I
have a question or two for the Libertarian Free Willer
A preacher once said during an alter call
that God cast His vote for you and the devil cast his vote against you and now
you have to cast the deciding vote. It's all up to you.... it's your
decision; it's your choice. Which will it be? It's a matter of your will.
What
do you make of that statement? Is that what you believe? If so, we would
have to conclude that salvation is based upon the decisions of fallen, sinful
creatures rather than the sovereign God of the universe. That would mean God
is in bondage to the decisions of fallen creatures and man is just as
responsible for his own salvation as God is because the Creator had to seek
permission from the creature before He could do all His good pleasure. However
Daniel 4:34-35 says otherwise:
And at the end
of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine
understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and
honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and his kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the
earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of
heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or
say unto him, What doest thou?
I
would like to direct a Question or two to those that believe that
fallen man has libertarian free will. To the person who believes they had
a choice in salvation and that their choice was the deciding factor in their
salvation, but first let me define libertarian free will:
Libertarian free will is the position that a person is equally able to
make choices between options independent of pressures or constraints from
external or internal causes. In other words, the person is able to equally
choose between any set of options. By contrast, compatibilist free will
holds that a person can choose only that which is consistent with his nature and
that there are constraints and influences upon his ability to choose. In
libertarian free will, a sinner is equally able to choose God or reject God
regardless of his sinful condition. In compatibilist free will, a sinner
can only choose to do that which is consistent with his sinful nature. With
that in mind here are my questions and the answers I generally get to them.
Question:
You said that you could have said yes or no to God, that it was your
choice that was the deciding factor in determining your salvation, so here
is my question: If you could have said no, then why didn't you say no?
Answer: Well, I didn't want to say no; or I didn't have any desire
to say no.
Question: Why didn't you want to or desire to say no to God?
Answer: Well, I just didn't, I honestly don't know why.
I
believe I can tell you why you didn't want to say no: You
didn’t say no because you didn't
desire to say no. Why is that? Because your heart and desire had
already been changed by God. You had already been made a new creature in
Christ or else you would have said no. Unregenerate men say no to
the one true God, the God of the Bible every day. Acts 7:51:
"Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and
ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye."
Why
do the men in this verse always resist the Holy Spirit? The answer is that
they are uncircumcised in heart and ears. Their hearts and desire for God
have not been changed. They are still dead in trespasses and sin. Men dead in
trespasses and sin cannot hear spiritual things with their ear because they are
spiritually dead. They do always resist God the Holy Spirit because they
have not been raised from spiritual death to spiritual life
On
the other hand, regenerate men (those made alive in Christ) never say no when
they hear the voice of God because they now have a desire for God that came when
they were given hearts of flesh. Eze 36:26-27: "A
new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I
will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart
of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my
statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them".
Phil 2:13: “For it is God, which worketh in you
both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
When
the Philippian Jailer asked Paul and Silas,
"Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
it wasn't because he wanted to
contemplate whether he wanted to accept the gift of salvation or not. It
was because he already desired the gift. The reason he desired the gift is
because God had demonstrated to him his fallen, sinful condition and had already
changed his heart. He didn't ask the question he did so he could say
no, for his heart had already said yes. His only desire was to know the
same savior Paul and Silas knew. He couldn't have said no, because his
desire was to say yes. Men always choose the strongest inclination they
have at the time and the jailer's inclination was to know the Savior.
Unregenerate men have no inclination toward the one true and living God,
(Romans 3:11-18 says:
“There is none that understands there
is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are
together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their
throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the
poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and
bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in
their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God
before their eyes.”)
All that God the Father gives to God the Son as love gifts will be made
spiritually alive because God will so overwhelm them with such love and grace
they will be more than willing to come to Christ. John 6:37:
“All that the Father gives me shall come to
me; and him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out.”
Notice the verse does not say,
"All
that the Father gives me must give me their permission to save them," it
says they "shall come." Do
the elect make a choice? Of course they do, but they always choose Christ
once God changes their hearts and they come willingly, not by force. Again
Phil 2:13 says: “For it is God, which
worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
God makes us willing, not through
force but by His love and grace.”
If you
said no it's because you're unregenerate, if you said yes it's because God has
raised you from death to life and has drawn you to Himself.
Libertarian
free will is simply a myth; it is non-existent and anything but biblical. If
fallen, sinful, unregenerate men truly had libertarian free will they could stop
sinning on their own and come to Christ without being drawn by the Father, but
the scriptures are clear. They are in bondage to their sin nature (John 8:34;
Romans 6).
Even God
Himself cannot act contrary to His nature as God. God always acts like God
and cannot do otherwise. God is bound to His nature as God and cannot do
some things. For example God cannot sin, or fail to judge sin.
Neither can the unregenerate man act contrary to his nature as a fallen, finite
creature until God changes his nature and makes him a new creature in Christ.
I might
like to fly around my office, but my nature won't allow it. Now a fly can
because it's his nature, but I can't. You see the difference? You can put
a lion and a lamb in the same room with a bale of hay and when the lion gets
hungry what's it going to eat? He, of course, will eat the lamb because
it's his nature. In fact, if all he had to eat were the hay he would
starve to death, because it's not in his nature to eat hay. He has no desire for
it. If the lamb got hungry it would eat the hay because it's not his
nature to eat the lion nor is he even able to do so. One day the lion and
the lamb will both lie down together in the