the will is the servant of the mind, and the mind, in turn, is affected by
various influences and motives which are brought to bear upon it. But, it may
be asked, Does not Scripture make its appeal to man’s will?
Is it not written, "And whosoever will, let him take the water of life
freely" (Rev. 22:17)? And did not our Lord say, "ye will not come to
Me that ye might have life" (John 5:40)? We answer; the appeal of
Scripture is not always made to man’s "will"; other of his faculties
are also addressed. For example: "He that hath ears to hear, let him
hear." "Hear and your soul shall live."
"Look unto Me and be ye saved." "Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved." "Come now and let us reason
together," "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,"
etc., etc.
2. The Bondage of the Human
Will.
In any treatise that proposes
to deal with the human will, its nature and functions, respect should be had to
the will in three different men, namely, unfallen Adam, the sinner, and the
Lord Jesus Christ. In unfallen Adam the will was free, free in both directions,
free toward good and free toward evil. Adam was created in a state of Innocency, but not in a state of holiness, as is so often
assumed and asserted. Adam’s will was therefore in a condition of moral
equipoise: that is to say, in Adam there was no constraining bias in him toward
either good or evil, and as such, Adam differed radically from all his
descendants, as well as from "the Man Christ Jesus." But with the
sinner it is far otherwise. The sinner is born with a will that is not in a condition of moral equipoise, because in him there is a heart
that is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," and this
gives him a bias toward evil. So, too, with the Lord Jesus it was far
otherwise: He also differed radically from unfallen Adam. The Lord Jesus Christ
could not sin because He was "the Holy One of God." Before He was
born into this world it was said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee:
therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the
Son of God" (Luke 1:35). Speaking reverently then, we say, that the will
of the Son of Man was not in a condition of moral equipoise, that is, capable
of turning toward either good or evil. The will of the Lord Jesus was biased
toward that which is good because, side by side with His
sinless, holy, perfect humanity, was His eternal Deity. Now in
contradistinction from the will of the Lord Jesus which was biased toward good,
and Adam’s will which, before his fall, was in a condition of moral
equipoise—capable of turning toward either good or evil—the sinner’s will is
biased toward evil, and therefore is free in one direction only, namely, in the
direction of evil. The sinner’s will is enslaved because it
is in bondage to and is the servant of a depraved heart.
In what does the sinner’s
freedom consist? This question is naturally suggested by what we have just said
above. The sinner is ‘free’ in the sense of being unforced from
without. God never forces the sinner to sin. But the sinner is not free to do
either good or evil, because an evil heart within is ever inclining him toward
sin. Let us illustrate what we have in mind. I hold in my hand a book. I
release it; what happens? It falls. In which direction? Downwards; always
downwards. Why? Because, answering the law of gravity, its own weight sinks it.
Suppose I desire that book to occupy a position three feet
higher; then what? I must lift it; a power outside of that book must raise it.
Such is the relationship which fallen man sustains toward God. Whilst Divine
power upholds him, he is preserved from plunging still deeper into sin; let
that power be withdrawn, and he falls—his own weight (of sin) drags him down.
God does not push him down, anymore than I did that book. Let all
Divine restraint be removed, and every man is capable of becoming, would
become, a Cain, a Pharaoh, a Judas. How then is the sinner to move heavenwards?
By an act of his own will? Not so. A power outside of himself must grasp hold
of him and lift him every inch of the way. The sinner is free, but free in one
direction only—free to fall, free to sin. As the Word expresses it: "For
when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from
righteousness" (Rom. 6:20). The sinner is free to do as he pleases, always
as he pleases (except as he is restrained by God), but his pleasure is to sin.
In the opening paragraph of
this chapter we insisted that a proper conception of the nature
and function of the will is of practical importance, nay, that it constitutes a
fundamental test of theological orthodoxy or doctrinal soundness. We wish to
amplify this statement and attempt to demonstrate its accuracy. The freedom or
bondage of the will was the dividing line between Augustinianism and Pelagianism,
and in more recent times between Calvinism and Arminianism. Reduced to simple terms, this means, that the difference involved was the
affirmation or denial of the total depravity of man. In taking the affirmative
we shall now consider,
3. The Impotency of the Human
Will.
Does it
lie within the province of man’s will to accept or reject the Lord Jesus Christ
as Saviour? Granted that the Gospel is preached to the sinner, that the Holy
Spirit convicts him of his lost condition, does it, in the final analysis, lie
within the power of his own will to resist or to yield himself up to God? The
answer to this question defines our conception of human depravity. That man is
a fallen creature all professing Christians will allow, but
what many of them mean by "fallen" is often difficult to determine.
The general impression seems to be that man is now mortal, that he is no longer
in the condition in which he left the hands of his Creator, that he is liable
to disease, that he inherits evil tendencies; but, that if he employs his
powers to the best of his ability, somehow he will be happy at last. O, how far
short of the sad truth! Infirmities, sickness, even
corporeal death, are but trifles in comparison with the moral and spiritual
effects of the Fall! It is only by consulting the Holy Scriptures that we are
able to obtain some conception of the extent of that terrible calamity.
When we
say that man is totally depraved, we mean that the entrance of sin into the
human constitution has affected every part and faculty of man’s being. Total
depravity means that man is, in spirit and soul and body, the slave of sin and
the captive of the Devil—walking "according to the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience"
(Eph. 2 :2). This statement ought not to need arguing: it
is a common fact of human experience. Man is unable to realize his own
aspirations and materialize his own ideals. He cannot do the things that he
would. There is a moral inability which paralyzes him. This is proof positive
that he is no free man, but instead, the slave of sin and Satan. "Ye are
of your father the Devil, and the lusts (desires) of your father ye will
do" (John 8:44). Sin is more than an act or a series
of acts; it is a state or condition: it is that which lies behind and produces
the acts. Sin has penetrated and permeated the whole of man’s make-up. It has
blinded the understanding, corrupted the heart, and alienated the mind from
God. And the will has not escaped. The will is under the dominion of sin and
Satan. Therefore, the will is not free. In short, the affections love as they do and the will chooses as it does because of the
state of the heart, and because the heart is deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked "There is none that seeketh after God" (Rom.
3:11).
We repeat our question; Does
it lie within the power of the sinner’s will to yield himself
up to God? Let us attempt an answer by asking several others: Can water (of itself)
rise above its own level? Can a clean thing come out of an unclean? Can the
will reverse the whole tendency and strain of human nature? Can that which is
under the dominion of sin originate that which is pure and holy? Manifestly
not. If ever the will of a fallen and depraved creature is to move Godwards, a
Divine power must be brought to bear upon it which will
overcome the influences of sin that pull in a counter direction. This is only
another way of saying, "No man can come to Me, except the Father which
hath sent Me, draw him" (John 6:44). In other words, God’s people must be
made willing in the day of His power (Ps. 110:3). As said Mr. Darby, "If
Christ came to save that which is lost, free will has no place. Not that God prevents men from receiving Christ—far from it. But even
when God uses all possible inducements, all that is capable of exerting
influence in the heart of man, it only serves to show that man will have none
of it, that so corrupt is his heart, and so decided his will not to submit to
God (however much it may be the devil who encourages him to sin) that nothing
can induce him to receive the Lord, and to give up sin. If
by the words, ‘freedom of man,’ they mean that no one forces him to reject the
Lord, this liberty fully exists. But if it is said that, on account of the
dominion of sin, of which he is the slave, and that voluntarily, he cannot
escape from his condition, and make choice of the good—even while acknowledging
it to be good, and approving of it—then he has no liberty whatever (italics
ours). He is not subject to the law, neither indeed can be;
hence, they that are in the flesh cannot please God." The will is not
sovereign; it is a servant, because influenced and controlled by the other
faculties of man’s being. The sinner is not a free agent because he is a slave
of sin—this was clearly implied in our Lord’s words, "If the Son shall
therefore make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). Man is a
rational being and as such responsible and accountable to
God, but to affirm that he is a free moral agent is to deny that he is totally
depraved—i.e., depraved in will as in everything else. Because man’s will is
governed by his mind and heart, and because these have been vitiated and
corrupted by sin, then it follows that if ever man is to turn or move in a
Godward direction, God Himself must work in him "both to will and to do of
His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13). Man’s boasted freedom
is in truth "the bondage of corruption"; he "serves divers lusts
and pleasures." Said a deeply taught servant of God, "Man is impotent
as to his will. He has no will favorable to God. I believe in free will; but
then it is a will only free to act according to nature (italics ours). A dove
has no will to eat carrion; a raven no will to eat the clean food of the dove.
Put the nature of the dove into the raven and it will eat
the food of the dove. Satan could have no will for holiness. We speak it with
reverence, God could have no will for evil. The sinner in his sinful nature
could never have a will according to God. For this he must be born again"
(J. Denham Smith). This is just what we have contended for throughout this
chapter—the will is regulated by the nature.
Among the "decrees"
of the Council of Trent (1563), which is the avowed standard of Popery, we find
the following:—
"If any one shall affirm,
that man’s free-will, moved and excited by God, does not, by
consenting, co-operate with God, the mover and exciter, so as to prepare and
dispose itself for the attainment of justification; if moreover, anyone shall
say, that the human will cannot refuse complying, if it pleases, but that it is
inactive, and merely passive; let such an one be accursed"!
"If
anyone shall affirm, that since the fall of Adam, man’s free-will is lost and
extinguished; or, that it is a thing titular, yea a name, without a thing, and
a fiction introduced by Satan into the Church; let such an one be
accursed"!
Thus, those who today insist
on the free-will of the natural man believe precisely what
Rome teaches on the subject! That Roman Catholics and Arminians walk hand in
hand may be seen from others of the decrees issued by the Council of
Trent:—"If any one shall affirm that a regenerate and justified man is
bound to believe that he is certainly in the number of the elect (which, 1
Thess. 1:4, 5 plainly teaches. A.W.P.) let such an one be accursed"!
"If any one shall affirm with positive and absolute
certainty, that he shall surely have the gift of perseverance to the end (which
John 10:28-30 assuredly guarantees, A.W.P.); let him be accursed"!
In order for any sinner to be
saved three things were indispensable: God the Father had to purpose his
salvation, God the Son had to purchase it, God the Spirit has to apply it. God does more than "propose" to us: were
He only to "invite", every last one of us would be lost. This is
strikingly illustrated in the Old Testament. In Ezra 1:1-3 we read, "Now
in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the
mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus
king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of
Persia, the Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and
He hath charged me to build Him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who
is there among you of all His people? his God be with him, and let him go up to
Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of
Israel." Here was an "offer" made, made to a
people in captivity, affording them opportunity to leave and return to
Jerusalem—God’s dwelling-place. Did all Israel eagerly respond to this offer?
No indeed. The vast majority were content to remain in the enemy’s land. Only
an insignificant "remnant" availed themselves of this overture of
mercy! And why did they? Hear the answer of Scripture: "Then rose up the
chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the
priests, and the Levites, with all whose spirit God had stirred up, to go up to
build the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem" (Ezra I :5) ! In like
manner, God "stirs up" the spirits of His elect when the effectual
call comes to them, and not till then do they have any willingness to respond
to the Divine proclamation.
The superficial work of many
of the professional evangelists of the last fifty years is largely responsible
for the erroneous views now current upon the bondage of the natural man,
encouraged by the laziness of those in the pew in their failure to "prove
all things" (1 Thess. 5:21). The average evangelical pulpit conveys the impression that it lies wholly in the power of the sinner
whether or not he shall be saved. It is said that "God has done His part,
now man must do his." Alas, what can a lifeless man do, and man by nature
is "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1)! If this were really
believed, there would be more dependence upon the Holy Spirit to come in with
His miracle-working power, and less confidence in our attempts to "win men for Christ."
When addressing the unsaved,
preachers often draw an analogy between God’s sending of the Gospel to the
sinner, and a sick man in bed, with some healing medicine on a table by his
side: all he needs to do is reach forth his hand and take it. But
in order for this illustration to be in any wise true to the picture which
Scripture gives us of the fallen and depraved sinner, the sick man in bed must
be described as one who is blind (Eph. 4:18) so that he cannot see the
medicine, his hand paralyzed (Rom. 5:6) so that he is unable to reach forth for
it, and his heart not only devoid of all confidence in the medicine but filled
with hatred against the physician himself (John 15:18). O
what superficial views of man’s desperate plight are now entertained! Christ
came here not to help those who were willing to help themselves, but to do for
His people what they were incapable of doing for themselves: "To open the
blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in
darkness out of the prison house" (Isa. 42:7).
Now in conclusion let us
anticipate and dispose of the usual and inevitable objection—Why preach the
Gospel if man is powerless to respond? Why bid the sinner come to Christ if sin
has so enslaved him that he has no power in himself to come? Reply:—We do not
preach the Gospel because we believe that men are free moral
agents, and therefore capable of receiving Christ, but we preach it because we
are commanded to do so (Mark 16:15); and though to them that perish it is
foolishness, yet, "unto us which are saved it is the power of God" (1
Cor. 1:18). "The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of
God is stronger than men" (1 Cor. 1:25). The sinner is dead in trespasses
and sins (Eph. 2:1), and a dead man is utterly incapable of
willing anything, hence it is that "they that are in the flesh (the
unregenerate) cannot please God" (Rom. 8:8).
To fleshly wisdom it appears
the height of folly to preach the Gospel to those that are dead, and therefore
beyond the reach of doing anything themselves. Yes, but God’s
ways are different from ours. It pleases God "by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe" (1 Cor. 1:21). Man may deem it folly
to prophesy to "dead bones" and to say unto them, "O, ye dry
bones, hear the Word of the Lord" (Ezek. 37:4). Ah! but then it is the
Word of the Lord, and the words He speaks "they are spirit, and they are
life" (John 6:63). Wise men standing by the grave of Lazarus
might pronounce it an evidence of insanity when the Lord addressed a dead man
with the words, "Lazarus, Come forth." Ah! but He who thus spake was
and is Himself the Resurrection and the Life, and at His word even the dead
live! We go forth to preach the Gospel, then, not because we believe that
sinners have within themselves the power to receive the Saviour it proclaims,
but because the Gospel itself is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that believeth, and because we know that "as many as
were ordained to eternal life" (Acts 13:48), shall believe (John 6:37;
10:16—note the "shall’s"!) in God’s appointed time, for it is
written, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power" (Ps.
110:3)!
What we
have set forth in this chapter is not a product of "modern thought";
no indeed, it is at direct variance with it. It is those of the past few generations
who have departed so far from the teachings of their scripturally-instructed
fathers. In the thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England we read,
"The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn
and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good
works to faith, and calling upon God: Wherefore we have no power to do good
works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ
preventing us (being before-hand with us), that we may have a good will, and
working with us, when we have that good will" (Article 10). In the
Westminster Catechism of Faith (adopted by the Presbyterians) we read,
"The sinfulness of that state whereinto man fell,
consisteth in the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the wont of that righteousness
wherein he was created, and the corruption of his nature, whereby he is utterly
indisposed, disabled, and made opposite unto all that is spiritually good, and
wholly inclined to all evil, and that continually" (Answer to question
25). So in the Baptists’ Philadelphian Confession of Faith, 1742, we read, "Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost
all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a
natural man, being altogether averse from good, and dead in sin, is not able by
his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto"
(Chapter 9).
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[1] Since writing the above we
have read an article by the late J. N. Darby entitled, “Man’s so-called
freewill,” that opens with these words: “This re-appearance of the doctrine of freewill serves to support that of the pretension
of the natural man to be not irremediably fallen, for this is what such
doctrine tends to. All who have never been deeply convicted of sin, all persons
in whom this conviction is based on gross external sins, believe more or less
in freewill.”