God's Commands and Our (In)Ability
Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 1:00PM | Email Article One of the objections that almost always arises in discussions about the absolute sinfulness of man has to to do with God's commands and our ability.
Some argue (like myself) that fallen man is completely unable and unwilling (is there a difference?) to serve, love, and choose God in Jesus Christ. You could call this the doctrine of Total Inability if you'd like. Sin has touched and corrupted every nook and cranny of every person born into this world. So being under the dominion of sin, no one chooses to love, follow, or obey God. Given the option between God's way and our own way, we will always choose our own (we could take the dicussion farther and say that sometimes our way appears to coincide with God's way, but in actuality it never does). Therefore, God must both enable and draw (on his own initiative) anyone who comes to him and believes on him for salvation.
Now here's the usual objection: if we, in our fallen state, are unable to actually obey God and his commands, it would be unjust for him to punish us for our disobedience. After all, what choice did we have? Therefore, (they reason) because God has given us commands, and because God is just in punishing us for breaking those commands, we must be fully able to either obey or disobey. God wouldn't command something that he knew we wouldn't or couldn't obey in our fallen, sin-hardened state.
Here's the biggest problem with that objection:
John 15:4 "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me."
And John 15:5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."
As verses 1, 2, 6, 8, and 10 make clear, "bearing fruit" is obedience to God's commands and desire. Jesus acknowledges, and even demands, that apart from being united to him by faith (as a branch is united to the vine), we cannot bear fruit for God. So the objection falls. Yes, God will punish our disobedience (and he will do it in complete justice). And yes, in our natural fallen state, we are unable because of the hardness of our hearts to obey his commands. (He must cause us to be born again before our hearts will begin to choose him and follow him as he desires.)
That doesn't make God unjust. It just makes God's grace all the more spectacular.
We are incredibly desperate. We are lost in our sins unless God, completely in his free grace, comes to us, counts Jesus' wrath-statisfying death as ours, counts Jesus' God-pleasing righteousness as ours, and fills us with his Holy Spirit to enable us to truly begin to give up our sins and obey and follow his commands. Then we begin to bear fruit for God. And you see, wonderfully even then our fruit is really still only because of his grace.
Therefore Jude says: "To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." (v. 25)
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