The great Reformer, Martin Luther, confessed that he struggled with the subjective relationship between God’s sovereignty to the human will. The subject of humanity's will, whether it is "free" or in "bondage" has been a source of tension, debate, and even departure of fellowship between many interpretive views across Christendom. In my own estimation, some very wonderful doctrinal fruit has come from one of the greatest books ever written on the subject, 'The Bondage of the Will ,' which happens to be from Luther’s pen. When Luther grappled with this issue, he especially struggled with the Old Testament passages where we read that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Ex. 4:21; 7:3–4, 13–14, 22–23; 8:15, 19, 30–32; 9:27–10:2; 10:16–20, 24–28). When we read these passages, we tend to think, “Doesn’t this suggest that God not only works through the desires and actions of humans, but that He actually forces evil upon people? After all, the Bible does say that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart." When Luther discussed this, seeking an anser to these questions, he observed that when the Bible says that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, God did not create fresh evil in the heart of an innocent man. No, Luther said, and I agree, that God didn’t harden people by putting evil in their hearts not at all? How's that? It's because all that God must do to harden anyone’s heart is to withhold His own grace.(read that again). That means God simply restrains from extending His grace, while giving a person over to his/her own self. That's exactly what we're witnessing in our generation, especially among the LGBT crowd whose open perversion is only growing...seemingly without restraint. It's because the Holy Spirit's restraining influence is beign withdrawn from them, and in many cases, some have comitted what the Bible refers to as the "unpardonable sin," by, as many of the old preachers used to describe it: sinning away their day of grace.
In general, I believe that every lost person's will is enslaved to sin. How's that? It's because a person's will follows his/her nature ( John 8.34). As such, a sinner's nature, ouside of Christ, leads around a will that is ONLY evil, in darkness, and groping around without the restraining light of the Gospel as his/her guide. It's the state we were in Brethren, before Jesus saved us! (Ephesians 2:1). When you think about it biblically; it's not a wonder that God would cast so many into the lake of fire on the day of judgment (and He will), but a wonder that, knowing how wicked we are and how holy God is, that He'd save anyone at all. What a merciful God we serve Brethren! For sinners to exercise faith in Christ, then, it truly requires a divine act of influence (by the Holy Spirit) upon their natures so that the fruit of their wills (words, thoughts, actions) will bear the fruit of the Spirit. Luther rightly said, "The ungodly does not come even when he hears the Word unless the Father draws and teaches him inwardly, which He does by pouring out the Spirit." Brethren, if God works in us, then our natures have been changed so that our wills can be set free to serve Christ. That work first; however, must have been completed in the changing of our nature, by the Holy Spirit, from one of only being sinful to one of being sanctified. When that miracle blessing is given by / from God, acting upon us from the outside, as a Potter acts/molds upon clay, then sinners who once loved darkness now have a holy hatred for darkness and anything that would draw them away from the "Light of the world" - the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. In effect, they/we have been moved from being "dead in trespasses and sins" to being "alive in Christ" with a"new nature" that loves the things that God loves and hates what God hates. The new birth reveals a new nature, and because the will follows one's nature, the desire of a born-again man, woman, boy or girl now recognizes, as the Apostle Paul did, the constant strugle between the spirit and the flesh - always now desiring to do good, but admitting failure, through repentance, while coming up short. This keeps us humble and honest while acknowledging we can do nothing without Jesus, but through Him, we can do all things! (John 15:5; Philippians 4:13). Before our new birth, there may have been even an inclination of guilt in our minds/hearts, but we still maintained a continual unrepentant, unchanged path that only would have lead to our destruction had not God, by His grace, interceded. Glory! When it came to God hardening Pharaoh's heart (and the hearts of all who die in final unbelief) in Exodus 9:12; God provoked the nature of Pharaoh, and increased the hardness and stubbornness of his heart by thrusting at him, through the words of Moses, who threatened to take away his kingdom and withdraw the people from his tyranny. God did this without giving him the Spirit inwardly but permitting his ungodly corrupt nature to go it's natural wicked course, exersised by his will, through his words, thoughts, and actions while being in agreement with even Satan to catch fire, flare up, rage, and run riot with a kind of contemptuous self-confidence. God confronted Pharaoh with a word which required Pharaoh to give up something he held dear, and in so doing provoked Pharaoh to cling more tightly to that very thing. So, God hardened Pharaoh when he presents to his ungodly and evil nature/will a word... which that nature/will hates, owing of course to its natural corruption. And since God does not change it inwardly by his Spirit, but keeps on presenting his words, from withouth (thorugh the preaching of it by those called to do so to sinners, whether they hear/obey or refuse it/disobey) the result is that Pharaoh is puffed up with pride, being exalted by his own imagined greatness, and is so hardened the more while Moses presses and warns him...with God's own word! Sound familiar? In this world, God "hardens" many who are exposed to the Word, but without a corresponding work of God's Spirit to bring them to faith and repentance: This provocation of the ungodly, when God says or does to them the opposite of what they wish, is itself their hardening. Think about this - not only are they in themselves averse through the very corruption of their nature, but they become all the more averse and are made much worse when their aversion is resisted. And so Brethren, it is the Gospel that proves the ultimate "provocation of the ungodly," because it calls sinners to abandon their most prized possession...their own self-righteousness. So, knowing this, can we truly say that men, women, boys, and girls have a "free" will? I think not. What I would suggest to you is that our wills are either in bondage to a fallen nature, being wihtout hope and without Christ, and on our way to hell OR our wills are in bondages to Christ which means at liberty to now follow a new nature that has been given to us by God, through the Holy Spirit, in our new birth. This new "birth" is the same one the Lord Jesus told Nicodemus about while declaring, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (see John chapter 3: 1-36). What about you? Have you been born again? If so, then by God's grace, He's given you a new nature and will. Live for Him by giving Him all the glory and praise for the mighty God that He is while prayng for those who, as you witness, seem only to have hearts that are beign hardened, as evidences by their words and deeds.
I am thankful to God that my will is not free, but in bondage to Christ, being "yoked with him" because I know that I can come to God through Him, confess my sins, and know that not only does He hear me, but that he forgives me because JESUS now stands in my place. He, not my will, is the determiner of my eternal destiny now, and for that, I give Him all the glory due to His holy name! (1 John 5:14-15; 1 John 1:9; 1 Corinthians 7:21-23; Matthew 11:29-30). Amen.
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