But let us come back to Arminianism, which is today held by much of Christendom, especially by large segments of evangelical bodies. Has man today such a thing as a free will morally? No! Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden by his Creator. He was perfect in innocence, for God, after creating him, looked at His creation and said it was “very good.” He was happy in relationship with his Creator, but to remain so he needed to walk in obedience, for that was the only right thing for a creature. He was not outwardly forced to remain in that state, and one, but only one, test was applied to him in the matter of obedience. He was to abstain from the fruit of only one tree, and God warned him of the consequences of disobedience. As soon then as he exercised his own will, he sinned. This was not all; he became a sinner with a will opposed to God. From that moment forward, all of mankind (with the single exception of the “Lord from heaven,” “the second Man,” “the last Adam”) have been disposed to evil. Since man’s will is now inclined toward evil, how can he by the exercise of it bring himself back to God? Let us quote from another on the subject of free will:
“It is simple nonsense to talk of freedom when applied to man’s actual condition, if he is already inclined to evil.
“A man being really set to choose between evil and good . . . is alike horrible and absurd, because it supposes the good and evil to be outside and himself neither. If he is one or other in disposition, the choice is there. To have a fair choice, he must be personally indifferent, but to be in a state of indifference to good and evil is perfectly horrible. If a man has an inclination, his choice is not free; a free will is rank nonsense morally, because, if he have a will, he wills something. God can will to create. But will in moral things [in man] means either self-will, which is sin (for we ought to obey), or an inclination to something, which is really a choice made as far as will goes.
“To say that he [man] is not inclined to evil is to deny all Scripture and all fact; to make him free to choose, he must be as yet indifferent, indifferent to —having no preference for — good and evil, which is not true, for evil lusts and self-will are there, the two great elements of sin, and if it were true it would be perfectly horrible.
“The doctrine of free will helps on the doctrine of the natural man’s pretension not to be entirely lost, for that is really what it amounts to. All men who have never been deeply convinced of sin, all persons with whom this conviction is based upon gross and outward sins, believe more or less in free will. You know that it is the dogma . . . of all reasoners, of all philosophers. But this idea completely changes all the idea of Christianity and entirely perverts it.”
If natural man could by the exercise of his own will bring himself into favor with God, then it is not true that “they that are in the flesh cannot please God,” but God’s Word is true. It would likewise negate the positive declaration, “Ye must be born again.” Why did the Lord say, “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him”? Because man’s heart is so far estranged from God that if man be left to himself he would never come. It is true, as in the parable, that when the invitation reaches needy sinners, “They all with one consent [begin] to make excuse.” They not only have a nature disposed toward evil, but they are not disposed to accept God’s gracious invitation, no, not even with God’s beseeching them to come. If it were not for sovereign grace that drew any of us to Christ, none would have partaken of God’s free gift. As the poet has so aptly said,
Why was I made to hear His voice
And enter while there’s room,
When thousands make a wretched choice
And rather starve than come?
’ Twas the same love that spread the feast,
That sweetly forced me in,
Else I had still refused to taste
And perished in my sin.
Scripture completely sets aside any good in man, as our Lord said, “Ye will not come to Me,” not even when He was graciously seeking them. The will was at fault. But the Lord said to His own, “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.” How completely that sets aside our doing, even in coming to Christ! Again we read of His own, “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:1313Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:13)). And in James 1:1818Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:18), “Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.” Even the faith to believe in Him is not of ourselves but “is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:88For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (Ephesians 2:8)). When the redeemed ones in glory render praise and worship to the Lamb who saved them (Rev. 5), there will be no one present who was saved by exercising his own will or apart from the constraining of divine grace. Not one will be there who will mar that new song by taking any credit to himself, not even for his faith. Everyone there will be there as the evident trophy of God’s grace, even as Mephibosheth in David’s house was visible evidence of David’s goodness (2 Sam. 9).
Arminius may not have realized how much he borrowed from the fatal scheme of Pelagius, nor how much he taught that which is one of the most natural weeds to grow in the human heart — that which in substance exalts the first man and sets aside the second Man, the Lord from heaven. (All was lost and condemned in the first man, and the believer in Christ is now seen in the second Man — he is a new creature in Christ.) Arminius may have been actuated largely from a desire to refute the excesses of Calvinism, and there are many. These we purpose to bring before our readers.
In turning now to the errors of Calvinism, it is not our purpose to examine the works of John Calvin; we will instead take a book of this persuasion which has had a large sale and which has turned many from positive truth into bypaths of error. It is entitled The Sovereignty of God and was written by Arthur W. Pink, a man who we understand died in 1952.