A couple of years ago it seemed as if each time I would turn on the radio to listen to Hank Hanegraaff’s program, The Bible Answer Man, he would be telling a caller the following,

If we didn’t have free-will, then our choices are forced. And as I say in my book, then we have God as a cosmic rapist, Who forces His love on people. Or, uh, variously, you have Him as a cosmic puppeteer, who forces people to love Him. And that’s not the God of the bible. The God that is explained in the entire panoply of God, uh, of the bible, is the God Who grants us freedom of choice. Libertarian freedom.#1

Is this kind of reasoning in line with what the word of God teaches? Is it correct to say that if man doesn’t have a free-will to accept or reject God - and if he does accept or receive God - this can only be attributed to nothing more than cosmic rape?
We will look at what the Bible has to say about this matter. First of all, does man have a free-will to choose God if he so desires?

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.#2

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.#3

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.#4

Rather than speaking of man having a free-will - Scripture teaches us that he does not receive the things of God, they are foolishness to him and he cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned.
We also see that men love darkness and that they do not seek after God. It is clearly taught that the reason why no one seeks after God is because there is none righteous, no not one.
To teach otherwise is to reject the testimony of God’s word. In that this implies that there are some that do seek after God and are thus righteous. They are not evil, like those that hate and do not come to the light.
This would also mean that the natural man can indeed receive the things of God and that they are not spiritually discerned after all.
Let us look at another text of Scripture that pertains to the subject at hand,

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.#5

Here we see that the carnal mind, the one in the flesh, is not only at enmity against God, but such a one cannot please God, as well.
This of course would not be the case if man had a free-will to trust in God or to remain in his spiritual deadness. Would it not be pleasing to God if man, by his free-will, turned from his wicked ways and trusted in Christ Jesus as Lord? Of course it would.

Given that the Scriptures do not teach that man has a free-will to trust in God when he so desires. What are we to make of Mr. Hanegraaff’s statement, "then we have God as a cosmic rapist, Who forces His love on people?" Does God, in fact, force His love on people? Does He force them to love Him? Once more we will consult Holy Writ for the answer.

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)#6

It is clearly taught that the saints at Ephesus, prior to being spiritually quickened,#7 walked according to the course of this world and were fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.#8
As we have already seen, this includes; considering the things of God foolishness, loving darkness, hating the light and not seeking God.
Apart from the Divine quickening, those at Ephesus, and every other believer, would still be fulfilling the desires of the flesh, etc,.
We also notice that this has nothing to do with cosmic rape. Quite the contrary. It is because of God’s great love#9 and grace that we are saved.#10 This is why those that were previously at enmity with God are no longer so. As it is written,

We love him, because he first loved us.#11

The people of God love Him because of His love for them. It is not because of some kind of forced love or cosmic rape.
The Lord draws His people in loving kindness.#12 Those that are drawn by the Father will and do come to the Son#13 and thus to everlasting life.#14
We have weighed "the Bible Answer Man’s" reasoning and can only conclude that it is the blasphemous#15 product and fruit of free-will. It is not a precious truth of Holy Scripture.

"Forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham." What are we to understand by the words? Merely that the man is a Jew would not be a fit explanation. There were hundreds of Jews around the Lord Jesus, who could trace their genealogy from Abraham, and gloried in it and held it up before the Savior's face when He would humble them by His teaching, saying, "We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest Thou, Ye shall be made free?" (John 8:33) That is not the explanation of the Savior's words, that the blessing came simply because he could trace his genealogy perfectly from the family whom God has blessed. It did not tell against the poor woman of Canaan in the presence of the Lord Jesus, because she was a Gentile, to whom He said, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Matt. 15:24) Why did it not tell against her? Because it has deep spiritual meaning; because the lost sheep of the house of Israel meant the spiritual seed, irrespective of nationality. "There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free: but Christ is all, and in all." (Col. 3:11) There is the explanation of the Savior's words. So it does not mean merely a natural son of Abraham.

My hearers, salvation is in and by Christ alone. Dependence must be nowhere else. It is wholly in Him--it will not do to depend partly on Christ and partly on our own works! O! No. He is the one only, Savior; and He is also our dependence--see Zech. 2:5, "For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her"--a wall of fire, and He will burn up our enemies on every side, and "Nothing shall by any means hurt" His Church! Now to understand this fully, you must be tried and tempted, you must be in tribulation. Trials bring out the reality of all this--it is in the path of trial and of trouble that we learn these things; it is the skilful Artist that darkens and blackens the picture, in order, afterwards to bring out the bright and telling touches of a master hand! The non-artistic dauber cannot do that! And so it is with the Christian. It is in trouble of soul--it is in the furnace, it is in the deep waters, that we are made to learn the need of a Savior--the value and efficacy of His precious blood and constant love and care--like the old woman who said, when one visited her in her cottage, in affliction and trouble, and who tried to comfort her, and pity her; "O," she said, "if I had no trials I should feel my Lord had forgotten me," (or words to that effect.) "For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." (Mal. 3:6)

Now, as God has willed to save poor sinners, and thus loved them, so He has entered into covenant with His co-equal and co-eternal Son and Holy Spirit. The Father has provided for all His elect in His Son; hence we are said to be blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ. The Son of God has in covenant agreed to all His Father's proposals, and undertook to do all for them in obeying and suffering, as their Surety. And the Spirit, as a divine Person, undertook to teach men their fallen state as sinners, the need of Christ to save them; to bring them to confession and prayer, to testify of Christ to them, and to make them meet for heaven. Hence Christ is said to be God's Elect, and in covenant engagements to be set up from everlasting to be in time manifestly a Mediator; and all that God decreed to save, and loved, He chose in Christ. They are the Father's gift to Him, and they are His charge, and they are said to be loved with the same love that Christ is, as it relates to His manhood; for the Savior says, "And hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me." (John 17:23) And as Christ is the covenant Head and Representative of His people, they being all the objects of God's love, chosen in Christ, given to Christ, they are one with Christ, and ever will be what they ever were; that is, secure in Christ, bound up in the bond of everlasting love, so that they are eternally united to Christ; and devil, sin nor death shall ever be able to disunite them. Hence we read of their security in Christ, and of their being "preserved in Christ" until called; and as God loves them in Christ, determined to save them, and as they are one with Christ, eternally united to Him, from this very source does all communion proceed.

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Job’s Creed Or, Confession Of Faith - John Gill

Foot Notes:
1 The Bible Answer Man, November 3, 2000.
2 1 Corinthians 2:14
3 John 3:19-20.
4 Romans 3:10-12.
5 Romans 8:7-8.
6 Ephesians 2:1-5.
7 Ephesians 2:1
8 Ephesians 2:2-3.
9 Ephesians 2:4.
10 Ephesians 2:5.
11 1 John 4:19.
12 Jeremiah 31:3; Ephesians 2:7.
13 John 6:44.
14 John 6:47.
15 Violation or mockery of something sacred.