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The Battle of the Will, Part 4: John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards

AN ESSAY BY Matthew Barrett

DEFINITION

The disagreement over the will continued on into the 18th century between figures such as John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards: Wesley held, as an Arminian, that the will was granted a previenient grace that allowed it to choose to follow Christ freely; Edwards, on the other hand, argued that the desires of the heart were, at the bottom level, given to it by God or the sinful nature of man and, therefore, God was sovereign over the choices of man while allowing men to choose according to their desires, which is what human freedom is for Edwards.

SUMMARY

The disagreement over the role of the will in salvation continued on into the 18th century and can be seen clearly by juxtaposing the theology of two prominent theologians and pastors: John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards. John Wesley held, as an Arminian, that the will was granted a previenient grace that allowed it to choose to follow Christ freely. This meant that every person was able to choose to follow Christ or not freely, but it also meant that they could lose their salvation. In addition to this, Wesley believed in a level of Christian perfection that included the Christian being free from all conscious sin. Jonathan Edwards, on the other hand, as someone in the Calvinist tradition, argued that the desires of the heart were, at the bottom level, given to it by God or determined by the sinful nature of fallen humanity. This protected both God’s sovereignty, human responsibility, and the gracious nature of salvation. While man’s desires, or inclinations, are determined, humans always act freely according to their desires, so the free nature of man’s will is also protected in Edwards’s argument.

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John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards were two of the most significant Christian preachers of the eighteenth century. Their respective ministries and writings not only influenced Christians and churches across continents, but their legacy was inherited by the generations that followed. Nevertheless, while both men were committed to preaching and teaching the same gospel, their stories differ, and so do their theologies.

John Wesley

John Wesley’s (1703–91) early interest in godliness and piety can be traced back to his days at Oxford. Wesley exhibited a serious devotion, one marked by strict adherence to moral uprightness. His concern for piety was influenced by Bishop Taylor’s Rules and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying. John’s brother, Charles, started the “Holy Club” which was an opportunity to join with other young men in a resolve to be holy. They were affected deeply by William Law’s book Christian Perfection as well, which advocated self-denial and the performing of good works. Onlookers of the Holy Club laughed, calling its members “Bible Moths” or “Methodists.”

Despite such resolve for moral living, John looked back on this time and concluded that he was not truly converted to the gospel yet. Traveling to the U.S. in 1737 with plans to minister to the Chickasaw Indians as a missionary for the Society of the Preparation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, John and Charles were unexpectedly amazed by German Moravians along the way. As their ship traveled across fierce wind and sea, these Moravians had no fear but exhibited trust in God and inexplicable humility. With little success with the Chickasaw, John returned to England and encountered the Moravians once more. This time John’s attention was arrested by a man named Peter Boehler, who taught that there were two signs that one is converted. First, one is characterized by dominion over sin itself. Second, one has a certain assurance that he has been forgiven, resulting in an unusual peace.

John and Charles believed both to be lacking in their own experience and as a result were filled with anxiety. But on May 24, 1738, John attended a Moravian meeting at Aldersgate Street, London, where he heard Martin Luther’s Preface to his commentary on Romans read aloud. John’s heart was “strangely warmed.” He later said about the experience, “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation and an assurance was given to me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” The gospel of Jesus Christ opened his eyes to his dependence on God for forgiveness and eternal life. Wesley realized that external conformity may look like holiness, but it can be deceiving, not necessarily reflecting whether one has truly been born anew. John’s conversion would be fundamental for his later belief that a sinner is not justified by works of the law but by faith alone. In fact, even as early as the Sunday after his Aldersgate experience, John ascended the pulpit to preach sola fide and solus Christus.

This was but the beginning of a long and influential itinerant preaching ministry for John. But John also had administrative gifts, as seen in his ability to organize societies where men gathered to pursue holiness. Since John could not find enough pastors to lead these societies, John inaugurated a circuit system where preachers traveled long distances to oversee societies across the country. These societies were known for their emphasis on evangelism but also, and especially, holy living.

While John Wesley held to the fundamentals of Christian soteriology (the new birth, justification by faith), some of his soteriological emphases proved controversial. For example, Wesley counted himself an Arminian rather than a Calvinist. He argued for a prevenient grace, divinely given to all people and negating the effects of original sin. The will of the unregenerate man is capable, then, of either cooperating with subsequent acts of grace or resisting them, thwarting its intention and saving efforts. Whether or not one is born again depends on the will of man. God may woo the sinner, but his grace cannot be effectual or irresistible, lest man’s freedom of contrary choice be violated. So, while God’s grace is prevenient, his subsequent grace is dependent on man’s decision to believe so that man is then regenerated. In line with Arminianism, Wesley taught that election is conditional, the atonement is universal, and there is a real possibility of losing one’s salvation. Wesley’s Arminianism put him in conflict with Calvinists in his own day, such George Whitefield.

Wesley also taught a form of Christian perfectionism, given his strong emphasis on sanctification and holiness. To be clear, perfection for Wesley means a Christian can achieve a state in which he is free from known sin. In other words, the Christian’s holiness has reached such a level of success that he is no longer characterized by conscious transgressions. Wesley defined sin as a “voluntary transgression of a known law which it is in our power to obey.” If sin is defined as a voluntary, conscious act, then one can reach a state of sinlessness, even if there are unconscious, involuntary acts of wrongdoing in one’s life.

As seen in his 1767 work, Plain Account of Christian Perfection, reaching this state of Christian perfection is a gift of the Spirit yet one the Christian can work towards with great zeal. Nevertheless, lest the Christian become too confident, Wesley also taught that one can lose his salvation. Due to his Arminian views on sanctification and his teaching of perfectionism, some Calvinists believed Wesley had succumbed to a works-righteousness view of salvation, quite out of step with the Reformation’s emphasis on justification by faith alone. Wesley did not take kindly to this accusation. All of salvation, including perfection itself, is only due to divine gratuity, he claimed.

The effect of John Wesley’s preaching is difficult to overstate. Some estimate he preached over 40,000 times in his life. Others believe he traveled over 250,000 miles by horseback to preach his sermons across the world. By his death, around 294 Method preachers in England were under John’s supervision, preachers that oversaw tens of thousands of Methodists, both in England and in America.

Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) was born the same year as Wesley, though he died young, decades before Wesley drew his last breath. With three centuries since the death of Edwards, historians and theologians have concluded that he was one of the most impressive theological and philosophical minds of his day.

Yet Edwards was no ivory tower academic but a pastor in New England, one who devoted most of his week to the study, preparing for the next Sunday’s sermon. Some have labelled him the last Puritan, perhaps because his style of writing and preaching, as well as his theological logic and emphases, have a Puritan flavor. On the one hand, he preached “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741), placing great weight on the wrath of God as the just judgment against rebel sinners, a message designed to move the listener to repentance and conversion. On the other hand, Edwards wrote Heaven, a World of Joy, in which he contemplated not only the hope every believer has in Christ in the afterlife but identified the pleasure and glory that awaited the believer. The reason for such future joy had everything to do with who is in heaven, namely, God himself, who is, said Edwards, an infinite fountain of beauty and love. For Edwards, God’s glory and the Christian’s joy are not opposed but inherently intertwined.

Edwards was also a rigorous philosopher and theologian. Grappling with the ideas of Enlightenment thought, Edwards attempted to wrestle with how one might conceive the Christian faith through the eyes of faith and reason. At the same time, Edwards saw himself as an heir to the Calvinist tradition, defending the doctrines of grace against his Arminian counterparts. Yet he did so in a way that matched the context of his own day. In his 1754 work, Freedom of the Will, Edwards countered the Arminian view of free will by proposing that the will is necessitated by internal and external factors, whether they be sin and the world, or God himself. Man’s inclinations, therefore, are not autonomous but necessitated to choose one thing rather than another. Otherwise one cannot explain motive in the decision-making process. And yet, necessitated as one may be to choose A instead of B, because man always chooses according to his strongest inclination, his choice remains free.

In matters of grace, Edwards distinguished between natural and moral ability, the former being the physical property innate to being human, the latter being a spiritual property affected by original sin. In a post-fall world, man may possess physical faculties, the capability to choose, but he is spiritually enslaved, lacking a spiritual ability to choose God instead of sin and the world.

For that reason, what the unregenerate so desperately need is a regeneration, one in which the Spirit breathes new life into the spiritually dead. In doing so, the Spirit renews and refashions man’s inclinations. Previously he hated Christ, but now he desires Christ more than life itself. His inclinations are necessitated by the Spirit’s effectual grace, and yet due to the Spirit’s work of regeneration, his inclinations are no longer against Christ but for Christ, even trusting in Christ. Edwards, in short, built upon the contributions of those before him to define the freedom of the will in a way he believed was consistent with the Calvinist view of nature and grace. As early as 1733, the seeds of what will become his mature thought can be seen in a sermon like “A Divine and Supernatural Light.”

As much as we might focus on his intellectual achievements, we cannot neglect Edwards’ pastoral contribution. Solomon Stoddard, the grandfather of Edwards (on his mother’s side), was the pastor of the church at Northampton, Massachusetts. Edwards served under Stoddard, starting in 1727, but succeeded him at the death of Stoddard in 1729.

From 1734 to 1735, Edwards’ church in Northampton, Massachusetts experienced an awakening. Edwards preached a series of sermons on justification by faith alone (he wrote on the same topic for his master’s thesis at Yale). As a result, many in his congregation and beyond were cut to the heart and moved to repentance and trust in Christ, as well as a greater commitment to holiness and steadfast love for others. In A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton, and the Neighbouring Towns and Villages of New [sic] Hampshire in New-England (1737), Edwards wrote of the experience:

There were some things said publicly … concerning justification by faith alone … It proved a word spoken in season here; and was most evidently attended with a very remarkable blessing of heaven to the souls of the people in this town. … And then it was, in the latter part of December [of 1734], that the Spirit of God began extraordinarily to set in, and wonderfully to work amongst us; and there were very suddenly, one after another, five or six persons, who were to l, and some of them wrought upon in a very remarkable manner (p. 149).

Edwards describes what this looked like practically:

Although people did not ordinarily neglect their worldly business, yet religion was with all sorts the great concern, and the world was a thing only by the bye. The only thing in their view was to get the kingdom of heaven, and every one appeared pressing into it. The engagedness of their hearts in this great concern could not be hid, it appeared in their very countenances. It then was a dreadful thing amongst us to lie out of Christ, in danger every day of dropping into hell; and what persons’ minds were intent upon, was to escape for their lives, and to fly from wrath to come. All would eagerly lay hold of opportunities for their souls, and were wont very often to meet together in private houses, for religious purposes: and such meetings when appointed were greatly thronged (p. 150).

This sudden awakening was nothing short of remarkable. Three hundred were saved in but six months and in a town of only 1,200 people. At its peak, in March and April of 1735, thirty were converted a week. The effect it had on wider society was noticeable as well:

This work of God, as it was carried on, and the number of true saints multiplied, soon made a glorious alternation in the town: so that … the town seemed to be full of the presence of God: it never was so full of love, nor of joy, and yet so full of distress, as it was then. There were remarkable tokens of God’s presence in almost every house. It was a time of joy in families on account of salvation being brought unto them; parents rejoicing over their children as new born, and husbands over their wives, and wives over their husbands. The goings of God were then seen in his sanctuary, God’s day was a delight, and his tabernacles were amiable. Our public assemblies were then beautiful: the congregation was alive in God’s service, every one earnestly intent on the public worship, every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth; the assembly in general were, from time to time, in tears while the word was preached; some weeping with sorrow and distress, others with joy and love, others with pity and concern for the souls of their neighbours (p. 151).

Later, Edwards wrote A Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections, published 1746, where he looked long and hard at the spiritual experiences of a Christian, deciphering between true and false conversion, as well as authentic versus artificial forms of holiness. No work since has rivaled Edwards’ analytic evaluation of what marks true versus false revival and with it, spirituality itself.

Despite such an awakening, Edwards’s pastoral ministry did not end well. In time, it became evident that Edwards disagreed with his predecessor, Solomon Stoddard, who admitted unconverted people to the Lord’s Table. Added to this was a complicated series of events involving personalities, even entire families, disinclined towards Edwards for various reasons. The result? Edwards was fired in 1750. This tragic outcome resulted in an unforeseen course of events. Edwards and his family left for Stockbridge to minister to the Native Americans. This transition also enabled Edwards to write, resulting in a burst of theological publications that Edwards may not have otherwise finished.

By 1757 Princeton College, still in its infancy, asked Edwards to be its president and Edwards accepted. In January of the next year, Edwards moved, and the rest of his family was expected to follow him to Princeton in the months ahead. But on March 22 Edwards unexpectedly died from a smallpox inoculation. His death was as devastating as it was surprising.

Yet as in life, so in death, Edwards spoke of his “uncommon union” with his wife, Sarah, and trusted in the will of God and his fatherly care and faithfulness. Knowing death was imminent, Edwards said to his daughter Lucy,

Dear Lucy, it seems to me to be the will of God that I must shortly leave you; therefore give my kindest love to my dear wife, and tell her, that the uncommon union, which has so long subsisted between us, has been of such a nature, as I trust is spiritual, and therefore will continue forever: and I hope she will be supported under so great a trial, and submit cheerfully to the will of God. And as to my children, you are now like to be left fatherless, which I hope will be an inducement to you all to seek a Father, who will never fail you (recorded in a letter to his wife).

Sarah’s response, like her husbands, reflected a trust in divine providence and benevolence even in the midst of overwhelming grief:

My very dear Child, what shall I say? A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud! …The Lord has done it. He has made me adore His goodness that we had him [Jonathan] so long. But my God lives: and He has my heart. Oh, what a legacy my husband your father has left us! We are all given to God; and there I am, and love to be (in a letter to her daughter).

A legacy indeed.

FURTHER READING

• Fred Sanders, Wesley on the Christian Life: The Heart Renewed in Love
• George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life
• George Marsden, Video lecture on Jonathan Edwards
• Iain Murray, Jonathan Edwards
• Ian Murray, Video on the life of Jonathan Edwards
• John Piper, Video conference message on Jonathan Edwards
• John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley
• Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards. Specifically see “A True and Supernatural Light Immediately Imparted to the Soul”, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, The Freedom of the Will, Religious Affections, and “Heaven, a world of love”.
• R. C. Sproul, Video lecture on Jonathan Edwards

The Battle of the Will, Part 3: Arminianism and the Synod of Dort

AN ESSAY BY Matthew Barrett

DEFINITION

The debate over the will between Calvinists and Arminians focused on whether fundamentals of Christian theology, such as regeneration and election, are dependent on the free choice of man or whether they are dependent wholly on the freely given grace of God apart from any works of man.

SUMMARY

These debates were carried out after the death of Calvin between various Calvinist theologians and Jacobus Arminius and those who sided with him, notably leading to the Synod of Dort. The Remonstrants, as they were called, denied that God’s grace was given based on God’s unconditional election of individuals to salvation. Instead, election was based upon God’s foreknowledge of what choice man would freely make, ultimately making regeneration contingent on man’s decision. Calvinists, on the other hand, taught that God chose those to whom he would give faith in eternity past, rather than foreseeing who would have faith on their own. Therefore, spiritual regeneration preceded the choice of the will for the Calvinist, while for the Remonstrant, the choice of the will in faith preceded the benefits of salvation.

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It is often assumed that the debate between Calvinists and Arminians was a 16th century debate between John Calvin and Jacob Arminius. Many are surprised when they discover that Arminius was only a small child when Calvin died. The debate between Calvinists and Arminians took place at the end of the sixteenth century and beginning of the seventeenth century, and it did not merely concern Arminius but certain Remonstrants (objectors, protestors) and the reaction of the Synod of Dort.

Jacob Arminius and Conditional Grace

Nevertheless, Arminianism bears the name of Jacob Arminius (1559–1609) for good reason. Arminius studied not only at the University of Leiden but also, ironically enough, at the Geneva academy under Calvin’s successor, Theodore Beza. Later, he became a pastor in Amsterdam and his sermons on Romans revealed a different understanding of divine grace than taught by his teachers back in Geneva. He created a stir, for example, when he came to Romans 9 and denied that Paul taught an unconditional election of individuals to salvation. This caught the attention of certain Reformed theologians.

In 1603, Arminius joined the faculty at the University of Leiden. While at Leiden, Arminius entered into fierce debate with Franciscus Gomarus, also a student of Theodore Beza. Gomarus accused Arminius of Pelagianism, and claimed Arminius was out of step with Reformed doctrinal standards, such as the Belgic Confession (1561) and the Heidelberg Catechism (1563). Reformed thinkers like Gomarus believed Arminius’s synergistic view of grace did not match the monergistic emphasis characteristic of these Reformed standards.

Synergism conditions the effectiveness of God’s grace on the sinner’s will to cooperate and believe. A prevenient grace may be given to the sinner, mitigating the effects of original sin. Nevertheless, whether the sinner is ultimately born again is contingent on man’s decision in this in-between-state. God may seek to woo the sinner, but ultimately God’s grace is conditioned on the sinner’s will. Hence faith logically precedes regeneration for the Arminian, and man’s will is capable of resisting and defeating God’s saving effort.

Monergism, by contrast, argues that man is dead in sin, incapable of cooperation, his will being enslaved to the power of sin, the world, and the devil. God and God alone must raise the dead sinner to spiritual life and liberate him from bondage. Only upon regeneration will man then be able to turn from sin and turn to Christ. Hence regeneration must logically precede faith in salvation. Even still, the faith that follows regeneration is itself a sovereign gift, one the Spirit does not merely offer to the sinner but effectively works within so that the sinner will believe and receive eternal life.

These two views stem from two different conceptions of election. For example, in his Declaration of Sentiments (1608), written just before he died, Arminius not only conditioned regeneration on the will of man, but election as well. God’s choice was conditioned on whether he foresaw man choosing to believe. Foreknowledge of man’s faith is the determining factor in whether man is elected. By contrast, Reformed theologians in Arminius’s day, and those going all the way back to Calvin, argued that Scripture never conditions God’s election on something in man or something man can do. Election, instead, is based on God’s grace alone (sola gratia). Man is not elected because he believes, but he believes because God elects him out of his eternal mercy and grace. “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Rom. 9:16).

The Synod of Dort and Unconditional Grace

In the decade ahead, the tension grew as followers of Arminius remonstrated against their Reformed counterparts. At the start of 1619, the issue came to a head as a synod, or gathering of church leaders, was called and Reformed pastors and theologians were invited in order to judge the matter for churches in the Netherlands. But Dutchmen were not the only ones to attend; Reformed thinkers from around Europe travelled to be present, including men like Gisbertius Voetius and William Ames.

They assembled at Dort (or Dordtrich) to evaluate the Remonstrance according to the Scriptures. After hearing the Remonstrants, the synod responded with several canons. Historian Richard Muller describes these canons, noting their continuity with the Reformed standards that preceded Dort:

The Canons of Dort ought to be viewed as a magisterial interpretation of the extant Reformed confessional synthesis: they condemn predestination grounded on prior human choice; they deny a grace that is both resistible and acceptable by man; they affirm the depth of original sin, argue a limited efficiency of Christ’s work of satisfaction and stress the perseverance of the elect by grace … None of these views modifies the earlier Reformed position—indeed, virtually all of these points can be elicited from Ursinus’s exposition of the Heidelberg Catechism.

The canons were adopted April 22, 1619 and published the very next month. But to understand the canons, let’s consider them one by one.

Canon 1

The first canon concerns election, yet it begins with man’s depravity. In Adam, all people are guilty and corrupt; all deserve divine judgment and condemnation. Should God have left mankind in this state, he would have been just to do so. Much in contrast to the Arminian logic, the real mystery is not why God chose some instead of others, but why God chose any at all. Man deserves nothing but eternal punishment.

With man’s inability in full view, Dort emphasizes that only God’s “sheer grace” in election can be our hope.

Before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, according to the free good pleasure of his will, he chose in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people out of the entire human race, which had fallen by its own fault from its original innocence into sin and ruin. Those chosen were neither better nor more deserving than the others, but lay with them in the common misery. He did this in Christ, whom he also appointed from eternity to be the mediator, the head of all those chosen, and the foundation of their salvation. And so he decided to give the chosen ones to Christ to be saved, and to call and draw them effectively into Christ’s fellowship through his Word and Spirit. In other words, he decided to grant them true faith in Christ, to justify them, to sanctify them, and finally, after powerfully preserving them in the fellowship of his Son, to glorify them. God did all this in order to demonstrate his mercy, to the praise of the riches of his glorious grace. As Scripture says, God chose us in Christ, before the foundation of the world, so that we should be holy and blameless before him with love; he predestined us whom he adopted as his children through Jesus Christ, in himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, by which he freely made us pleasing to himself in his beloved (Eph. 1:4–6). And elsewhere, Those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called, he also justified; and those whom he justified, he also glorified (Rom. 8:30).

Notice, it is because election is based on sheer grace alone, that everything that follows must be as well. It is because election is unconditional that God’s call of his elect must be effectual and his preservation of his elect certain. As Dort goes on to state, it is because our election depends not on us, not even in the slightest, that we can have assurance. Should our salvation be contingent on us, our assurance would waver. But our assurance is grounded in the unchanging, eternal grace of our merciful God.

Canon 2

Election may be an eternal reality, but it is never divorced from Christ. Even in the paragraph above, notice how often it says we have been chosen in Christ, echoing Paul in Ephesians 1. It follows, then, that what God decreed in eternity he accomplishes in history. Those he elected he sent his Son to purchase on the cross.

The atonement, therefore, cannot be for all people without exception (universal atonement) but must be specific to God’s elect. That is not to undermine the value of Christ; as Dort explains, it is of “infinite value and worth, more than sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world.” Nevertheless, God did not choose all but only some. Therefore, the Father sent his Son to lay down his life efficiently for his elect, though his elect may be from every nation on earth. “In other words, it was God’s will that Christ through the blood of the cross (by which he confirmed the new covenant) should effectively redeem from every people, tribe, nation, and language all those and only those who were chosen from eternity to salvation and given to him by the Father.”

Since Dort, some have labeled this belief limited atonement, since Christ dies only for his elect. But that label may be misunderstood, and potentially places the emphasis in the wrong place. Unless one believes in universalism (all are saved), the atonement is always limited. For the Arminian, it is not limited in its scope, but it is limited in its effectiveness. Whether Christ’s death is effective is conditioned on whether or not the sinner will cooperate with divine grace (synergism).

But Dort rejects such a restriction. Christ does not die to make salvation a mere possibility but an actuality. Those for whom he dies really have their sins atoned for and all the benefits to be had in union with Christ have been purchased for them, faith included. For that reason, it may be better to use the labels particular atonement or definite atonement. Yes, the atonement is limited to God’s elect, but its particular focus on the elect exhibits the efficacy of the atonement for God’s elect, lest the cross be emptied of its power.

Canons 3 & 4

We need not dwell very long on Canon 3 since so much was said already. In Canon 3 Dort moves from the redemption Christ accomplished for the elect to the redemption the Spirit applies to the elect. As with previous canons, Dort begins by stressing man’s utter inability due to original sin. Needed then is a supernatural work of the Spirit to regenerate the sinner, and that is something God alone can accomplish.

And this is the regeneration, the new creation, the raising from the dead, and the making alive so clearly proclaimed in the Scriptures, which God works in us without our help. But this certainly does not happen only by outward teaching, by moral persuasion, or by such a way of working that, after God has done his work, it remains in man’s power whether or not to be reborn or converted. Rather, it is an entirely supernatural work, one that is at the same time most powerful and most pleasing, a marvelous, hidden, and inexpressible work, which is not lesser than or inferior in power to that of creation or of raising the dead, as Scripture (inspired by the author of this work) teaches. As a result, all those in whose hearts God works in this marvelous way are certainly, unfailingly, and effectively reborn and do actually believe. And then the will, now renewed, is not only activated and motivated by God but in being activated by God is also itself active. For this reason, man himself, by that grace which he has received, is also rightly said to believe and to repent.

Canon 5

If God has chosen us in eternity not on the basis of anything in us but according to his sheer grace, and if he has sent his Son to die for his elect, purchasing all the salvific benefits they have in Christ, and if the Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son to cause man to be born again so that he is united to Christ in faith, then surely this triune God will preserve his elect to glorification, not failing to complete that which he started. Dort concludes, then, by giving the believer assurance that God will not lose any of his elect but preserve them to the end.

That does not preclude the need for perseverance, however, but only establishes it, providing the grace needed to finish the race. That means, then, that preservation and perseverance are two sides of the same coin. Better yet, it is because God preserves us that we can then persevere by his grace and for his glory.

Should this assurance to perseverance make us proud? Not at all. Instead, it should be an incentive to authentic godliness and humility.

This assurance of perseverance, however, so far from making true believers proud and carnally self-assured, is rather the true root of humility, of childlike respect, of genuine godliness, of endurance in every conflict, of fervent prayers, of steadfastness in crossbearing and in confessing the truth, and of well-founded joy in God. Reflecting on this benefit provides an incentive to a serious and continual practice of thanksgiving and good works, as is evident from the testimonies of Scripture and the examples of the saints.

The Doctrines of Grace

This is but a small dose of Dort’s robust treatment of what we today call the Five Points of Calvinism. To see these points in all their exegetical, biblical beauty, however, one must read them firsthand. One will not only discover a robust affirmation of the doctrines of grace but be pleasantly surprised by how often Dort draws implications for the Christian life. This is a reminder that those who assembled at Dort wrote these canons not merely for scholars and pastors, but for churchgoers, so that they might know sovereign grace for themselves and its transforming effects on the Christian life.

FURTHER READING

• Cornelis P. Venema, But for the Grace of God: An Exposition of the Canons of Dort
• Daniel R. Hyde, Grace Worth Fighting For: Recapturing the Vision of God’s Grace in the Canons of Dort
• David Calhoun, Course and lectures on John Calvin and the theology of his Institutes
• Jacobus Arminius, The Works of Arminius Vol. 1, 2, & 3
• Kevin DeYoung, Grace Defined and Defended: What a 400-Year-Old Confession Teaches Us about Sin, Salvation, and the Sovereignty of God
• Matthew Barrett, Salvation by Grace: The Case for Effectual Calling and Regeneration. See an author interview here and here.
• Matthew Barrett, The Grace of Godliness: An Introduction to Doctrine and Piety in the Canons of Dort. See an author interview here and here.
• Matthew Barrett and Kevin DeYoung, How Sovereign is God’s Grace
• R. C. Sproul, Video lecture on Calvin
• Robert Godfrey, Saving the Reformation: The Pastoral Theology of the Canons of Dort

The Battle of the Will, Part 2: Luther and Erasmus

AN ESSAY BY Matthew Barrett

DEFINITION

The debate over the will between Luther and Erasmus focused on the ability of the will to cooperate with the grace of God in salvation; Luther argued that the will was incapable of such necessary cooperation, and Erasmus argued that the will must cooperate with the grace of God.

SUMMARY

Although the debate over the ability of the will does not receive as much attention as other Reformation debates, this issue was at the root of many of the disagreements between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Erasmus, a Catholic humanist and respected linguist, argued that the will is free to resist or cooperate with divine grace, even after the fall and affected by original sin. Thus, the will can turn away from the grace of God, and his grace is not irresistible. Luther, on the other hand, argued that man’s will could not be free and autonomous in this manner for multiple reasons. First, God foreknows everything, so the will cannot be able to choose autonomously and not based on God’s foreknowledge. Second, God wills everything that he knows, so everything that we choose he first wills. Thirdly, apart from Christ, our will is in bondage to sin, and only guilt and corruption are attributed to us. Therefore, a grace that liberates our will and restores in us the capacity to love and obey is necessary for our faith. This grace is not coercive but gently restores in us the ability to love what is truly lovely.

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When the sixteenth century Reformation is discussed, doctrines like sola scriptura and justification sola fide get all the attention. There is good reason for this, since these issues were central to the divide with Rome. But underneath the surface was another debate, one Luther said was at the heart of the divide, the very meat of the nut itself. It was the debate over free will and it occurred early on, in the 1520s, defining the Reformation over against those who still held to an optimistic view of man’s abilities in salvation. The representatives in the debate were two of the most influential and formidable figures of the day: Erasmus, the humanist and Greek scholar, versus Martin Luther, the German reformer.

Erasmus

Erasmus was, without question, one of the greatest, some might say the greatest, linguist of his day. His prestige grew with every publication, especially with the publication of his Greek New Testament. Erasmus’ Greek NT was revealing to say the least. In the sixteenth century, the NT was in Latin, but the Latin translation was far from perfect, and sometimes its mistranslation resulted in a theology Rome was eager to support but the Reformers believed was misguided (as seen with topics like the penance system and purgatory). When Erasmus provided a fresh look at the NT from the original Greek, many of these shortcomings were exposed.

That is not to say, however, that Erasmus was a Reformer, though many wished he would become one and pressed him to do so. Erasmus was critical of Rome—see his book Praise of Folly, for example, where he uses satire to expose Rome’s immorality and irrationality. Nevertheless, Erasmus remained faithful to mother church, and refused to join the ranks of the likes of Martin Luther and other reformers. Even though Luther wrote to Erasmus in 1519, asking him to join the Reformers, Erasmus refused.

The Freedom of the Will

As critical as Erasmus was of Rome, even Erasmus grew impatient as he read Luther’s attacks on the pope and the indulgence system. Erasmus declined the pressure to join the Reformation, but now he looked for a way to distance himself altogether from the rhetoric and cause of the Reformation. The opportunity presented itself in 1524. Erasmus wrote a book called De libero arbitrio, or The Freedom of the Will, and took aim at Luther, especially Luther’s belief that all things happen by divine necessity. Such necessity, said Erasmus, could not preserve the freedom of man’s will. Erasmus defended the will’s autonomy, arguing that even after the fall man’s will is free to resist divine grace or cooperate with it. For example, Erasmus defines free will as “a power of the human will by which a man can apply himself to the things which lead to eternal salvation or turn away from them.”

Martin Luther

With such an attack on Luther, any hope that the humanist scholar would join the ranks of the Reformers was dashed to pieces. The next year, 1525, Luther responded with a book that solidified the divide, and one that would become a most famous treatment of the issue in centuries to come. The book was titled De servo arbitrio, or The Bondage of the Will, a title meant to counter Erasmus’s elevation of the will and its power of contrary choice.

The Bondage of the Will

Luther put forward many critiques of Erasmus and also many arguments to demonstrate the will’s bondage to sin and desperate need for omnipotent, effectual grace. Let’s consider a few. First, Luther said the “thunderbolt” argument against the autonomy of the will was the simple fact that God has immutable, eternal foreknowledge. “God foreknows nothing contingently,” Luther wrote, but “foresees and purposes and does all things by his immutable, eternal, and infallible will.” If true, then man’s choice cannot be autonomous, as if he could always choose otherwise, for then God would not foreknow it as certain. “If God foreknows a thing, that thing necessarily happens.” In other words, God “foreknows necessarily.”

What does this mean for the choices we make? “Everything we do,” concludes Luther, “even if it seems to us to happen mutably and contingently, happens in fact nonetheless necessarily and immutably….” It is not the will of man, then, that Erasmus should come to terms with but the will of God, for he is the one who is in sovereign control of all things. “For the will of God is effectual and cannot be hindered, since it is the power of the divine nature itself.”

Luther concluded that “all things happen by necessity.” But for Luther, necessity and coercion are not the same thing. Man’s will may be necessitated by sin or by God but that does not mean it is coerced. For Luther, there is such a thing as freedom, but “true freedom” (as he called it) has to do with “pleasure or desire,” not with autonomy and freedom of contrary choice.

What is it then that necessitates man’s will? Prior to Christ, it is the sinful nature of man, and not just his internal inclinations or desires but the enslaving power of the devil himself. Man’s will is not free in the sense Erasmus thinks but is a slave to sin, although that slavery is very much willful and voluntary, a desired slavery out of sinful pleasure. If God is “not present and at work in us” then “everything we do is evil and we necessarily do what is of no avail for salvation.” Again, Luther writes, “For if it is not we, but only God, who works salvation in us, then before he works we can do nothing of saving significance, whether we wish to or not.”

This is contrary to Erasmus who acknowledges the damaging effects of the Fall but nonetheless attributes a spiritual ability and power to man after the Fall to take steps towards heavenly reward. Luther will have none of it. Turning to Scripture, Luther emphasizes the way the biblical authors attribute nothing to sinful humanity but guilt and corruption, resulting in a spiritual inability. A synergism or cooperation, one in which God’s will is contingent on man’s will, is an impossibility. Man can take no confidence in himself. Rather, he must totally despair of himself. As long as he continues to think he is free, he will remain in bondage. “Free choice without the grace of God is not free at all,” Luther clarifies, “but immutably the captive and slave of evil, since it cannot of itself turn to the good.”

Needed, then, is the supernatural work of liberation that God alone can accomplish. “We must therefore go all out and completely deny free choice, referring everything to God.” And Luther meant “everything.” Man cannot even “prepare himself by moral works for the divine favor”; no, God must do it all. Rather than a synergism, Luther taught a monergism, a divine monergism, one in which God causes the sinner to be born again, the Spirit awakening new life within an otherwise spiritually dead corpse. Man’s bondage to sin and the Devil is so real, so serious, and so gripping, only God can set him free. Man does nothing, God does everything. That way, man gives God all credit for his awakening and liberation in the end.

But again, does this mean God coerces the sinner? Not at all. For when the Spirit regenerates the will, it is renewed with all its faculties so that its pleasures and desires are reoriented entirely. Due to the Spirit, says Luther, the will now acts from “pure willingness and inclination and of its own accord, not from compulsion, so that it cannot be turned another way by any opposition, nor be overcome or compelled even by the gates of hell, but it goes on willing and delighting in and loving the good, just as before it willed and delighted in and loved evil.”

That last statement by Luther is revealing. Luther’s title—The Bondage of the Will—is meant to capture man’s enslavement to sin and expose Erasmus’ faulty confidence in the will’s ability to turn from sin and the Devil toward God for righteousness and eternal life. At the same time, it is not technically correct to say Luther has no place for the will. Luther does not eliminate the will altogether, reducing man to a brute animal. Remember, Luther believes in necessity but not coercion. Luther does believe in the freedom of the will but its ability to repent and trust in Christ is subsequent to the Spirit’s gracious work to liberate the will and renew its desires for that which is good instead of that which is evil. When the Spirit goes to work in this way, not even hell itself can turn the sinner back. Regenerated and renewed, man is now set free to delight in his Savior. The “will is changed” but only because it has been “gently breathed upon by the Spirit of God.”

Liberated, man now serves a new master.

FURTHER READING

• Carl Trueman, Lectures on Luther and the Reformation
• David Calhoun, Free course and lectures on Reformation
• J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, “Historical and Theological Introduction,” in Martin Luther, On The Bondage of the Will
• Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will
• Martin Luther, Disputation Against Scholastic Theology
• Martin Luther, Heidelberg Disputation
• Matthew Barrett, “The Bondage and Liberation of the Will,” in Reformation Theology: A Systematic Summary
• Matthew Barrett, “Can This Bird Fly? The Reformation as Reaction to the Via Moderna’s Covenantal, Voluntarist Justification Theology,” in The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands or Falls: Justification in Biblical, Theological, Historical, and Pastoral Perspective

The Battle of the Will, Part 1: Pelagius and Augustine

AN ESSAY BY Matthew Barrett

DEFINITION

The debate over the will between Augustine and Pelagius focused mainly on the doctrine of original sin and the nature of the grace needed for humans to lead lives of faith and holiness.

SUMMARY

Pelagius and Augustine were two of the first figures in early Christianity to debate the nature of the human will after the fall of Adam and Eve and the nature of the grace needed to allow humans to exercise faith. Pelagius argued that the sin of Adam, called original sin, was in no way passed down or imputed to the rest of the human race. Adam and Eve simply provided a bad example that was followed by all of their offspring. Because of this belief, Pelagius believed that grace simply helped humans to know what to do to live holy lives and that humans were completely capable of following these commands. Augustine, on the other hand, argued that the sin of Adam affected the will of every human who followed, rendering them incapable of following God’s commands or loving God. Because of this, the grace of God is not simply illuminatory but liberates the will and enables it to love and obey God.

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One of the most important debates in church history is that between Pelagianism and Augustinianism. As you might have guessed, these labels represent two figures: Pelagius and Augustine, both of whom lived in the fourth and fifth centuries. The debate was complex and, much like an onion, had layer upon layer. But its main facets concerned the nature of man and the necessity of divine grace.

Pelagius

Pelagius was serious about piety. His zeal made itself known in his monastic devotion. His passion for godliness manifested itself in his efforts to bring about moral reform. That in itself may sound like a praiseworthy cause, but when motivated and driven by a theology that placed considerable emphasis on man’s natural abilities, it proved controversial to say the least.

Rejection of Original Sin

Let’s start with sin, specifically original sin, the belief that Adam’s guilt and corruption are inherited by and transmitted to all mankind. Pelagius rejected original sin, affirming that Adam sinned for himself and himself alone. His guilt and corruption were not transferred or imputed to humankind when he sinned. Rather, Adam only set an unfortunate and regrettable example. Those who came after Adam saw their father’s example and followed in his footsteps, imitating his disobedience to God. That is how sin has continued to this day.

By rejecting the power and bondage original sin brings, Pelagius gave enormous power to man’s will even after the fall. According to Pelagius, man’s will is not inclined toward sin, nor is it controlled by sin, as if man’s inclinations have been polluted by Adam. Man’s will is not enslaved to a depraved Adamic nature, as if he is incapable of doing works that merit righteousness. It is free, just as free after Genesis 3 as before.

You can imagine, then, Pelagius’ outrage when he read Augustine’s prayer in Confessions, “Give what you command; command what you will.” That prayer implies man’s inability and dependence on God, as well as man’s great need for God’s grace to do the very thing God has commanded him to do. Not so, said Pelagius, for if God gives a command—and such commands pervade the Scriptures—man must be able and capable in and of himself to perform such a command. God would never command man to do something man could not do.

Redefining grace and the work of Christ

If man’s will is as free as Pelagius thinks, then is divine grace necessary? The short answer is “no.” God’s grace can and does assist the sinner, but technically it is not actually necessary. If it were, then man’s freedom would be undermined; man would not be responsible for his actions. Man must be equally able to choose that which is good as he is able to choose that which is evil. If God must help the will along, then man is not really free.

Denying the necessity of grace influenced the way Pelagius understood God’s call and even grace itself. When Scripture refers to God’s calling those whom he predestined (Rom. 8:28–30), Pelagius said in his Commentary on Romans that Paul merely means God “gathers together those who are willing, not those who are unwilling.” Naturally, Pelagius defined grace not as something supernatural, efficacious, irresistible, or necessary. Instead, by grace Pelagius meant that which reveals to man right from wrong, giving him further illumination concerning his obligations to obey the law of God and follow the example of Christ. Christ did not come to atone for our guilt but to set us a moral example to follow, by which we can attain heaven. In and of himself man is capable of doing just that. This means Pelagius believed in monergism, salvation being worked wholly by one party—but he did not believe in a divine monergism but a human monergism.

Although Pelagius had a number of devoted followers, many of whom were more articulate and persuasive theologically than Pelagius himself (e.g., Caelestius, Julian of Eclanum), his views were condemned by several councils (Carthage and Mileve in 418 and Ephesus in 431).

Augustine

As mentioned already, Pelagius despised Augustine’s prayer in his Confessions because that prayer expressed the Christian’s utter dependence on God to do what God commanded. Pelagius’s views became apparent in his own books, On Nature and On Free Will. But Augustine would not remain silent forever. At first, he responded to Caelestius but in 415 Augustine responded to Pelagius himself in his book On Nature and Grace. An entire anti-Pelagian corpus followed as well.

The Hinge of the Debate: Original Sin and the Captivity of the Will

Augustine’s writings reveal that the whole debate hinged on Pelagius’s rejection of original sin. For as long as man was considered free from sin’s grip, grace would never be necessary. Augustine put forward an extensive defense of original sin, exegeting passages like Psalm 51 and Romans 5. Augustine demonstrates that humankind has been affected by Adam’s guilt and corruption. The result? “There is none who seeks after God” (Rom. 3:11).

Furthermore, original sin is not limited to part of humanity but is universal in its reach. Nor did original sin only affect part of man, but its poison has spread to every aspect of man. No part of man’s nature has escaped. And that means man’s will, too, falls under sin’s curse.

Prior to the fall, man’s will was not in slavery to sin. It was capable of choosing that which was good. Sin was merely a possibility. But after the fall, man’s will changed. Polluted by sin, what was merely a possibility now became a necessity. Augustine described this shift with the following Latin phrases:

• posse peccare—prior to the Fall man has the ability to sin
• posse non peccare—prior to the Fall man has the ability not to sin

But after the Fall…

• non posse non peccare – man is not able not to sin

Man still possesses moral agency after the fall (necessity to sin does not preclude his culpability), but after the fall his moral agency is necessarily inclined toward sin and evil. It’s not just that he cannot choose that which is pleasing to God, he will not. His bondage is a willful bondage. Or as Augustine put it, after the fall man possesses a captive free will (liberum arbitrium captivatum). It is only by God’s grace that he possesses a liberated free will (liberum arbitrium liberatum). Needed, then, is a grace so powerful and effective that it can set free a will enslaved to sin. Grace is necessary, and not just any grace but a grace that can set the enslaved will free.

Liberating Grace Necessary

This type of grace must look different than the grace Pelagius put forward. It is not a grace that merely illuminates or educates the mind, making the sinner aware of Christ’s example. That type of grace is the law in disguise, for what sinner can do what Christ did? Needed instead is a grace that does not merely enlighten but regenerates, a grace that works within the depraved sinner to bring about a new nature.

When Augustine came to a text like Romans 8:28–30 or John 6:45, he did not say as Pelagius did that God merely “gathers together those who are willing, not those who are unwilling.” That not only misinterprets Paul and Jesus but fails to consider how deep are the effects of original sin, so deep that man’s will cannot escape. Instead, says Augustine citing John 6:45, “everyone who has learned from the Father not only has the possibility of coming, but actually comes!” (On Rebuke and Grace). The Father calls his elect to his Son and it is a call that is both particular and efficacious. Anything short of gratia irresistibilis (irresistible grace) will fail to liberate the will whose master is sin, the world, and the devil.

Faith: A Gracious Gift

Furthermore, teaches Augustine, even the faith through which man trusts in Christ must be considered a gracious gift from God—gratia dei gratuita. Man cannot even claim to initiate faith; the beginning of faith (initium fidei) is divine in its origin. Unless God grants faith in the first place, man will never believe but remain in his stubborn, willful disbelief.

Turning to the apostle Paul (Eph. 1:13–16; Phil. 1:28–29; 1 Thess. 2:13), Augustine concludes that grace merely extended or offered is insufficient because man does not desire it, his willful bondage being what it is. Needed instead is a faith God does not merely make possible but actual by working it within. “The will itself is something God works in us,” says Augustine in Revisions. Does that mean God coerces the unbeliever? Not at all. Its irresistible power lies in its “ineffable sweetness,” says Augustine in The Grace of Christ and Original Sin.

The Pelagian Debate: Prophetic

Augustine’s defense of original sin and the necessity of grace proved crucial for the church during Augustine’s time. But it also proved instrumental for a future era: the Reformation. Pelagianism may have been technically rejected by Roman Catholic theologians but at a popular level it had taken root among the masses.

Yet when reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin returned to the Scriptures with Augustine by their side, the gratuity of God’s grace liberated them from a system of works. As a result, they were awakened by the rediscovery of sovereign grace and mounted pulpits with liberating news for captive sinners. No mere moral reform followed but a reform in doctrine and doxology.

FURTHER READING

• Allan Fitzgerald, OSA, Augustine Lecture
• Augustine, The Spirit and the Letter, in Answer to the Pelagians I
• Augustine, Nature and Grace, in Answer to the Pelagians I
• Augustine, The Grace of Christ and Original Sin, in Answer to the Pelagians I
• Augustine, Grace and Free Choice, in Answer to the Pelagians IV
• Augustine, The Predestination of the Saints, in Answer to the Pelagians IV
• Augustine, The Gift of Perseverance, in Answer to the Pelagians IV
• B. R. Rees, Pelagius: Life and Letters
• Gerald Bray, Augustine on the Christian Life
• Pelagius, Pelagius’s Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans
• R. C. Sproul, Video lecture on St. Augustine

The Freedom and Bondage of the Will

AN ESSAY BY Steven D. West

DEFINITION

All people have free will in that they are free to choose what they want to choose, but our desires, which lead to our choices, are affected by our natures, so that those with a sinful nature only desire to choose sin.

SUMMARY

Because the Scriptures describe humans as holistic creatures, we know that the will does not function independently of the rest of human nature. Therefore, for the will to be free is not for the will to have the ability to choose any arbitrary option but for it to be able to freely choose what the heart desires. For the human will to be free, then, is for a person to be able to choose what they want to choose. However, the Bible is also clear that our nature as fallen persons is not neutral; rather, we are desperately sinful, not merely because we sin by omission and by commission but because we have all inherited a depraved nature. This means that apart from the grace of God, we are unable to choose anything other than sin because by virtue of our sinful nature, we only desire to choose sin. In this way, the human will is both free to choose and make morally culpable choices and bound to only choose sin apart from the grace of God.

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Four Biblical Principles

Although there are various ways that Christians understand the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human freedom, there are several biblical principles that must be upheld by everyone. First, there can be no denial of the fact that the Bible teaches that God is fully sovereign. In Scripture, this is not controversial, and it is a reason to praise God and rejoice. Second, people have an inherited sin nature, and they are born in need of divine grace for salvation. Third, even though people are born with a sin nature, they are still morally and judicially responsible for what they do. Fourth, God is perfect and maximally worthy of praise, and part of his perfection is that he cannot sin (i.e. everything God does must be perfectly righteous and holy). Taken individually, all of these theological propositions are readily acceptable, but when believers start trying to analyze them and relate them together in consistent and coherent ways, serious divisions can emerge.

For example, evangelicals agree that human beings are born with a sin nature that is turned away from God. They agree that without God’s grace nobody would be saved. But when it comes to understanding how the fallen human will and God’s grace interact with each other, disagreements abound. Yes, evangelicals agree that every faculty of an unregenerate individual is affected by sin, but the extent that the human will is affected by sin is hotly debated. Everyone is born in sin, and the will is affected by it, but what capacity and ability does our sinful will have apart from regeneration and saving grace? What can our will do? How free are we?

The Heart of the Matter

The biblical witness is that human beings are holistic creatures—we think and act from our hearts. In other words, the will is not to be thought of as an autonomous faculty detached from our nature. Perhaps it is best to understand the will simply as our ability to choose. Our will does not override our heart (our innermost self, the center of our personality), and our heart does not operate outside of our nature. Our heart has its desires and priorities, and our will moves in response to what we naturally desire. So, we do what we most want to do; we choose in accordance with the desires of our nature as they are found in our hearts.

This raises the question, of course, as to what precisely our nature is. The Bible is unequivocal in its assessment that we are all desperately sinful, not merely because we sin by omission and by commission but because we have all inherited a depraved nature. The human heart is desperately sinful and deceptive (Jer. 17:9). Both before and after the flood, God’s analysis of the human heart is that it is only wicked all the time (Gen. 6:5; 8:21). Paul’s argument in Romans 1:18–32 details the painful reality of human depravity, and his summary of the human condition in Romans 3:9–20 removes any grounds for thinking that anyone is innocent in the sight of God—it also destroys any possibility of salvation apart from the pure grace of God. Small wonder that Paul can say that before being regenerated, “you were dead in your transgressions and sins” (Eph. 2:1); we are not merely sick in sin—even terminally—we are dead.

Since our will moves in accordance with our heart’s desires, having a depraved nature means that our wills move away from God. The heart is the vital issue. As Jesus said, “‘What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person’” (Mark 7:20–23). Jesus also said, “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of” (Matt. 12:33–34). All of our thoughts, words, and actions proceed from our hearts. Our hearts are evil and in bondage to sin. Since our will is not master of our heart, and our hearts are mastered by wickedness, it follows that our wills are enslaved to sin. On its own, the human will does not have the freedom to overcome the sinful heart. We choose in accordance with our nature, and our nature is in rebellion against God.

One of the most sobering—not to mention damning—indictments of the human condition is found in Romans 8:7–8. Paul writes, “The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.” This makes it very clear that not only does the mind governed by the sinful nature not submit to God, it cannot submit to God. Apart from grace, human beings cannot please God or submit to his law. If our wills were autonomous and could transcend our depraved nature, it would be logically possible for us to choose to submit to God’s law, but this is a possibility that Paul categorically denies. No, our will implements the desires of our hearts, and as a result it chooses according to hostility to God and rebellion against his law.

Nevertheless, we are fully responsible for all our sinful choices. The fact that God punishes people for theirs sins is proof that they deserve it. We are morally responsible agents. This means that people are to be considered responsible when they act out of the desires of their natures. We do not pick our desires, but we are morally and spiritually responsible for our actions when we act out of our natures. In other words, we are responsible when we do what we want to do. If we have sinful hearts and we desire to sin, we are accountable when we act out of that nature. An inability not to sin does not exonerate us. People are culpable for all that they do. We exercise our will in the direction that our depraved nature leans, and we are responsible for so doing.

Conclusion

Freedom, then, is not an autonomous ability to choose between alternative possibilities, or a special ability to transcend our natures. All that is required for freedom in a morally relevant and responsible sense is that we choose to do what we want to do. God’s nature is such that he only ever does what is righteous, yet he is still maximally worthy of praise. God does not have a genuine choice between doing good or doing evil: his nature forbids it. Yet God is still morally responsible for all that he does (which is why he is worthy of praise—he acts as an agent, not as a machine). God’s freedom consists in acting in accordance with his nature. This same principle extends to human freedom—we are responsible when we act according to our nature. God has an inability to do evil. Fallen sinners have an inability to live in a way which pleases God. God can only ever do what is right. Depraved rebels cannot submit to God’s holy law. A good tree (i.e. nature) produces good fruit; a bad tree produces bad fruit. Apart from God’s grace, we are all bad trees and will produce bad fruit. As terrible as it is, apart from the grace of God, the freedom of our wills consists of acting in slavery to our sinful hearts. Thanks be to God for his rich and liberating grace!

FURTHER READING

• John Martin Fischer, Robert Kane, Derk Pereboom, and Manuel Vargas, Four Views on Free Will
• Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will. Find a summary here.
• Monergism’s database on this issue
• Robert Kane, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Free Will

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom

AN ESSAY BY John M. Frame

DEFINITION

Divine sovereignty, which is that God exercises efficacious, universal, and loving control over all things, is compatible with human freedom in that humans are free to do what they want to do, although God is sovereign over our desires.

SUMMARY

The sovereignty of God is the same as the lordship of God, for God is the sovereign over all of creation. The major components of God’s lordship are his control, authority, and presence. To discuss the sovereignty of God, though, is to focus particularly on the aspect of control, though this should not bracket God’s authority and gracious presence out of the discussion. The control that God exercises over all things is both efficacious and universal; there is not one thing outside of his control. This even extends to human sin and faith. However, people still remain free and God remains innocent of sin. This is because humans have the freedom to do whatever it is that they want, while their desires are in turn decided by their natures, situations, and, ultimately, God.

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The term sovereignty is rarely found in recent translations of Scripture, but it represents an important biblical concept. A sovereign is a ruler, a king, a lord, and Scripture often refers to God as the one who rules over all. His most common proper name, Yahweh (see Ex. 3:14) is regularly translated Lord in the English Bible. And Lord, in turn, is found there over 7,000 times as a name of God and specifically as a name of Jesus Christ. So, to discuss the sovereignty of God is to discuss the lordship of God—that is, to discuss the Godness of God, the qualities that make him to be God.

The major components of the biblical concept of divine sovereignty or lordship are God’s control, authority, and presence (see John Frame, The Doctrine of God, 21–115). His control means that everything happens according to his plan and intention. Authority means that all his commands ought to be obeyed. Presence means that we encounter God’s control and authority in all our experience, so that we cannot escape from his justice or from his love.

When theologians discuss divine sovereignty and human freedom, however, they usually focus on only one of these three aspects of God’s sovereignty, what I have called his control. This aspect will be in focus in the remainder of this article, but we should keep in mind that God’s control over the world is only one aspect of his rule. When we consider only his control, we tend to forget that his rule is also gracious, gentle, intimate, covenantal, wise, good, and so on. God’s sovereignty is an exercise of all his divine attributes, not just his causal power.

God’s Sovereign Control

It is important to have a clear idea of God’s sovereign control of the world he has made. That control is a major part of the context in which God reveals himself to Israel as Yahweh, the Lord. That revelation comes to Israel when that nation is in slavery to Egypt. When he reveals his name to Moses, he promises a powerful deliverance:

But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go. (Ex. 3:19–20) 

I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’” (Exo 6:7–8)

God shows Israel that he truly is the Lord by defeating the greatest totalitarian empire of the ancient world and by giving Israel a homeland in the land promised centuries before to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Nothing can defeat Israel’s sovereign. He will keep his promise, displaying incredible controlling power, or he is not the Lord.

God’s control is efficacious:

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. (Ps. 115:3) 

Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. (Ps. 135:6) 

The Lord of hosts has sworn: “As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand, that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and on my mountains trample him underfoot; and his yoke shall depart from them, and his burden from their shoulder.” This is the purpose that is purposed concerning the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations. For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back? (Isa. 14:24–27) 

Also henceforth I am he [Yahweh]; there is none who can deliver from my hand; I work, and who can turn it back?” (Isa .43:13) 

…so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isa. 55:11) 

‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens. (Rev. 3:7)

Not only is God’s control efficacious, it is also universal. It governs every event that takes place anywhere in the universe. Firstly, the events of the natural world come from his hand (Ps. 65:9–11, 135:6–7, 147:15–18, Matt. 5:45, 6:26–30, 10:29–30, Luke 12:4–7). Secondly, the details of human history come from God’s plan and his power. He determines where people of every nation will dwell (Acts 17:26). Thirdly, God determines the events of each individual human life (Ex. 21:12–13, 1 Sam. 2:6–7, Ps. 37:23–24, 139:13–16, Jer. 1:5, Eph. 1:4, James 4:13–16). Fourthly, God governs the free decisions we make (Prov. 16:9) including our attitudes toward others (Ex. 34:24, Judg. 7:22, Dan. 1:9, Ezra 6:22).

More problematically, God foreordains people’s sins (Ex. 4:4, 8, 21, 7:3, 13, 9:12, 10:1, 20, 27, Deut. 2:30, Josh. 11:18–20, 1 Sam. 2:25, 16:14, 1 Kings 22:20–23, 2 Chron. 25:20, Ps. 105:24, Isa. 6:9–10, 10:6, 63:17, Rom. 9:17–18, 11:7–8, 2 Cor. 2:15–16). But lastly, he is also the God of grace, who sovereignly ordains that people will come to faith and salvation:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Eph. 2:4–10)

Therefore, salvation is God’s work from beginning to end, doing for us what we could never dream of doing for ourselves.

If we need any further evidence of the efficacy and universality of God’s sovereign control, here are passages that summarize the doctrine:

Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? (Lam. 3:37) 

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Rom. 8:28) 

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. (Eph. 1:11) 

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Rom. 11:33)

Human Freedom

So the question posed by the title of this article is very pointed. Granted the overwhelming power of God’s sovereign control, its efficacy and universality, how can human freedom have any significance at all?

The term freedom has been taken in various senses. In our current discussion, two of these are particularly relevant: (1) compatibilism, which is the freedom to do what you want to do, and (2) libertarianism, which is the freedom to do the opposite of everything you choose to do. Compatibilism indicates that freedom is compatible with causation. Someone may force me to eat broccoli; but if that is something I want to do anyway, I do it freely in the compatibilist sense.  Alternatively, if you have libertarian freedom, your choices are in no sense caused or constrained, either by your nature, your experience, your history, your own desires, or God. Libertarianism is sometimes called “incompatibilism,” because it is inconsistent with necessity or determination. If someone forces me to eat broccoli, I am not free, in the libertarian sense, to eat it or not eat it. On a libertarian account, any kind of “forcing” removes freedom.

In ordinary life, when we talk about being “free,” we usually have the compatibilist sense in mind. I am free when I do what I want to do. Usually, when someone asks me if I am free, say, to walk across the street, I don’t have to analyze all sorts of questions about causal factors in order to answer the question. If I am able to do what I want to do, then I am free, and that’s all there is to it. In the Bible, human beings normally have this kind of freedom. God told Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit, but Adam had the power to do what he wanted. In the end, he and Eve did the wrong thing, but they did it freely. God’s sovereignty didn’t prevent Adam from doing what he wanted to do.

Our earlier discussion shows, however, that according to the Bible human beings do not have libertarian freedom:  As we have seen, God ordains what we will choose to do, so he causes our choices. We are not free to choose the contrary of what he chooses for us to do. Scripture also teaches that the condition of our heart constrains our decisions, so there are no unconstrained human decisions, decisions that are free in the libertarian sense.

People sometimes think that we must have libertarian freedom, for how can we be morally responsible if God controls our choices? That is a difficult question. The ultimate answer is that moral responsibility is up to God to define. He is the moral arbiter of the universe. This is the exact question that comes up in Romans 9:

You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? (Rom. 9:19–24)

This passage rules out any attempt to argue libertarian freedom as a basis of moral responsibility.

Nevertheless, we should remember that even this passage presupposes freedom in the compatibilist sense: God prepared the two kinds of vessels, each for their respective destiny. He made the honorable vessels so that they would appropriately receive honor, and vice versa. When a human being trusts in Christ, he does what he wants to do and therefore acts freely in the compatibilist sense. We know from that choice that God has prepared him beforehand to make that choice freely. That divine preparation is grace. The believer did not earn the right to receive that divine preparation. But he responds, as he must, by freely embracing Christ. Without that free choice of Christ, prepared beforehand by God himself, it is impossible for anyone to be saved.

FURTHER READING

• Benjamin B. Warfield, Biblical Doctrines
• Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority
• Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology
• D. A. Carson, Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension. See book summary here.
• J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God
• John Frame, The Doctrine of God
• John Frame, No Other God: a Response to Open Theism
• John MacArthur, “What is the Relationship Between Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility?”
• Scott Christiansen, What About Free Will? Reconciling Our Choices with Divine Sovereignty. See book summary here.
• Vern Poythress, Chance and the Sovereignty of God. See book review here.

The Sovereignty of God

AN ESSAY BY John M. Frame

DEFINITION

The sovereignty of God is the same as the lordship of God, for God is the sovereign over all of creation. The major components of God’s lordship are his control, authority, and covenantal presence.

SUMMARY

The sovereignty of God is the fact that he is the Lord over creation; as sovereign, he exercises his rule. This rule is exercised through God’s authority as king, his control over all things, and his presence with his covenantal people and throughout his creation. The divine name, Yahweh, expresses this sovereign rule over against the claims of human kings, such as Pharaoh (Exod. 3:14). Because God is tri-personal, however, his sovereign control is not impersonal or mechanical, but is the loving and gracious oversight of the king of creation and redemption.

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The term sovereignty is rarely found in recent translations of Scripture, but it represents an important biblical concept. A sovereign is a ruler, a king, a lord, and Scripture often refers to God as the one who rules over all. His most common proper name, Yahweh (see Ex. 3:14) is regularly translated Lord in the English Bible. And Lord, in turn, is found there over 7,000 times as a name of God and specifically as a name of Jesus Christ. So, to discuss the sovereignty of God is to discuss the lordship of God—that is, to discuss the Godness of God, the qualities that make him to be God. The major components of the biblical concept of divine sovereignty or lordship are God’s control, authority, and presence (see John Frame, The Doctrine of God, 21–115).

God’s Sovereign Control

His control means that everything happens according to his plan and intention. Authority means that all his commands ought to be obeyed. Presence means that we encounter God’s control and authority in all our experience, so that we cannot escape from his justice or from his love. When theologians talk about “divine sovereignty,” they usually have the first of these in mind, his control. Indeed, the Bible teaches that God controls all things. He has an eternal plan for all of nature and history (Eph. 1:9–11). When God meets with Moses in Exodus 3 and reveals his name Yahweh, that name, God’s Lordship, reveals to Moses that God, not Pharaoh, rules over the affairs of Egypt and Israel:

But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go. (Exod. 3:19–20) 

I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.'” (Exod. 6:7–8)

Note the last four words of this promise: because God is Lord, the sovereign, he will certainly deliver Israel from Egypt and bring his people into the promised land. Nothing can stop the Lord from fulfilling his promise.

God’s control is always efficacious; nothing can prevent him from accomplishing his purpose (see Ps. 115:3; 135:6; Isa. 14:24–27; 43:13; 55:11; Dan. 4:34–35; Rev. 3:7). It is also universal; that is, it covers all the events of nature and history. This includes the natural world (Ps. 65:9–11; 135:6-7), human history (Acts 17:26), and individual human life (1 Sam. 2:6–7; James 4:13–16). God even governs the free decisions of human beings (Prov. 16:9), including our attitudes toward others (Dan. 1:9; Ezra 6:22). More problematically, God even foreordains people’s sins (Exod. 4:21; Deut. 2:30; 1 Kings 22:23; Rom. 9:17–18). But, as sovereign Lord, he also ordains that some will come to faith and salvation (Eph. 2:4–10). So, salvation is God’s work from beginning to end, doing for us what we could never dream of doing for ourselves. We should always remember that God’s saving grace in Christ is part of his control over creation as the Lord.  (Several passages summarize the doctrine of the efficacy and universality of God’s sovereign control: Lam. 3:7; Rom. 8:28; 11:33; Eph. 1:11.)

God’s Sovereign Authority

But God’s sovereign lordship is more than control. It also embodies his authority: what the Lord commands, his creatures must do. In the Decalogue, the covenant which Moses delivers to Israel after God sovereignly redeemed them from Egypt, God begins by identifying himself as Lord (Exod. 20:1–2) and on the basis of that identification, goes on to utter his ten commandments. It is because God is the sovereign Lord that we must obey him (Deut. 6:4–6; John 14:21; Matt. 7:21–22; Luke 6:46). Because he is Lord, his authority is absolute. That means (1) we should not waver in our obedience to him (Rom. 4:16–22), (2) his lordship transcends all our other loyalties (Matt. 10:34–38), and (3) that his authority over us exists in all areas of human life, not just in the areas that we arbitrarily call religious or sacred (1 Cor. 10:31; cf. Col. 3:17, 24; 2 Cor. 10:5).

God’s Sovereign Presence

The third attribute that defines God’s sovereign lordship is his covenant solidarity with his creatures, which I often abbreviate by the term presence. In Scripture, the covenant Lord is one who takes people to be his own (Exod. 6:7; 2 Cor. 6:16). He declares this intention often in Scripture (Gen. 17:7; Ex. 29:45; Heb. 11:16; Rev. 21:3). When God takes us to be his people, he fights our battles, blesses us, loves us, and sometimes (as a loving Father should) gives us special punishments for our sins (Amos 3:2). He summarizes all this by saying that he is with us. He places his name upon us (Num. 6:27) so that he dwells with us and we with him. In the OT, he fulfills his presence with Israel in the tabernacle and the temple. In the NT, he dwells with us particularly in Jesus, “God with us,” Immanuel (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23). He “tabernacles” with us (John 1:14). And after his ascension, he sends the Holy Spirit to dwell in us as his temple (1 Cor. 3:16).

But God’s presence is not only with his chosen human beings. For God’s whole creation is also in covenant with him: he is the Lord of all creation. His presence is everywhere, or as theologians say, he is omnipresent (Ps. 139; Acts 17:28).

So even though Scripture teaches that God controls everything, we should not think of his sovereignty as an impersonal, mechanical determinism. God’s sovereign lordship is deeply personal. As Lord, God not only controls everything (efficaciously, universally), but also utters commands, words of life, that graciously govern the ongoing life of his creatures. And as Lord he has made a sovereign commitment to be “with” those who are his. Indeed, God’s sovereignty is a broad concept, including all that God is and all that he does, even embracing his love.

FURTHER READING

• A. W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God
• Desiring God, The Sovereignty of God: a Topical Survey
• Elijah Coles, A Practical Discourse of God’s Sovereignty
• J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God here.
• John Frame, The Doctrine of God
• Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot: God’s Sovereignty in Afflictions
• Vern Poythress, Chance and the Sovereignty of God: a God-Centered Approach to Probability and Random Events
• Vern Poythress, The Lordship of Christ: Serving Our Savior All of the Time, in All of Life, with All of Our Heart

The Christian and Repentance

AN ESSAY BY Sam Storms

DEFINITION

True Christian repentance involves a heartfelt conviction of sin, a contrition over the offense to God, a turning away from the sinful way of life, and a turning towards a God-honoring way of life.

SUMMARY

Genuine repentance is not simply a “rethinking” of one’s relationship to sin and God. Repentance must be first rooted in the realization of how sinful an action, emotion, belief, or way of life is. Then, one must be grieved by how offensive and grieving sin is to God, not simply afraid of God’s retribution for your sin. In other words, repentance must be rooted in a high value on God, not a high value on oneself. Only then can turning away from sin towards holiness truly be called repentance. The failure to repent is thus a form of idolatry. Refusal to repent is to elevate our own souls above God’s glory, but when one does repent, it leads to the forgiveness of sin, the removal of divine discipline, and the restoration of one’s experiential communion with God.

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Biblical repentance is an easily misunderstood and misapplied concept that warrants close examination. Several texts clearly indicate that repentance, together with faith, is essential for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 24:47; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; 11:18). In Acts 3:19 and 26:20, metanoeō (to repent) and epistrephō (to turn back; see Acts 26:18) “are placed side by side as equivalent terms, though in these cases the former may focus on the abandonment of evil and the latter on turning to God” (see the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis, 3:292). But our primary concern here is with repentance in the life of the born-again believer.

The Meaning of the Term

The principal mistake of many is basing their understanding of repentance on the root form of the Greek word. The Greek verb metanoeō (to repent) is built on the preposition meta (“with, after”) and the verb noeō (“to understand, to think”).  The conclusion some then draw is that the only sense in which a Christian is required to repent is to change one’s mind or to rethink sin and one’s relationship with God. But the meaning of words is not determined in this way, but rather on usage and context. A change of mind or perspective is of no value if it isn’t accompanied by a change of direction, a change of life and action.

Genuine repentance begins, but by no means ends, with heartfelt conviction of sin. It begins with an unequivocal, heart-rending recognition of having defied God by embracing what he despises and hating, or at minimum, being indifferent towards, what he adores. Repentance, therefore, involves knowing in one’s heart: “This is wrong. I have sinned. God is grieved.” The antithesis of recognition is rationalization, the selfish attempt to justify one’s moral laxity by any number of appeals: “I’m a victim. If you knew what I’ve been through and how badly people have treated me, you’d grant me a little slack.”

David’s Repentance

True repentance, notes J. I. Packer, “only begins when one passes out of what the Bible sees as self-deception (cf. Jas. 1:22, 26; 1 John 1:8) and modern counselors call denial, into what the Bible calls conviction of sin (cf. John 16:8)” (see J.I. Packer, Rediscovering Holiness, 123–24). To truly repent one must also confess the sin openly and honestly to the Lord. We see this in Psalm 32 where David describes his experience following his adultery with Bathsheba. When he finally responded to the conviction in his heart it resulted in confession with his mouth:

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit … I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin” (Ps. 32:1–2, 5).

David uses three different words to describe his confession (32:5). He “acknowledged” his sin; he refused to “cover” his iniquity; and he was determined to “confess” his transgressions. Nothing is held back. There is no cutting of corners or moral compromise. He comes totally clean. David makes no excuses, offers no rationalizations, and refuses to shift blame (see Sam Storms, More Precious Than Gold: 50 Daily Meditations on the Psalms, 92–96.)

When one truly repents there is an awareness that the sin committed, whatever its nature, was ultimately against God alone. In Psalm 51:4 David declared, “Against you [God], you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” Although David took advantage of Bathsheba sexually, conspired to kill her husband Uriah, disgraced his own family, and betrayed the trust of the nation Israel, he saw his sin as preeminently against God alone. Says Perowne, “face to face with God, he sees nothing else, no one else, can think of nothing else, but His presence forgotten, His holiness outraged, His love scorned” (see J.J. Stewart Perowne, The Book of Psalms, 416). David is so broken that he has treated God with such disregard that he is blinded to all other aspects or objects of his behavior.

Although repentance is more than psychological catharsis, there is in it a true feeling or sense of remorse. If one is not genuinely offended by one’s sin, there is no repentance. Repentance is painful, but it is a sweet pain. It demands brokenness of heart (Ps. 51:17; Isa. 57:15) but always with a view to healing and restoration and a renewed vision of the beauty of Christ and forgiving grace.

Thus, repentance is more than a feeling. Emotion can be fleeting, whereas true repentance bears fruit. This points to the difference between “attrition” and “contrition.” Attrition is regret for sin prompted by a fear for oneself: “Oh, no. I got caught. What will happen to me?” Contrition, on the other hand, is regret for the offence against God’s love and pain for having grieved the Holy Spirit. In other words, it is possible to “repent” out of fear of reprisal, rather than from a hatred of sin.

Corinthian Repentance

Biblical repentance must also be distinguished from worldly or fleshly repentance. Nowhere is this difference more readily seen than in Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 7:8–12. Paul had written his “severe” letter to the Corinthians. It was “out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears” that he penned this obviously painful missive (2 Cor. 2:4). He evidently spoke forcefully and unequivocally about the nature of their sin and the need for repentance. In doing so, he ran the risk of alienating them and ending all hope for future fellowship. Whereas he initially regretted having to write it, he later rejoiced,

not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter. So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God (2 Cor. 7:8–12).

The letter stirred in them a grief or sorrow for sin that was “godly,” or more literally, “according to God” (7:9, 10, 11), by which he means that it was agreeable to the mind of God or that it was a sorrow prompted by the conviction that their sin had offended God, and not simply Paul. This he contrasts with “worldly grief” (7:10) that is evoked not because one has transgressed a glorious and holy God but simply because one got caught. Worldly grief is essentially self-pity for having been exposed and having lost stature, favor, or respect in the eyes of men. Godly grief occurs when one considers that the sin in question has dishonored God.

If the Corinthians had formerly been apathetic and lackluster in their response to the apostle, now they are earnest (7:11a) in their zeal to do what was right. If before they had denied their duplicity, this time they were eager “to clear” themselves (7:11b), not wanting their failures to reflect poorly on Christ and the gospel. Paul’s letter, through the Spirit, had set ablaze an “indignation” (7:11c) toward themselves for not defending Paul and for having permitted the situation to get so out of hand (and perhaps also against the wrongdoer for the way his actions constituted a brazen defiance of Paul’s authority). All told, it was initially an unpleasant experience for everyone concerned. But in the end, it yielded the harvest of repentance, restoration, and joy (see Sam Storms, A Sincere and Pure Devotion to Christ: 100 Daily Meditations on 2 Corinthians, 24–28).

In true repentance there must be repudiation of all sins in question and active practical steps taken to avoid anything that might provoke stumbling (cf. Acts 19:18–19). There must be a deliberate resolve to turn around and walk away from all hint or scent of sin (see Ps. 139:23; Rom. 13:14). If, in our so-called “repentance,” we do not abandon the environment in which our sin first emerged and in which, in all likelihood, it will continue to flourish, our repentance is suspect. There must be heart-felt reformation, which is to say, an overt determination to pursue purity, to do what pleases God (1 Thess. 1:9).

Why We Don’t Repent

There are any number of reasons why people find it difficult to repent. For example, Satan and the world system have led us to believe the lie that our value or worth as human beings is dependent on something other than what Christ has done for us and who we are in Christ by faith alone. If a person believes that other people hold the power to determine one’s value or worth, we will always be reluctant to reveal anything about our inner life that may cause their estimation of us to diminish.

Thus the failure to repent is a form of idolatry. Refusal to repent is to elevate our own souls above God’s glory. It is to place a higher value on the perceived comfort of secrecy than the glory and honor of God. It is to say, “My safety and standing in the community is of greater value than God’s name and fame. I don’t repent because I cherish my own image more than God’s.”

In sum, people don’t repent because they are preeminently committed to saving face. They fear exposure because they fear rejection, mockery, and exclusion. And these are fearful realities only to those who do not yet sufficiently grasp that they are accepted, cherished, valued, and included by Christ.

Why We Should Repent

One’s sincere pursuit and faithful embrace of repentance leads to the greatest blessing of all: forgiveness! Blessed is the man whose transgressions are “forgiven” (Ps. 32:1). David’s sin is like an oppressive weight from which he longs to be relieved. Forgiveness lifts the burden from his shoulders. Blessed is he whose sin is “covered” (32:1). It’s as if David says, “Oh, dear Father, what joy to know that if I will ‘uncover’ (32:5) my sin and not hide it, you will!” David doesn’t mean to suggest that his sin is merely concealed from view but somehow still present to condemn and defeat him. The point is that God sees it no more. He has covered it from all view. Finally, blessed is that man or woman, young or old, whose sin the Lord does not “impute” or “count” against them (32:2). No record is kept. God isn’t a spiritual scorekeeper to those who seek his pardoning favor.

Our reluctance to repent can often result in divine discipline. As David reflected on his sin and the season during which he kept silent, he portrays the impact of his transgression in physical terms:

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer (Ps. 32:3).

The problem wasn’t merely the sin he committed but the fact that he failed to repent. He kept quiet about his sin. He suppressed it. He shoved it deep down inside, thinking it gone for good. He ignored the tug on his heart. He denied the pain in his conscience. He numbed his soul to the persistent pangs of conviction.

Is David merely using physical symptoms to describe his spiritual anguish? Whereas that is possible, I suspect that David was feeling the brunt of his sin in his body as well. What we see here is a law of life in God’s world. If you bottle up sin in your soul, it will eventually leak out like acid and eat away at your bones. Unconfessed, unrepentant sin is like a festering sore. You can ignore it for a while, but not forever.

The physical effects of his spiritual choices are agonizingly explicit. There was dissipation: “my bones wasted away” (cf. Ps. 6:2). There was distress: “my groaning all day long.” And David was drained: “my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” Like a plant withering under the torrid desert sun, so too was David dried up and drained out from suppressing his sin. In other words, he was quite literally sick because of his refusal to “come clean” with God. His body ached because his soul was in rebellion. Spiritual decisions often have physical consequences. God simply will not let his children sin with impunity. It was in fact God’s hand that lay heavily on David’s heart. To sin without feeling the sting of God’s disciplinary hand is the sign of illegitimacy.

Our experiential communion with Christ is always dependent on our sincere and heartfelt repentance from sin. We are altogether safe and secure in our eternal union with Christ, due wholly and solely to God’s glorious grace. But our capacity to enjoy the fruit of that union, our ability to feel, sense, and rest satisfied in all that is entailed by that saving union is greatly affected, either for good or ill, by our repentant response when the Holy Spirit awakens us to the ways that we have failed to honor and obey God’s revealed will in Scripture.

Our Lord’s Call to Repentance

On several occasions Jesus calls upon the seven churches in Asia Minor to repent. To the church in Pergamum Jesus declared: “Therefore repent” (Rev. 2:16a). And to the church in Sardis he said: “Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent” (Rev. 3:2). And to the church in Laodicea: “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent” (Rev. 3:19). Our Lord’s words to the church in Ephesus are especially helpful:

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent (Rev. 2:4–5).

The repentance to which Jesus calls the church involves ceasing from one kind of behavior and embracing another. Stop abandoning your first love and “do the works you did at first.” That is genuine repentance. To be quick to repent is not to acquiesce to a life dominated by the consciousness of sin. But we must be conscious of our sin precisely so that the forgiving, renewing, refreshing reality of God’s grace can control, energize and empower our daily living.

FURTHER READING

• J. I. Packer, Rediscovering Holiness
• John MacArthur, “The Call to Repentance,” in The Gospel According to Jesus: What is Authentic Faith?
• Paul Helm, The Beginnings: Word & Spirit in Conversion