I find it ironic that so many people say that man has a "free will" and yet in the next breath will say that life is unpredictable. It is only in the last hundred years in America that this idea of "man's free will" has become the dominant postulate in our thinking. This idea has stemmed from this axiom we were all taught as children: "You can be anything you want to be". The pride of men loves to view ourselves as much more than we really are and thereby to think that we are in control of our own destiny. However the Lord Jesus would see it differently as he would proclaim that whosoever sins is the slave of sin and men are defiled not by what enters the man, but because we are already inwardly corrupt and corrupt to the worst degree! The idea that man has a free will can be debunked simply by defining those three words; free, will and man. First the word "free" means to not be under the control of another and yet all through the New Testement we are told that we are all either under the control of the devil (Eph 2:2-3, 1John 5:19, John 8:34,44, Matt. 6:24) or we are under the control of the Holy Spirit. Secondly the human will is simply the combination of the mind and emotions. A man cannot choose outside of what he understands and desires and the Scripture clearly teaches that we, by nature, are currupted in both what we think and what we desire and therefore we cannot choose salvation unless God does something first in giving us the ability to choose. The will is in bondage to the nature. I can choose to jump to the roof of a thirty foot tall building all day long, but that does not give me the ability to do so because I can only choose what I have the ability to do And if my mind and emotions are corrupt then I cannot know or understand God and I certainly cannot love God. Yes, men can choose to "believe in jesus" but not the Jesus of the Bible unless we are first worked on by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. And that brings us to the third word which is "man" in which I have already proven that man is 100 percent corrupt and hates God and will never do anything to please the God he is at enmity with. Does this mean that the Bible teaches fatalism or determinism? Absolutely not, the Bible teaches that men are responsible for their sin and they are sinning against their conscience and are therefore culpable. This may be a contradiction in our minds but it is certainly not in God's mind. I know this, that all men deserve hell because of our rebellion against God and therefore if God chooses to save some that is His prerogative and it is by His Sovereign Grace to the praise and the Glory of His name!
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