August 2018

The Distinction Between Free Will and Free Agency

INABILITY: FALLEN HUMAN BEINGS ARE BOTH FREE AND ENSLAVED

by J.I. Packer

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? - JEREMIAH 17:9

Clear thought about the fallen human condition requires a distinction between what for the past two centuries has been called free agency and what since the start of Christianity has been called free will. Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and others spoke of free will in two senses, the first trivial, the second important; but this was confusing, and it is better always to use free agency for their first sense.

Free agency is a mark of human beings as such. All humans are free agents in the sense that they make their own decisions as to what they will do, choosing as they please in the light of their sense of right and wrong and the inclinations they feel. Thus they are moral agents, answerable to God and each other for their voluntary choices. So was Adam, both before and after he sinned; so are we now, and so are the glorified saints who are confirmed in grace in such a sense that they no longer have it in them to sin. Inability to sin will be one of the delights and glories of heaven, but it will not terminate anyone’s humanness; glorified saints will still make choices in accordance with their nature, and those choices will not be any the less the product of human free agency just because they will always be good and right.

Our Posture Before the Word of God

by Tom Lyon

1. If I find something with which I cannot agree, I am wrong.

2. If I find something which I cannot understand, I am wrong to judge it on that account. A quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones: “You have a very small brain and you have a very poor spirit within you; do not be surprised that you cannot understand.”

3. If I find something which would contradict the clear teaching of Scripture elsewhere, I cannot be right.

4. If I find something which would slander the revealed character of God, I am certainly wrong.

5. If I find something which brings up an apparent contradiction, I am wrong not to face it squarely.

6. If I find something which leads to a summary principle, I am wrong if I do not follow it to its conclusion.

7. If I find something which disturbs my settled convictions, I am wrong to dismiss it on that account.

8. If I find something which calls for decisive action and I remain inert, I am fatally wrong.

9. If I find something which I dare not follow in its practical drift, I am destructively wrong.

10. If I find something which others blush to admit or struggle to avoid, I am unwise to follow them at that point. A quote from Calvin: “The delicacy of those who affect an appearance of greater prudence than the Holy Spirit in removing or resolving difficulties, is quite intolerable.”

11. If I find something upon which popular religion frowns, I may presume I am on the right track. C.H. Spurgeon quote: “Be assured there is nothing new in theology except that which is false.”

12. If I find something which would tend to humble man and glorify God, I am most probably right.

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The Great Giver

by A. W. Pink

"He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" - Rom. 8:32

The above verse supplies us with an instance of Divine logic. It contains a conclusion drawn from a premise; the premise is that God delivered up Christ for all His people, therefore everything else that is needed by them is sure to be given. There are many examples in Holy Writ of such Divine logic. "If God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you?" (Mat_6:30). "If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life" (Rom. 5:10). "If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" (Mat_7:11). So here in our text the reasoning is irresistible and goes straight to the understanding and heart.

Our text tells of the gracious character of our loving God as interpreted by the gift of His Son. And this, not merely for the instruction of our minds, but for the comfort and assurance of our hearts. The gift of His own Son is God’s guarantee to His people of all needed blessings. The greater includes the less; His unspeakable spiritual gift is the pledge of all needed temporal mercies. Note in our text four things:

1. The Father’s Costly Sacrifice.

God's Electing Grace

"Those who are passed over by God will never complain that God is being unfair. Left to themsleves, they have no desire to be chosen." - Ian Duguid

Historically Reformed

A short summary of the historic meaning of what it is to be theologically Reformed

by J.I. Packer

by Tom Lyon

by A. W. Pink

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