10. Sam Waldron | The Will of Man in Calvinism | Open Air Theology Conference 2024

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Open Air Theology Conference 2024: Why Calvinism

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11. Braden Patterson | Calvinism: Old to New Covenant | Open Air Theology Conference 2024

11. Braden Patterson | Calvinism: Old to New Covenant | Open Air Theology Conference 2024

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Well, it's a delight to be with you. I want to thank the conference organizers for assigning me this subject, the will of man in Calvinism.
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It is a delicious, difficult, and dangerous subject.
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Calvinists do not believe in free will. Now, that's a common sentiment uttered both by Calvinists and anti -Calvinists.
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And I think said quite frequently. But I want to apply here the words of the
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Apostle Paul, where he says, yet I show you a still more excellent way.
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May I show you what I think is a more excellent way when it comes to the discussion of free will.
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But I warn you that I'm about to say something that may surprise you and may seem a little outrageous.
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But my thesis today is this. Biblical and confessional
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Calvinists do believe in free will, but they define it biblically.
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So that is my thesis. Biblical and confessional Calvinists do believe in free will, but they define it biblically.
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In order to prosecute my thesis, it seems to me that I need to make three points. Confessional Calvinism affirms free will.
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Biblical Calvinism affirms free will. Such Calvinism, my third point, defines free will biblically.
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First of all, then, confessional Calvinism affirms free will.
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Who gets to speak for historic Calvinism? That is to say, who has the right to define what
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Calvinism actually was historically? Modern Baptists?
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The Arminianized Baptists all around us? Do they get to define it?
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No. And not even those who today call themselves Calvinists, I'm one of them, get to define it.
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I have referred to confessional Calvinism because my view is that the great
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Reformed and particular Baptist confession should be consulted when we ask the question, what is historic
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Calvinism? And my assertion is that Calvinism ought to be defined by the great historic creeds and confessions to which we might refer the answer to the question, what is
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Calvinism? More particularly, they should be consulted to answer the question, what does
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Calvinism believe about free will? The greatest of these creeds is, of course, for Reformed Baptists, the
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Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. I want to explain why.
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The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 is the historic confession of faith of a particular
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Baptist. Baptists who believe the great doctrine that Dr.
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White was defending yesterday, the doctrine of particular redemption. It has the most claim to define
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Calvinism and the greatest fame and influence among such Baptists.
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Furthermore, it is the Baptist granddaughter of the great Westminster Confession of Faith and states its views of free will in language which is borrowed from the
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Westminster, substantially identical to it, almost verbatim what the Westminster Confession says.
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And thus, it contains the common and agreed -upon views of free will confessed by the
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Reformed faith and fathers. Now, having claimed for the confession the privilege of defining historic
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Calvinism, there are two great and clear assertions of free will in the confession to which
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I would point you at this point in my talk. The first one that must be mentioned is
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Chapter 9, Paragraph 1 of the confession. This is found, of course, in the chapter entitled
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Of Free Will. In Paragraph 1, in language identical to that of the
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Westminster Confession, the 1689 says, God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty and power of acting upon choice that is neither force nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil.
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This is the confessional definition of free will. The following four paragraphs of Chapter 9, following the same course that Boston's great fourfold state follows, the following four paragraphs then defail that fourfold state of free will.
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They speak of free will in the state of innocency, sin, grace, and glory.
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And this first paragraph provides the definition of free will, which is assumed in those four following paragraphs.
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In spite of the changes in human nature which do affect the use of free will in those four states, none of these states change the fact that man has free will as the first paragraph,
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I say again, as the first paragraph defines it. G.
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I. Williamson, in his splendid commentary on the Westminster Confession, understands this chapter exactly as I have been explaining it.
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Listen to what he says. These sections teach us, one, that man by nature possesses a free will, two, that this freedom or liberty means that man is not forced to will that which is contrary to his nature or desire, and three, that man in four states enjoys the same liberty but different degrees of ability to do good or evil.
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So notice particularly then that the will of man is described here in chapter 9, paragraph 1 as having, here's the language of the confession, natural liberty.
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That is to say it's free, it has liberty. The confession, in those words, affirms free will.
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But there is an important reference to free will earlier in the confession. It's found in the chapter on God's decree, chapter 3 and paragraph 1.
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I think it's already been quoted in the conference. The reference to free will in chapter 3 is found, as I said, in the context of the confession's discussion of God's sovereign decree.
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This chapter is entitled Of God's Decree. Paragraph 1 of the 1689 once more is here, almost identical to that of the
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Westminster Confession. And this great chapter begins by affirming the reformed doctrine of the universal and sovereign decree of God of all things.
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Whatsoever comes to pass, it says, God hath decreed it himself from all eternity by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably all things whatsoever comes to pass.
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These great words are followed then with careful words of qualification and clarification.
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And some of those words speak to the issue of free will. Listen to the words which follow that great statement of the reformed doctrine of God's decree.
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Yet, there's the word of clarification and qualification, yet, so as thereby as God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty, freedom, the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away but rather established.
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So pay special and careful attention to what the paragraph says about the will of the creature.
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The will of the creature includes, of course, other wills besides human wills, and wills like those of angels and demons.
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Yet, it certainly does include the will of man. And what does it say of the will of the creature?
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It asserts that neither the liberty, or therefore freedom, nor the contingency of such wills is taken away.
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God's decree then does not rob men in the world today of the liberty or contingency of their wills, so states the confession of faith.
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Clearly then, the confession asserts the liberty or freedom of the will of man.
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The will of the creature is a second cause. It's not the first cause, but it is a second cause.
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And the confession says it possesses liberty. Listen to G .I. Williamson again.
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Freedom may be defined as the absence of external coercion. If a man is not forced by any power outside himself to do that which is contrary to what he wants to do, then we may properly say that he is free.
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But it's also important to notice, I think it's very important to notice, the other word used of the will of the creature here in chapters three, and that word is contingency.
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The confession asserts the contingency of the wills of second causes.
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What does that mean? Contingency refers to something being the condition of other things that are about to happen or happening in the future.
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In other words, the contingency of second causes means that future things depend on these second causes if they are to happen.
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William says simply that God's decree and the certainty it creates that certain events will take place does not destroy freedom or cause and effect relationships, rather it is the very basis upon which they exist.
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I know I have, perhaps some of you, have made a contingent offer on a house that you want to buy.
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What does that mean? Well, a contingent offer on a house means that your offer depends on something.
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It's not unconditional, it's conditional. It depends on you selling your house, and only then are you obligated to buy that house upon which you've made an offer.
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That is the condition or contingency of your offer to buy the house.
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Even so, the confession says that the human being willing and doing certain things is the condition or contingency of certain other events coming to pass.
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Thus, to put it simply and clearly, the confession teaches that what people will and do as a result of God's decree, that what they will and do matters.
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The confession, to put the matter bluntly, rejects the fatalism that says that it does not matter what we do.
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It affirms, rather, that it does matter what second causes, like human wills, the human wills of creatures and men and angels and demons, it does matter what those wills desire, and it does matter what they do.
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But there is, in paragraph one, however, one more related and important truth which is asserted.
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Creaturely wills are responsible for their sins. God is not.
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Remember what the confession says just before these assertions about the liberty and contingency of second causes.
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Yet so, as thereby is God neither the author of sin. Because of the liberty and contingency of creaturely wills as second causes,
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God is not the author of sin, nor is he the responsible agent for sin.
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Creaturely will is responsible for sin, and thus creaturely will is punishable for sin.
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We must affirm free will in order to maintain that God is not the author of sin.
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Now all of that in our discussion of confessional
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Calvinism, all of that brings us to a number of what
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I'll call interim conclusions. Conclusions that we need to state here before we go on to biblical
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Calvinism. First, confessional
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Calvinism teaches the liberty or freedom of the human will. It does so clearly and in several places.
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It teaches that this freedom means the absence of external coercion so that men will what they want to will and do.
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It teaches thirdly the contingency of the will of man in that and so that it matters what we do in the chain of cause and effect.
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Thus God's decree does not lead to fatalism. It matters what we do.
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Finally, it teaches that since human beings and other creatures are responsible for what they do, they and not
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God are the authors of sin. But so far we have not asked the most important question, have we?
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What does the Bible say? And that leads me to my second point, which is that biblical
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Calvinism affirms free will. Helpful as the confession is in guiding our thinking through scripture and on this subject, the scripture must be the final authority on these matters.
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Does the Bible teach this view of human free will? Yes, it does.
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I want you to consider with me five passages chosen from among many to which we might turn in the scriptures.
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The first one is found in Matthew 17, 12, if you'd turn there. Matthew 17, 12.
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But I say to you that Elijah already came and they did not recognize him but did to him whatever they wished.
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Here is human free will as we have defined it. They did to Elijah whatever they wished.
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They wished something and they did it. They could and did wish what they wanted and they actually did in this case what they wished.
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Second passage, James 1, 13 to 15. James 1, 13 to 15.
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Let no one say when he is tempted,
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I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not tempt anyone.
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But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin.
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And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.
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Three things become clear in this really important text. Men sin, first of all, because they are led astray by their own internal desires.
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But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.
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But then secondly, God is not responsible for these wicked internal desires.
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God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not tempt anyone.
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And third, men will finally experience eternal death and be punished because of their own sins.
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Then when lust has conceived, James says, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.
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Sin brings forth death. But look at Deuteronomy 30 and 19.
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Deuteronomy 30, 19. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.
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So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants.
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You see, the Bible does not teach fatalism. The choices which men make have consequences.
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They have a real cause and effect relationship on future events. The choice of life will lead to blessing.
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The text says, choose life in order that you may live. The choice of death, on the other hand, will lead to the divine curse.
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Fatalism is false. The choices we make have eternal consequences.
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Proverbs 1, 24 to 33. Proverbs 1, 24 to 33.
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And I'll only quote parts of this, especially verses 24 and 33.
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The wise man says, speaking for wisdom, the wisdom of God.
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Because I called and you refused.
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I will mock when your dread comes. For the waywardness of the naive will kill them.
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And the complacency of fools will destroy them.
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Men go to hell because of their sins. Men will be punished and experienced and experience eternal death, not because of God's arbitrary sovereignty, but in his eternal justice.
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They will experience, yes, I know, that some of us that deserve justice won't get it.
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That's a matter of God's sovereign grace. But men go to hell because of their sins.
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The text says, the waywardness of the naive will kill them. And the complacency of fools will destroy them.
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They will experience God's curse because the text says
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God called and the refused is called. There is such a thing as a free offer of the gospel, a sincere call that comes to men that is not the same as the effectual call which always brings a result of faith.
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No, but there is this general gospel call. And the text says that these people will experience
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God's curse because God called and they refused his call.
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What the text calls their own waywardness and complacency will destroy them.
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John 3, 18 and 19. John 3, 18 and 19 reads, he who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten
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Son of God. This is the judgment that the light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than the light.
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Men are judged exactly because they did not believe in the name of the only begotten
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Son of God. Their damnation is their own fault. It's not the result of any deficiency in God's salvation.
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Judgment falls on them because they love the darkness rather than the light.
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What are some biblical conclusions we can draw from the text we've looked at? Many others could be quoted, of course.
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I hope you see that these passages confirm the biblical character of confessional
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Calvinism's view of free will. Confessional Calvinism, we said, teaches the liberty or freedom of the human will.
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Check. It teaches that this freedom means the absence of external coercion so that men do what they want to do.
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Check. It teaches the contingency of the will of man and that it matters what we do in the chain of cause and effect.
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God's decree does not lead to fatalism. Check. And finally, it teaches that as human beings and other creatures are responsible for what they do, they and not
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God are the authors of sin. Check. That's biblical
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Calvinism, I think, with regard to free will, but it's not all of it. This is not all that needs to be said.
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Yes, biblical and confessional Calvinism affirms free will, but it still needs to be emphasized that it defines and thus limits free will in a way that is much different from the way that is defined in the world.
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You want to hear confusion, do what I did once in a college class at a liberal university, ask those freshman students out there, ask them to define free will.
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It's a mess. But that brings me to my third point.
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Biblical and consistent Calvinism defines free will biblically and distinctively, differently from the world.
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So I can hear someone say in their heart, but this is not what people mean by free will. And to that person,
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I want to say, you're right. It's not what they mean by free will. What you're saying is entirely true.
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And I want to point out under this last setting, two ways in which biblical and confessional
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Calvinism limits and defines free will. It is true that they run contrary to most of the popular assumptions about what free will means, but that doesn't matter because they're right.
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And it should be, free will should be defined in this way, no matter what the popular mind thinks.
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Here's the first thing we have to say. In the Bible, free will is limited by the universal and sovereign decree of God.
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Free will is not utter unpredictability. Free will is always under the control of God's sovereign will and plan, even in the state of innocence before man's fall, as one of my brothers pointed out in the
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Q and A yesterday. In two different places, in fact, the confession teaches that God's sovereignty means that even man's first fall was contained in his decree.
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Chapter five, paragraph four, the almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in his providence that his determinate counsel extendeth even itself even to the first fall.
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And then again in chapter six, paragraph one, in eating the forbidden fruit, which God was pleased according to his wise and holy counsel to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.
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Man freely sinned, choosing without external coercion to eat of the tree, yet this choice did not destroy or break
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God's decree. It was not contrary to God's decree.
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Divine freedom, or what we may call God's decretive will, and human freedom are not in conflict.
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God can be accomplishing his will even when human beings are accomplishing their will.
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But does the Bible teach that men are responsible for things that they do that are appointed by God's decree?
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Is man's free will limited by God's decree? Yes, it teaches that truth in many places, too many for me to turn you to this morning.
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But as Walt Chantry says in his great little tract on this subject, free will is not a sovereign faculty.
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But there are three passages I do want to turn you to. Look at Genesis 50, 20. Some of you know what this text says already, but it's a great text.
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Genesis 50, 20 teaches that God's decree is not destroyed and does limit human free will.
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Genesis 50, 20 reads as follows. As for you, Joseph is addressing his brothers who sold him into slavery.
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You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive.
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Joseph asserts here what is plainly the case. When his brothers sold him into Egypt, they were not doing him any favors.
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No, they meant it for evil against him. They did not intend for that event to exalt him to the highest office beside Pharaoh in Egypt.
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They intended to smother him in ignominy and shame and dishonor.
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That was their evil intent. And yet, Joseph says that that very event, that very event which they meant for evil was meant for good by God.
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God had a plan, and it included Joseph's brothers' evil act in selling him into slavery.
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Their evil act was not an escapee from God's decree. It was part of God's decree.
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And thus, their free will was limited by God's decree. But another famous passage teaches this as well.
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Job 1, 11 to 21 teaches it. It is not just puny human wills that are subject to and limited by God's decree.
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The great will of that mighty being who is the enemy of God from the foundation of the world incessantly works to frustrate
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God's salvation plan for the human race. We read of Satan's plan and plot in Job 1, 11 and 12.
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But put forth your hand now and touch all that he has, he will surely curse you to your face.
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Then the Lord said to Satan, behold, all that he has is in your power. Only do not put forth your hand on him.
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So Satan departed from the presence of the Lord. And you know what the following verses tell us of the terrible rage of Satan and the disaster he brought upon Job's fortune and his family.
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But Job nonetheless confesses what the Bible everywhere teaches, that all of this was
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God's plan. Even Satan was simply God's instrument in bringing forth his sovereign purposes.
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And so Job 1, 21 says, naked I came from my mother's womb and naked
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I shall return there the Lord gave. And the Lord has taken away.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord. But Acts 4 is the third passage
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I want to turn you to. It's Acts 4, 27 and 28. Acts 4, 27 and 28.
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We read there, for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant
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Jesus whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate along with the
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Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do, to do, yes, what they wanted and what they did do.
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But to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.
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There can be no doubt as to the wickedness of Herod and the servile fear of Pontius Pilate in their crucifixion of the
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Savior. Nor can there be any doubt of the wickedness of the Jews who cried out crucify him and the
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Gentiles who in their violence and wickedness plunged their nails and their spears into the blessed body of our
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Savior. They did without external coercion and in the free manifestation of their wicked hearts what they did to Jesus.
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Yet what they did was entirely and completely the outworking of God's eternal degree.
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Their freedom was a freedom within God's decree and not a freedom to violate it.
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Before I move on, there's something very important that I think needs to be pointed out in each of these passages and I do not point it out with the thought that I can solve the great mystery of sin and God's creation and all the problems related to that.
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All the problems related to sin and God's decree. But I think there is nevertheless a very important thing to be noticed here in these passages that does help with those things.
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Does help with this matter of God not being the author of sin in spite of this eternal decree.
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It is clear in the case of Joseph's brothers selling him to slavery. In the case of Satan bringing disaster on Job with a view to making him curse
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God. And in the case of Herod and Pontius Pilate crucifying Jesus.
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It is clear that their motivations for what they did were entirely different than God's motivations for what he had decreed.
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God's motivations were good in what he decreed to save many people alive,
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Joseph says. He is not therefore the author of sin. Their motives were vile and wicked.
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They are the authors of sin. But there's a second limitation of human freedom that we must not neglect.
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And that is crucial to the biblical view of free will in which the confession very clearly points out. Here it is.
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Free will is limited by the ethical disposition of the person.
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Free will is limited by the ethical disposition of the purpose of the person.
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Free will, the will of man does not exist in a vacuum. It is attached to a person with a moral character and an ethical disposition.
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Our wills, in other words, are controlled by our ethical disposition and moral character.
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Chapter nine, paragraph three of the confession affirms that the free wills of unconverted men are unable to will to do any spiritual good.
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Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.
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So as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto.
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They are free, but they are unable to do anything good. Human freedom, biblically defined, is entirely consistent with the crucial doctrine of total inability, the total inability of fallen men to do anything to save themselves.
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This is the point of Jesus' great illustration, which he repeats several times in the
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Gospels, of the tree and its fruit. The tree is human nature.
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The fruit is what the human being wills. And you remember the text, it's Matthew 12, 33 to 35, where Jesus says, either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.
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You brood of vipers, how can you, see their moral inability, how can you, being evil, speak what is good?
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For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good, and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil.
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But chapter nine, paragraph five goes on to affirm that the free wills of glorified men are immutably fixed on good.
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Are the glorified saints in heaven free? Do they have free will?
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We are the most free of men, and yet their wills are immutably, says the text of the confession, fixed on good.
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This will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in the state of glory only.
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The saints in glory are free, but note it well, they are unable to do anything bad.
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This is certainly what the Bible teaches. Ephesians 4, 13, until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the
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Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
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Hebrews 12, 23, the spirits of righteous men made perfect.
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And so, biblical and confessional Calvinists do believe in free will, but they define it biblically, and thus differently than most people.
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Free will is limited by the appointments of God's sovereign decree, and free will is limited by the ethical disposition of the creature to which it is attached.
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Men may will only what their ethical dispositions dispose them to will.
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Walt Chantry was one of the pioneers of the Reformed Baptist movement in the USA. I hope you know that name.
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I know his books had a big influence on me early in my time as a Reformed Baptist. Today is gospel, really good stuff.
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Walt has an essay on free will, little track, I love its title, it is entitled,
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Man's Will, Free Yet Bound.
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I think that's exactly a summary of scripture. And here's what he says in his first heading.
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Man has a will, and that will has a certain freedom. Our Lord clearly teaches that man has a power of choice.
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It is important to begin here to disarm opponents of all the foolish accusations that have been brought against the biblical doctrine of man's will.
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Every man has the ability to choose his own words to decide what his actions will be. We have a faculty of self -determination in the sense that we select our own thoughts, words, and deeds.
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Man is free to choose what he prefers, what he desires. So it is not true to say that Calvinists don't believe in free will.
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They just define it more biblically than other people. But I wanna close by just urging you to think about this practically.
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Why is it important that we believe in free will? Why must we speak with a careful balance of the confession and with men like Walt Chantry and affirm that man's will is free yet bound?
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I suppose someone might say to me that I'm quibbling about words, that this is a matter of mere semantics when
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I insist that biblical and confessional Calvinists believe in free will but simply define it differently.
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Isn't this just a fancy will of really saying that we don't believe in free will? Well, why is this important?
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It is important in order to identify us with historic Calvinism and keep us out of the precincts of hyper -Calvinism.
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The simple and unqualified denial of free will is not confessional and leads down the path to hyper -Calvinism.
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It is important to affirm free will in order to provide a bridge to Calvinism for those beginning to ask questions about it, about the doctrines of grace.
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It's simply much more attractive and much better teaching to do what the confession does. How much more likely are you to be simply turned off if you just bluntly deny free will?
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On the other hand, you're more likely to get a hearing if you say that you believe in free will but that it must be carefully defined.
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It's important in order to provide a firm foundation for the basic doctrine of human responsibility.
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Bluntly deny without qualification free will and perhaps people will assume, and with some good reason, that you deny human responsibility.
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Feel free will properly defined is the biblical basis for human responsibility.
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And it's important to affirm free will in order to avoid the misunderstanding and charge of fatalism.
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My dear brothers and sisters, Calvinism is not fatalism and to think so is highly dangerous.
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That is, people will conclude that you think it does not matter what they do if you deny free will.
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Does the Bible teach that it doesn't matter what people do? I know salvation is by grace, sovereign grace, effectual grace, but does the
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Bible not say, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved? Does it not teach that there are two things you must do to be saved?
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Repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ? It certainly does. And so do you really want to imply to people that it doesn't matter what they do, even in response to the gospel?
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Sometimes you will hear Calvinists say that the elect will be saved no matter what they do.
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I know, I know what they mean. And there's a truth in what they're trying to say.
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But may I say still I don't think that that statement is strictly true. Look at 2
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Timothy 2 .10, for instance. Would you look there and see how that statement stacks up next to what
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Paul says in 2 Timothy 2 .10? For this reason, he says,
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I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, the elect, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, and with it, eternal glory.
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Now what would our modern Calvinist say to Paul? Paul, don't you know that election means that the elect will be saved no matter what they do?
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Paul would say back, I don't know any such thing. I think the elect will be saved because I preach the gospel and they believe the gospel, and in that chain of cause and effect, they will be saved.
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That's what Paul's response would be. According to this passage, what would he say to that contemporary
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Calvinist? He would say that he knows no such thing. The elect, he would say, will be saved through his preaching of the gospel and their believing in response to that preaching.
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Election does not mean that the elect will be saved no matter what they do. It means that they will hear the gospel.
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It means that they will believe the gospel. It means that in that way, they will be saved.
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That's what it means. So it's important to affirm free will in order to make clear that the doctrine of the decree does not make
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God the author of sin. Deny free will and you raise the specter of making
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God the author of sin in most people's minds because you're denying that there's any other responsible cause in the universe but God and that is not
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Calvinism, that's pantheism. God is not the author of sin because there are second causes whose wills have liberty and contingency.
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That's the doctrine of the confession. That's the doctrine of the Bible. But there is another question.
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Why is it important to say that we believe in free will biblically defined? It's crucial to say that free will is limited.
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As Walt Chantry says, free will is not a sovereign faculty. Free will is not sovereign over God's decree and it is not divorced from controlling ethical dispositions of the heart.
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These things must be said. We must say these things. Why is that practically important?
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Because we must have a view of free will that is consistent with the doctrine of total inability.
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The doctrine of total inability is the first and crucial premise of the doctrines of grace.
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Without this limitation and definition of free will, we leave the doctrine of sovereign grace without its grounding premise.
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We need sovereign grace because man's free will is characterized by a total inability to save itself or to prepare itself for salvation.
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And we must have this view of free will because if we don't, we must give it some part in the regeneration of the sinner.
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If we are to ascribe all the glory for our salvation to the sovereign grace of God, we must say that our free will is not at all a cause of regeneration.
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The old canons of Dort, they're a beautiful document. If you don't know it, you should read it and learn it, who teach, the canons of Dort reject those who teach that grace and free will are partial causes which together work the beginning of conversion and that grace and order of working does not precede the working of the will.
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That is, that God has not efficiently helped the will of man onto conversion until the will of man moves and determines to do this.
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Man must take the first step, you know the old saying. Well, the canons of Dort tell us we need to be able to tell people that their free wills are no cause in any way of their regeneration or of their being born again.
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And we need to have this view of free will because it is consistent with the freedom of the saints in glory.
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The saints in glory are free, aren't they free? The saints in glory are gloriously free but they will never choose evil again, praise
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God. Their free will is tied to their glorified nature and they cannot choose evil.
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But on Arminian grounds, we're gonna have to go back to the old heresy of Oregon and teach that even the saints in glory can fall from glory because they have free will.
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And we must believe this view of free will because we must have a view of free will that is consistent with the freedom of God.
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Is God free? The confession says, he is most free.
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But God's freedom does not mean that he might be able to sin. He is most free but God is not free to sin.
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God's free will is controlled by his nature such that he will never choose contrary to his moral essence.
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True freedom does not require the possibility that God might choose to act contrary to his holy nature and it doesn't mean that for any other person either.
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Libertarian and Arminian views of free will are simply and disastrously wrong.
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So, you know how I started. How did I start? I said, I'm trying to, yet I show you a more excellent way.
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I'm not trying to condemn you for things you've said in the past. There's a big element of truth in what you've said if you've said
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Calvinists don't believe in free will because they don't believe in free will the way most people define it. But here's my serious counsel to you.
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Yet I show you a more excellent way. Stop saying without qualification that you don't believe in free will.
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Rather say with a confession that you do believe in free will but you define and limit it in the way that the
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Bible teaches. It must be defined and limited. And I think this,
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I think, this is my opinion, you can consider it, I think this approach will make you a more useful servant of God.
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Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that we have not only your word but that we have 20 centuries of the pastors and teachers that you have given to your church to teach us your way and your word.
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And we thank you for that guidance, the guidance of the confession, the guidance of that great tradition.
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But we're thankful that our hearts and our consciences are bound solely to the word of God.
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We thank you for its clear teaching on this subject. And we thank you in Jesus' name, amen.