Four Questions (1, 2)
A W Pink helpfully boils the main question down to four subsidiary ones and this is the first
1. How can God bring his power to bear on people in such a way that they are either prevented from doing what they want to do or compelled to do what they don't want to do and yet still hold them responsible?
If God uses his power and exerts a direct influence on a person doesn't that interfere with their freedom? Pink takes us to 3 or 4 OT texts to look at the problem.
In Genesis 20:6 we are told that God spoke to the Philistine king Abimelech with whom Abraham had sought refuge. The King had been tempted to have Sarah for himself because of Abraham's lies. God says
Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her. Then in Numbers 22-24 we have the story of Balaam the prophet. He is clearly willing, indeed keen, to accept Balak’s offer of money for cursing Israel, a sin against God and his people. But, he says (22:38)
I must speak only what God puts in my mouth. In 23:20 he says
I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot change it.
So how should we understand things in light of such verses? There is no question that both Abimelech and Balak were still responsible for their actions. God can clearly prevent people from doing things without reducing them to mindless robots. We ask, of course, why didn't he stop Adam sinning? And why didn't he stop Satan tempting Adam or falling in the first place? Such questions cannot properly be answered, however. There is a mystery at least at this point.
An obvious area where God sovereignly overruled and yet allowed freedom within that is the construction of the Holy Scriptures. We teach the children that the Scriptures were written by holy men (yes human beings doing as they intended but) as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. God sovereignly superintended the whole thing from beginning to end.
One of the problems here is a general failure to understand freedom properly. True freedom is not the power to do as you please but to live as you were intended to live. The illustration is often used of a railway engine – true freedom for an engine is found on the track not in a field. That's why it is true to say that the only man who ever lived a truly free life on earth was Jesus Christ, who always did his Father's will. Or think of it this way. Here is a horse in a large field. The owner has constructed a fence around the property on which the horse roams, but the fence can't always be seen because the property is so large. Now, the horse belongs to its owner and is "fenced in" (whether it realises or not!). At the same time, the horse has a great deal of freedom within those parameters. He can run freely from here to there. He can jump or play. He may also choose to attempt to jump over something, miscalculate its height and fall - even be injured. He may choose to wallow in a mud hole for a time. The owner may have granted the horse a great deal of freedom within the parameters of where he has placed the horse. But the horse is still fenced in - this was the owner's choice. All illustrations fail at some point but they can help us.
2. How can the sinner be held responsible for doing what he can't do anyway? And how can he be justly condemned for not doing what he can't do anyway?
As creatures we are all responsible to love God and obey and serve him. Sinners have a duty to repent and believe the gospel. However, sinners in and of themselves are unable to do these things. That is clear from John 6:44 where Jesus says
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.
By nature our hearts are desperately wicked and left to ourselves we will never come to Christ. John 8:34
I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. First, by nature, we don't realise our danger, so we are unconcerned about our souls and about turning to Christ. By nature, we are unwilling too to admit that there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. Further, we will not trust in Christ but would prefer what is false and contrary to God. This is why Romans 8:7, 8 says that
the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
But how can God hold a sinner responsible for failing to do what he is unable to do? To answer that we have to be quite clear about what we mean by "unable". It is not, as is sometimes claimed, that people want to come to Christ but are kept away. No, they don't want to come to Christ in the first place. Pink cites Genesis 37:4 where it says that Joseph's
brothers hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. They could speak all right and they could have spoken kind words to Joseph but they were unwilling. It was their hatred that drove them.
This is the inability of man then – what makes him sin. He is separated from the life of God and full of darkness and sin. Why can't he come to Christ? Because his wicked heart loves sin and hates Christ. It is because people's hearts are calloused so that they
hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and Christ would heal them.
Though the sinner is morally or spiritually unable to come to Christ he is nevertheless responsible to do so. Our inability does not absolve us or mean we are not accountable to God. Rather it serves to increase our guilt. If I lose my temper and break something I can't excuse myself by saying "ah but I lost my temper". If I break a law because I'm drunk do you think the magistrate will let me off? He may well take it into account but it will not mean that I am not guilty.
Man's responsibility is clear from Scripture and our own consciences testify to it too. Pink uses an illustration at this point. He imagines a man who owes him $100. The man says he can't afford to pay back what he owes. However, he seems to find plenty of other things to spend his money on. So what's his problem? “I would say” says Pink “that the only ability that was lacking was an honest heart.” It would be unfair to take that to mean an honest heart is what is needed to be able to pay the debt. No; the ability of the debtor lies in his power to write a cheque and this he has. What is lacking is an honest principle. It is his ability to write a cheque that makes him responsible. The fact that he lacks an honest heart doesn't destroy his accountability.
People don't lack what we may call the natural ability to love God and serve him but they refuse to do so. For this they will have to give an account. We may have lost our power to do good but God hasn't lost his right to expect good from us. A drunken servant is still a servant and it is against all sound reason to suppose that his master loses his rights because of his servant’s failure.
