“Pastor Scott, what’s your view on the issue of free will, divine sovereignty, and salvation?”
Hey, thanks for the question. It’s an important one. The first thing to note is that this has been a debated issue in the church since the early centuries. For a couple of millennia, men of sincere motives have engaged in spirited and largely collegial debate. Trust me when I say I am not qualified to provide a definitive and final answer on the matter!
Here’s where I would start: “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). I appreciate the simplicity and clarity of the Apostle John's argument. The prime mover is clearly God. Had He not moved, those without love would remain without love. But the reason the loveless are able to love is because something was given to them—something that unleashed this previously unknown ability. We now have the ability to love because the ability to love was given to us. This verse also highlights the actions of both God and man: God loved, so we love.
This order is further reinforced by Romans 5:8: “But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This teaches that while we were in sin—alienated from and unresponsive to God—Christ died for us. Again, the prime mover is God, not man, because man was “dead in trespasses and sins,” according to Ephesians 2. At that time, we were not innocent—we were “alienated from God and hostile to Him” (Colossians 1:21). Our problem wasn’t a lack of education or information. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1), and “the law is written on our hearts” (Romans 2:15). Even if sinners could see spiritually (which they cannot, according to John 12:40), they would still reject God, because it is their nature to “suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18). With all this, we agree with Jesus: “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19).
The bottom line is that Scripture paints a bleak image of man. He is blind and spiritually dead. He is alienated from and hostile to God. Sin runs deep, touching every part of him. This doesn’t merely leave him helpless—it makes salvation impossible from his side.
Apart from God, that is. Proverbs 28:13 tells us, “He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” From this verse we derive a principle: whatever I conceal, God will reveal; whatever I reveal to God, He will conceal in Christ. But how does a spiritually dead sinner come to confess sins he was previously blind to? There must be a categorical change in his spiritual reality. Something must happen to him, because he cannot do what he is incapable of. What happens to a sinner whom God is drawing to salvation? God awakens his heart through a supernatural work of the Spirit. According to Ephesians 2:8–9, faith is a gift from God. And that gift is delivered by grace, which is itself a gift. Notice—it’s a gift, not a wage. Sinners do not earn salvation, nor do they deserve it. And there’s no way for a sinner to “choose” to receive the gift without making it cease to be a gift. If foreknowledge means looking down the timeline of humanity, God would see no one choosing Jesus—because no one has the capacity to exercise faith, which does not originate from them but is given by God.
Therefore, we say that salvation is monergistic. “Mono” means “one,” emphasizing that God alone initiates salvation in sinners, just as Ephesians 1:4 teaches. But when God moves, man responds. The gifts of faith and grace inevitably lead to a human response. That response is to embrace the biblical truth that we are sinners and to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior. Romans 10:9 says such a confession evidences itself in salvation.
At some point, we must simply say that both the sovereign initiative of God and the responsibility of man are taught in Scripture. Where one ends and the other begins, only God knows. We can conclude with the wisdom of preachers of old: the gateway to salvation reads on the outside, “Whoever enters” (John 10:9), and when the saved sinner walks through and looks back, he sees written on the inside, “All whom the Father has given me” (John 6:37). We must content ourselves that both are true. This is not a contradiction—it’s a glorious paradox intended to evoke awe and humility, not to define theological battle lines.
Why would God do this? Because it excludes all boasting and results only in praise and worship.