But its not that the sinner comes kicking and screaming and protesting and trying to resist because when the summons comes, the sinner is made willing. In fact, it is the passion of his heart. When the gospel comes the sinner is so eager to respond. As lost sinners, people have the freedom of the will. Thats right. Their will is...look at them, look at the sinners. They operate freely. And what do they do? They choose to sin. They just kind of pick and choose which ones. The lost sinner has the freedom of the will. In salvation we also have the freedom of the will but instead of choosing sin we choose Christ and the difference is because we have been summoned with a divine call. Jonathan Edwards said, What we choose is not really determined by the will as if it existed independently. What we choose...said Edwards...is really determined by the mind and what it is that the mind thinks is best...and by the way, the mind is not neutral and the mind is not objective, the mind is corrupt. So what the mind thinks is best is what we choose. We are free to choose what our mind thinks is best and apart from God and apart from Christ, our mind is corrupt and it thinks that sin is best. Edwards says, When confronted with God, the mind of the sinner never thinks that following or obeying God is a good choice. The sinners will is never to choose God, nothing is stopping him but his mind doesnt regard submission to God and the gospel as desirable so that unless God changes the way we think, our mind will always tell us to rebel against God and the gospel. Which is precisely what we do. The sinner will resist until the kind of grace comes out of heaven, a heavenly call. John MacArthur
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 14:34:32 +0000