A few years ago I was sitting with a Charismatic pastor friend having dinner and we were discussing predestination. He expressed how he thought that believing God chooses who He’ll save is prideful; he couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s one of the most humbling doctrines in Scripture. To know that God saves wretched sinners… nothing is more humbling than that right there. I asked this precious brother if he was forced to choose his wife or if he made that choice. Of course he said, “I chose her”. I then asked him why he won’t allow God to choose HIS bride. What arrogance and utter deception to think “we” can be the arbiters of who God can and cannot choose; of saying that “we” can choose “our” bride … but not God; He isn’t allowed to choose; “we” have to be the ones to choose Him.
The Bible is clear; that salvation is God’s work from beginning to end. Yes; we have to believe, repent, obey, and follow Jesus, but none of those things can even happen apart from God’s enabling grace. God didn’t look into the future, find sinners who’d love Him first and then choose to love them in response; it’s the opposite. Scripture says, “We love him, BECAUSE he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19). God, in His mercy, initiates the choosing, brings us to life, gives us faith and keeps us until the end. Even repentance itself is a gift that has to be given: How amazing is that?!
If you’ve been a Believer for any length of time, you’ve heard it: “You have to make a choice; God won’t force you” or “God will call you … but it’s up to you to make that ultimate decision”. This sounds great … until you open the Word. Repentance itself is a gift; it’s not something we can “just do”. God has to grant it … or a person isn’t going to be saved. Acts 11:18: “When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles also God has GRANTED repentance that leads to life.'” (Also see Acts 5:31 and 2 Timothy 2:25)
Apart from God’s grace, we’re not just weak or merely “spiritually blind”; we’re dead in sin. “There is NONE righteous, no, not one: There is NONE that understandeth, there is NONE that seeketh after God.” (Romans 3:10–11) and “The carnal mind is ENMITY against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” (Romans 8:7) and “And you hath he quickened, who were DEAD in trespasses and sins.” (Ephesians 2:1)
Jesus said, “NO MAN can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him” (John 6:44). This invitation to come to Him is conditioned on the Father’s drawing … not on supposed “free will”. His very words themselves show our inability to come to Him and it’s precisely why the Father must first draw us… because those dead in sin don’t draw themselves. NO ONE can come come to Christ unless the Father draws him. And Jesus continues with, “And I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44). Everyone that the Father draws will be raised by Christ on the last day. God’s drawing is effectual… not a weak attempt that “hopes” sinners will come to Christ; He draws us, saves us and will one day raise us.
Before the foundation of the world, God chose a people in Christ; not because of their own good works, faithfulness, or “free will” decision… because HE made the choice before the world was even created; before there was a “you and I”. If you’re a genuine Believer, God ordained you to be in Christ long before your birth.
“Even as HE CHOSE US in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of HIS will.” The apostle Paul says God predestined us according to who’s will? Our “free will”? Nope. It was according to HIS will. Predestination is just a fancy term which means that God determined beforehand the Salvation and final destiny of His people: adoption as His children through Christ: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified..” (Romans 8:29–30)
Of course we say, “Yes” to Salvation but no; our “free will” isn’t involved in God’s choice. Saying “Yes” and “free will” are not the same. We obviously didn’t have a free-will prior to our birth and it’s prior to our birth that He made His electing decision: “For the children being NOT YET BORN, neither having done ANY good or evil, that the purpose of God ACCORDING TO ELECTION might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth.” (Romans 9:11). our “Yes, Lord, I repent and turn to Christ” comes as a result of our will being MADE FREE… because prior to being convicted, our will was not free; it was in bondage to sin and darkness. God has to set our will free. Paul brings this truth home when he says, “So then it depends NOT on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” (Romans 9:16). Here, Paul explicitly states that salvation is NOT of “human will”. The reason one person comes to saving faith while the other continues in their spiritually dead state is because of God’s choice; not our own.
A sinner who’s dead in sin can’t come to faith unless God first gives new life. “Even when we were DEAD in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved).” (Ephesians 2:5). God doesn’t wait for spiritually dead people to “make a decision for Jesus” because they can’t. HE has to make them come alive. Lydia’s conversion gives a clear example. “Whose heart THE LORD opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.” (Acts 16:14). Paul preached to Lydia, but it was the Lord who opened her heart to have her “attend” (believe) the things Paul preached.
Just as every married man reading this freely chose their bride, God has freely chosen His bride. Are you evil and wicked for not choosing “all” brides? Of course not. Yet, many “free will” advocates say that God would be wicked if He didn’t choose all brides. Nonsense.
Who receives Christ and says “Yes” to Salvation? Those whom God chooses by His OWN will. No one is “born” a Christian and no one is born again by his own will or the will of any other man. We’re saved by Grace alone, through faith alone and for Christ alone.
In John 1:12-13 we read, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh NOR OF THE WILL OF MAN, but of God.”
Anyone who comes to Christ will be saved. No one who trusts Christ will be cast out. Yet every person who comes does so because the Father draws him. And this is why none of us can say, “I LET God save me because I used my free will”. We can only say, “His mercy plucked me out of the grip of the hell!”
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