Is God Sovereign over My Free Will?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast

00:00:07.560 | and we begin the week with a question from Tyson.

00:00:09.920 | Hello Pastor John, we met a couple of months back

00:00:12.920 | at a conference in Dallas, very happy to have met you.

00:00:15.960 | My question, we know that God is sovereign.

00:00:18.900 | How does God use his sovereignty for the greater good

00:00:21.840 | when our free will is in place?

00:00:23.880 | In other words, will God use his sovereignty

00:00:26.560 | to overwrite our free will at times

00:00:28.840 | to exemplify his perfect will?

00:00:31.320 | And if so, how do we truly have free will?

00:00:34.480 | Pastor John, how would you explain this to Tyson?

00:00:37.600 | - I'm not sure what Tyson means by free will.

00:00:41.960 | And so I may not be able to answer the question

00:00:46.760 | if he means something by free will that I don't believe in.

00:00:50.680 | So let's try out a definition

00:00:53.680 | and let the scripture shed light on this problem.

00:00:57.040 | I think Tyson will get the answer he's after

00:01:00.640 | at least the best I can give it.

00:01:03.320 | The technical definition of free will

00:01:06.520 | that creates the controversies with those like me

00:01:11.280 | who believe in the sovereignty of God over the human will,

00:01:15.320 | not just a general statement about the sovereignty of God,

00:01:18.320 | but God's sovereignty over the human will,

00:01:22.920 | that definition is this.

00:01:25.280 | Man's will is free

00:01:28.040 | if he has the power of ultimate self-determination.

00:01:33.880 | And what I mean by ultimate self-determination

00:01:36.320 | is that no power outside of man himself

00:01:41.240 | has ultimate or decisive control over what a man chooses,

00:01:47.120 | at least not when he's acting as a moral agent

00:01:51.720 | who must give an account to God.

00:01:53.840 | Neither other people, nor influences, nor God himself

00:01:58.840 | has decisive control over a person's choices.

00:02:04.600 | God and man and nature may have some influence,

00:02:09.880 | but this influence cannot be decisive.

00:02:14.240 | They may have a kind of causality,

00:02:17.400 | but not ultimate causality or decisive causality.

00:02:21.040 | Otherwise, the man would not be free on this definition

00:02:25.160 | that I'm unfolding.

00:02:27.080 | So Wesleyans and Arminians are insistent

00:02:32.080 | that for a person to believe on Christ and be saved,

00:02:37.200 | divine influence is indeed necessary.

00:02:41.160 | They call it prevenient grace,

00:02:44.080 | grace that has come before our faith

00:02:46.840 | and thus influences us toward Christ.

00:02:51.840 | But this influence on the Wesleyan and Arminian understanding,

00:02:57.360 | this influence cannot be decisive.

00:03:02.760 | The final and decisive and ultimate cause

00:03:06.000 | of our believing Christ is not the Holy Spirit.

00:03:09.360 | It is not divine grace.

00:03:11.680 | It is our own input.

00:03:15.200 | God may get the process of conversion started,

00:03:19.880 | but the decisive influence is provided by ourselves.

00:03:24.720 | This is what is meant by free will on this definition.

00:03:29.280 | It is ultimate or decisive self-determination.

00:03:33.160 | Now, if that's what Tyson means in his question,

00:03:37.900 | I can't answer his question

00:03:39.800 | because I don't think such a thing exists

00:03:43.640 | anywhere in the universe except in the will of God.

00:03:48.640 | Only God has free will

00:03:50.920 | in the sense of ultimate self-determination.

00:03:55.920 | And here are a few of the reasons why I think that,

00:03:59.080 | 'cause I don't know whether Tyson agrees with that or not.

00:04:04.080 | Jesus talked about why Judas did not believe on him.

00:04:08.440 | John 6, 64, it says,

00:04:12.040 | "Jesus knew from the beginning

00:04:14.560 | "who those were who did not believe

00:04:17.320 | "and who it was who would betray him.

00:04:20.120 | "And he said, 'This is why I told you

00:04:23.360 | "'that no one can come to me

00:04:26.280 | "'unless it is granted him by the Father.'"

00:04:30.920 | In other words, no one can come to Jesus.

00:04:34.220 | That is, no one can believe unless God grants him the faith.

00:04:39.160 | Judas did not come to Jesus decisively, fully, savingly

00:04:44.160 | because it was not granted to him, Jesus says, by the Father.

00:04:49.360 | And Jesus takes the truth and generalizes it to all of us

00:04:55.000 | and says in this very verse,

00:04:57.160 | "No one," not just Judas, "No one can come to me

00:05:02.160 | "unless it is granted,

00:05:04.680 | "unless the decisive coming is granted by the Father."

00:05:09.680 | No one has the power of ultimate self-determination

00:05:12.820 | to get themselves to God.

00:05:14.780 | God gives or withholds the power to come.

00:05:19.680 | Nudges to come will not save anybody.

00:05:24.680 | What is given by God is the coming.

00:05:28.620 | Another reason I don't think ultimate self-determination

00:05:33.340 | exists in human beings is 2 Timothy 2:24,

00:05:37.260 | where Paul says, "The Lord's servant should correct

00:05:41.320 | "his opponents with gentleness.

00:05:43.280 | "God may perhaps grant that they will repent

00:05:48.280 | "and come to know the truth."

00:05:53.080 | So repentance is the flip side of the coin of faith

00:05:56.200 | with faith on the other side of the coin

00:05:57.720 | and faith embraces Christ.

00:06:00.080 | Repentance turns from embracing others.

00:06:02.680 | False reliance is so the gift of repentance

00:06:05.920 | is the gift of the coin.

00:06:07.900 | It's the gift of rejecting self-reliance

00:06:11.940 | and embracing Christ.

00:06:13.980 | It is the gift of salvation.

00:06:15.740 | And without the gift of God to cause us to repent

00:06:20.740 | and believe, none of us would be saved.

00:06:25.780 | Another reason is that John says in John 5, 1,

00:06:30.900 | 1 John 5, 1, the epistle, "Everyone who believes

00:06:35.900 | "that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God."

00:06:40.900 | Self-willed faith does not bring about the new birth,

00:06:46.060 | just the opposite.

00:06:47.020 | The new birth brings about faith.

00:06:49.560 | Faith is therefore not the result of human self-determination

00:06:54.180 | but of new birth.

00:06:56.020 | One more reason among many, many more.

00:06:59.680 | Proverbs 21, 1, "The king's heart is a stream of water

00:07:04.680 | "in the hand of the Lord.

00:07:06.220 | "He turns it wherever he will."

00:07:08.700 | No king anywhere on earth has the power

00:07:11.500 | of ultimate self-determination.

00:07:14.200 | So I don't think such a thing exists except in God.

00:07:18.980 | God is ultimately self-determining

00:07:21.780 | but man is not ultimately and decisively self-determining.

00:07:26.140 | Nevertheless, and I think this gets at what Tyson

00:07:29.720 | is asking about, nevertheless, we are responsible,

00:07:34.300 | accountable for our preferences and our choices.

00:07:38.420 | If God is sovereign over the human will,

00:07:41.640 | are we responsible?

00:07:42.900 | Yes, we are, and the Bible says so over and over again.

00:07:47.900 | Our choices are our choices.

00:07:51.640 | They are true choices.

00:07:53.540 | We have a will.

00:07:54.580 | Our will is active.

00:07:56.020 | We are genuine moral agents.

00:07:58.500 | We will, as Jesus says, give an account

00:08:01.260 | for every careless word, Matthew 12, 36.

00:08:04.600 | Indeed, all of our preferences and choices and behavior,

00:08:08.860 | according to Romans 14, 12, we'll give an account of.

00:08:12.060 | Each of us will give an account of himself to God.

00:08:16.420 | Human beings do not have ultimate self-determination

00:08:20.540 | and we will all give an account to God

00:08:24.340 | for our preferences and our choices.

00:08:26.660 | So instead of speaking of the will as free or not,

00:08:31.200 | I prefer to speak of people as free or not

00:08:34.300 | because that's the way the Bible does.

00:08:36.420 | For freedom, Christ has set us free.

00:08:38.900 | Paul says in Galatians 5, 1, Christians are free

00:08:42.340 | from the bondage to sin and from the oppressive demand

00:08:47.180 | of having to perform our own salvation.

00:08:50.180 | Maybe the best way to end would be

00:08:51.940 | to quote this great liberation from Romans 6, 17.

00:08:56.620 | Thanks be to God, that's so important,

00:09:00.620 | and that's the way we should live as believers,

00:09:02.620 | with a heart brimming like this.

00:09:04.060 | Thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin

00:09:09.060 | have become obedient from the heart

00:09:13.900 | to the standard of teaching to which you were committed

00:09:16.220 | and having been set free from sin,

00:09:19.940 | have become slaves of righteousness.

00:09:24.940 | Such a great liberation text to close with

00:09:28.500 | and those are all really key texts.

00:09:30.780 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:09:32.220 | Actually, you might wanna jot these down

00:09:33.740 | and study the passages later by yourself.

00:09:35.860 | It would be worth the time.

00:09:37.680 | The texts mentioned in this podcast, again,

00:09:39.900 | included John chapter six, verses 64 and 65,

00:09:44.700 | 2 Timothy 2, verses 24 and 25,

00:09:48.140 | 1 John 5, 1, Proverbs 21, 1, Matthew 12, 36,

00:09:53.140 | Romans 14, 12, Galatians 5, 1,

00:09:57.260 | and finally Romans chapter six, verses 17 and 18.

00:10:01.860 | Such important texts to read and study.

00:10:05.700 | For more information about this podcast

00:10:07.940 | or to search our archive of questions

00:10:10.460 | or to send us a concise question of your own,

00:10:12.580 | go to our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:10:18.580 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:10:20.140 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast

00:10:22.420 | with John Piper.

00:10:23.660 | We'll see you tomorrow.

00:10:24.820 | (upbeat music)

00:10:27.400 | (upbeat music)

00:10:29.980 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Is God Sovereign over My Free Will?

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