Pt. 13 LBCF Chapter 9: Of Free Will

All right, we're picking up our study in the

Confession, Chapter 9 of Free Will. And this is an important chapter.

The chapter has five paragraphs, and it's an important chapter for several reasons.

Okay, firstly, it refutes the critics who say Calvinists don't believe in free will.

How many people have ever come back at you with that when they find out you're holed to a reformed soteriology?

Well, you don't believe in free will. You believe that we're all automatons. How many times have you heard something like that?

So too many times. All right, so this is an important chapter because it does refute that, and it says in crystal clarity what exactly the

Bible teaches about that. It also explains how man's will is affected by the fall and redemption.

Okay, and in fact, you'll see at the end, I'm just going to rehearse a little bit the four states of man's will according to the theologians.

It shows how man is responsible for all his actions. Now, remember, we've looked at God's decree.

We've looked at his providence. We see how nothing happens that God has not specifically decreed, and yet this chapter will help us see how do we balance

God's decree with the freedom of the will. Okay, so let's look at the outline.

All right, paragraph one is the definition of human freedom, okay?

God has 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.

Now let's break that down a little bit. What it says, firstly, is the will of man was endued freely to make choices.

That's what that whole first portion of that is. So when God created Adam and Eve, they had true natural liberty and the ability.

Notice that that's two different things. They had the liberty and they had the power, the ability to act upon choice.

So something, a choice was put in front of them. They had the freedom to choose one or the other, all right?

And that's an important distinction. It was under no compulsion to choose good or evil, talking about the will of man.

It was under no compulsion to choose good or evil. It's neither forced, all right?

So that would be coercion. God didn't coerce them.

The serpent didn't coerce them, all right? And then it goes, it explains it even a little bit further.

Not only was it not forced, but by any necessity that the nature itself was determined one way or the other.

And that's an important distinction. In other words, it was truly in a place where it could choose one way or it could choose the other way,

OK? True freedom, true liberty, it had true liberty,

OK? All right, now, paragraphs two to five, four paragraphs, and they break down the action of the will in each of the states of man, all right?

And I'll explain that as we go. So paragraph two talks about free will in a state of innocency.

Now, this has pretty much been explained in the first chapter, but it's important that we see the four states broken down.

So man in a 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 it might not fall.

All right, notice, man in his state of innocency, all right? That's what we just talked about.

That's Adam and Eve before the fall, all right? He had the ability to choose to do good.

That's what this next two clauses say. They had the freedom and power.

Notice again, liberty and ability, OK? And we'd have to make those distinctions,

OK? Just because you're free to do something doesn't mean that you can, all right?

If you put 800 pounds up here and tell me, go ahead, you can lift it, doesn't mean

I have the ability to do so, OK? That's the distinction, OK?

So man had the ability to choose to do good, things that were well -pleasing to God.

In other words, they could obey God. But, and this is a very important part, his will was not immutable.

It could change. The Confession says it was unstable. I chose to use the word not immutable because sometimes we get a different connotation to what unstable is,

OK? All right, so that he might fall from it. So in other words, they were created not only with the ability to do good, but with the ability to change.

Remember, only God is immutable, all right? Every other creature is mutable,

OK? So that's the first state of man, state of innocency, all right?

And that's only happened once in history for Adam and Eve before the Fall. Paragraph 3 talks about what is the free will in the state of sin.

This is post -Fall, all right? And we read that, it says, Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.

So as a natural man, being altogether averse to that good and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto.

Now, let's look at that. What did man lose when he fell?

He lost the ability to choose to do anything spiritually good accompanying salvation,

OK? Notice that's in here, not only is there a depravity, which we'll get to in a minute, but there's total inability.

And by the way, there is a difference, albeit a subtle one, there's a difference between total depravity and total inability, all right?

They are related, but there is a distinction that needs to be made. And what this is talking about here, firstly, is the inability.

He lost the ability. So no matter how hard he tries, he is incapable of doing anything spiritually good accompanying salvation,

OK? Then it goes on to say that he is dead in sin.

So as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good and dead in sin, what does that mean?

That means his will is in bondage to sin, OK, all right?

And we continue with that, which means he is unable to save himself.

He is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto.

Yes, yes.

Yes. No, notice any spiritual good accompanying salvation.

So it is a limited... We're not talking about that the spirit or the will of man is completely unable to do anything.

No, it is just that he can't do anything good accompanying salvation, all right?

He can do a lot of bad stuff. He can even do some, quote, good deeds, all right?

So, I mean, we have multi -millionaires who are devout atheists in this country, and they do many magnanimous works.

They give money, you know, to what we would consider to be good causes, to feed the hungry, to do things like that.

So when we talk about in bondage to sin and the will, they can't do anything good to accompany salvation, not saying that they can't do anything good at all.

It's just that nothing that they do will prepare them or aid them in being saved.

That's the big difference, all right? Does everybody follow that? Because that's an important distinction, and I'm glad you brought that up, all right?

So he's dead in sin and unable to save himself. Now, paragraph four, we're going to look at the will in the state of grace.

This is post -salvation, all right? When God converts a sinner and translates him into the state of grace, he frees him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables him freely to do to will and to do that which is spiritually good, 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.

Okay. Notice, the ability to choose to do spiritual good is regained.

In other words, when you repent of your sin, you're born again, okay? You now have the ability to do good works that are considered good by God.

In fact, if you go to Ephesians 2, 8 through 10, you will understand that not only can you, but that's why you were saved.

You were created for good works. Everybody quotes Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, and they forget

Ephesians 2, 10, and that is where God has prepared beforehand works that we should walk in them.

All right? So that is what is regained when someone is saved, and so you can see it enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good.

In other words, you again have liberty. All right? Why is that important, and why would

I emphasize that over again? Because you're responsible.

This puts the responsibility back on you. You now have the ability to choose to do what is right, to choose to do what is good.

All right? In fact, let me say this. What this really means is that in any given circumstances where you are given a choice, whether to sin or not to sin, you have the absolute ability to choose not to sin.

Now, don't take that too far, because in this state, this side of glory, you will never choose to do right 100 percent, and that's what the second half is all about.

No perfection. Sin is still a reality. All right? Yet so 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.

Okay? You follow that? So even though you have the ability, because of the remaining corruption that's within us, because we're not perfected in the state of grace, you will never choose or will to do what is right 100 percent of the time.

Anybody want to argue that? Yes. Yeah. That's the struggle, and that's the struggle that we're going to have until glorification.

Exactly. Sure. Sure. Right. I think that given the same set of circumstances, a person could either go left or right.

We believe in something called conditional ability, meaning that given those set of circumstances, this is the choice that you're going to make.

It's still your choice. But given that, you will make this choice. Sure. You know, if the circumstances were such that certain things happened, that if I didn't pull the trigger, you would lose it.

No. And not only that, your decisions are important, and you're responsible for them. And that's what this whole chapter is really about.

So we see that. Then we go to the fifth paragraph. That's the first time.

I thought I was going to get away with it. Free will in a state of glory. The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone in the state of glory only.

Aren't you looking? Can you imagine that? That all you can do, whenever you're given a choice to do good or evil, you will always choose to do good.

And because that's what you want to do. It's not like you're going to struggle.

Oh, I have to do it. No, it's oh, no, that's what's right. That's what I want to do. But that is only in the state of glory.

Now, I just wanted to go through this to give you a little Latin. My classical roots are coming out here.

This is a little chart that the theologians use to show the four states of man.

In a state of innocency, it's called the passe peccare. All right,

Latin students, passe peccare. What does that mean? What was that?

Passe peccare. Yes, the ability to sin. It said right up there. It wasn't a trick question.

In other words, in the state of innocency, even though they were perfect, they were created where they had the possibility to sin.

Okay? Paragraph three talks about sin, the state of man, his will and sin.

And what happens after he fell, this is his state, non passe non peccare, no ability not to sin.

In other words, a sinful man is going to sin. He has to sin because that's his nature. That's why they put it that way.

Now, there's actually another side to this. You can actually go to no ability not to sin.

State of grace, passe non peccare. You have the ability not to sin.

It doesn't mean that you don't have the ability not to sin because you are still going to sin, but now you have the ability not to sin.

That's the benefit that you have. And then in glory, non passe peccare, no ability to sin.

Now, again, this was a simplified version. There's a whole second part of that that you can put up there.

We can talk about libertas, when that came in, when you lost it, but I thought this was at least a little interesting.