(Today we conclude a series in response to comments and questions from a subscriber regarding our devotional on 1 Tim. 2:4. Please refer to that devotional and the preceding four for background to the concluding comments regarding the efficacy of the human will that follow.)

The problem is not that men cannot choose freely and have those choices count. The problem is their desire or wills.  The Bible says that the human heart is "deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?" (Jer. 17:9).  We are told that "every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood" (Gen. 8:21). Paul says that there is no one who seeks God (Rom. 3:11). Paul speaks of the darkened and blind hearts of unbelievers (Eph. 4:17-18, 2 Cor. 4:4). 

Thus Jesus said twice (John 6:44, 65) that "no man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him (enable him)."  In the act of coming to Christ, there is a conscious choosing on the part of the one coming to do so.   But our Lord said that no one can do so unless first the Father draw and enable him.  That drawing and enabling comes when God works in our hearts to lift the veil, to effect a new birth, to bring us from death to life.  This he does for his elect, for all those the Father gives to the Son for salvation (John 6:37-39) where Jesus said that all the Father gives will come, will choose, and he will not lose one of them.  Jesus then says in his prayer to his Father that he has given eternal life to all those the Father has given him (John 17:2). 

Jonathan Edwards in his book On the Freedom of the Will, A.W. Pink in his Sovereignty of God, and Augustine in The City of God address the matter of human choice. Hope this comment clarifies what I said yesterday.  (We hope it is of general use and interest to all our readers!)