Is God sovereign, or do we have free will?

Let us by the grace of God hold both these great facts firmly — God is sovereign in His gracious actions; man, though fallen, is a responsible creature and is addressed as such. The truth of divine sovereignty is plainly stated in Scripture. Read passages like John 6:37-44; Romans 9:10-24; Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:2. Equally plain is man's responsibility. Read passages like John 3:16-18; Romans 2:6-16; 1 Peter 4:5-6. Let us then accept both, even if we cannot yet see far enough to work out exactly how they fit together.

Hyper-Calvinism is the system of religious thought that sees little in Scripture except God's sovereignty in election. Man's responsibility is thought of so little, if not denied outright, that he is reduced to a mere puppet. He is a plaything in the hand of fate. If he is elect, he must be saved, whatever happens; if he is not, he must be damned, and that is the end of it.

Arminianism, by contrast, sees little except the fact of man's responsibility, often to the total exclusion of God's sovereign and gracious work by His Spirit in the souls of men. Man is a free and unfettered being in the exercise of his own will; so anything is lawful that will persuade him to push his will in the right direction.

Where the Lord says, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him," it is not that God forbids or hinders, but that man is so wicked in will and corrupt that unless a power outside himself acts on him he cannot come — he is never morally inclined to. As far as God is concerned, man is perfectly free to come now, and he is invited to come, yes, even begged; and the precious blood of Christ is there on the mercy-seat, so that God's own grace has removed the moral difficulty about the Holy One receiving a sinner. In that sense he is perfectly free to come. But then there is the other side, man's own will and state. There is no will to come, but the opposite.

This word "none," repeated three times, closes every road of deliverance if man is simply left to himself. God must step in. In other words, God must exercise His sovereign action on a man's behalf. He must work by His Spirit in the hearts of men if any are to seek after Him and His salvation. This He does, as it pleases Him, when the gospel is faithfully preached, since it pleased God "through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe" (1 Corinthians 1:21).

Notice, the vessels of wrath fit themselves for destruction — God is not responsible for man's sin, but holds man responsible for it. He endures with much patience, so that when His wrath falls it may be fully deserved and righteously measured out. For example, He endured the Amorites for four hundred years, until the cup of their wickedness was full.

So although the believer cannot satisfy the human intellect by explaining how God's sovereignty and man's responsibility fit together, faith has no difficulty with this. The believer rejoices in both facts, and sees how right it is for him to be fully obedient to the revealed will of God. God does as He pleases: it is His right to do so. I have no right to do as I please, but I am responsible to do what God pleases. To give God His place and keep my own place is the secret of deepest blessing.