1. Christians must never place mere opinion over the infallible Scriptures. I am interested in God's truth not mere opinion. A man-made opinion might be Simon Peter's adding to the gospel of Christ alone and denying the divine truth of the gospel (see Gal 2), but Peter was corrected by Paul that salvation is through Christ alone (Gal 2:20). In passing, touching the writings of the infallible Scriptures no "inspired writer" contradicts himself with another, but it is a complex unity (as J.I. Packer wrote).
2. Man is dead in transgressions and sins (see Eph 2). That is, man is unable to save himself in part or in whole, because he is spiritually dead. He does not have the ability to cooperate with God, because out of wickedness only wickedness comes (1 Sam 24:13). Man is a total sinner in need of a total Savior. There is no good thing within the sinner to have him somehow believe God in anyway, because he has lost his freedom since the Fall of Adam (Rom 7:18; Gen 3ff).
3. Man cannot will himself to sinlessness in this life or in heaven, because he is by nature an abominable corrupt sinner who is also no good (see Ps 53). He totally lacks authentic goodness from God to participate in the unified merits of Christ alone, because the redemptive sufferings of Jesus are all-sufficient and no sinner has the spiritual ability since the Fall of Adam to add something to the God-designed righteousness of the sinless life of Christ and the God-appointed agony of the only God-man unless its unto God's perfect justice in the manifestation of a different gospel, a different Jesus and a different Spirit. Another gospel will only lead fallen sinners to eternal punishment. The gospel of God has the power to save sinners, because the just live by faith in the righteous purity of the Cross of Jesus Christ alone (Rom 1:16-17).
4. All of the wills of men are in the invisible Triune Hand of God (see Gen. 20:6). That is, if you sin it is because God took His hand off of you to debase and humble you through the Spirit-based understanding that your sin shows you your desperate need for the redemption that only Jesus brings because it glorifies the Father's only Son. The whole Bible is about glorifying Jesus Christ. It is also not God's fault that men sin, but the fault of the sin rests with mankind. If Satan is involved, the fault also rests with him. But no man can blame God because He is sinless and sovereign. God is God but man is man. God has the right to do as He pleases with what He has made (Ps 115:3). God uses second causes. What are second causes? A second cause is God using His supreme and cosmic authority to accomplish predestinarian history through the means or instrument of second causes (sinful man or rebellious Satan). If God is the ultimate cause, it leaves Him free from authoring sin but no one can doubt that He created all things. The second cause in God's foreordained plan is the author of sin, but God uses even sin to work out for the ultimate good for God's people without claiming evil is good and good is evil.
5. The infallible Spirit in Acts 2:23 teaches us a divine compatibility of God's freedom in His foreordained predestinarian plan and man's freedom unto reckless rebellion against the eternal Son of God in the outworking of human history.
6. The outworking of human history is really the display of God's foreordained plan. Yes, God controls everything and causes everything as the ultimate cause, but He allows men who are in His hand to make self-determined choices as his second cause. Man's self-determined choice in the life of Jesus was to murder the innocent Lamb of God. It was the Father's plan to kill His own Son for forgiveness but the fault lies only with rebellious men and the Evil One. The Scriptures says about God who can say to Him, what are you doing? That is, God is God and the sinner is nothing, but how He chooses to use him in His outworking plan without violence to the will or two equal powers (God's freedom and man's freedom). The freedom of God is above the freedom of man. The freedom of man is in the invisible hands of God. Its not that we do not have real choices to make, but God's plan is what make's those human choices real and with meaning apart from sin. Without God's freedom human choice would have no meaning. Human choice ends at the point of the gospel. No sinner can choose the gospel because he lacks spiritual ability because of original sin and actual transgressions. Rebellious sinners need the Spirit and Word to change their Peter-like stoney heart to respond to the gospel. If this is not done by God alone, the heart will never be changed.
7. There is a working compatibility between God's freedom and man's freedom. Man's freedom ends where God's freedom begins. Human choice is in the invisible Hand of God, but the sinner cannot choose that which is spiritually good. That is, he has lost his spiritual ability to chose God but it takes a free God to chose a lost sinner. For example, where did Adam go when he fell in Genesis chapter 3? He went away from God and hid himself. That is, God seeks the sinner who runs away from Him. By nature, a sinner does not seek God (see Rom 3). We ought to thank God for His divine and supernatural freedom because without it no man would be spiritually saved. Rebellious men do not want to thank God for His freedom or suppose He has it, because men want to control their own destiny. It is the rebellion of idolatry just like our first parents in the Fall in Eden. The question you must ask yourself is, will you follow Adam? Or will you follow the King of salvation and predestinarian and providential meaning?
8. Acts 4:27-28 speaks of man's self-determined choices through the ultimate invisible Hand of God's predestinarian purpose in whatever God chose to happen. God may do as He pleases, because He alone is God. If fallen sinners say "I will destroy to create" or "to do evil that good may come," Paul says their condemnation is just (see Rom 3).
9. That is, rebellious sinners want the plan of Satan since the historic Fall to be demi-gods. Sinners want to be able to control salvation and their destiny, but fallen sinners cannot cooperate with God or contribute personal merit to God, because they are spiritually dead (Eph 2) and there is nothing good in man (Rom 7:18). He is working out everything for the good of those who love God and who are called according to His divine purpose. How is possible for a sinner to love God if he is "no good?" The Bible says God must take the divine initiative. For the infallible Word says, "We love, because He first loved us" (1 Jn 4:19 NASB).
10. God has foreordained everything in the outworking of His meticulous providence for meaning in life and salvation according to the counsel of His good will (see Eph 1:11).
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