Thursday, December 08, 2005
Free Will -- The Key Is Transformation
John Samson has an interesting piece at Reformation Theology on free will. Early in the piece he says:
I am continually struck by how much bigger God is than even our ability to pose questions about Him. In the end, that may be why I am a calvinist. Any systematic school of thought about God will contain mysteries, but only calvinism incorporates that fact and makes a miracle of it. God's incomprehensibility is in a very real sense the point.
Though man is commanded to seek the Lord while He may be found, and to come to Christ, we watch in vain for man to do so. Romans 3:11 literally reads, "There is no God seeker." John 6:44 says, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day." Literally, the verse says, "no one is able."Towards the end he says:
Just like man is not able to fly to the moon unaided, the clear words of Christ here show that man is not able to come to Christ without Divine intervention.
The beauty of the gospel, however, is that, at the same time, the Spirit's work is to make His elect willing to come. He changes the disposition of rebel human hearts, taking out a heart of stone, and putting in a heart of flesh so that we willingly come.Don't you love that! Now that's a miracle. Have you ever thought about that? The real miracle that the Holy Spirit performs in our lives is not tongues, or healing, or prophecy -- it's the complete transformation of our being. We are changed from God rejectors to God lovers.
I am continually struck by how much bigger God is than even our ability to pose questions about Him. In the end, that may be why I am a calvinist. Any systematic school of thought about God will contain mysteries, but only calvinism incorporates that fact and makes a miracle of it. God's incomprehensibility is in a very real sense the point.
