Category: Free Will

A phrase often heard from Christians referring to sickness and tragedy…desiring to bring comfort, conclude “God’s will be done”. If they were simply wishing that…

The book of Proverbs paints pictures of various topics that wisdom affects.  A primary focus in the book is the consequences of choices people make.  Proverbs…

Jesus Christ came to this earth to do all His Father’s will that was commanded Him. When He accomplished this by His own free will, He became the “author and finisher of our faith”. Christ was not God’s puppet, being controlled with every move, but rather was a man with a choice and made the choice, (as we should too) to follow the Father in all things.

First, God will hold you accountable if you live your life as an evildoer. Second, God will reward you if you choose to follow His will. The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica, seeking to comfort the disciples during a time of persecution. He noted that they would be protected by God, and those who persecuted them would be judged. Consider his words, “It is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed” (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10). The choice is ours: To obey, or not to obey. God be praised that He has given us such a wonderful blessing.

Some issues are so taken for granted that common acceptance belies their intrinsic value and native importance. Such an issue is the subject of free…

within the human heart is the highest potential of praise to God or the blackest depth of sin’s degradation. Which shall it be? That is the work of choice, will, determination. All too often, we have chosen to do wrong and are in the bondage of sin (Rom. 7:24), but in every case it is due to our own decision without coercion by God.

God spoke of those who “will not hear the law of the Lord” (Isa. 30:9-11). He did not say they “could” not; he said they “will not.” Jesus said, “Ye will not come to me that ye might have life” (Jn. 5:40). To those who willed not to come to him, Jesus said, “These things I say, that ye might be saved” (Jn. 5:34). The problem was their “will,” but how could Jesus appeal to them with words “that (they) might be saved,” if he knew their will was impervious to his word?

Does man have a free will to choose to come to Christ, or must God perform a direct operation of the Spirit on the heart of the sinner to enable him to receive and believe on Christ?

What if God never sees fit to regenerate the unregenerate soul? If God never does his work, never regenerates the soul, never grants it repentance and faith, whose fault will it be? Imagine meeting God at the judgment, having characterized him as the God who demanded repentance and faith, but who knew all along that the sinner could not obey, and then, failing to regenerate the poor soul, sends it into everlasting fire for not doing what he knew it could not do without his aid! I tremble for those who have to face the Almighty One having so charged him!

DOES MAN HAVE A FREE WILL?
This series of articles is a response to an article by “Elder Wayne Camp, Pastor” of Pilgrims’ Hope Baptist Church, Memphis, TN. Elder Camp’s article was entitled, “THE COMMONLY BELIEVED LIE CONCERNING THE ALLEGED FREE WILL OF MAN,” and appeared in The Grace Proclamator and Promulgator, August, 1995, Pp. 1-10. While this review will not completely cover Camp’s conclusions, it will supply sufficient study material to address the question of our title.