Another Question for Ben

Dear Brother Ben:

Thank you for your prompt answer to my previous question. I don't accept it but I thank you for giving it.

I have one additional question to ask you if you would be so kind to answer it.

Does God the Holy Spirit convict men of sin apart from their free choice? In other words, does he ask the sinner for his permission to convict him?

Yours in Christ,

Stephen

Here was Ben's answer:

Hi Stephen,

"The work of the Holy Spirit in convincing and convicting a person of sin, is not unlike the work of a lover seeking to woo the beloved. There is an influence and a leading and a directing, but what there is not in a proper relationship is the manipulation of the beloved without their consent or free response. Love must be freely given and freely received, and the same applies to the whole issue of being saved. Now I quite agree that the Holy Spirit or Christ can at times overwhelm a person (e.g. Saul on Damascus Road). But thereafter Saul or any other such person had a choice about how they would respond to the crisis experience. Jesus didn't say to the Laodiceans "behold I am breaking down the door and forcing you to comply." He said "Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone would open....."

Typical response, what I expected. What can I say?

First, he says that God may "influence" and "direct" and "lead" and "woo" and "overwhelm" a person, but he must be careful, according to Ben, not to "cross the line" nor get into what he calls the "manipulation" (or to use a term often used by Arminians against sovereign grace - "forcing") of a person! But, will Ben tell us the criterion he uses to decide when God, or any other suitor, has "gone too far" in his "advances" towards the sinner?

Second, why does he limit "conviction" to "wooing"? Is the salvation experience limited to this metaphor? Seems like the words "conviction" deal with criminals, not with courting lovers.

The point I was trying to make with the Arminian, as I do with others like him, is to try to get him to see the contradiction in his not having any problem with the idea that God forces, compels, or constrains the sinner in the work of conviction, on the one hand, and yet, on the other hand, has all kinds of problems if God does so in a post work of conviction, in regeneration or salvation itself.

Third, let us, for the sake of argument, look at salvation simply as the "winning of the heart of a lover."

I would ask - "does God fail in his love efforts"? Is he lacking in skill in wooing? Is he not the greatest "Don Juan," spiritually speaking? Does he not "win" the affections of sinners? Is it not a "contest" of wills and hearts? Does God ever really lose in his wooings with his elect bride?

I would also ask - "does God apply equal wooing 'influence' on all"? If so, why does one respond and not another? Or, to put it biblically, "who made you to differ from another?" (I Cor. 4: 7)

I believe that God extends "common grace" to all men, in the gospel and by the Holy Spirit, or if you will, a "common wooing," but there is also an "abounding" of grace, and power, and "wooing" that is exerted in the case of the elect.

The word "draw" is used with regard to the experience of regeneration in many passages of scripture. God draws. Magnets draw. Magnets attract. Fishermen draw (drag) nets, and people "draw" water from wells. And yes, lovers "draw" the hearts of others. And, do they not do it with what we call "charm"? Surely, in the case of the elect, God "turns up the volume of his "charms" and the "sweet influences" of his grace! Surely then we can ascribe the difference to God and not to man, as does brother Ben and the Arminians.

In the hearts of some, God works in extraordinary drawings, and thus the reason why they are successfully "wooed" and "won" is because God showed greater power, charm, and grace in the one case than in the other.

The idea that "love must be freely recieved and given" by the sinner before it will be of any benefit to him is the final argument of all those who believe that they ultimately determine their own destinies rather than God. One of my professors in college, a Catholic apologist, used to argue this point to me as has Ben. But, it will not work. Here is why.

It is not true that the love that men have for God can only be of virtue or worth if it is self created, or self induced, or acted out without any kind of coercion, or force or power outside influencing or causing it.

In fact, the bible teaches that God is the one who creates and produces what divine love we have in our hearts!

What Ben and others do is credit themselves with producing their love for God, rather than crediting God. He would say that Ben made the difference. But Paul also asked - "what do you have that you did not receive (from God)?" James also said - "every good and perfect gift is from above." But, Ben would have to say that his love for God was not given to him of God, but self produced.

As far as the invitation of Revelation 3: 20, a verse I have written about quite a bit of late, yes of course, Christ is not viewed there as "forcing down the door"!

But, let us ask Ben this simple question - "why did one sinner respond and open the door and another did not?" Ben cannot attribute the reason solely to God. It is that simple.