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THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
By Arthur W. Pink
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).
[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.”
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