Word of Salvation – Vol.29 No.28 –July 1984

 

Does Man Have A Free Will (John 6:44 & 65)

 

Sermon by Rev. S. Voorwinde, v.d.m. on John 6:44 & 65

Belgic  Confession Art.14b

Scriptures: Ezekiel 37:1-10;. John 6:41-51, 60-65

Suggested Hymns: Ps.H.172: ,6; Ps.H.386; 460; BoW.802

 

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I want to start the sermon this time with a warning.  This is a message that is likely to offend people.  The words of Jesus in our texts are liable to stick in your throat.  It’s not the kind of thing that goes down very easily with most people.  “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”  “No one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father…!”

This is not the kind of thing that we like to hear.  And it wasn’t the kind of message that the original audience appreciated either.  If you continue reading on in John 6, you will quickly discover their reaction: “As a result of this, many of His disciples withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore.” (vs.66).

This kind of teaching does not have much popular appeal; doesn’t attract the crowds; it turns people off.  I wonder why.  Isn’t it perhaps because we want to be masters of our own destiny?  By nature don’t we want the last say and a lot of the credit, even when it comes to our salvation?

The reaction of that audience to Jesus is still the reaction of some people today.  When the “Jesus Movement” swept America, I was fortunate enough to spend several months in a small town where a lot of young people had a keen interest in the Gospel.  They would tell you that they were really “turned on” to Jesus.  Some had been into drugs, others came from broken homes and still others had been brought up in Christian families.

So in no time at all we had a nice group really enthusiastic about studying the Bible together.  We met every Thursday and Friday evening in a flat above a Pizza restaurant.  We went through Romans in a modern translation.  “Really great stuff, man,  man.”  But then when we got to Romans 8 & 9 towards the end of that Summer vacation, some of those young people really started having problems.  For there you read that “it is God who elects” and that salvation “depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy” (9.16).

And when we talked about these truths they couldn’t handle it.  They were turned off.  That wasn’t the kind of God they had in mind.  The same truth over which many of Jesus’ disciples stumbled proved to be just as offensive to these young Americans in the early 70’s.  Many of them withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.

So let me say early in the piece what Jesus said to the twelve when many had already gone: “You don’t want to go away too, do you?”  And I hope that you can say with all the sincerity of Simon Peter: “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”

Now I hope that all of you can hang onto that as we go through some deep waters in the next few minutes.  Because that’s what we’ll have to do when we ask the question: “Does man have a free will?”  We’ll have to go in to where it’s over our heads.  We’ll have to plumb the depths of Biblical teaching.

So, does man have a free will?  That’s not a question that has a “yes” or “no” type answer.  It’s a very complicated question and to do it justice we have to look at our own human nature in its four- fold state.  And what is that fourfold state of the human nature?

(1)  The state of innocence – with Adam and Eve in Paradise;

(2)  The state of depravity – after the Fall;

(3)  The state of grace – once a person is a born again believer, a forgiven sinner.

(4)  The state of glory – which is in heaven and after the resurrection.

That’s human nature in its fourfold state, innocence, depravity, grace and glory.  Now I want you to listen carefully because if you can understand and remember this, then we can answer our basic question and it will also help us in understanding the whole Bible.  In each of these four states man stands in a different relationship to sin.  What I am about to say is not some new insight, it goes all the way to Augustine who lived back in the fourth century.  So what was man’s relationship to sin in these four states?

(1)  In his state of innocence, in Paradise, he was able not to sin.

(2)  After the fall, in his state of depravity, he was unable not to sin.

(3)  Then in the state of grace, in Christ, he is still able to sin.

(4)  But finally in glory he will be unable to sin.

So there you have it : able not to sin, unable not to sin, able to sin, unable to sin.

Now perhaps I’ve got you thoroughly confused, but don’t give up and I promise it will become clearer.  Let’s take a look at each of these four states in turn.

We begin with innocence in Paradise.  We all know that Adam and Eve were created righteous and innocent.  They were each the perfect image of God; they were able not to sin.  They were not created robots or programmed computers.  They were given freedom.  They were given responsibility.  They were given the free will to choose for either good or evil.  Here was a perfect being and yet confronted with real choices.  As the Westminster Confession puts it: “Man, in his state of innocence, had freedom and power to will and to do that which is good and well-pleasing to God; but in such a way that he might fall from it” (IX,2).

So Adam and Eve were righteous and innocent, and they had a free will so that they were able not to sin.  But when they did sin something terrible and irreversible took place.  They plunged themselves and their descendants into a state of depravity.  In that state of affairs they were unable not to sin.  In other words their will was no longer free but the slave of sin.

And as we read on in the Bible it doesn’t take us long to realize the terrible effects of the sin into which Adam and Eve had fallen.  Their eldest son Cain becomes the first murderer.  And by the time of the Flood God “saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually”, (Gen.6:5).  Fallen man was unable not to sin: “Every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the New Testament takes up the same sad theme: Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin”, (John 8:34).  Paul said: “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Rom.8:8).

And perhaps the most dismal statement of all is that fallen man is “dead in his trespasses and sins.”  Man is not spiritually sick, he is spiritually dead.  That is the diagnosis of the Great Physician.  He checks the pulse, He listens to the heart, and all he can say is: “He’s dead.”

That is exactly the kind of picture that Ezekiel paints of man: he is dead.  But he is not only dead; he is not just a corpse, not even a skeleton, but loose and scattered bones; to top it all off, Ezekiel says:” and they were very dry.”  That’s the way God views fallen humanity.  That’s mankind without Christ; it has all the spiritual life of dead, scattered, dry bones.

But you may say: “Is that picture true to life?  Is that really being fair?  I know many non-Christians who are really nice people.  There’s the responsible husband, the decent citizen, the affectionate father, the upright magistrate.  Do you mean to say that all these people are “unable not to sin?”  This was the kind of question that was directed at Luther at the time of the Reformation, and he answered it in a book called “The Bondage of The Will”.

Yes, God’s laws can be outwardly kept.  But in the eyes of God “there is none righteous, no, not one.” Motives are never pure.  The noblest acts are spoiled by pride, self-love, the desire of the eye and the lust for power.  From the religious point of view man is a sinner.  He has no claim upon God.  So in his depraved state man’s will is not free, he is a slave of sin, he is spiritually dead.

So the situation is absolutely desperate.  And let’s not play that down; let’s not minimize it.  What can man do?  How can he get from the state of depravity to the state of grace?  Once the agony of that question has gripped you, once you know it and feel it in your heart just how desperate your situation really is, then you’re ready for that sober answer that Jesus gives in our text: “No one can come to me unless the Father draws him.”

You can no more come to Christ than a heap of dry bones can get up and walk, We are so utterly dependent on the grace and the mercy of God: “No one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by the Father.”  When you come to Christ it’s not an act of your free will (because your will is a slave of sin), but it’s an act of the grace of God.  “No one can come to me unless the Father draws him.”  And this word “draw” is a very strong word.  It’s used of Peter when he drew his sword.  It’s used of the disciples when they dragged in the net that was bursting with fish.  It’s used of the slave-owners who seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place in Philippi.  So we could very well rewrite our text: “No one can come to me unless the Father drags him.”

In other words we are not going to come willingly, there will be resistance.  By nature we prefer sin.  But when God draws a person He will be successful because Jesus goes on by saying: and I will raise him up on the last day.” When God draws us we cannot resist.

And how does God draw?  The answer is surprisingly beautiful: He draws us through His Son, the crucified Christ.  As Jesus said in John 12: “And if I be lifted up from the earth (on the cross) I will draw all men (Jews and Greeks) to myself”, (vs.32).  When the Father draws us He never bypasses Christ and He never bypasses the cross.  Because the cross is the most eloquent testimony that we cannot save ourselves.  On the cross Jesus did for us what we would never have been able to do for ourselves.  Because of the cross, we are transferred from the state of depravity to the state of grace and on to glory.  By the cross the Son sets us free, free so that once again we are able not to sin.  Free, so that once again we can please God.  The Father draws us and it’s always via the cross.  The cross is the bridge from depravity to grace.  The cross is the bridge from slavery to freedom.

But now the question is” If you cannot come to Christ unless the Father drags you, then what can you do?  If your will isn’t free how in the world can you ever get to Christ?  Shouldn’t you then sit back and wait for it all to happen to you, just wait for God to pick you up and drag you to Christ?

The short answer to all of that is: “God forbid.”  Even though it is up to God to draw us we are still commanded to do what we cannot do.  The Gospel pushes us into a corner and it tells us to do what we cannot possibly do for ourselves, that is: to come to Christ.  And then when we realize our predicament we can only throw ourselves onto the mercy of God.  All we can do is to plead for his help.  All we can do and must do is cry out in repentance and faith.

Let me try to illustrate it with a little story.  There’s a young boy who lives on a farm.  We’ll call him Johnny.  It’s a beautiful farm with all kinds of fun things to do and lots of animals to feed and to play with.  But there’s only one problem: there is a deep empty well on the farm.  For Johnny that could be really dangerous.  So Johnny’s dad says: “John, you can play anywhere on the farm, but I don’t want you to climb on that well.  You could fall in and break a leg.”

At first John obeys, but he becomes more and more curious.  He gets closer and closer to the well.  He climbs on it.  He looks down into it.  Then he starts walking around on top of the well.  Oh boy, this is fun; so he starts walking around it faster and faster.  And then it happens!  He slips and down he goes.  Right down to the bottom of the dark, empty well.  He’s badly hurt and there’s nothing he can do to get out.  All he can do is cry out to his father whom he disobeyed: “Dad, help!  I’m sorry, Dad, I’m sorry, please help me.”

So it is with us.  All we can do is cry to God for help.  That’s really an admission that we can’t do anything.  But when God has pulled us out of the darkness into which we have fallen, then we realize that we wouldn’t even have cried out for help if He hadn’t put it in our hearts to begin with.  We would not have repented unless it were given us from above.  Again we will see the truth of what Jesus said: “No one can come to me unless the Father draws him.”  You can’t get to the light which is Jesus unless the Father draws you out of that dark well.

And when you walk in that light your will becomes liberated again; though even in this state of grace your will does not become completely free yet.  There are still times when you sin.  Perfect freedom will only come in glory, and in glory the believer is unable to sin and therefore fully free.

In heaven we will be totally free because we will perfectly will the will of God.  The liberation that Christ started on Calvary will be complete in heaven.

So does man have a free will..?
– In Paradise: Yes..!  He was able not to sin and his will was free.
– After the Fall: No..!  Because his will became the slave of sin.
– In the state of grace: He is still able to sin, but he is being liberated by Christ.
– In glory:  He will be unable to sin and then once again his will is free.

Halleluiah!

Amen.