Free Will vs He Will

"I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy." (Exodus 33:19b)

God's sovereign prerogative to dispense mercy based solely on HIS WILL is highly offensive to most evangelicals. Salvation is determined by "HE WILL" not "FREE WILL." (Romans 9:18) Evangelicals who disagree with this statement are not, of necessity, outside the saving plan of God. But they do possess an overly optimistic view of their own "free will" prior to God's regenerating grace that the bible will not support and they stand in need of instruction. That's because:

• The Unregenerate Have No Thought of God: "The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts." (Psalm 10:4) If they have no thought of God and will not seek God, how can they make a free-will choice to follow Christ?

• The Unregenerate Have No Faith: "And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith." (II Thessalonians 3:2) If they have no faith, how do they believe?

• The Bible Excludes Human Will From Eternal Salvation: "So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." (Romans 9:16)

No, eternal salvation is not the result of anyone's free will, but if any man be willing, if any seek God, if any believe, if any love the Lord Jesus Christ... "We love him because he first loved us." (I John 4:19). It follows that your faith, love, and will in the matter are all ex post facto evidences of the grace of God extended to you while you were "ungodly" and "without strength" (Romans 5:6). Indeed, faith is "the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1) and one of those "things" is the regenerating grace that was extended to you in love by God alone BEFORE you ever had any sincere spiritual sentiment whatsoever.

THAT is a blessed truth - provided you will enter into it.

- Elder Daniel Samons