----------------------------------- Spartan Fri May 27, 2005 3:52 pm Re: is their really such a thing as freewill? ----------------------------------- Spartan, you seem to come from the same angle as found in this particular sermon... FREE WILL--POLYTHEISTIC Preached By W. E. Best At Kingwood Assembly of Christ On Sunday September 23, 2001 . Free will embraces polytheism. Polytheism is a term used to describe many gods. There are as many gods today as persons who say they believe that man has a free will. Free will tears the reigns of government out of the hands of God and robs Him of His power?that is, as far as religionists are concerned. The subject of enslavement will set the stage for the subject of free will. In the Old Testament, Israel had a flourishing time in Egypt. God, who had chosen her as a nation (Deut. 7), knew that the best way to bring her to the end of herself was to raise up Pharaoh who did not know the true and living God. Egypt thus became the ?smoking furnace? of Abraham?s vision (Gen. 15). The life of God begins in an individual when God gives the ability to feel death and causes light to shine on chaos. This is what happens when God regenerates one of His elect. Light shined on chaos in Genesis 1:2-3. The light of God shines on the chaos of God?s chosen ones when He regenerates them. God?s purpose was to bring in the Redeemer for Israel and to give Him as the object of faith and affection. Christ is the object of God-given faith in regeneration. The one who has been given this faith latches on to Christ and believes that Jesus Christ is the only Savior. The Buddhist and the Islamic people do not have a Savior. Only Jesus Christ can make the claim of being Savior. He is THE Savior, not one of many saviors. ??For there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved? (Acts 4:12 NASB). He is the only way to the Father. What are we to understand by the terms ?slavery? and ?freedom?? Man?s enslavement does not mean impotence in the face of omnipotence, but rather sin, guilt, rebellion, and alienation. Man?s sin is not a manifestation of his freedom, but his slavery. The spiritual witness to freedom is limited to man?s relation to God. Our Lord contrasts freedom with slavery in Romans 6 and Titus 3. The freedom of the believer is a freedom from the law of sin and death. However, he is not without law. He is under the law of the Spirit of Christ (Gal. 3; Rom. 8). The Christian is free from something lesser to something greater (Gal. 5:22-23). The condition of the unregenerate person is always characterized by bondage, slavery, and subjection to sin. Every unsaved person is a slave to sin. He is in bondage and in subjection to his master who is not Jehovah God. He is not only subject to the law but also to its curse. Jesus Christ entered into the prison house of death as Redeemer and transferred the curse to the cross. Death has only one sting according to I Corinthians 15:55. True liberty is found by being in bondage to Jesus Christ who is the liberator. The liberty of saints is both negative and positive. It consists in being redeemed from something to something?from the domination of Satan to the domination of Jesus Christ. Christians are bondslaves of Jesus Christ. The New Testament does not evade the use of the word doulos?the word for ?slave??to characterize either slaves to sin or slaves to Christ. True liberty is limited to man?s relationship to God through Christ by the Holy Spirit. That is the Divine Trinity. To deny this Trinity is to deny salvation as presented in Scriptures. ?For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord?s freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ?s slave? (I Cor. 7:22 NASB). The Christian counts it a privilege to be a slave of Jesus Christ. Freedom becomes actualized in submission to Christ. The fact that the believer is not his own does not cast a shadow over his freedom. It is the evidence of a joyful reality (I Cor. 6:20; Rom. 14:8; Gal. 2:20). The delivered Israelites in the wilderness were a nation of slaves despite their freedom from Egypt. Joseph, Daniel, Peter, and Paul were as free in prisons and dungeons as they were out of physical confinements. A puritan said, ?Stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a cage.? Pharaoh was in bondage to sin even as he sat on the throne. Most politicians and leaders today are in bondage while sitting on a ?throne.? Every person is either a slave of Satan or a slave of Christ. Freedom does not compete with or limit the acts of God as if the more powerfully God?s acts affect lives the more narrow freedom becomes. The New Testament depicts it in the opposite way. ?It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery? (Gal. 5:1 NASB). The more communion with God that fills the life of the Christian, the more free his life becomes. The very opposite of this is true for the unsaved. False leaders are ?promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved? (II Peter 2:19 NASB). God?s command is a command of life. This does not leave man to choose between two ways, but shows him the way of freedom and obedience. The command of life cannot be used to support the concept of the natural man?s freedom, namely, the freedom to choose evil. Spiritual freedom is not the product of human craving and human action. It is a condition brought about by a Divine work of grace. It is unique and unsolicited by unregenerate persons, but gratuitously given to the elect by the Sovereign God. ?What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION. So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH. So then He 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?? (Rom. 9:14-19 NASB). Men insist that it is unjust and tyrannical in God to control the will of man. These same natural-minded persons see nothing unjust, proud, or satanic in attempting to fetter out and direct the will of God. It seems that the natural man cannot have his own foolish will gratified unless the all-wise God will consent to relinquish His will. God?s will, not man?s will, is the law of the universe. If there is no supreme, pre-determining Jehovah, the universe will soon be chaos. If there is no free-electing love, every minister may close his lips and every sinner sit down in mute despair. If free will means that the absolute determination of events is placed in the hands of man, man has become like God in the sense that he is the original spring of action, a first cause. Anyone who does not believe that God does what He does without man?s will, does not have the right concept of God. This would indicate there are as many gods as there are free wills. Every Arminian is a god to himself. He believes that God could not do anything for him until he let Him. That is not error. It is blasphemy. The following seven points reveal the error of Arminianism: 1. Arminians are polytheistic in their concept of first cause. They embrace what Satan told Eve in the Garden of Eden, to eat the fruit and she would be like God (Gen. 3:5). The following quotes by Billy Graham illustrate the polytheistic idea of first cause: ?Unfortunately, God has no power over the will of man. That is to say, he cannot save a person against his will, but at the same time He is not willing that any should perish. He has made it possible for all men to be saved, but the Bible indicates that salvation depends upon man?s willingness to be saved. It would be a kind of tyranny if God saved people against their will? (quoted by the STANDARD BEARER, Grand Rapids, Mich., Nov. 1966). ?Because of man?s free will it is obvious by the very definition of things that man can deny the will of God and frustrate His benevolent plans? (Dec. 1974). This idea makes man bigger than God. Free will religion appeals to the pride of the depraved human nature. Apart from grace, man will not consent to be nothing in order that Jehovah God might be everything. Christians realize that they are nothing, and are willing to be nothing in order for Him to be everything. The concept that God cannot do anything for man until man is willing to let Him makes Jehovah God less than man. According to Arminianism, this makes God cooperate with man and makes man greater than God. This is blasphemy. At no place in sacred Scripture can one find any reference to the limitation of God?s will. God?s will of purpose is accomplished without any defeat?? who works all things after the counsel of His will? (Eph. 1:11 NASB). ?In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures? (James 1:18 NASB). ?Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God? (John 1:13 NASB). Distinction must be made between God?s will of purpose and His will of command. This does not mean that God has two wills. There are two aspects of God?s will?secret and revealed (Deut. 29:29). 2. Arminians teach that man must first ascend to God before God descends to him. Man, however, cannot come to Christ unless he is drawn by the Father: ?No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day? (John 6:44 NASB). (Read John 6; 10; 17.) Did the Israelites first come to Jehovah, or did Jehovah choose the Israelites and go to them? The order of the vessels in the tabernacle and the offerings of the Old Testament teach that God first descends to man. The same order prevails throughout the Scriptures. 3. Arminians believe that man?s will precedes God?s will. Since God?s will is eternal, how can man?s will precede it? God?s will planned, provided, and applies salvation. God?s applying is opposed by the self-will of blind Arminians. Self-will is the essence of anti-christian religions. 4. Arminians advocate that free will belongs as much to man as it does to God. However, free will cannot be applied to anyone but to the Sovereign God. Free will is a Divine term. It means that there is no law to restrain or power to overcome. Since God is His own law, there is no law above God to restrain Him. Therefore, God is absolutely free. If God acted by any standard other than His own, He would be acting according to His creatures? standard. Religious standards are all human. Once a person grants that the Creator is subordinated to the creature, he has joined forces with the vain, conceited philosophies of this world. Since depraved men live downward, they believe God lives downward because they think He is like them: ?These things you have done, and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you, and state the case in order before your eyes? (Psalm 50:21 NASB). The sovereign God neither creates nor lives for His creatures. Since God lived for Himself before He created, His immutability proves that He lives for Himself now because God cannot live for any object less than Himself. ?For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen? (Rom. 11:36). ?The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, Even the wicked for the day of evil? (Prov. 16:4). God did not create for the sake of the creatures, but for His own glory. God?s creatures must exist for their Creator and not the reverse. 5. Arminians deny depravity which indicates that the will of the sinner, apart from grace, can make a spiritual choice that has within itself the power to turn from evil. No person in himself has the power to turn from evil and by such please God. Read John 5:40, Romans 3:11, II Peter 2:14, and John 6:44. Depraved will is against Christ??He who is not with Me is against Me? (Matt. 12:30 NASB). Either Christ or Satan dominates man. If saved, Christ dominates; if not saved, Satan dominates. 6. The Arminian view of free will denies the Biblical doctrine of Divine election. Let so-called free will do all it can. It cannot avoid sin and hardening if God withholds the Spirit of regeneration. If the so-called free will is the same in all men, why does it attain to salvation in one and not in another? Arminianism has no answer to this question. Free grace does have the answer: ??and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed? (Acts 13:48 NASB). Who makes the difference? It is God Himself (I Cor. 4:7). 7. Arminians deny the Biblical doctrine of reprobation (Rom. 9; Ex. 7-14). According to them, the Bible does not say concerning Pharaoh, ?For this purpose have I made thee? but ?for this purpose have I raised thee up.? However, ?The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, Even the wicked for the day of evil? (Prov. 16:4 NASB). God did not make sin, but He does not cease to form and multiply the nature which has been defiled by sin. God makes the wicked by forming them out of a corrupt seed and ruling over them (Psalm 51:5; Job 15:4). (Study Isaiah 45:7.) I see your point, yet I still approach in differently than you in regards to perspective...I suppose that by my own submission that we are self-determined, then I am in a sense agreeing with the that fact that we must have an intercessor to help guide us... Yet another article is saying something similiar, "Adam came into the world inclined toward God. That holy inclination was at once the Creator's product and the creature's activity. Adam did not find himself in a position to choose either the Creator or the creature as an ultimate end. He was inclined toward the Creator. His very uprightness was God-given, and did not proceed from his own ability. In fact, Adam's mutable self-determination led to his fall, and after the fall his will was enslaved to sin. While there exists a deep mystery here, God's creation of both angels and mankind as mutable creatures is part of His sovereign plan which He framed before the foundations of the universe. "He Then it summarizes with: "Man's acts of will are of two kinds: (1) Actions of the soul that are manifested in physical acts. One decides to do something and makes movement in that direction. Many follow an act of the soul when they walk the aisle, or stand before a church congregation asserting that they are following Jesus. (2) Actions of soul that occur within the soul itself. This happens when one wills to love God. It cannot be accomplished by the natural man who hates God (Romans 3:8-18; John 3:19-21). If a person's desire to know the Lord is genuinely motivated by the Spirit of God, he does not seek the Lord in vain (Matthew 7:7). He who sincerely seeks the Lord gives evidence of the inworking of God's grace; we do well to remember that God does not begin anything He cannot bring to completion. Since the fall, man by nature can do only evil. When a person is born again, however, he has the potential to do good. Although he is strongly inclined to good, he is still tempted and sometimes does evil. In a state of glory this will no longer be the case and man will be inclined only toward good." Well, through all of this, I know I am not a Arminian, since that involves absolute free will...and as I said in a previous post, only God has that... I would still say I have free will, but it is a self-determined free will. I realize that I must ask (for help from the Holy Spirit) to be taken from one state of bondage to another, that is my own determining ability or nature, I guide my actions, so that my will becomes in tune with the Will of God. I believe that our understanding of having a free will is important, but at the same time, do not think it's a term we should be using, since it places too much emphasis on the self... That's what I know, for now... :) PTL! Sounds kind of like the subject "The sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man" I can definitely see where you are coming from.