Someone made me think about this recently…

To drop a big word, I believe the most heated area of the freewill debate is in regard to soteriology. All through the Bible we see man making freewill decisions in their fallen state of sin. Does this freewill equate the absolute freewill of God. Of course not. It’s limited. Sinful man has the freewill to act according to his nature, sinful. In Romans 3 Paul parks on the truth man is not righteous. So how does a sinful man attain God’s righteousnes? Can he save himself? No, God must save him and chosen Christ to do the work to save. (I have left out a lot here for sake of brevity) Once saved, a regenerated man has the freewill to glorify God. Does he always do it? No, because its freewill and man can’t seem to trust God perfectly. Does God hold us accountable for what we do with his gift of life? Yes. Are we robots? Good question. Perhaps Paul could answer that for us-notice verse 18,

“15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey–whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. ” Romans 6:15-23

Notice the you are – the fact of righteousness and the must be – strive for what you are. God’s sovereignty in making you righteousness right there next to your responsibility.