London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689
CHAPTER 9: FREE WILL
1.
God has endowed the human will with natural liberty and power to act on choices so that it is neither forced nor inherently bound by nature to do good or evil.1
God has endowed the human will with natural liberty and power to act on choices so that it is neither forced nor inherently bound by nature to do good or evil.1
1 Matthew 17:12; James 1:14; Deuteronomy 30:19
2.
Man in the state of innocence had freedom and power to will and to do what was good and well-pleasing to God.2 Yet this condition was unstable, so that man could fall from it.3
2 Ecclesiastes 7:29
3 Genesis 3:6
3 Genesis 3:6
3.
Man, by falling into a state of sin, has completely lost all ability to choose any spiritual good that accompanies salvation.4 Thus, people in their natural state without the Spirit are absolutely opposed to that spiritual good and dead in sin,5 so that they cannot convert themselves by their own strength or prepare themselves for conversion.6
4 Romans 5:6; Romans 8:7
5 Ephesians 2:1, 5
6 Titus 3:3–5; John 6:44
5 Ephesians 2:1, 5
6 Titus 3:3–5; John 6:44
4.
When God converts sinners and transforms them into the state of grace, he frees them from their natural bondage to sin7 and by his grace alone enables them to will and to do freely what is spiritually good.8 Yet because of their remaining corruptions, they do not perfectly or exclusively will what is good but also will what is evil.9
7 Colossians 1:13; John 8:36
8 Philippians 2:13
9 Romans 7:15, 18, 19, 21, 23.
8 Philippians 2:13
9 Romans 7:15, 18, 19, 21, 23.
5.
The will of man is made perfectly and unchangeably free toward good alone only in the state of glory.10
10 Ephesians 4:13