In the study of mans will, the question is usually asked like this: How can a person be a free and responsible agent if his actions have been foreordained from all eternity? This is a logical question indeed.
To put the question another way, How can an action be known to God before it takes place and yet be freely performed by a free, moral agent?
The 121 Westminster divines were aware of this question and they addressed it with candor when they drafted their Confession. They said, God has freely and unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass. That is divine sovereignty. They immediately added, "Yet so as to thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offended to the will of the creature, nor is the liberty of contingency of the second cause taken away, but rather, established,"
Sometimes the question comes in this form: Is not God unjust to require what men do not have the ability to perform? I answer:
- Yes, God is unjust, unless He first gave the ability to perform what He requires.
- Yes, God is unjust, unless man, by his own will, brought this inability upon himself.
- Yes, God is unjust in requiring that which man cannot perform, unless such a requirement which is impossible to meet is designed to lead him to acknowledge and deplore his inability.
This is the real problem with the multitude of efforts by those who come running on the scene of human turmoil with this sentimental pity for man in his present condition. They immediately begin to charge God with being unjust.
When we see sickness, death, war, pain, murder, rape, robbery, and lawlessness we ask, How did this come about? The answer is: Sin! Sin! Sin! Mans sin! How did the prodigal son come to feeding pigs? By living in sin!
If I believed that God made man like he is, and then condemned him for what he is, I would curse God and diesuch a God would be a monster. But instead, Truly, this only I have found: that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes (Eccl. 7:29; emphasis mine).
Who but God can fully comprehend how an action that was known of God before it was done can be freely performed by man? However, our inability to understand how something should actually come to be is not sufficient ground for affirming that it cannot be.
It should not surprise us or discourage us that there is divine foreknowledge of all human actions on the one hand
and free agency on the other hand.
We have a similar problem with Gods commanding men to do what they do not have the will or ability to do since they must act in accordance with their nature. For example, when God commanded Lazarus to come forth from the grave, he was dead and did not have the ability to obey or respond to our Lords commandunless God did
something for him.
Another example is the poor man in the gospels who had been powerless for thirty-eight years and had no native ability to obey our Lords command to take up your bed and walk. The power came from the one who gave the command.
We are considering in this chapter these two truths: (1) Man is a free agent and is responsible for his actions; (2) Mans actions are foreknown by an omniscient God. Both of these truths are clearly set out in the Holy Scripture many times in the same verse. For example, in Acts 2:23 we read, Him [Christ], being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death (emphasis mine).
This verse clearly teaches that the crucifixion of our Lord was planned, predicted, and determined before it happened and all the devils in hell or men on earth could not keep Jesus from the crossit was determined by a sovereign God. Yet at the same time, wicked menacting freelywere charged with this wicked act.
In Acts 4:2430, God puts these two truths side by side without apology or explanation. Here this apparent contradiction and seeming conflict is expressed in a prayer.
So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them, who by the mouth of Your servant David have said: Why did the nations rage, and the people plot vain things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the LORD and against His Christ. For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.
In the first truth we see that Cod is one hundred percent sovereign in planning and determining. At the same time the verse teaches that wicked men are one hundred percent responsible for their wicked deeds.
If we examine these two truths separately, we will conclude that from Genesis to Revelation the Bible teaches that the God of the Bible is one hundred percent sovereignsovereign in creation, sovereign in redemption, and sovereign in providenceand that from Genesis to Revelation the Bible teaches that man is one hundred percent responsible for his sin. Therefore, we have no alternative but to believe both are true, even though with our finite minds we cannot reconcile them or harmonize them.
When Charles Haddon Spurgeon was asked to reconcile these truthsGods sovereignty and mans responsibility he said, I never try to reconcile friendsthey are both in the Bible
Do you go to a church? Does this church have Pastors, Elders, Deacons? If you do, then you sit under their peaching and teaching. Are they liars because they are men?
Luv ya!
