The doctrine of free-will in terms of being able to receive Christ at any point the will decides to make a choice has some insidious ramifications. The sinner thinks that since it is all up to him, that he can go on in his sin and simply make a choice when he is too old to have fun or when he is ready to die. This helps the sinner go on in his sin and flatters himself with the lie that God is simply waiting on him to make a choice and be saved. But the other ramification is that many people will think that because they have made a choice then they are necessarily converted. I have seen several people like this. They will be confronted with Scripture and see what it says about them, but they go back and say that they asked Jesus to come in or that they made their choice in the past. Either way the people are trusting in themselves to apply salvation and not seeing the Gospel that is all of grace.
Jonathan Edwards dealt with the vain self-flatteries of sinners in a sermon that he preached in New England. William Nichols, in his book of some sermons of Edwards (Seeking God), in an introduction sets out some of the main points of this sermon of Edwards (The Vain Self-Flatteries of the Sinner) in a helpful way. I will try to apply this to the teaching of free-will.
Several of the ways which Edwards believes men flatter themselves are,
- That they “lead moral and orderly lives and therefore they shall not be damned.” This is very common. It is a common tendency of men to compare themselves with others who are far worse.
- “Some flatter themselves that death is a great way off.” Edwards makes a profound statement that which should be pondered by any and all who do evangelism. “Men will believe that things will be as they choose to have them.”
- “Some sinners flatter themselves that they are already converted.” This is one of the greatest difficulties we face in the church today. Arthur W. Pink believed that over 90% of the professions of faith in his day were spurious and it is doubtful things have improved much since then.
We can see how this is exasperated by the teaching of free-will. Men think that they have made the decision for Christ and see proof of that by leading moral and orderly lives. The teaching of free-will exasperates the issue of men flattering themselves in thinking that death is a long way in the future. Indeed man in his pride thinks that things will be as he chooses or wishes for them to be. But think of the ramifications of the truth of that statement. If men believe that things will be as they choose to have them, then think of the errors that free-will leads men into. If they want to believe that salvation is fully provided and all they have to do is to make a choice, then that is the way things are for them. From the Arminian perspective they will never hear of anything that will make them think any differently. So men choose to believe that if they make a choice for Christ (in some way that they choose) and lead a moral life (that they decide on what is moral and what is not) then they believe that they believe and that they shall not be damned. Others simply choose to believe that they will have plenty of time and so since their beliefs constitute reality for them they will always have time to repent.
Still others (as in #3) simply flatter themselves that they believe. Since they believe that all things will be as they choose to have them, if they believe that they believe then they will flatter themselves into thinking that they are converted when in fact they are not. Here we can see the intrusion of the teaching of free-will into the biblical teachings of the bondage of the will, justification by grace alone through faith alone, and then the application of redemption. It is so clear that the teaching of free-will fits with the pride of man in thinking that he is under control and the free-will teaching does leave man in control to some degree. It fits with the part of man that wants to be out of the control of a sovereign God.
What we must notice is that the teaching of man’s free-will fits in with man’s propensity to pride and self-sufficiency and self-deception. I would make the argument that the teaching of free-will is itself one of the deceptions of man that leaves man thinking that he is control of certain things and not God. It is itself a form of self-flattery that deludes man into thinking that he can control his life and death and even his own salvation. It is itself an act of rebellion against the sovereign God of this universe. Man was never created to be moral or do good works in a way apart from the power and grace of God. He was created to be an empty vessel that God would manifest Himself and His glory through. Free-will can never glorify God since He alone can do that.
God Loves... Himself 
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