We will continue our critique of Morris Chapman’s article in the August 2007 edition of SBC LIFE. Two BLOGS ago I set out to show how it is simply impossible to interpret the words of that article in any other way than setting out Reformed teaching on one side and Arminian teaching on the other. When the author uses the words that “The Bible teaches both the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man,” there can be no question that he is meaning the Arminian view of the responsibility of man when taken from the context of the article itself. In the last BLOG we looked at some of the language of the article and how it is dangerous to add something to grace. In this BLOG I would like to focus in on how dangerous it is to add something to grace.
Here are a few quotes from the article again: “The Baptist Faith and Message agrees that both the work of grace and the responsibility of man are necessary elements in the salvation experience.” Once again, “since the Baptist Faith and Message embraces both the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man, it is reasonable for Southern Baptists to expect professors to teach both elements as necessary for the salvation experience.” And even again, “For the sake of reaching the world for Christ, can we not agree that both the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man are necessary ingredients in our salvation?” At least one main reason that theologians have asserted the sovereignty of God in salvation is because that protects grace and grace alone. If the term “responsibility” is used as historical Arminians use the term, it means that the will has a power that is free from external forces to it and hence the will is free. A free-will that must be exercised apart from external forces is a will that is free of grace and so salvation would not be by grace alone or by faith alone.
Let me give a quote from another famous old author: “If ever thou wouldst be savingly converted, thou must despair of doing it in thine own strength” (Joseph Alleine, An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners). We must wrestle through this statement and in it we will see the massive danger of saying that “The work of grace and the responsibility of man are necessary elements in the salvation experience” (Morris Chapman in the August 2007 edition of SBC LIFE). We should go to Scripture and compare the two statements with Holy Writ. We will test these two statements first by James 1:18: “In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.” Here we see that being born again is of the will of God who acts through the word of truth. The result of the exercise of His will is that believers are a kind of first fruits of His creatures. This text mentions only one primary cause and that is the will of God. This text mentions only one secondary cause and that is the word of truth. The text mentions the results of the two causes and the fruit is to be His creatures. There is no mention of the works, responsibility, power or will of man.
We can go to another text and test it. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13). In this text we see that there is a present tense in verse 12 of those who believe, but verse 13 speaks in the past tense of those who were born. Many see from the way the text sets out the tenses that it teaches that the birth happened before the belief. Either way, however, the rest of the text makes things very clear. Of whose will is the causative power to make men children of God? The text tells us that this birth is not caused by the person’s nationality. The text tells us that this birth is not caused by the will of the flesh nor of the will of man. If man is responsible from the Arminian position, what good does it do at this point? Man is not saved by a choice, but man is saved because God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (Rom 9:16). These texts speak to the issue of the will of man and they say very clearly that salvation does not depend on the will of man.
What determines and then moves and causes the new birth in man? It is the will of God. We see that very clearly in John 1:13. It tells us that the new birth is not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man. This text very clearly moves the free-will argument out of the picture. Man is born again by the will of God. Where is the Arminian view of responsibility at this point? Man has no ability apart from the grace of God. If man has no ability apart from the grace of God, then free-will in the sense of salvation is null and void. If man has no ability apart from the grace of God, then man is saved by the will of God alone and that would be by grace alone. Let us marvel at the glory of the grace of God in salvation! There is nothing in man that would move God to save man. There is no other necessary element to salvation other than the grace of God. Period, period and a thousand periods!!
God Loves... Himself 
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