Grace Baptist Church

1. In the natural order God has endued man's will with liberty and the power to act upon choice, so that it is neither forced from without, nor by any necessity arising from within itself, compelled to do good or evil. (Deut. 30:19; Mat. 17:12; Jas. 1:14)

2. In his state of innocency man had freedom and power to will and to do what was good and acceptable to God.Yet, being unstable, it was possible for him to fall from his uprightness.  (Gen. 3:6; Eccles. 7:29)

3. As the consequence of his fall into a state of sin, man has lost all ability to will the performance of any of those works, spiritually good, that accompany salvation. As a natural (unspiritual) man he is dead in sin and altogether opposed to that which is good. Hence he is not able, by any strength of his own, to turn himself to God, or even to prepare himself to turn to God.  (John 6:44; Rom. 5:6; 8:7; Eph. 2:1, 5; Titus 3:3-5)

4. When God converts a sinner, and brings him out of sin into the state of grace, He frees him from his natural bondage to sin and, by His grace alone, He enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good. Nevertheless certain corruptions remain in the sinner, so that his will is never completely and perfectly held in captivity to that which is good, but it also entertains evil.  (John 8:36; Rom. 7:15, 18-19, 21, 23; Phil. 2:13; Col.1:13)

5. It is not until man enters the state of glory that he is made perfectly and immutably free to will that which is good, and that alone.  (Eph. 4:13)