Overview

This chapter confesses the truth about the human will across the four states of redemptive history: innocence, fall, grace, and glory. It affirms genuine natural liberty (the will is not coerced) while denying that fallen man has any moral ability to turn to God of himself. Freedom, biblically, is not neutrality but the liberty to do what one’s nature loves — and only grace can free the will to love God.

The Confession, Section by Section

9.1 — Natural liberty

God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined, to good or evil.

Scripture Proofs (ESV):

“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.” (Deut. 30:19, ESV; cf. Matt. 17:12)

Further proofs: James 1:14; Deut. 30:19.

Exposition: The will is truly the will — it chooses, and is not compelled like a stone. Reformed theology does not teach that humans are robots; choices are real and free from external coercion. But “free” never means free from one’s own nature.

9.2 — Liberty in the state of innocence

Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well-pleasing to God; but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it.

Scripture Proofs (ESV):

“God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.” (Eccl. 7:29, ESV)

Further proofs: Gen. 1:26; 2:16–17; 3:6.

Exposition: Before the fall, Adam could obey and could sin — true ability toward good, but mutable. He was on probation, not yet confirmed in righteousness.

9.3 — Bondage in the state of sin

Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.

Scripture Proofs (ESV):

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:14, ESV)

“…the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God… it cannot.” (Rom. 8:7, ESV)

Further proofs: John 6:44, 65; Eph. 2:1, 5; Titus 3:3–5; Rom. 5:6.

Exposition: Here is the crucial point: fallen man retains natural liberty (he still chooses) but has “wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good.” He is not coerced into sin — he sins willingly, because his nature is “averse from that good.” This is bondage of the will: free to do what he loves, but loving only sin, unable to convert himself. Hence salvation must begin with God (ch. 10).

9.4 — Freed by grace

When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and, by his grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so, as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly, nor only, will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.

Scripture Proofs (ESV):

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36, ESV)

“for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:13, ESV)

Further proofs: Col. 1:13; Rom. 6:18, 22; 7:15, 18–19, 21–23.

Exposition: Grace does not bypass the will; it frees it. The regenerate now genuinely will the good — but not perfectly, because corruption remains (6.5). Hence the Romans 7 struggle: real desire for good warring with remaining sin. True freedom is the liberty to love and obey God, given only by Christ.

9.5 — Perfect freedom in glory

The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in the state of glory only.

Scripture Proofs (ESV):

“…we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2, ESV)

Further proofs: Eph. 4:13; Heb. 12:23; Jude 24.

Exposition: The journey ends where Adam might have arrived had he stood: a will “perfectly and immutably free to good alone.” In glory the saints can no longer sin — not because freedom is lost, but because it is perfected. The truest freedom is the inability to sin.

Doctrinal Summary

The human will is always free from coercion but never free from its own nature. In innocence Adam could will good but mutably; by the fall man lost all ability to spiritual good, remaining able to choose yet bound to sin and unable to convert himself; by grace God frees the will genuinely to will good, though imperfectly while corruption remains; and in glory the will is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone. Free will rightly understood magnifies sovereign grace rather than competing with it.

Connections

• WLC Q149 — no man is able to keep the commandments of God perfectly, but doth daily break them; and Q67 (effectual calling).
• WSC Q82 — “No mere man, since the fall, is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word, and deed.”
• WCF 6 (total inability), WCF 10 (effectual calling — how the bound will is freed), WCF 13 (sanctification — the freed will’s ongoing battle).
• Loci: Bondage of the will; the doctrines of grace (total inability; irresistible/effectual grace).

Pastoral & Practical Significance

This chapter dismantles two errors at once. Against the proud, it denies that the sinner can save himself or even prepare himself for grace — conversion is God’s work, not the will’s achievement. Against the despairing believer, it explains why obedience is still a battle: grace has freed your will to love God truly, but corruption still pulls the other way, so the very conflict you feel (Rom. 7) is evidence that grace is at work, not absent. And it sets your hope on glory, where the war ends and you will be “free indeed,” unable to sin. Your freedom grows as your love for God grows — and that love is itself His gift (Phil. 2:13).

For Reflection

• Do I think of freedom as neutral choice, or as the liberty to love and do the good?
• If a natural man “cannot” convert himself, how does that change the way I pray for unbelievers — and how I understand my own conversion?
• The will is “made free to good” by grace but not yet perfectly. Does the ongoing struggle drive me to despair or to dependence?