In Jesus Holy Name November 12, 2017
Series: Augsburg Confession Redeemer
AC XVIII Free Will
Text: Romans 8:6-8
“A Beginner’s Guide to Free Will”
The issue of free will and predestination is one that has created endless conversation and discussion in every generation of Christians. Do we exercise choice, or has everything already been decided regarding our eternal destiny.
What do the words Free Will mean? Can Free Will be separated from God’s predestination of believers? Paul is very clear in Ephesians 1 when he wrote:
For God… “chose us in Jesus Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his children through Jesus Christ….”
God’s election to eternal life is always based on His word. “Paul writes: “How can they believe if no one is sent to proclaim the Gospel”? ( Romans 10:14-15) “When you heard the word of truth, the gospel (which is the good news that your sins are erased when Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave) you were marked by the Holy Spirit which creates faith in your heart that Jesus is who He says He is. God in flesh. “you see at just the right time when we were still powerless, unable to make ourselves acceptable to God, Christ died for the ungodly.”
In the history of the Christian church, few doctrines have been so hotly debated as the doctrine of predestination.
If predestination is true, what happens to free will?
Are we just puppets on a string, doing what God ordained in eternity past?
Does God predestine some people to go to heaven? If so, does he also predestine others to go to hell?
Why bother with evangelism since whoever is going to be saved will be saved eventually?
Admittedly, these are difficult questions. I don’t expect to answer all them in the course of just one message.
First, from our human standpoint, we have a free will. When you wake up in the morning, you have a choice to get out of bed or to stay in bed. You can put on a red dress or a blue one. When you get in your car, you are free to drive to work or you can drive to San Francisco if you like. Every decision you make is a free choice. By that I simply mean that you do not feel constrained by some divine power that forces you to eat at Burger King instead of McDonalds.
When talking about Free Will…. human beings always choose according to their inclinations. There is a reason you are sitting where you ae sitting. Maybe you don’t like to walk very far. Maybe you want to be near the door to leave early. Maybe it was the only seat available. It was your inclination that had you choose your seat. Maybe it was selfish… that has always been my seat. There is always a reason for the choices we make.
External forces can and do change choices you make. Adam and Eve never disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden until the external force of Satan changed the choice of obedience. The Apostle Paul said… the good I want to do I do not do but what I hate I do….why? because the external force of my selfishness, my sin nature, inherited from Adam and Eve, and even at times Satan..….….. when offering a temptation I am inclined to choose evil …only the external force of the Holy Spirit can enable me to overcome temptation. There is always a battle ….to choose to obey God or obey my inclinations to selfishness.. Ephesians 6
In order to choose good over evil….I must choose to keep in step with God’s Word, for with the help of the Holy Spirit I can obey God. (Romans 8:9-11)
Story of Joseph. His brothers made a “wicked” choice to rid themselves of Joseph. Years later when his brothers repent Joseph said: You meant it for evil but God meant it for good. In other words God’s intention was for good, so He brought something good out of the brother’s evil actions. God was creating a nation based on the promise to Abraham.
There is a difference between civil righteousness which mankind has the freedom of the will to choose to obey or reject. In regards to spiritual righteousness it is impossible for mankind to make himself acceptable to God, or believe in God, obey God, without the work of the Holy Spirit.
Predestination simply means, God chose you first and if he didn’t choose you first, you would never have chosen him.
Before the fall of Adam and Eve, mankind was sinless. They had free will to choose to obey God or disobey God.
As soon as Adam and Eve fell into sin, human nature was profoundly altered. Now human beings are not able not to sin. In the fall, human nature lost its freedom not to sin. We are, as Paul and Jesus both affirm, “slaves of sin” (John 8:34; Romans 6:20).
In this condition we “cannot please God,” or, to put it another way, “we are not able not to sin.” The basic reason is that the natural person prefers his own autonomy and his own glory above the sovereignty and glory of God. In other words human beings prefer to be selfish rather than submit to the authority of a Supreme Being. That is the human nature.
This is what Paul means when he says, “The mind of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not want to submit . . . ”
If the only goal of God was to create mankind without choice, he would have bypassed both the Garden of Eden and the Garden of Gethsemane. God could have simply made robotic puppets that were programmed to sing his praises.
Instead, God placed man in the Garden of Eden and gave him a choice. A choice between the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, or that of the Tree of Life.
“The god of this world (Satan) has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
There are those who deny the very idea that God would create human beings with a freewill. God is a sovereign God. To them, sovereignty means that God decides everything. God knows all things past, present, and future. There is no limit to His knowledge, for God knows everything completely before it even happens (Romans 11:33). The Sovereignty of God is the biblical teaching that all things are under God’s rule and control, nothing happens without His direction or permission.
The Story of Joseph. The Free Will of the brothers of Joseph sold him into slavery. God took a bad thing and turned it into good.
Romans 8:28 “In all things God works good for those who love Him.”
I too, believe that God is sovereign. In God’s sovereignty, he decided to give man a freewill.
Since the fall of Adam and Eve do we have Freedom to choose Jesus. No. Why? Because by my own effort I “cannot” make myself holy. By my own effort I “cannot” stop breaking the commandments. As Paul states: “Since the Fall…sin has a hold on me… and the wages of sin is death.”
Salvation is utterly beyond our own power, ability or will or work… and it depends entirely on the choice, will, of God alone. Paul writes: “God our Savior… wants all human beings to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Jesus Christ who gave himself as a ransom for all people….I Timothy 2:3-6
God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that whosoever would believe in him will not perish but have eternal life. “It is by grace we are saved through faith in Jesus Christ……and this faith is created by the Holy Spirit, God Himself.
In his book Bondage of the Will Martin Luther writes: Justification by faith alone is itself a gift of God, by grace, and not of self (Ephesians 2:8). As Paul writes in Romans: “Just at the right time, while we were powerless to save ourselves from God’s wrath….Jesus died for the ungodly in order that we might have peace with God. (Romans 5:6,1) “For it was God Himself who decided to nail all our broken commandments on the cross and leave them there. He Himself has brought us into His presence by His own blood shed on the cross ( Acts 20:28) to see us holy, without spot and blemish. (Col. 1:21-22)
Now our “free will” can reject that gift. But if we accept the gift of eternal life and forgiveness it is because God Himself enables us to believe.
So now we discuss Predestination. Inside your bulletin you will see the difference between Calvin and Luther.
You may be wondering why you see the words “heaven” above one exit door and the word “hell” above the other exit door to our sanctuary. Which will you choose?
Can you choose?
John Calvin was born in 1509 and died in 1564. Calvin taught that some are predestined by God to receive salvation and others are predestined to condemnation. Calvin taught that those who God, in His sovereignty, chose to be saved will be saved and they have no choice in the matter. They cannot resist God’s grace. Those not chosen for salvation cannot be saved even if they wanted to. This teaching pictures God as foreordaining some to salvation and some to damnation. Under Calvinism, the sacrifice of Christ was not meant to apply to everyone. It only applies to those predestined to be saved and the rest of humanity as having no opportunity to be saved.
Calvinism can be summarized with the acronym TULIP.
T stands for Total Depravity. Man is seen as dead in trespasses and sins as a condition of being born human. (Agree)
The U in tulip stands for Unconditional Election. Because man is dead in sin, he is unable to initiate response to God. (So far so good) In other words when I hear the good news of Jesus, His death on the cross in my place, and the promise of eternal life… only the work of the Holy Spirit in my heart makes it true.
In His sovereignty, God elects certain people to respond to Him and receive salvation. This election is unconditional. (here is the problem….).this positon means that God elects some people to be damned and not believe…but this is not scriptural. God desires that all humanity come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. II Peter 3:9
The L in tulip stands for Limited Atonement. Because God determined that certain ones should be saved as a result of God’s unconditional election, He determined that Christ should die for the elect alone. Such a position is abhorrent to Luther and not scriptural. John 3:16-18 & II Peter 3:9 “…God is patient, …not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.)
The I in tulip stands for Irresistible Grace. Those elected by God and for whom Christ died, will be drawn to God. They have no choice. For them God’s grace is irresistible. (If the phrase “they have not choice” would not be present this could stand. Human beings can reject the words and promises of Jesus, just as did many of the Pharisees, by their own free will. ) But to choose to believe in Jesus is a gift of faith.
Finally, the P in tulip stands for Perseverance of the Saints. Those God has elected and drawn to Himself through the Holy Spirit will persevere in faith. They will never turn their back on God because God won’t allow it.
Approximately 2000 years ago, the apostle Paul tried to describe God’s promise to all who believe. If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. If Christ has not been raised from death and the grave your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
When you know that you are forgiven by Jesus, those broken commandments can no longer weigh you down and the devil can no longer use them to accuse you. Whenever the Creator of the Universe looks at you, looks at me, those broken commandments which once separated us from His love are gone, “nailed to the cross and left there.” Col.
Be glad that God desires all people to be saved and enter the door way of heaven.
Be glad that God has chosen you, and as He promised, no one can snatch you out of His hand. Jesus (John 10:29-30)
