The Will of Man Before and After Regeneration
When God created man, a rational creature, made in His image, both males and females were endowed with minds for knowing and understanding. They were endued with hearts filled with emotions and affections. Adam and Eve had wills to make choices in their state of innocence. In equipoise, they could choose good or evil.
In choosing evil, Adam plunged himself into ruin. His will failed him. He was fully responsible for his actions, despite being deceived by the tempter. Adam and Eve sinned, and they died spiritually. Later, they died physically (Gen 3).
Adam, as the federal head of the human race, corrupted his posterity. Because all sinned (Rom 5:12), in Adam, all die (1 Cor 15:22). In fact, all souls conceived into flesh are dead to God from the outset. Original sin renders each person a child of wrath (Eph 2:1–3), one being shaped in iniquity in his or her mother’s womb.
After the fall, humans remained human. They still possess minds, hearts, and wills. They continue to be born as a unit, body and soul. In fact, we must stress that humanity is not altered from innocence to fall, nor does sin leading to death change a man from being a man. Even after death, the souls of men remain human through reconstitution, at the resurrection, on the Day of Judgment (Jn 5:28–29; 1 Cor 15). In the lake of fire (Rev 20:14–15), humanity will remain human, as will humanity that is resurrected to glory (Jn 5:24–29).
Clearly, through the movements from innocence to eternity, some things did change. In the fall, the mind, heart, and will of man were not the same as in Paradise. Sin altered the mind, heart, and will. It also began to kill the body in a slow, irreversible move toward death. Dead souls are merely waiting for the demise of each one’s body of death. Then comes the judgment (Heb 9:27).
Although human nature remained human, it was now dominated by sin. Sin nature resides as the controlling influence in people. It causes futility in the mind and deceit in the heart (Jer 17:9; Eph 4:17). Every inclination in the natural man is only evil all the time (Gen 6:5). The will of man is not good, nor does it seek good (Rom 3:10). Freedom of the will is the freedom to seek good. Natural man is unwilling and unable to do so because he is a slave to sin (Rom 6:6; 8:7). His choices are foolish or filled with pride. He loves sin and is clearly unmoved by the prospect of death (Jn 3:19).
The whole of humanity is totally depraved (Rom 3:10–12; 1 Cor 2:14), being fully subject to sin’s reign in the mind, heart, and will (Rom 5:21). Sin’s dominion, in one’s sin nature, only produces sinning in thought, affection, and deed. The works of men are deemed to be filthy rags (Is 64:6) because corruption begets corruption.
Those who deny the spiritual death of Adam and his progeny, along with the doctrine of total depravity, claim that some spiritual and ethical good remain in each person. In fact, they charge adherents of the sovereignty of God and spiritually dead state of man as passivists. They accuse those who believe salvation is all of God with reducing humanity to the status of puppet or robot (old school: “stocks and blocks”). This is a false charge. It may be a true accusation against the passivity of false mystics, but Reformed believers trust in sovereign grace, which never dehumanizes anyone.
God is sovereign in His gracious operations to save His people from their sins (Ps 115:3; Mt 1:21). In accordance with His eternal good pleasure, God has decreed the salvation of His elect people (Eph 1:4–5). Sinners are human, and saints are human. The difference between them is the grace of regeneration.
Regeneration is sweet, yet divinely powerful to transform the elect sinners mind, heart, and will. God’s people are made willing on the day of God’s power (Ps 110:3). Note they are “made” willing, but not against their will. God baptizes His chosen ones (Mt 3:11; Acts 2:38; 10:45), on each one’s appointed day, to receive God’s Spirit given to them in a divine act of love (Rom 5:5). When the Spirit causes one to be born again (1 Pet 1:3), He makes alive the spiritually dead son of Adam (Eph 2:5; Col 2:13). This is the resurrection of the soul from the dead, spiritual state, inherited from Adam (Jn 3:1–8; Rom 5:12–21).
God’s transfer of one from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of His beloved Son is not passive (Col 1:13). On the contrary, it is activating. The life-giving Spirit illumines the mind to understand God’s grace unto salvation (Jn 6:63; 1 Cor 2:16). The Spirit does a heart transplant, from stone to flesh (Ezek 36:26). The natural man is unwilling/unable to change (Rom 8:7), but the new, spiritual man is made willing. There is nothing coerced in the Spirit’s gracious operation to quicken the soul, heal the heart, correct the mind, and powerfully alter the will of man.
Man contributes nothing to the transformation God effectually actuates. The whole man is now being conformed to the image of the perfect God-man, Jesus Christ (Rom 8:29). Bartimaeus wanted to see, as did the lame man wish to walk, and even Zacchaeus underestimated the Spirit that moved him to climb the sycamore tree, in order to see Jesus. Unexpectedly, salvation came to his house that day (Lk 19:9).
Regeneration bends the will of man away from evil, sin, and the wide way of destruction. The Spirit causes the saint to walk in the statutes of God (Ezek 36:27), and to know God’s covenant with him, as the beneficiary and heir of His promise (Ps 25:14). Walking by the Spirit (Gal 5:16, 25), the saint is no longer a slave to sin in his still decaying flesh (2 Cor 4:16; Eph 6:6).
Regeneration brings the reign of grace to one’s human nature (Rom 5:21). The mind of Christ is set on things above (Col 3:2). The heart affections are controlled by the love of Christ (2 Cor 5:14), whose gracious deeds are done in love for the least of Christ’s brethren. Grace also causes the Christian’s will to engage in the good works prepared beforehand (Eph 2:10) that God is willing and doing, according to His good pleasure (Phil 2:13).
In conclusion, man is not a devil, nor a beast — living or inanimate. He is never rendered less than human by sin, nor by the grace of God. The change in man’s mind, heart, and will is nothing less than the Spirit of God raising his soul from the dead, through a sovereign and gracious operation, done by God from within the indwelt child of God (Rom 8:9, 11; 1 Jn 3:1). She has retained her humanity from innocence, through the fall, through regeneration, and into glory. Adam’s will was influenced, then all were enslaved, and Christians are set free again by God to do good.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
May 20, 2022
