Paul never once mentioned the so-called free will of man when talking about anyone’s conversion. He never considered the will of man the decisive factor in anyone’s salvation. This is not to say that man does not have to be willing to believe, but it does mean that Paul viewed that willingness as a gift from God and not a product of man’s so-called free will. Notice the great joy Paul expresses as he gives the right person the deserved credit for salvation. He always praises God’s sovereign electing grace for every conversion.

First of all, he praised God for his own conversion. Paul’s conversion experience is recorded several places in Acts and his epistles. In every case, God is credited from beginning to end as the reason Paul is saved. Notice one instance of his testimony: 

But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood. (Gal. 1:15–16, emphasis added)

Notice how strikingly different that statement is from the “I decided to give Jesus a chance,” or the “I’m glad I was willing to let God save me” kind of testimonies we hear today. Notice the following things: (1) Paul’s conversion did not take place “when I decided to accept,” but “when it pleased God.” (2) It was not when Paul decided to “open my heart and let Jesus come in,” but when (a) God “called me [effectually, or regenerated me] by his grace,” and (b) “revealed his Son in me.” A new heart is not the result of a dead sinner’s willingness to be made alive but is the direct result of a divine revelation of the Holy Spirit’s power to give a dead sinner a new heart. (3) Paul did not need a personal worker or counselor to convince him that he had been converted. He did not have to “confer with flesh and blood” and be assured that “Jesus has indeed come into your heart.” When the Lord of glory takes up his abode in a poor sinner’s heart, that sinner knows something amazing has happened. If a sinner has to be badgered and argued into believing that Christ has indeed “come into your heart,” would we not be justified in asking if it was worthwhile to have such an experience? 

It is interesting how insistent Paul is that his readers understand that it was not his will, but God’s sovereign will and purpose, which was totally responsible for his conversion.

But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God… (Gal. 4:9a, emphasis added)

Notice that the “or rather are known of God” is a very conscious and deliberate little insertion. It is almost as if Paul was saying, “I do not want you to misunderstand. I surely believe knowing God is vital, but I know [love] God only because he first knew [loved] me.” Today we might paraphrase Paul’s words this way: “Just in case a ‘free will’ enthusiast thinks I agree with him, let me set the record straight. I believe in sovereign electing grace. I was known by God long before I knew God.” 

Secondly, all of his converts were saved only because of election. Paul is not at all vague about why some people responded to the gospel under his preaching and others did not. He always made it clear that when anyone was converted, God alone was to have the praise. Since Paul believed that God’s sovereign electing grace was responsible for every conversion, he consciously gave God the praise for every conversion. The following text is typical: 

But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation.… (2 Thess. 2:13a)

The NIV translates this verse “chose you to be saved.” We looked at this verse in the first chapter. I mention it again only to prove the point that Paul never congratulates the sinner on his “wise choice” or his good sense in “accepting Christ,” nor did he praise himself or some other preacher for the “great message.” He credited God with the whole of every man’s salvation from beginning to end, including the gift of faith.

Further, Paul not only attributed his own conversion and the conversion of all of his converts to the electing grace of God, but he did the same for all conversions. Acts 13:48 is a statement concerning conversion in general. Again, we noted earlier how radically different this report is from the “I had ten first-time decisions last week” brag sheets published today. My purpose in quoting it again is to emphasize that this is a deliberate statement by Paul giving conscious praise to God’s electing grace as the sole cause of all of the conversions that afternoon. Free will does not enter the picture.

And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. (Acts 13:48, emphasis added)

Predestination was the foundation of Paul’s life and call to the ministry!

How strange to read what Paul says about the effect that the truth of God’s sovereign electing grace had upon him and his ministry and then hear sincere Christians say, “We should not preach about election and predestination since it is a dangerous doctrine.” These people are especially afraid of hurting new believers with heavy doctrine, and they are even more concerned that lost people not be discouraged by hearing about the sovereignty of God. Let me answer these two objections with Paul’s own testimony. Examine the following verses carefully, and you will see how unfounded these objections are.

And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do. And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus. And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there, Came unto me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him. And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth. (Acts 22:10–14)

Let’s make sure we get the message Paul was conveying. (1) Paul freely admits that he was not seeking after God. He was filled with blind rage against Christ and Christians and fighting them both as hard as he could. (2) He was testifying that he was blinded: spiritually by his religious ignorance, and physically by the miraculous intervention of God. (3) Jesus spoke to him from heaven. No man was ever more amazed than Paul when he learned that this “Lord” who had struck him down was none other than the very Jesus he was persecuting. (4) Ananias said, “Receive thy sight,” and Paul was able to see. There is no hint of a suggestion that Paul had to be willing to comply before he would see. This incident is a manifestation of sovereign grace and power from beginning to end. Paul says, “And the same hour I looked…” The looking by Paul did not give his sight. The looking was the result of God giving him sight by the command of Ananias.

This passage clearly answers the two objections we are discussing. First of all, it proves that the first Christian doctrine that Paul learned as a brand-new convert was the doctrine of election. Notice again what Ananias said: “The God of our fathers hath chosen thee.…” The very first truth that Paul, a brand-new convert learned, was that he was saved because God had chosen him in electing grace. And, I might add, that was a truth that Paul never forgot nor did he ever cease to be amazed that it was true.

Notice the following in verse 14. (1) Paul states that he was chosen in order to know God’s will. He did not first know that will and then decide to believe. (2) He was chosen so that he would be able to “see” that Just One. He did not first see, like what he saw, and then decide to believe. (3) He was chosen to “hear” and did not choose because he first heard and then decided to accept salvation. Isn’t it amazing how carefully the Holy Spirit chooses his words?

I think the Holy Spirit is explaining that it is essential to start off one’s Christian life with the clear realization that one is a child of sovereign grace. You are not your own but you have been bought with a price, and he who purchased you has every right to do with you as he pleases. We did not enter into a partnership with God at conversion; we were slaves and have been purchased out of slavery. We have neither the ability nor the right to boast about either the power of our wills or our rights to make our own choices. There can be only one boss, and the sooner we learn that God is that boss, the better off we will be. Paul’s experience shows that God’s purpose is that we learn that truth at conversion.

I believe that one of the primary reasons preachers and other church leaders are experiencing “burn-out” can be traced to the truth we are talking about. We cannot tell sinners that they did God a favor by allowing him to save them and then get them to live like they owe everything to God’s grace. We cannot lead a sinner to believe that he alone, with his “free will,” was the one decisive factor in his conversion and then urge that person to feel a deep and life-changing obligation to God’s sovereign grace. In other words, if we want to get ulcers, we need only “fast-deal” sinners into making a decision that is totally designed to help them to “be happy” and then try to get those people to willingly make sacrifices that just might infringe on their happiness. We cannot get goats to act like sheep, but we can surely get burned out trying. If we teach the sinner he is “the master of his fate,” don’t be surprised if he lives as if that were true. Teach him he is a bondslave of sovereign electing grace, and it is a different matter altogether.

The second thing that Paul’s conversion teaches us concerns election and gospel preaching. Not only was election the first Christian doctrine Paul learned, but when he was telling about his conversion in the Acts 22:10–14 passage, he was giving his testimony to a group of lost people. Now that ought to close the mouth of the objector who is frightened that a lost person should never be told about election. Paul was not afraid to talk about election in evangelism.

I am not at all suggesting that we must talk about election every time we preach or witness to the lost. We have already emphasized that election is not the gospel or part of the gospel. Election is what makes the gospel work. However, there are times when election is the very truth that some sinners need. Nothing kills self-sufficiency like the truth of election. Nothing humbles a proud religionist like sovereign grace. How do you respond to a sinner who says, “Leave me alone; when I get ready to believe, I will believe”? I clobber them over the head with election. I tell them they cannot get ready. I press on them the truth that God does not have to send another witness to them but can leave them alone and let them go to hell for sure. Romans 9 is not a secret for only God’s sheep. It is the message for every proud “Pharaoh” in this world. It is the hammer of God that destroys the damning myth of the power and rights of one’s “free will.” Sovereign election, rightly preached, will lead men to seek grace.

Predestination was the foundation of Paul’s missionary zeal to preach the gospel.

How often have we heard the cry, “If I believed election, I would never witness”? Actually, if I did not believe election, I would not witness! If I believed that the sinner alone had the power to make God’s plan of salvation work, I would realize that no one would ever be saved. “But,” we are told, “preaching election will destroy all missionary effort.” Again Paul’s life proves this objection to be groundless. Notice first how election motivated Paul:

Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city. (Acts 18:9, 10)

We don’t usually think of Paul as a man who was afraid, but here is one instance where the Holy Spirit tells us that Paul was afraid. We can imagine that the Devil was whispering in Paul’s ear about how hopeless the situation was as well as how useless were Paul’s efforts. “You really don’t believe you can persuade anyone in that wicked city to become a Christian. You may well lose your life.” And how did God encourage Paul? He used the truth of election! God said, “Paul, you are safe wherever I call you to go. I have some elect in that city, and they are going to respond to the gospel when I open their hearts by my power.” That is the thing that motivated our Lord in John 10:14–16. Some people, very particular people, simply must be saved because their salvation is the determined purpose of God. Paul was willing to suffer anything and everything for that purpose to be accomplished.

Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. (2 Tim. 2:10)

Why would Paul suffer for something that did not exist? Why would he endure all that he did unless he was sure of the outcome? John Patton was a missionary to the New Hebrides islands. He lost his wife and child to disease. He was nearly killed on many occasions. He labored for nearly twenty-five years with no “success.” Do you think he ever felt discouraged? Do you think the Devil ever whispered in his ear as he did Paul’s? What would keep someone preaching in such a situation? John Patton stood over the grave of his wife and child and prayed, “Father, you have chosen a people out of every tribe and tongue to be saved. Some of those chosen ones are on this island, and I will not leave until they are safely in the fold.” That is what biblical election will do for missions. In God’s time, Patton saw the island swept into the kingdom of God. It was the doctrine of election that kept Patton on that island all that time.

I freely admit that the truth of God’s electing grace, and the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit to enable a person to be able to believe, will kill a lot of fleshly zeal that has hatched up some very “successful” carnal methods of “getting decisions” (and the sooner such practices are killed the better); but I assure you that both the Bible and history testify that election is the only thing that can produce and maintain true gospel mission work. Many sincere people have gone to the mission field with genuine pity and human love for those “poor people who are just waiting to hear the gospel” and after two break-ins of their homes, the loss of their possessions and constant threats to their lives, they have changed their minds and feelings about “those poor people.”

Let me note one more passage that proves that believing in election did not adversely affect Paul’s ministry.

Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. (Rom. 10:1)

Now remember, the above words immediately follow those awesome words in Romans 9. There is no chapter in all of the Word of God that exalts sovereign election like the ninth chapter of Romans. “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth” (Romans 9:18) does not sound very “free-willish” to me. That is high, high Calvinism. And yet the man who wrote those awesome words immediately says that he longs to see those same people described in chapter nine converted. He sincerely prays for them and continues to witness to them. Human logic may say it is a waste of time, but that did not stop the great apostle from preaching the gospel to all men and pleading with God to open their hearts to believe.

Predestination was the ground upon which Paul appealed to believers when he urged them to worship and praise God.

We have already covered one of the most obvious texts that teaches this truth. You might want to look again at the first chapter and review the comments on 2 Thessalonians 2:13. Notice especially that election is the source of joy and thanksgiving. The next text is one my favorite verses in all of Scripture. I will never forget the way God taught me its meaning.

For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? (1 Cor. 4:7)

In my first pastorate, I had to work part time. One morning before I went to work, I read the fourth chapter of 1 Corinthians. Verse 7 jumped out at me, and I could not quit thinking about it. On my way to work, I picked up an elderly African-American man. He told me some of the horrible things that had happened to him because of the wicked prejudice against the color of his skin. As he talked, I kept thinking, “Who maketh thee to differ from another?” Why did that man suffer all those injustices of which I knew nothing in my life? Why was the color of his skin different from mine?

I have often asked the congregation to look at the color of their hands. Some may be black, others white or red or yellow. However, regardless of the color, the individual’s “free will” had nothing to do with choosing that color. No person is either white or black by his or her own choice. It was God himself who made every Indian red, every Chinese person yellow, every African-American black, and every white man white. Our so-called free wills had nothing to do with our births. The very first sight that every person reading these words could have seen at birth was a mother in a loincloth carrying you off to the Ganges River to throw you in as a sacrifice. None of us said, “If I cannot be born in a middle-class home in America, I simply refuse to be born.” No! No! “Who maketh thee to differ from another” in the color of your skin or the national and economic conditions of your birth? And, as Paul adds, since it was God alone who made the difference, how dare anyone boast or be prejudiced?

As I pulled into my boss’s driveway, I saw his twenty-four-year-old son wearing only a large diaper. He was playing with a little rubber hammer. He had the mentality of a one-year-old. I kept thinking, “Who maketh thee to differ from another?” I had graduated from high school and seminary. I had two healthy children who were doing well in school. Did I, with my “free will,” or my children, with their “free will,” refuse to be born mentally retarded? Did you decide with your “free will,” if I cannot have at least a good enough IQ to graduate from high school, I simply refuse to have anything to do with this thing called life? No! No! Every person who reads these words could have been born a Down’s syndrome child. “Who maketh thee to differ from another” includes not only the color of one’s skin but also the capacity of his brain.

I pastored a church where there was a boy with Down’s syndrome in the congregation. We would always hug each other, and I would say, “How is my friend David?” He would smile and say, “I am fine. How is my friend John?” One Sunday evening I preached on God’s sovereign providence. After the customary hug and greeting, I said, “David, I do not know how much you understood of what I said tonight. However, someday all of the Christ rejecters, who were too “educated” to believe the gospel, will wish they had been like you. They will cry to the rocks to hide them from the face of God and wish they had been born with Down’s syndrome. I do not understand mental illness but I know what I just said will surely happen.”

The evening of the day of which I am speaking, I stopped at the post office on my way home from work to get my mail. As I put my key into box 221, I heard a guy use my name with a string of curse words. “John Reisinger, you blankety-blank so-and-so, how are you?” I turned around and saw a man I had not seen for years. We had been in the Navy together, and the last time I had seen him was on Guadalcanal, when we had been drunk all night. He said, “Let’s go have a beer and talk over old times.” I said, “Ah, well, ah, I don’t do that anymore.” I then told him the gospel and that I was a preacher. He was silent for several minutes and then burst out laughing and said, “That is the best one you ever told yet.” He thought I was putting him on. I had to take him around the corner and show him my name on the bulletin board of the church before he would believe me.

As the man walked away shaking his head, the tears rolled down my cheeks as I thought, “Who maketh thee to differ from another.” I think I would have gotten angry if someone would have said to me, “John, the difference between that man and you is this: you were willing to believe but he was not.” I knew the difference between us was nothing at all in either him or myself. The difference was in the sovereign electing purposes of God.

My dear Christian brother or sister, I do not care if we are talking about your nationality, or the color of your skin, or your salvation. In every case, it was decided by God’s sovereign predestination and had nothing to do with your so-called free will. The same thing is true of your physical health and mental ability. Whether you are a genius or a slow learner, you did not choose your IQ with your so-called free will. You must say, “It was God who made me to differ from another.” Your personal salvation must be treated the same way. If you are one of Christ’s sheep and rejoice in his free forgiveness, it is only because he chose you to be a sheep. Your free will did not enable a goat to change itself into a sheep. It was God’s sovereign electing grace that “made you to differ from another.”

I trust you can see the point that Paul is making. He is using election to destroy both our arrogant self-sufficiency and our constant tendency to stupid prejudice. No one who understands and feels the truth of 1 Corinthians 4:7 can ever again look down his or her nose at anybody. That person cannot boast, because, as Paul says, “Whatever you have you received is from God alone.”