When we speak out against the false doctrine of the free will of man, we actually mean the independent will of man. There are at least two things from which a man’s will can never be independent:
Man’s will does not operate independent of God’s will anymore than the will of a character in a book can operate independently of the will of the author who wrote the book. Romeo willed to kill himself precisely because Shakespeare willed it. Every man has a will, to be sure; but that will always chooses what God has ordained for the man to do. Does Pharaoh harden his heart? Yes he does, with purpose and determination. But it is equally true that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Does Saul of Tarsus repent and believe the gospel of the Lord Jesus. Yes, he does, with purpose and determination. Yet is was God’s will that created Saul’s, and so we say that before Saul ever chose to trust Christ, God chose to save Saul, and Saul’s choice was just the outworking of God’s.
Nor can man’s will act independent of his nature: he always chooses what is consistent with his nature. In fact, man’s will is merely the expression of his nature. He does not always choose to do everything he desires, for he has competing desires that cannot all be fulfilled; but he always chooses that which advances what he wants the most. Man’s greatest desire is self-glory which makes it utterly impossible for him to choose God’s way of salvation. He may choose a perverted version of God’s gospel, or he may choose to “accept” certain aspects of the gospel. But the one thing he cannot choose is to “deny himself, take up his cross and follow Christ.” (Matthew 16.24) Such an act is diametrically opposed to all that man desires. If a man is to choose such a course, it is necessary that there be a change of his nature, and it must be a wholesale change, not a mere alteration. That is exactly what happens in the New Birth – a man’s God-hating, rebellious nature is changed - more, created new - so that he is a submissive and loving person in things pertaining to God. Therefore, he chooses to follow Christ, not because an act of God has merely made it possible for him to do so, but because this act of God (the New Birth) makes it necessary for him to do so. The born again man is no more free of his nature than the spiritually dead man. He chooses to follow Christ because his nature compels him to do so just as, in former times, he rejected Christ because his nature compelled him to do so.
No man’s will is independent: it is merely the performing of the will of God ordained before time, and is always the expression of the nature of the man.
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