My father told me, “Son, nothing is
free, not really.”
That basically summarizes the church’s doctrine on free will. Your
will is not free. Not really.
The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by
his own natural strength and works, to faith, and calling upon God; wherefore
we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the
grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working
with us, when we have that good will.
Let’s break that down.
There’s a scene in the movie “The Hunt for Red October” where a
submarine commander fires on another sub, but his torpedo turns and hits his
own boat. As the torpedo is about to
make impact, one of the sailors turns to the captain and screams, “You arrogant
____, you’ve killed US!”
That sailor wanted to win that underwater battle, but his desires, his
will didn’t do any good.
His end was decided by his captain’s
decisions.
That’s what Adam (and Eve) did to us. Adam, that arrogant _____, killed us and
nullified our ability to do ourselves any good, to do any good ourselves.
In Genesis 2:16, 17, God told Adam that the day----the
DAY!---- he ate from the forbidden tree, he would die. But, Adam didn’t drop dead the day that he
ate from the forbidden tree.
So, either (1) God lied;
(2) the entire story is made up and the author had enough creativity to
make up the story but didn’t have enough sense to reconcile his own
inconsistencies; or (3) THERE’S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO DIE.
Paul called Christians, you [whom] He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2: 11)
In Matthew 8:22, Jesus told a potential disciple: Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own
dead. Paul and Jesus knew that there’s
more than one kind of dead.
When Adam sinned he died spiritually, and passed that death
to all his descendants.
He spiritually killed US.
For as in Adam all
die… (1 Corinthians 15: 22)
The condition of every human being ever born is naturally a
state of spiritual deadness.
[man] cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural
strength and works, to faith, and calling upon God
The common human death in Adam isn’t just the biological
entropy that leads inevitably to organ failure and the cessation of brain
activity. The Adam death in all of us
means that no matter how much we want to be “good people” we cannot turn our
own souls out of the path of sin.
We know the torpedo is headed right at us, but we can’t change
course enough to avoid it, for two reasons:
(1) We are spiritually dead in the water. We don’t have the spiritual power to force
our flesh out of our way;
(2) Even if we had the energy, we’re not steering the boat. Our sin addiction (original sin) is running
the show.
It’s like what God told Cain when Cain was wrestling with
his anger: sin lies at the door, and its
desire is to have you, but you
should rule over it.” (Genesis 4: 7)
Sin was captain of Cain’s ship. Article 8 teaches that sin is captain of all
our ships. As long as we live, act, and
think in the ways that come naturally, sin will always turn our lives into the
path of oncoming sin.
The natural man does not receive the
things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. (1 Corinthians 2: 14)
We can’t turn out lives away from sin. We can’t even turn our lives toward God.
In our natural state of spiritual deadness, sin rules our
lives so thoroughly that left on our own without any Divine intervention, none
of us would ever come to saving faith in Jesus.
The mind governed by
the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do
so. (Romans 8:7)
The doctrine teaches that when you give
your life to Christ it is isn’t because you unilaterally decided, “O.K. I’m done with sin. I wanna be right now.” The desire to seek God only happens because has
God reached into your life and called you to that decision.
Jesus told His disciples You did not choose Me, but I chose you (John
15:16).
we have no power to do good works,
pleasant and acceptable to God
One day, a man walked up to Jesus and
called Him “Good Master.” Jesus replied:
Why
do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. (Mark 10:17, 18)
When Jesus said that God alone is good,
He was using good as a noun, not an adjective.
Like when an old West sheriff would say, “I am the law.”
Jesus wanted His questioner to
understand that God is goodness itself. Therefore,
“good” is what God says it is.
In this life you and I can do things
that are “good” in the eyes of other people.
We can act, speak, and think in ways that society, the media, the
government, and the international court of human rights would describe as “good.”
But that doesn’t make it good----- to
God.
Which is why without faith it is impossible to please Him. (Hebrews 11:6)
Our actions can only be spiritually and
eternally “good” when we do our good works in the context of a spiritually
life-giving relationship with God.
By the way, that’s also why faith without works is dead. (James 2:
17-26)
without the grace of God by Christ preventing us
Saving faith results from an act of
God, the intrusion of God’s grace breaking the death-grip sin has on our lives. The formal language in the Articles of
Religion is “ the grace of God preventing us.”
Because salvation begins with God not
us, the conditions of genuine saving faith are set by God not by individual
Christians. And God always chooses
people so that they can be fruitful in works that He considers good.
You did not choose Me, but I chose you
And why did Jesus choose them? Keep reading.
….I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear
fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in
My name He may give you.
Jesus hates unfruitfulness. Hypocrisy and unfruitfulness. Those two things pissed Jesus off more than
anything else. Go back and read His
parables. Unfruitfulness irritated Jesus
so much that He once cursed a fig tree for not producing figs, and it wasn’t
even fig season. (Mark 11: 11-20)
When God gives faith it always produces
the fruit of good works. If your faith
isn’t producing good works, then you might wanna check the tag on your faith
and see where it came from.
The saving grace of God prevents/ delivers us from the
unfruitfulness of spiritual death in Adam and quicken us (gives us new life) in
Christ so that we are transformed into good-works-doing, fruitful believers.
(the grace of God by Christ preventing us) that we may have
a good will
When we are living naturally we feel
like we’re in control, like we are free to choose. But nothing’s really free about it, not
really.
Without God’s intervening grace you and
I are stuck in our little boats of flesh underneath the waves of life and going
wherever Captain Sin tells ua. Not only
do we do what sin orders us to do, but we want what sin orders us to want.
Our bodies and mind are enslaved to
sin.
The grace of God by Jesus Christ
intervenes so that our bodies and minds are no longer conscripted into the
service of sin.
Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that
the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of
sin.
(Romans 6: 6)
God frees our will to do His will.
It is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13)
(the grace of God by Christ ) working with us, when we have
that good will
Surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus
Christ gives us the spiritual life we didn’t know we never had and begins a
process of spiritual transformation by which we shake off the sin-slave
mentality and begin to live like who we were made to be, like who Adam was
originally made to be.
Free.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made
me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2)
Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free
indeed. ((John 8:36)
---Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer
and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor
of Miles Chapel CME Church
in Fairfield, Alabama; executive
director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO); and
director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human
Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
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P O Box 132
Fairfield, Al 35064
