June 2, 2017 Show with Greg Nichols on “Man’s Will: How is it Free & How is it Bound”

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June 5, 2017

Greg Nichols, 1 of 3 Pastors at Grace Immanuel Reformed Baptist Church, Grand Rapids, MI, author of What Does the Bible Say about God?, The Biblical Doctrine of God (Truth For Eternity) & Lectures in Systematic Theology (Volume 1), will address: “MAN’s WILL: How is it FREE & How is it BOUND?”

00:01: Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown
00:08: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,
00:16: Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:23: Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.
00:32: Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
00:46: It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
00:56: Now here's our host Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon
01:05: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.
01:13: This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron radio wishing you all a happy Friday on this second day of June 2017 and I must tell you that I was very richly blessed at the
01:26: Banner of Truth U .S. Ministers Conference at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania where I was over the last three days.
01:36: It was such a joy not only to rekindle old friendships with people that I haven't seen in decades but also make new friends, meet for the first time men that I have interviewed before but have never seen face to face and also to meet men that I've never even heard of that were quite fascinating brethren in Christ who expressed great interest in becoming guests on Iron Sharpens Iron radio and also meeting many of you in the listening audience who immediately approached me and told me of how much you love this program.
02:16: That was indeed a refreshing blessing obviously and then also meeting a number of the men in attendance who want to become regular listeners to Iron Sharpens Iron radio who had never before heard of the program.
02:31: So all in all it was a wonderful time and the messages were all a blessing, all powerful, and I have to admit that my favorite of all, because he was the one that was specifically preaching rather than teaching, that was
02:51: Jeff Thomas, formerly the pastor of a
02:56: Reformed Baptist church in Aberystwyth, Wales, now pastor emeritus and an itinerant evangelist and writer.
03:06: But what a blessing he was indeed and they all were. I wanted to make that clear.
03:14: All the speakers were a wonderful blessing but there's something that was close to my heart with everything that Jeff Thomas had to say and preach.
03:25: And today we have someone who is no stranger to Jeff Thomas. We have returning to Iron Sharpens Iron radio
03:33: Greg Nichols, one of three pastors at Grace Emanuel Reformed Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, author of What Does the
03:41: Bible Say About God? The Biblical Doctrine of God, Truth for Eternity, and Lectures in Systematic Theology, Volume 1 and 2
03:49: I believe is now out. I'll get an update on that. And today we are addressing man's will, how is it free, and how is it bound?
04:01: One of the most controversial issues in the body of Christ that sadly 2 ,000 years later still divides the body of Christ.
04:11: But it is my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Greg Nichols.
04:17: Thank you very much. It's my privilege and my honor to be here and I am familiar with Jeff Thomas.
04:27: The first time that I ever heard the gospel preached was in 1971 and the preacher was
04:34: Jeff Thomas. And I've continued under the sound of that preaching and similar preaching by God's grace ever since.
04:42: I'm very very thankful for every memory of that dear brother and his wonderful blessed ministry of the gospel.
04:50: You know what struck me about him? One thing, one of the many things, is that while some brothers in Christ, while they age, they soften many of their views, they become more ecumenical with those outside of evangelical
05:09: Christianity and they just get more tolerant with error. But Jeff Thomas was not that way at all.
05:16: And he tells it like it is, is more boldly committed perhaps to the truths of the
05:24: Reformation than ever before and does not candy coat the issues when it comes to the division that we have as heirs of the
05:36: Reformation with the Church of Rome or with liberalism or with the excesses of the charismatic movement.
05:42: He is still as bold as ever, making the dividing line more clear than it has been in recent years because of it being blurred and muddied with the modern ecumenical movement that wants peace at any price and even at the cost of truth.
06:05: So it was very good, refreshing to hear that from Jeff. Good. I'm thankful for the blessing that he has been in my life.
06:14: And in studio with me once again is my visiting co -host from time to time,
06:21: Charlie Liebert, who is the founder of SixDayCreation .com. It's great to have you back in the studio,
06:26: Charlie. Hi Chris, great to be here. And Charlie is also a member of Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
06:35: And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own about the will of man, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,
06:43: C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the
06:52: USA. And I know that I have you do this every time you're on the program, Pastor Greg, but for those of our listeners who just discovered you, who have never heard this program before, and perhaps
07:03: I may have a lot of new people listening who are at the Banner of Truth Conference who have never before heard of you, if you could let us know something about Grace Emanuel Reformed Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
07:17: Grace Emanuel is a church that holds to the 1689 London Confession of Faith, and our church has been in existence several decades.
07:28: We belong to what's called a Reformed Baptist Network, which is a cooperative effort of some 26 or so 1689 churches working together with regard to missions, and also we're one of the churches involved in operating
07:49: Reformed Baptist Seminary, which is an online and modular -based seminary.
07:57: There are several churches that cooperate in that work also, and there are various other things and ministries that the church is involved in, but I think that I'll just limit it to saying those two things about aspects of the way we relate to other churches.
08:15: As you said, I'm one of the pastors. The pastor that preaches the most here at Grace Emanuel now is a young fellow.
08:24: I guess I say young because I'm in my 60s and he's in his 40s, but his name is Jeff Johnson, faithful preacher of the
08:30: Word of God, and he's preaching probably 70 percent of the time now, so we're very thankful for his ministry to us.
08:40: You mentioned the Doctrine of Man, the second volume? Yes. That second volume is not yet published.
08:48: We hope, God willing, to have it published by Christmas. Right now it is finished.
08:55: It is in the format of an eight and a half by eleven syllabus for my
09:00: Doctrine of Man course in Reformed Baptist Seminary, but it is being formatted over the summer, hopefully, and over the fall to a six by nine format in order to publish it as a six by nine book, and hopefully that book would be available from various publishers such as Solid Ground, I hope.
09:21: I hope our dear brother at Solid Ground would be willing to carry that. I'd be shocked if he wasn't. Well, I don't want to be presumptuous, but I sincerely hope that Solid Ground would carry it, and that should hopefully be available by Christmas time.
09:40: Great. Well, I will be praying about that, and I will also be informing and updating my listeners about that as we continue to hear updates from you, and I'm sure we'll,
09:51: God willing, be having you back on the program to continue having interviews on various categories within your volumes of this series that you are a part of.
10:06: And today, as I mentioned, our theme is one of the most controversial within Christendom that has divided brethren, sadly, for two millennia, and it is the question of man's will.
10:21: How is it free, and how is it bound? And I think that you might be willing to admit,
10:28: Pastor Greg, that although the entire problem does not lie at our own feet, there is somewhat of a blame that we are indeed guilty of,
10:44: I think, as Reformed Christians, in perhaps the poor way we communicate to others what we believe about the will of man.
10:54: And, of course, we may have books and booklets and sermons titled things such as Man's Free Will Does Not Exist, Free Will, A Myth, The Free Will Heresy, and things like that.
11:09: If we don't explain further what we mean after making a statement like man has no free will, or free will is a myth, we may mislead, and we, in fact,
11:20: I think do mislead, our Arminian and Roman Catholic brethren and others who are outside of Reformed faith.
11:29: By the way, when I said Roman Catholic brethren, I meant that in regard to those who are truly believing the gospel in spite of the damning gospel of the
11:39: Roman Catholic Church as declared as dogma in the Council of Trent. I don't want to mislead anybody to think that I believe we have brethren who are believing in Trent's definition of the gospel.
11:52: But, having said that, don't you think that sometimes we are unclear when we dismiss the existence of the freedom of man's will, because there is freedom involved in it, that being image bearers of God, there is still freedom involved in the will of man, is there not?
12:10: Well, in answer to that question, I can't respond, I probably shouldn't respond to what could be considered excesses or imbalances of individual writers.
12:22: But as far as Reformed Baptists are concerned, what we have in common is the 1689
12:28: London Confession of Faith, and the 1689 London Confession of Faith does not denigrate the term free will, but rather, in Chapter 9, it uses the term free will.
12:40: Chapter 9 of the 1689 Confession is entitled, quote, of free will, end quote, and it does not denigrate or attack or spit on that term.
12:52: And so, in our commonality of that which unites us in our commitment to the 1689, we're not like that.
13:03: We don't have that type of extreme or imbalanced position in our
13:08: Confession of Faith. So, I would prefer to stick with what the Confession says, and with regard to the
13:15: Confession, the Confession acknowledges free will, and it does define the limits of the freedom of man's will, and it defines those limits very clearly with respect to human beings in the state of sin.
13:28: So, I would prefer to stick within that terminology. I think that's safer than going down the road of, well, this individual is imbalanced, or that individual's imbalanced.
13:40: But I think that your point is that if we're not careful, and it is quite possible that by the very terminology that we use, we could clearly mislead people with regard to what
13:53: Reformed Baptists actually believe, and also what the Bible actually says about the subject.
13:59: I think that's a valid concern that you have mentioned there. And I think from my own experience, having conversations with Brethren in Christ of the
14:13: Arminian persuasion, or those who are simply not Calvinistic, believers in the doctrines of sovereign grace, theologically
14:21: Reformed, however you want to label us, there is an erroneous conclusion drawn by many, even if they don't use the term, they are very often assuming that we believe in equal ultimacy, that there is just as much of a miracle taking place, or a supernatural experience taking place, where God is equally active in the saving of his elect who are damned.
14:59: The non -Reformed people very often believe that God is supernaturally just as much actively involved in the reprobation of man, in that he is importing into man, perhaps who would otherwise be neutral morally and spiritually, he is importing into man an evil will, a will that disobeys him, a will that seeks to satisfy his own sinful lusts.
15:29: But this is not at all what historically Reformed people have ever believed, is it? Well, it's certainly not what the
15:37: Bible teaches, and it's certainly not what the 1689 London Confession of Faith says.
15:43: That's very, very clear. Certainly we don't teach or believe anything like that.
15:49: Well, tell us what you believe the Bible says in regard to the freedom of man's will, and for those of you who are wondering why
16:00: Pastor Greg Nichols keeps repeating the phrase 1689 London Baptist Confession as if this is some kind of an authority that is equal or superior to the scriptures, that's not at all the case.
16:15: The 1689 London Baptist Confession and the Westminster Confession and the three forms of unity that many in the
16:23: Dutch Reformed tradition adhere to, and the 39 Articles of Religion that the
16:30: Reformed Anglicans adhere to, and the Savoy Declaration of the Congregationalists, these are summaries of biblical teaching that these groups believe to be accurate translations or definitions or the main teachings of scripture that are exegeted by the writers of these various confessions and creeds.
16:59: Of course, in the history of the church there are also bad confessions that contain much teaching of men that is not in the scriptures, but these are just summaries of what the
17:13: Bible teaches. Are they not these confessions, and specifically the 1689 London Baptist Confession that you and I adhere to?
17:21: Yes. The reason I highlighted them, however, yes, that's true what you just said. The reason that I highlighted them is because of the way you phrased the question.
17:31: You asked, in your question, the way you phrased it was about what Reformed Baptists or what
17:36: Reformed people do or say, and to me, the best way to summarize that is in those statements that we adhere to as a group, that characterize us as a group.
17:49: There may be individuals that do this or that, but if you want to know what Reformed Baptists as a group believe, you look at the 1689
17:57: Confession because that's a summary of the things most surely believed among us. The question wasn't, well, what does the
18:03: Bible say about this or what does the Bible say about that, but what about Reformed Baptists and how do they act here and there and are they imbalanced on this or that?
18:12: So that's the reason I highlighted the Confession. That's the reason I said it. But what you just said about the
18:17: Confession of Faith being a summary of what Bible teaches, that's true. But that's the reason I highlighted it,
18:22: Chris. We have a question or comment from our co -host Charlie Lieber. Yeah, two things
18:28: I want to mention. First of all, I regard the Confessions and the Catechisms as a really great systematic theology, okay?
18:33: That's kind of what it is. But secondarily, I would say this article along with Westminster is basically identical.
18:39: Right. So the Presbyterians and the Baptists are on the same page on this one. Right. I assume that was the case since then.
18:46: That is true and that is right. Almost verbatim in the book,
18:52: I do speak about a one -word difference in Westminster in 1689 on some aspects of this that changed one word, but you're absolutely right,
19:04: Pastor. They are essentially identical on this subject. That is absolutely right. And by the way,
19:09: Charlie Lieber is not a pastor, but he is an apologist as a parachurch organization, but he's a member of the
19:17: Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Oh, I see. Okay. And well, I'm going to read a part of Romans 3, and I want you to reflect on that or respond to it,
19:35: Pastor Greg, and let us know what you believe this is telling us about the will of man.
19:42: Romans 3, starting in verse 10, there is none righteous, not even one.
19:50: There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside.
19:57: Together they have become useless. There is none who does good.
20:02: There is not even one. Their throat is an open grave. With their tongues they keep deceiving.
20:10: The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
20:16: Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known.
20:24: There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now, obviously, as we have been saying in the outset of this broadcast, we believe that there is a freedom that is intrinsically a part of the will of man.
20:43: All men are image bearers of God, and we do have a freedom involved in our will, but what would this say about that freedom?
20:54: Well, I'm not sure that that text explicitly addresses the question of the freedom of the human will.
20:59: I don't recall any one of those quoted explicitly mentioning the will or the capacity of the human heart to choose, but what that text is emphasizing is that those that are in a state of sin are pervasively sinful in all of their ways, and that sin permeates every aspect of their behavior and their life, that they live in sin and that they sin in all that they do, and that's why all the different aspects of bodily activity are mentioned, and et cetera, that they're constantly, those in the state of sin are constantly living in sin.
21:50: Wouldn't you say that this is in reference to all men apart from regeneration?
21:57: Yeah. And the reason why I was tying it in with our subject is because there's got to be a reason why
22:03: Paul specifically is saying, no, not even one, and if we all have a completely free will that is free to do anything that we choose to do, why is it that none of us apart from regeneration, apart from receiving the miracle of rebirth, why is it that we are not understanding?
22:26: Somebody could read the Bible a thousand times from cover to cover, and without the
22:33: Holy Spirit's enlightening, he may not understand hardly a word other than basic facts and truths.
22:42: There would be a certain measure of blindness there, and that none of us are seeking for God unless we are seeking for some kind of benefit of religion, and no one is doing good, not in regard to the way
22:56: God defines good, and that we keep deceiving, and we curse, and we are filled with bitterness, and on and on we could go according to what
23:08: Paul has said, quoting in part from the Old Testament scriptures, and there must be a reason for that in regard to the will of man.
23:21: There's something that is not allowing man to do absolutely anything that would be in the realm of pleasing to God.
23:32: Right. Again, there are certain assumptions or categories that you have to present that the
23:43: Bible presents. You have to think in terms of these biblical categories, and the scripture talks in terms of the human heart, or the human soul, or the human spirit, and it brings me to one of the things
24:00: I want to say about this whole subject before we get into, say, an exposition of a text like this, because this text is talking about what is commonly called total depravity.
24:10: There are two aspects of original sin. One is the extent of original sin, or total depravity, which this passage features, and another aspect is total inability, which is what you're more talking about, which is the incapability of people in the state of sin to save themselves, or to change themselves, to morally improve, to become righteous when they are wicked, to want to become right with God, which they don't want to become because their heart is such that they would never want that.
24:45: It's not what they want because of the way they are, because their heart is that way. So tell us, going back to the freedom of man, what you have in not only the scriptures, but what you have summarized in our confession that does teach that there is indeed a part of man's will that is free, and this would probably be further explained, that God or Satan, neither
25:16: God nor Satan, force us either to come to Christ and embrace him and follow him, and nor does
25:27: Satan force us to commit evil acts. There is a freedom that is involved in a willed man, and if you could tell us, in summary, some of those biblical and confessional ways that we can see that more clearly.
25:44: Okay. I want to say a couple things about it in terms of putting it into perspective.
25:50: Now, one of the things that I deal with in the doctrine of man,
25:57: I deal, first of all, with the origin of man, the nature of man, body and soul, and that's an important foundation of this whole discussion, the human soul, the capacities of the human soul.
26:09: One of those capacities is the capacity of, commonly called the capacity of will, the capacity to purpose and choose, decide, etc.
26:20: Then you also have the vocation of man, the divine covenant with man, and then the moral status of man, the state of innocence, and the substance of that moral status, and then what
26:34: I refer to as the mysterious mutability or changeableness of man's moral status, which is man's free agency, or sometimes called free will.
26:47: And then, after that, you have human sin, the fall into sin, the nature of sin, then the features of sin, which are representative, original, and actual sin.
26:58: And so where you deal with these questions that you're raising, you deal with them when you address the concept of free agency.
27:06: Why is man's original status of righteousness mutable? How could that possibly ever change if man is inherently, essentially, good in his heart?
27:17: Which means his capacity to feel, his capacity to moralize, his capacity to choose and think, all of those are righteous.
27:26: And his heart is set and fixed on good, and that's the
27:32: God created him. If that's true, how could he possibly change?
27:38: Well, that's mysterious, which brings me to one of the things that I want to say about this as foundational, and that is, it's not simply that God is incomprehensible, but there are certain mysteries associated with human sin that can never be explained.
27:58: And as long as these mysteries remain in the Bible, there will be divisions, I think, among Christians over these things.
28:06: Now, Professor Murray, in his collected writings, defines three of these mysteries, and they're all relevant to the subject and questions that you're asking,
28:15: Chris. And, of course, the way we are as theologians and stuff, and I'm not, it's not a criticism,
28:22: Professor Murray, I don't take, that's not what I meant, the highest respect for him. But whenever we run into things that we don't know what to say about them, what we do is we coin big 50 cent terms, and we use them.
28:35: So the good professor has coined three huge terms with regard to these three mysteries.
28:41: He refers to them, three insoluble problems associated with human sin, the ontological problem, the dispensational problem, and my favorite name, the psychogenetic problem.
28:56: Now, I tell the students in Reformed Aptos Seminary that there are two ways to flunk the course.
29:03: A, be ignorant of these problems, and B, solve these problems.
29:11: Two ways. Now, the ontological problem, the problem of who?
29:17: Who is in control of sin, and who is responsible for sin? God is in control, man is responsible, no one will ever be able fully to explain that with human logic.
29:28: Second problem, the dispensational problem, the problem of why? Why would a God who is absolutely, perfectly, inherently, immutably good ordain evil, sin, and wrong?
29:41: The third problem, and this is where getting more directly to the question you're asking, the problem of how?
29:50: The psychogenetic problem. How did someone who was perfectly good change and become evil?
30:00: Before his will could change, his heart would have to change, but before his heart would change, his will would have to change.
30:06: How could that possibly happen? It's inexplicable, it's insoluble, it's mysterious, it's incomprehensible.
30:15: So you have these three problems, and you're never going to solve them. You have the ontological problem, the problem of who?
30:23: You have the dispensational problem, problem of why? Psychogenetic problem, problem of how? You're never going to solve those problems, and a lot of times the divisions and the controversies come from efforts to solve the problems, or from struggling with the fact that we can't explain all this with human logic and reason.
30:41: It's beyond our capability fully to comprehend and explain it. So we have to embrace what
30:47: Scripture says and leave it with God. In fact, we're going to pick up right where you left off because we have to go to station break.
30:54: If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own about the will of man, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,
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35:19: I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.
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37:14: Welcome back, this is Chris Arms, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go is
37:21: Pastor Greg Nichols, and I am determined never to call him Pastor Greg Reynolds during this program, as I have done in the past for some reason that I can't determine.
37:36: He is Pastor of Grace Emanuel Reformed Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we are discussing man's will, how is it free, and how is it bound, which is really at the heart of the
37:48: Reformation debate between Martin Luther and Erasmus. And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
37:59: chrisarnson at gmail .com. And before we went to the break, we were just going to get into a summary of where you believe that the
38:08: Bible, and also the summary of the scriptures in the 1689 London Baptist Confession, where the areas of man's freedom are made most clear.
38:19: Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for that, brother. I appreciate that.
38:26: I have to admit, from time to time I still giggle about that, and from time to time I send you emails in which
38:32: I sign them Greg Reynolds. For those of our listeners who are unaware of the actual
38:39: Greg Reynolds, he's an Orthodox Presbyterian minister and author, and I've had him on the program too, and I don't know why
38:45: I just keep interchanging the names there. I feel honored to be called
38:53: Greg Reynolds. Let me just read you what the Confession says about this in Chapter 9,
39:00: Paragraph 1, probably. It's a good place to start. God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty and power of acting upon choice, that it is neither forced nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil.
39:21: Then the second paragraph says, Man in his state of innocency had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well -pleasing to God, but yet was unstable so that he might fall from it.
39:38: Well, that's a fact that we know in hindsight, in retrospect, but it's a mystery of how man's will, that man could be mutable in his heart, is mysterious, as I said, a psychogenetic problem.
39:53: Now, they define free agency with regard to two things. First of all, the natural liberty and power of acting on choice.
40:02: It talks about the will of man. The will of man is a capacity of the human heart or of the human soul, the capacity to purpose, intend, choose, desire, and it has to do with moral choices.
40:16: So let's say this. And they say that morally, man acts upon choice.
40:24: He's not forced to do good or evil, hence his own desire or capacity to choose to do morally what he wants to do.
40:40: And that's the first thing that they say. The second thing is the human will is not by any necessity of nature, or the
40:48: Westminster Confession, this is the one word difference, adds absolute necessity of nature determined to do good or evil.
40:56: Now, what they're talking about is, that could be misleading, to determine is to set or fix characteristically, habitually, or conclusively.
41:07: So the confessions, that is the Westminster and London Confessions, are referring to what the old writers would call the habitus of the will.
41:16: And they mean that human nature itself does not mandate that every human will must be morally aligned to a common and unalterable moral habitus.
41:27: They mean that some human wills can be set on good, and other human wills can be fixed or determined or set on evil.
41:37: They do not mean that there can be a human will or a human heart with no moral fixation.
41:45: They do not mean that a human will can be morally neutral. Rather they mean that some human beings, the righteous, have their wills fixed, determined, and set to do what is morally good, and other human beings, equally human, the wicked, have their wills determined and set and fixed to do what is evil.
42:04: And they explain that in the next paragraphs where they talk about the will of man, the heart of man with regard to moral choices in the state of sin, and then the heart of man, the will of man with regard to moral choices in the state of grace and in the state of glory.
42:22: The righteous in the state of grace and glory, the wicked in the state of sin. So that's clearly what they mean there.
42:29: So they say that it's possible to be human and have your will set on doing evil. Those in the state of sin.
42:36: And it's possible to be equally human and have your will set and fixed on doing good.
42:41: Those in the state of grace and those in the state of glory. And that's what they mean when they're saying that the freedom of the will means that it's possible for its habitus, its moral fixation, to change.
42:52: It's not by any absolute necessity or necessity of nature determined or set or fixed to good and evil.
43:00: Now, that could be very misleading, but they don't mean that it's possible for a human being to have a will morally neutral, neither set on good nor on evil.
43:09: It's not what they mean. But I think what they're saying is balanced. They're talking about the freedom of choice, that people are not forced or compelled to do evil against their own moral choices.
43:22: And they're saying that it's possible for some human beings to have their moral capacity to choose good or evil, fixed and determined to do what is evil, and other human beings fixed and determined to do what is good.
43:35: And they specify that those fixed and set to do evil are in the state of sin, and those fixed and set to do good are in the states of grace and glory.
43:43: That's pretty clear what they mean and what they're saying. So, when the non -Calvinist or non -Reformed person starts making claims about us or accusations about us, which often devolve into slander, when they say that we don't believe man has a will at all or is able to choose anything on his own, that we are basically
44:17: God's robots. But they are wrong, because we do make choices all the time.
44:23: We have the ability to choose what we want for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
44:28: We have the ability to choose what we want to pursue as a career, who we choose to marry.
44:36: There are many things that we do every moment of every day in our lives, every second of every day in our lives that we choose to do.
44:44: But the issue, isn't it really that, as in Romans 8, in regard to the natural man and in regard to the condition of all of us apart from the miracle of rebirth, is that the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are not in the flesh cannot please
45:17: God. So, therefore, I'm assuming we can conclude that, although man's will is free, we are not free, apart from regeneration, to please
45:27: God. Pleasing God would include choosing to follow Him, repenting, and having a saving belief in Him.
45:37: Those would involve things pleasing to God, and, therefore, there's something preventing us from being able to do that prior to the miracle of rebirth.
45:47: Am I right? Yes. I would put it this way. Man in every state, in the state of innocence, the state of sin, in the state of grace, in the state of glory, always remains a free moral agent.
46:01: No human being is a puppet, not in the state of innocence, not in the state of grace or sin or glory.
46:07: And free agency, or free will, as the Confession calls it, is integral to human nature, identity, and constitution.
46:16: And the way that the Confession states this in the third paragraph about free agency in the state of sin is this.
46:23: They say, quote, man, by his fall into a state of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.
46:38: 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.
46:54: And they quote, as support for this, one of the texts that you mentioned, Romans 8, 7.
47:02: The carnal mind is enmity against God, is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.
47:11: And those that are in the flesh cannot please God. One of the terms for the human soul, the mind, is used there in that text, and it's referring to the soul of those in a state of sin, the capacity to make moral choices and intentions and purposes.
47:28: They're saying that man in the state of sin is not morally capable.
47:37: And so the total inability of man in the state of sin is not a metaphysical, it's not that he's lacking a will.
47:44: It's not a metaphysical inability. Has a mind, he has a will, he has capacity to choose. It's a moral inability.
47:50: It's that his heart is sinful, through and through, so sinful that he never wants to and never would want to and never could want to morally change so as to be right with God.
48:06: Jesus summarizes this in John 5, 40, sums it up when he says, you do not will, you do not desire, want to come to me that you might have life.
48:17: Sinners are not robots. They act as they please, freely, according to their heart. But they have no heart for God.
48:24: So total inability is one of the characteristics of free moral agency in the state of sin.
48:36: That's what the confession actually says. It doesn't deny that human beings have a will, that's not what it's saying.
48:45: And you certainly have the capacity to choose morally to do whatever they want to do.
48:52: And they do choose to do whatever they want to do, whatever they love, whatever they delight in. The thing is that the heart is what it is in the state of sin.
49:00: Right. And then Charlie Liebert has another question or comment. I think the differentiation here can be fairly simply stated by saying it's not that they can't, it's that they won't.
49:10: That's it. They, yeah, you could put it this way. They can't because they don't want to.
49:17: They can't because they want to. They won't choose to. They won't choose to. Okay, well, why would then in verse 7 of Romans 8,
49:26: Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, does say, the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.
49:39: That's right. It is a matter of can't. But what we're saying is, what I'm saying is, I think what the brother's saying, too.
49:46: Charlie Liebert. Charlie, right. I know. I almost called him pastor again. Sorry. That it's a moral inability.
49:54: It's not a metaphysical inability. It's not a physical inability. It's not like you're asking a kid to lift a 500 -pound weight and holding him guilty when he can't.
50:10: We're talking about a moral inability that's rooted in the fact that the heart loves sin.
50:17: They're acting freely. They're acting of their own choice. There's no compulsion against will. There's freedom and liberty to do exactly what they want to do and feel like doing and love to do morally.
50:28: The thing is, they don't have any ability morally to change themselves from being in a state of sin to put themselves in a state of grace.
50:39: That's what it's saying they cannot do. It cannot happen. They don't have the capacity to save themselves.
50:46: And would it be rightly said? I've heard it said. That's what that text is saying. You're right. And I've heard it said by some of our
50:54: Reformed brethren that men have the ability to choose, but they always choose according to their nature.
51:03: That's right. And if you are by nature of the devil, of your father, the devil, but prior to rebirth, you are going to choose accordingly.
51:12: You're always going to be choosing things that please you in some way. And when you are born again, you now have the ability to please
51:24: God being his child and having a new heart, having received a heart transplant from Christ, having your heart of stone removed, and now having a heart of flesh, you are given the ability to please
51:38: God by the things that you do in the ways that you obey him and so on. Yes.
51:43: Let me read to you the next statement about free agency in the state of grace. It says, quote,
51:50: LCF94, when God converts a sinner and translates him into the state of grace, he frees him from his natural bondage under sin.
52:04: If the Son shall make you free, you will be free indeed. They quote that. And by his grace alone, he enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good.
52:21: Amen. Yet, he works enough to will and to work for his good pleasure, is what the text says in Philippians 2 .13,
52:29: is the text they quote. Yet, so as that by reason of his remaining corruptions, he does not perfectly nor only will that which is good, but does also will that which is evil.
52:45: And there they refer to various passages in Romans chapter 7, verse 15, 18, 19, 21, and 23.
52:52: So that's the distinction between the state of sin and the state of grace.
52:58: And there's tremendous mystery associated with regeneration. How does an almighty, sovereign
53:05: God work upon a human heart to change the human will? How does he do that?
53:11: In fact, if you pick right up on that when we return from our next break, this is our midway break. If anybody would like to join us, and by the way, we have a lot of listeners waiting to have their questions answered.
53:22: And we'll get to as many of you as we can when we return. If you'd like to join them, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
53:29: chrisarnson at gmail .com. We'll be right back, God willing, with Pastor Greg Nichols right after these messages from our sponsors.
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01:02:28: That's www .chefexclusive .com. Welcome back. This is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with about an hour to go is
01:02:38: Pastor Greg Nichols, one of three pastors at Grace Emanuel Reformed Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
01:02:45: We are addressing man's will. How is it free and how is it bound? Before I return to our discussion,
01:02:52: I have a few special announcements to make by some of our sponsors. From June 22nd through the 23rd, the organization known as Sermon Audio, which many of you are familiar with,
01:03:09: Sermon Audio is having the Foundations Conference in New York City, where I will be attending and representing
01:03:16: Iron Sharpens Iron radio. They have a host of phenomenal speakers, including
01:03:22: Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, Dr. Joel Beakey, Phil Johnson, who's the executive director of John MacArthur's Grace to You ministry,
01:03:31: Todd Friel, who is the host of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, and more.
01:03:37: And again, that is June 22nd and June 23rd in New York City, in the
01:03:42: Chelsea area of Manhattan. And for more details on registering, go to thefoundationsconference .com,
01:03:54: thefoundationsconference .com. Also following that, in August from the 3rd through the 5th, the
01:04:01: Fellowship Conference New England is being held at the Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine.
01:04:08: And the speakers include Pastor Don Curran, who is also the
01:04:13: Eastern European Coordinator with HeartCry Missionary Society, an organization founded by Paul Washer.
01:04:20: My dear friend Pastor Mac Tomlinson, pastor of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.
01:04:26: He's also an author and conference speaker and a prolific writer, and he's a wonderful brother in Christ.
01:04:34: Pastor Jesse Barrington of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, who I've had on this program before.
01:04:40: And Pastor Nate Pickowitz, who is the pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmonton Ironworks, New Hampshire, and he's also the author of Reviving New England.
01:04:54: We're going to be discussing that with Pastor Nate Pickowitz this month, on the 27th of June, Tuesday the 27th, so you might want to mark your calendars for that.
01:05:03: If you'd like to register for Fellowship Conference New England, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.
01:05:12: Then the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology.
01:05:18: It has nothing to do with Quakers, but that's just the name of the city. Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology.
01:05:25: For still our ancient foe is the theme, and that is obviously a line from A Mighty Fortress, that wonderful hymn by Martin Luther.
01:05:33: Speakers include Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, Dennis Cahill, and Scott Oliphant.
01:05:40: For more information, go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org, click on events, and then click on Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology for Still Our Ancient Foe.
01:05:54: And then after that, oh that's, I'm sorry, I don't know if I gave the date for that. That's November 17th through the 18th,
01:06:00: November 17th through the 18th in Quakerstown, Pennsylvania. And then, last but not least, in January, the
01:06:11: G3 Conference returns to Atlanta from January 18th through the 20th, 2018.
01:06:17: And I am delighted to have an exhibitor's booth at that conference, God willing. And I thank
01:06:24: Pastor Josh Weiss of Praise Mill Baptist Church, who is organizing this event for arranging that I would have a free exhibitor's booth to promote
01:06:33: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, because we promote everything that they do over at Praise Mill Baptist and the
01:06:40: G3 Conference. And the speakers at this event include, God willing,
01:06:46: Paul Washer, Stephen Lawson, Votie Balcom, H .B. Charles, Jr. And by the way,
01:06:52: I've been mistakenly saying he's the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention. That was an error.
01:06:57: He is the new president of a conference that the Southern Baptist Convention holds. So I said that without having all the facts, and I apologize for that.
01:07:08: Tim Challies is also gonna be one of the speakers. The aforementioned Pastor Josh Weiss of Praise Mill Baptist Church.
01:07:15: My dear friend of many years, going back to 1995, Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries is one of the speakers.
01:07:23: Tom Askell, another dear friend, who is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Coral Ridge, Florida.
01:07:31: And he, or Cape Coral, Florida, I'm sorry. And he is the president of the Founders Ministries, a
01:07:37: Calvinistic ministry within the Southern Baptist Convention. Anthony Mathenia and Michael Kruger and David Miller and Paul Tripp and Todd Friel and Derek Thomas and more.
01:07:49: If you would like to register for the G3 Conference, while they still have a discount, because sometime later this month, the price goes up.
01:07:58: But if you want to beat that price raise, or raise in prices, you can go to g3conference .com,
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01:10:37: And I cannot convey in the English language the depth of my gratitude for you.
01:10:42: Now we are returning to our discussion on man's will. How is it free? How is it bound?
01:10:48: With our guest, Greg Nichols of Grace Emanuel Reformed Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And before the break, we were talking about the mystery of regeneration.
01:11:00: In fact, let me read a text from John, the
01:11:07: Gospel of John in chapter 1. We have, starting in verse 9,
01:11:12: There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him.
01:11:22: He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
01:11:42: And there we have the mystery of regeneration, of rebirth being mentioned here by John in the first chapter of his gospel.
01:11:55: If you could pick up where you left off on that, Pastor Greg. Yes, thank you,
01:12:01: Chris. I was speaking about the fact that God is omnipotent, that his power is incomprehensible to us human beings.
01:12:14: He has power that is beyond what we can understand or even conceive.
01:12:21: He has infinite power. And in that infinite power, he changes the human heart morally without turning human beings into sticks or stones or puppets.
01:12:37: A puppet is not responsible for the actions of the ventriloquist.
01:12:43: And when a sovereign God controls sinners, he controls not wooden dummies, but free moral agents.
01:12:52: And the Bible just asserts unambiguously that God is in control over fallen men without turning them into puppets.
01:13:00: It says, quote, The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, and he turns it whithersoever he will.
01:13:10: Proverbs 21, verse 1. So free moral agency, man's free moral choices.
01:13:17: This does not cancel God's sovereignty. God predestines, controls, determines everything that happens in this world, including everything that fallen men do and choose to do morally.
01:13:30: For example, with regard to Joseph's brothers, the scripture says in Genesis 50, verse 20,
01:13:37: You meant it, that has to do with their heart, their capacity to purpose, choose, want, moral capacity, moral choices.
01:13:49: You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.
01:13:55: God controlled what they did without turning them into puppets. He had a different purpose, a different intention than they had, and yet he was in control of what they did.
01:14:07: And again, Isaiah, in Isaiah 10, 7 says, O Assyrian, rod of my anger, the rod in whose hand is my indignation, shall the axe boast itself against him that hews with it?
01:14:25: Howbeit he means not so, but it is in his heart to destroy and to cut off people, not a few.
01:14:37: So he's talking about the Assyrian. He's saying that he's going to use the Assyrian like an axe in his hand.
01:14:42: God's in control. The Assyrian is just an axe. And yet, it's not the intention of the
01:14:53: Assyrian. He means not so. This is not what he intends. This is not what he wants.
01:14:59: This is not what he chooses. This is what he chooses. It's in his heart, his capacity to will, choose, design and want and desire.
01:15:09: He wants to destroy. He wants to cut off people, not a few. He doesn't want to serve
01:15:14: Jehovah. He doesn't want to be an axe in my hand. He doesn't want to do my will, my bidding. He does what he wants to do.
01:15:21: He makes the moral choices that he wants to make. He does that freely out of his own heart.
01:15:27: And this is what's in his heart. He doesn't intend, mean and purpose what I intend, mean and purpose.
01:15:34: And here God is controlling the free moral choices of human beings in infinite and incomprehensible power without turning those human beings into puppets.
01:15:47: He means not so. He did God's purpose even though he wasn't aware he was doing it.
01:15:54: He didn't want to do it. He was doing what he wanted to do. He wasn't a puppet. He means not so.
01:16:01: But God accomplished his purposes through him. Oh, Assyrian, rod of mine anger, because he has infinite omnipotent power that we can't even begin to conceive how it works.
01:16:14: The only plausible meaning of the Bible on these issues is that sinful man in the state of sin is a free moral agent who morally chooses what he wants to do and does it, and he's accountable to and under the control of a sovereign
01:16:28: God. Yes, and unless your understanding of what
01:16:36: Paul is saying in Romans 9 will cause an immediate knee -jerk reaction from the unbeliever that says, why does
01:16:49: God still find fault with us because for who resists his will?
01:16:55: If that isn't the immediate knee -jerk reaction from what Paul is saying, then you are not explaining it correctly.
01:17:06: And for those of our listeners who don't know that specific area of Romans 9, we have starting in verse 18, he has mercy, meaning
01:17:16: God has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who resists his will?
01:17:25: On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, why did you make me like this, will it?
01:17:33: Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?
01:17:41: So this whole puppet or robot analogy is immediately dismissed by Paul writing through the inspiration of the
01:17:50: Holy Spirit in these verses. Basically, there are some things involving mystery that only have one answer.
01:17:58: You have no reason to talk back to God. Well, that text that you're quoting basically summarizes the question of the problem of who, what
01:18:08: Professor Mary called the ontological problem. That text is just basically highlighting, summarizing that problem, that why does he still find fault for who withstands his will?
01:18:19: Because men are responsible for their own actions, because they make their own moral choices. And yet a sovereign
01:18:25: God is in complete control of them without turning them into puppets, without in any way violating their free moral agency.
01:18:32: How can he do that? Only God knows that. Amen. All right, let me go to some of our listener questions, because I don't want to leave all of our listeners out of this discussion.
01:18:43: We've got a lot of listeners who have responded, and I hope I could get to all of them. Murray in Kinross, Scotland says,
01:18:51: I understand from what has been said that Adam had no moral will to eat of the other trees in the garden, including the tree of life, but chose to believe a serpent and eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
01:19:05: However, after this, in Genesis 3 verses 22, God decides to throw
01:19:11: Adam out of the garden, lest he eat of the fruit of the tree of life and live forever.
01:19:18: Wouldn't this imply that Adam had the will to choose what is good or what is not good, and that God had to act to prevent
01:19:27: Adam from acting contrary to his own will? I'm a little bit confused by this myself.
01:19:37: I believe I understand the logic of what he's saying, but I don't think that the purpose of that is to say that man in a state of sin has the capacity to choose to do what is morally good.
01:19:52: And this is before the fall he's talking about, so Adam would not have been in a state of sin.
01:19:58: Well, no, he's talking about Genesis 3, 22 being after the fall, when man is in a state of sin, and he throws him out of the garden so that he won't choose to do what's good, is what he's saying.
01:20:09: Okay. I don't think that that's what that text intends at all. I think that that's not a proper deduction from that text.
01:20:19: Well, thank you, Murray and Kinross Scotland. Please continue spreading the word about Iron Trump and Zion in Scotland and beyond.
01:20:27: We always love hearing from you. We have another listener. We have all the way in Slovenia.
01:20:36: We have Joe in Slovenia. And I am enlarging his font because it's very tiny, the font of his email.
01:20:45: And he says, Dear Brother Chris, thank you so much for dealing with such great topics like this with wonderful guests like Brother Nichols.
01:20:52: Please help me with a clear and concise statement describing bondage and freedom regarding our will.
01:21:00: I've thought for some time that the Scriptures teach us that apart from Christ, we are all in bondage to sin and unable to exercise free will in matters pertaining to God in any way that is pleasing to Him.
01:21:14: Once He draws us to Himself and grants us regeneration and faith, our will is then freed in salvation to choose attitudes and behaviors that are in obedience and pleasing to God.
01:21:24: Is this an accurate summary of the Reformed doctrine of the bondage and free will? How could
01:21:30: I make my description more clear, concise, and biblically accurate? That's a very good question.
01:21:37: And also, with regard to the former question, I understand the logic that the brother's using.
01:21:45: Let me just say that, you know, we have to take and interpret what, you know, could possibly be logically deduced from a text in the light of what is clearly taught and emphatically taught clearly in Scripture.
01:21:59: And when you do that, you see that that is not what that text is actually teaching. Because it would contradict a clear teaching of the
01:22:06: Word of God in many other passages, which I would like to get to for that very reason. Now, respecting this second question,
01:22:14: I will offer a couple of definitions that I hope will be helpful. I already read the ones from the
01:22:21: Confession of Faith. This is Professor Murray's definition of total inability as it is given in his works.
01:22:30: Let me give the exact quote. This is in Collected Writings, Volume 4, published by the
01:22:37: Banner of Truth in 1977 out of Edinburgh. This is Volume 2, pages 85 and 86.
01:22:45: And in that place, Professor Murray says, and I quote, Man in his natural state is psychologically, morally, and spiritually incapable of the understanding, affection, and will which will enable him to be subject to the law of God, respond to the gospel of his grace, appreciate the things of the
01:23:13: Spirit of God, or do the things well -pleasing to him, end quote.
01:23:20: And in those phrases, the good professor is referring to Romans 8, 7.
01:23:26: He's alluding to that. First Corinthians, Chapter 2, and other passages.
01:23:34: In my work, I offer a similar definition. I say this, quote,
01:23:40: Total inability means that it is morally and spiritually impossible, not physically or metaphysically, but morally and spiritually impossible for sinners to emancipate or resurrect themselves from the state of sin.
01:23:58: They cannot make their evil hearts good. They cannot comply with God's law or believe in Christ and be saved or appreciate and receive spiritual blessing or please
01:24:13: God. Now, in order to support this, and this is important, Professor Murray collates and exegetes five types of scriptural support.
01:24:25: He uses Matthew 7, 17, and 18, Matthew 12, 33 to 35, Luke 6, 43 to 45,
01:24:33: John 6, 44, 45, and 65, Romans 6, 6, and 16, and 20,
01:24:39: Romans 7, 1, Romans 8, 7, and 8, Hebrews 11, 6, First Corinthians 2, 14, and John 3, 3, and 5.
01:24:49: Now, in the exposition of this topic,
01:24:57: I consider the following text. Jeremiah 13, 23. Can the
01:25:02: Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil.
01:25:12: And Matthew chapter 7, verse 16 and 18. You know them by their fruits.
01:25:19: Even so, every good tree brings forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.
01:25:25: A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
01:25:33: Again, Matthew 12, 34 and 35. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good?
01:25:43: For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.
01:25:49: 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.
01:26:00: And then speaking in Matthew and Mark chapter 10, verse 25 to 27.
01:26:06: They were astonished out of measure, verse 26, saying among themselves, Who then can be, can be saved?
01:26:14: And Jesus looking upon them says, With men it is impossible, but not with God.
01:26:22: For with God all things are possible. And Luke 6, verse 45, speaks of the heart being in control, the moral state of the heart being in control of the life and action.
01:26:39: And again, in John 3, 3 and 5, the text on regeneration. Jesus said, Verily I say to you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God, except a man be born of water and of spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
01:27:03: And again, in John chapter 6, verse 44, 45, No man can come to me, except the
01:27:12: Father which has sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. And he said,
01:27:20: Therefore I said unto you that no man can come to me, except it were given unto him of my
01:27:28: Father. And then there's also John 8, 34 to 36, where he speaks about people being slaves of sin.
01:27:36: And again, Romans chapter 6, verse 6 and 17 and 18 and 20, where he speaks about people being slaves of sin and being transformed into a state of grace.
01:27:49: Romans chapter 8, verses 1 and 2, speaking about the law of the spirit of life, emancipating us from the law of sin and death.
01:27:58: The text that has been alluded to before, Romans chapter 8, verse 7 and 8, that we've already quoted, they that are in the flesh cannot please
01:28:06: God. And the carnal mind, the mind of the flesh's enmity against God can't be subject to the law of God.
01:28:16: First Corinthians chapter 2, verses 12 to 14, speaks about those that are in a state of sin, the natural man unable to receive and to know the things of the spirit of God because they're spiritually discerned.
01:28:32: Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 to 5 and 8 to 10, speaking of the conversion as a resurrection from spiritual death, that people cannot resurrect themselves from spiritual death and sin and as a new creation, and so on and so forth.
01:28:50: So total inability means that men can't emancipate themselves from spiritual slavery to sin.
01:28:57: John 8, 34 and 36, Romans 6. They can't raise themselves from spiritual death and sin.
01:29:04: John 5, 24 and Ephesians 2, 1 to 5. They can't make their evil hearts into good hearts.
01:29:11: Jeremiah 13, 23 and Matthew 7, 16 to 18 and Luke 6, 45.
01:29:17: They cannot comply with God's law. Romans chapter 8, verse 2 and 7 and 8.
01:29:23: They can't effect their salvation or enter God's kingdom in their own moral strength or come to Christ in their own moral strength.
01:29:31: Mark 10, 27 and John 3, 3 to 5 and 6, 44 and 45 and 65.
01:29:37: They can't appreciate or receive spiritual blessing in the Holy Spirit. First Corinthians 2, 14 and they cannot please
01:29:45: God. Romans 8, 8 and Hebrews 11, verses 5 and 6. So that's what total inability means.
01:29:53: Means that it is morally and spiritually impossible for those in the state of sin to emancipate or resurrect themselves from the state of sin.
01:30:03: They can't make their hearts good. They can't comply with God's law or believe in Christ and be saved or appreciate and receive spiritual blessing or please
01:30:12: God. They can't because they don't want to. It's not that they're forced against their will to be unable to.
01:30:17: They don't want to do any of these things. They have no heart for it and that's why they can't do it.
01:30:23: Because they don't want to do it. They have no heart to do it. They don't love to do it. Amen.
01:30:29: And I'm going to read you a question from a brand new listener or actually, I don't know if he's a brand new listener, but he's a first time questioner anyway.
01:30:38: And I'll have you answer it when we return from our final break that we're going into. Mauricio in San Pedro, California says,
01:30:48: Does God the Holy Spirit influence the Christian to do good works? Is it the Christian's will or the
01:30:55: Holy Spirit's will that accomplishes good works? That is
01:31:00: Mauricio in San Pedro, California. We're going and we'll get your answer, Pastor Greg, when we return.
01:31:07: This is our final break. If you'd like to join us on the air, now is the time to do it. And you do it quickly because we're running out of time.
01:31:14: ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. God willing, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.
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01:38:34: Pastor Greg Nichols, when we were having our conversation that we are continuing now for the next half hour on man's will, how is it free, and how is it bound?
01:38:45: We had a guest, a first -time questioner from San Pedro, California, Mauricio, who says, does
01:38:54: God, the Holy Spirit, influence the Christian to do good works? Is it the Christian's will or the Holy Spirit's will that accomplishes good works?
01:39:04: Yes. Hi, Chris. Hey, how are you? Get to that question in just a moment, if I may.
01:39:12: Sure. We'll address it. Happy to address it. And if someone wants to look up a couple of texts, one would be
01:39:19: Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 to 10. The other would be in Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 and 13.
01:39:27: In the meanwhile, I would like to just complete, before I go to a slightly different aspect of this topic, which that question is,
01:39:34: I would like to just complete the thought that I was making. And that has to do with this issue of total inability.
01:39:43: Now, I offer definitions and scriptural support, but you know that commonly we hear objections to these ideas of total inability.
01:39:53: And I'd just like to address at least one of those briefly, if I may, then I'll get to the question.
01:39:58: It's often said, it's commonly said that ability and responsibility have to go together.
01:40:09: If there's no ability, then there's no responsibility. So it's not fair otherwise.
01:40:15: So how can God hold people responsible to repent and believe that are in the state of sin if they don't have the ability morally to repent and believe?
01:40:25: How can that possibly be right? That's not right. That's not fair. Right? So I think that that ought to be at least addressed briefly.
01:40:35: Definitely. Yes, definitely. Or metaphysical inability.
01:40:42: It's not a metaphysical inability. Sinners do not lack a will. They don't lack a mind. They don't lack a heart.
01:40:48: They possess all the faculties essential to comply with God's gospel and God's law. So their inability to repent and believe does not come from any physical or metaphysical limitation.
01:40:59: And it's not physical inability. It's not like, as I said before, asking a child to lift a 500 pound weight and say, and hold them responsible, that's a caricature.
01:41:11: And it misconstrues the case because the child is physically unable to lift a weight. But the sinner has no physical or bodily inability.
01:41:20: No metaphysical inability in his soul. They have all the capacity of will and mind and feeling that they need to obey
01:41:28: God's gospel and God's law if they wanted to. They can't obey the gospel because they don't want to repent and believe.
01:41:34: They never will want to repent and believe or to obey God unless God changes their moral nature.
01:41:43: And the scripture does not teach that ability and responsibility always go together.
01:41:53: It says that God requires fallen men to do things that they will never do and can never do because of their evil nature.
01:42:01: The Bible clearly teaches it. And so total inability is like asking someone who hates you to lift a feather for you.
01:42:08: You can't do it because he won't do it because he refuses to do it because he hates you. Now, here's another thing. It's like requiring a drunk driver to obey the traffic laws.
01:42:18: Now, I use this illustration because it shows clearly that ability and responsibility don't always go together.
01:42:26: You can't say, well, drunk drivers have no responsibility to obey traffic laws because they have no ability to drive in a straight line.
01:42:34: But if responsibility always means you have to have ability and a drunk driver is not responsible, keep the traffic because he can't drive in a straight line.
01:42:44: So it is not true that responsibility always implies ability. The drunk driver is responsible for his behavior, even though he has no ability to drive the car.
01:42:56: So if it's unfair to require drunk drivers to obey traffic codes, then only then is
01:43:01: God unfair and unjust when he requires sinners to repent and believe. He's requiring what sinners, drunken with the spiritual wine of sin, have no moral ability to do.
01:43:14: I know that illustration breaks down too, but at least it shows that it's really not right to say that there's always ability when there's responsibility.
01:43:25: That's just not true. And one thing I just wanted to quickly ask you about that, because you were using the analogy that God doesn't ask a child to pick up a 500 -pound weight, but does he not and has he not, when he commands men to do things that we are incapable of doing and the
01:43:50: Arminian or the non -Calvinist says, oh, he would never do that. Well, in John 5, when
01:43:57: Jesus sees an invalid lying in the street and he says to him, do you want to get well?
01:44:05: And the invalid says, sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is being stirred while I am trying to get in.
01:44:15: Someone else goes down ahead of me. And then Jesus said to him, get up, pick up your mat and walk.
01:44:22: And at once the man was cured. He picked up his mat and he walked. So even though God commands all men to repent and believe, and we are morally incapable of doing that, each and every one of us, because we're made out of the same lump of clay.
01:44:38: Even the born -again believer and the pastor are made out of the same lump of clay with the unrepentant prostitute and murderer.
01:44:47: And here we are being commanded to repent and believe. But he gives us with the miracle of regeneration and the miracle of being receiving or being given a new heart.
01:45:01: We do, those of us who are born again, repent and believe. So isn't that, in a sense,
01:45:07: God does command of us to do things we cannot do, but he makes some of us in his mercy capable of doing what he commands?
01:45:17: Yes, but yes, that's exactly right. But that's a good picture of it, the illustration you gave.
01:45:25: But what I'm saying is that it's not unfair because he's commanding sinners that are morally and spiritually drunk to obey his moral traffic laws.
01:45:40: Right. And they have the responsibility to do it, even though they don't have the ability, because they got themselves drunk.
01:45:48: God didn't get them drunk on sin. They went out and got drunk. Amen. Their fault.
01:45:54: And they're still responsible to do what they have no moral ability or desire.
01:46:01: So anyway, I just wanted to do that briefly, try to illustrate it. I do admit that there's incompetency associated with this.
01:46:10: You always must say we don't want to become extreme or, what's the right word, imbalanced and say that there's no free offer and well -meant offer of the gospel to some of these sinners.
01:46:24: And God is sincerely and genuinely, with kind intention, calling to Christ people that have no moral ability to do it and to come.
01:46:37: And we must always teach the free, well -meant offer of the gospel. And even though we can't illustrate it or explain it, and even though there's a great mystery, the same mystery as in the ontological problem, there's a great mystery that we can never solve or explain.
01:46:53: We have to hold both total inability and the free, well -meant, sincere offer of Christ together and never give up either of those two things, even though we can't explain how they fit together.
01:47:06: Now let me get to the question that was asked, the will of God, the will of the
01:47:13: Holy Spirit, and the will of the Christian in doing good works. Ephesians, the text that I quoted, it says that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works which
01:47:23: God aforeprepared that we would walk in them. So clearly the will of God is involved.
01:47:30: Then it also says in Philippians 2, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is
01:47:35: God that works in you to will and to work for His good pleasure.
01:47:42: He works in us to will, so clearly the will of the Christian is involved. So the will of the
01:47:48: Christian and the will of God are both involved. There's no contradiction between that because He works in us to will what pleases
01:47:57: Him. He works in us to choose what pleases Him. He works in us to want what pleases
01:48:03: Him. He works in us to resolve to do what pleases Him. And He enables us by grace to do it.
01:48:10: There's no contradiction at all. It's not either or, but it's both and. Well, thank you,
01:48:15: Mauricio from San Pedro, California. And since you are a first -time questioner, you have won a beautiful new
01:48:23: New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the NASB and compliments of our friends over at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for BibleBookService .com,
01:48:36: CVBBS .com. And we thank Todd and Patty Jennings, owners of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, for their faithful support of Iron Sharpens Iron, who will be shipping that out to you.
01:48:48: Keep your eye open in the mail for a package with a return address, CVBBS .com.
01:48:55: We also thank, of course, the publishers of the NASB, who have been sponsoring Iron Sharpens Iron Radio ever since we went on the air back in somewhere between late 2005 and 2006.
01:49:07: So we thank them for their faithful sponsorship. We would not be on the air without the publishers of the
01:49:12: NASB Bible. And we have Jenny from Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, who asks, based on your experience, why do non -reformed believers consistently impose their false understanding of God's sovereignty over all matters of men?
01:49:33: For example, why do they insist that they are the ones coming first to Christ and not admitting that scripturally it shows quite clearly that God calls first, not men?
01:49:44: That's Jenny from Ben Salem, Pennsylvania. Okay.
01:49:53: Well, I'm totally sure how to answer that question. It's always hard to walk a mile in someone else's shoes.
01:50:02: But I think that sometimes when people are praying and they're on their knees, they say things that are a little different than what they might say when they're in a theological argument.
01:50:16: That's right. Yeah. I also think that a lot of times
01:50:21: Christians have problems with subjects like this, because logically it's very, very hard to put things together that our minds cannot fully fathom.
01:50:35: Like, we cannot fully fathom logically and with human reason, how can it be possible that the
01:50:42: Bible teaches both total inability and the free, well -meant, sincere offer of the gospel indiscriminately to all in a state of sin?
01:50:51: How can those things possibly fit together? And sometimes people struggle with things like that, and they just have a real hard time embracing things that they can't logically and with reason fully explain.
01:51:05: I think that's a lot of it sometimes. And I hope that answers the question.
01:51:12: I know that a lot of Arminians and non -Reformed
01:51:17: Christians believe that they are defending the love and character of God in their attempts at saying that he gives men all equal ability to come to him on their own esteem with some prodding from the
01:51:33: Holy Spirit, but not actually requiring the transformation and regeneration of the
01:51:39: Holy Spirit. And they really don't have a logical ground to stand on, because we don't have an equal playing field.
01:51:47: Some children are born to nurturing Christian parents in the Bible Belt. Some children are born to Muslim parents in the
01:51:54: Middle East. And if they were to come to faith in Christ, it would be a miracle in itself, because most of them have never heard the gospel.
01:52:00: But secondly, they would be tortured or murdered, most probably, if they did. So it's not like it's an equal playing field, not to mention the places throughout the globe for centuries in the deepest, darkest jungles and areas of the world where there was never a gospel witness, and there are still areas that don't have any gospel witness, where men never heard anything about Christ.
01:52:23: So it's not an equal playing field that would make their argument more logical.
01:52:29: Am I right? Yes, and you bring back to the issue of these mysteries that we cannot fully fathom and explain.
01:52:40: I mean, now you're in the area of the mystery of why. Why would God ordain that through the fall of man, so much sin and evil and death and darkness come to so many branches of the human race, and then only send in history gospel light here and there, and others don't have the same historical opportunities?
01:53:06: How is that fair? How can that be right? People can't explain things like that. We can't explain things like that.
01:53:12: We can't explain why God ordained sin. And we can't explain why
01:53:20: He offers and sincerely offers Christ, or how
01:53:25: He sincerely offers Christ. People have no ability to receive Him, and yet He doesn't give them that ability to do it, and yet His offer is sincere.
01:53:34: People struggle with that. They really struggle with that. Yeah, unlike God. But the fact that they can't explain things like that, because I can't, but I believe the
01:53:45: Bible clearly teaches the well -meant, free, sincere offer of Christ indiscriminately to every sinner in the state of sin, and yet at the same time, it teaches total inability, and nobody can be saved unless the
01:54:00: Father draws them, unless He creates repentance and faith and regenerates the soul. Bible clearly teaches both, so we believe both, we proclaim both, even though I cannot logically explain it.
01:54:13: And people struggle with that, and I think that gives rise to a lot of this difficulty is the fact that it's beyond our ability to comprehend what, again, what
01:54:22: Mary calls either the dispensational problem or the ontological problem. Well, unlike God, who alone has the power of sovereign election in His hands,
01:54:34: I have two North Carolinians who each have a question, and I don't know if I'll have time to ask them both, so I'm going to do an eeny, meeny, miny, moe, which is not the method that God uses, even though our
01:54:46: Arminian friends seem to think that's what we're saying. But I'm going to start with Seth in Greensboro, North Carolina, and there's no way that you could thoroughly answer this question in the time we have, but maybe just a short answer if it's possible.
01:55:00: Some men have said that Luther and Jonathan Edwards had slightly different views on man's will.
01:55:06: Could you elaborate on the similarities or differences, if there are any? No, I cannot. That's not an area where I am knowledgeable enough to have an answer, so I thankfully was able to answer that question very briefly.
01:55:22: And, yeah, I had Walt Chantry on my program once, and he seemed to take objection to some of Jonathan Edwards' understanding of the will, but I don't have time to go into that right now.
01:55:36: I see. Well, I really am not knowledgeable enough on that aspect of historical theology to know how to give an answer to that very excellent question.
01:55:45: And Casey in Kannapolis, North Carolina, says, How many more volumes of lectures in systematic theology can we expect, and will they be available in hardcover?
01:55:55: Will they be put together in one -volume hardcover edition one day, too? I am desperately looking for a classical 1689
01:56:03: Reformed Baptist systematic theology, and I'm exploring becoming a Southern Baptist Convention pastor.
01:56:08: I would love a copy of your new systematic theology. As a pastor, how can we teach the Bible's doctrine of total depravity and monergistic regeneration in a non -condescending and understandable way?
01:56:21: Members in a Baptist church that have had a bad view of Calvinism, mainly because they've been taught wrongly or had bad experiences with Calvinism.
01:56:31: Well, that's a whole bunch of questions. I was going to say, those are six wonderful questions for wonderful minutes.
01:56:40: But basically, thank you very much for those excellent questions. Those are really good questions. And basically, to have humility in our hearts and love for people in our hearts is the essence of pastoral ministry, and also love for God and desire to glorify
01:56:54: God. And to open up the Scriptures is the best way to present it. To open up the comprehensive testimony of Scripture and to ground your people in the
01:57:02: Scripture is the best way to address any topic, and that topic in particular. And the other questions had to do with systematics.
01:57:12: God willing, and if I live that long, I'm 69 years old, but I don't know what a day may bring forth, but I hope to have someday available seven volumes of the doctrines of God, man,
01:57:25: Christ, church, Christian life, Holy Spirit, and last things. And the plan is to have those available in the next,
01:57:33: God willing, five to seven years. And the doctrine of man should be available in hopefully
01:57:41: Christmas 2017, and the doctrine of Christ and the doctrine of the church,
01:57:47: God willing, sometime in 2018, and Christian life and Holy Spirit and last things sometime later on,
01:57:54: God willing. And as far as hardcover and all bound together in one volume of 24 ,000 pages,
01:58:01: I don't think so. And speaking of a child being asked to pick up a 500 -pound weight.
01:58:11: I don't know about that. I would love to see it in hardcover, but I don't know. That's a question
01:58:18: I don't know about. I have to talk to the fellows that are handling the publishing of it, and I just have delegated that to others.
01:58:25: Anyway, another question. Well, I want to make sure that everybody has the website for Grace Emanuel Reformed Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
01:58:36: That's girbc .org, g -i -r -b -c .org.
01:58:43: And of course, the Solid Ground Christian Books, where you could get anything written by Pastor Greg Nichols.
01:58:53: Almost caught myself there. I almost made it to almost two hours without doing it.
01:59:02: You could go to solid -ground -books .com, solid -ground -books .com.
01:59:10: And of course, if you want to hear Jeff Thomas, who is the visiting preacher at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle this
01:59:16: Sunday, go to gracebaptistcarlisle .org for more information. gracebaptistcarlisle .org.
01:59:22: Jeff Thomas is the aforementioned retired pastor from Aberystwyth, Wales, who I was speaking about at the outset of this program.
01:59:30: Pastor Greg Nichols, it's been such a delight to have you on the program, and I look forward to having you back very soon.
01:59:36: Thank you for the privilege. Always a delight to speak with you, Chris. And also, our brother in San Pedro, California, give me your full mailing address, because you're getting a free
01:59:46: New American Standard Bible. And I want all of you to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater