The Divine Escape from the Bondage of the Will

By Mark W. Christy, PhD

In Matthew 23:37, Jesus laments, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.”[i] Some have suggested that this verse offers support for the doctrine of resistible grace. On the surface, this hardly seems surprising since Jesus Himself, in this verse, declares His desire to save the Jews but was prevented from doing so by their unwillingness. This, of course, suggests that a person’s will plays a considerable, if not dominant, role in one’s salvation.

Jesus, however, is not expressing a divine will to save but the desires of the loving and generous heart of God for His people. God’s lovingkindness towards sinners appears prominently throughout the Old Testament beginning with his reaction to Adam and Eve after their initial fall into sin. While His extreme anger is overwhelmingly portrayed in the worldwide flood, His longsuffering leading up to it and His testimony through Noah as the people looked on also demonstrate His heart. If this were not enough, one could also turn countless pages following His patient and loving treatment of the Jews despite their consistence in rebellion and sin against Him. Finally, the prophet Ezekiel offers a reason for God’s reluctance to visit His wrath against sin on people: “’For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,’ declares the Lord God. ‘Therefore, repent and live’” (Ezek 18:32).

God’s heart lies in the salvation of souls even while people remain trapped in their fallen state in such a way that their wills stand against God’s loving efforts. In Ezekiel 18:32, God clearly calls upon people to repent so as to receive salvation. This repentance, unfortunately, is beyond the capacity of a sinner to manifest given that their will lies in bondage to sin.

In Romans 3:9, Paul declares that all are “under sin” and adds, “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one” (vv.10-11). All, in their unsaved state, are like Simon the Magician who was told by Peter and John that he remains unforgiven and in the “bondage of iniquity” (Acts 8:22-23). Paul speaks of his flesh being “sold into bondage to sin (Rom 7:14). He also points that those who are under the Law (i.e., all unredeemed sinners) are “held in bondage” (Gal 4:3-5).

When Adam and Even made a choice to sin, the whole of their person including their will fell into slavery to sin. As Jesus puts it, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin” (John 8:34; cf. Titus 3:3). This bondage can be seen when Joshua responds to the people who are making a pledge (on the strength of their wills) to submit themselves to God’s law. He says to them, “You will not be able to serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgression or your sins” (Joshua 24:19). Despite their expressed intentions, the people were unable to keep themselves from sinning by an act of will.

To escape from the bondage of sin, one must find a way to attach their sins to the cross of Christ and become a new creation that is wholly free of sin (in the inner person even while one still struggles with the vestiges of sin in the flesh, see Rom 7:14ff). Thankfully, Paul, in Romans 6, goes into detail on how one escapes being enslaved by sin through union with Christ in His death. Those who partake of the union become “enslaved to God” (Rom 6:22); in other words, their bondage is no longer to sin but to God.

Given this pathway for escaping the overarching control of sin, one still must consider the exact nature the human will plays and whether it is a deciding factor. In the gospels, potential converts are called to believe and accept the gospel, i.e. they are expected to give a faithful response so as to be saved. The writer of Hebrews demonstrates that this same call was acted upon by Old Testament saints (Heb 11). Those who do make the choice to believe are saved and justified before God (Luke 7:50; Rom 5:1; Gal 2:16; 3:24; Eph 2:8-9). According to Ephesians 2:8-9, this salvific act of will where one responds in faith to the gospel rests in the will of God. In this passage, faith is declared to be God’s gift; therefore, those who manifest faith are merely acting in accordance with the gift they have received. The necessity of faith being a gift from God is due the aforementioned bondage caused by sin. As sinners, people are completely incapable of expressing faith in the gospel because sin has put their wills in a state of rebellion and their minds in a state of confusion.

[i]All Scripture references are taken from NASB1995.