Luther on the Salvation and Free Will

Luther wrote,

"If any man ascribes anything of salvation, even the very least thing, to the free will of man, he knows nothing of grace, and he has not learned Jesus Christ rightly."

Scriptural Support for Absolute Predestination

Predestination is described as God's purpose (Rm 8:28), prepared beforehand (Rm 9:23), foreordaination (Acts 2:23), God's foreknowing them (Rm 8:29), ordained of God (Acts 13:48), appointed to eternal life (Acts 22:10), determined (Lk 22:22), foreseeing justification because of God's sovereign choice (Gal 3:8; Rm 9:11) and before time began (2 Tm 1:9).

Predestination is determined by God's counsel (Acts 2:23), foreknowledge through predestination (Acts 2:23), good pleasure (Lk 12:32; 1 Cor 1:21), the plan of God and His good pleasure (Eph 1:5, 9, 11), the purpose of God (Eph 3:11) and the power of God (Is. 40:10-17; Rm 9:15-24).

Predestination is God's salvational choice (Is. 43:10) to cause "believing ones" (Jn 3:16) by His all-availing and all-prevailing choice alone not man's choice (Jn 1:13), because He chose them  without foreseeing their faith but upon His awesome mercy (Rm 9:11).  He elected us (Eph 1:4) to salvation (2 Thes 2:13-14) in justification by faith alone (Rm 8:30; Rm 4) to sanctification (2 Thes 2:12, 13), glorification as a knowing "child of God" and future perfection in glory (Rm 8:30).  Predestination is God's choice for our eternal and everlasting destiny before time began or the creation of the world (Mt 25:34).  He also foreordains all things down to the lest to the greatest detail (Eph 1:11).  That is, He holds all of mankind's wills in His Hand and He does what He pleases in heaven and earth (Ps 135:6).

It means spiritual salvation is completely free in God's mercy through His divine Son in His all-atoning sacrifice for the sin of God's people in their behalf.  We do not need to add to His mercy man's free will nor any kind of works of satisfaction.  Those who add things to God's free mercy do not properly understand the divine Scriptures nor the power of God in Christ Jesus.

Spurgeon on "Free Will"

Spurgeon wrote,

Free-will doctrine – what does it? It magnifies man into God; it declares God’s purposes a nullity, since they cannot be carried out unless men are willing. It makes God’s will a waiting servant to the will of man, and the whole covenant of grace dependent upon human action. Denying election on the ground of injustice it holds God to be a debtor to sinners, so that if He gives grace to one He is bound to do so to all. It teaches that the blood of Christ was shed equally for all men and since some are lost, this doctrine ascribes the difference to man’s own will, thus making the atonement itself a powerless thing until the will of man gives it efficacy. Those sentiments dilute the scriptural description of man’s depravity, and by imputing strength to fallen humanity, rob the Spirit of the glory of His effectual grace: this theory says in effect that it is of him that willeth, and of him that runneth, and not of God that showeth mercy. (A Jealous God, Sermon 502, March 29, 1863).