Voluntary Slaves
Renewing Your Mind
Ligonier Ministries
4.8 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 27 June 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
No one, left to themselves, would ever respond positively to the gospel. Today, R.C. Sproul exposes our dependence upon God's regenerating grace for our liberation from bondage to sin.
Get the 500th-anniversary edition of Martin Luther's famous book The Bondage of the Will with your donation. You'll also receive lifetime digital access to R.C. Sproul's video teaching series Willing to Believe, along with the digital study guide: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/
Live outside the U.S. and Canada? Request the ebook, digital teaching series, and digital study guide with your donation: https://www.renewingyourmind.org/global
Meet Today's Teacher:
R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew's Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.
Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before we begin today's episode of renewing your mind, we invite you to stay with us through |
| 0:04.8 | the end of the program to hear how you can request a featured hardcover book from Ligadere |
| 0:09.7 | Ministries. |
| 0:11.2 | What did Jesus mean when he said, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent |
| 0:15.8 | me draws him? |
| 0:16.8 | He's certainly not talking about the lack of ability for somebody to walk down the street |
| 0:22.6 | and walk up to Jesus as he's lecturing and teaching and healing the sick. When he talks about |
| 0:29.3 | come to me means that coming to him savingly, no one can embrace him as the son of God |
| 0:36.2 | by his natural ability. |
| 0:44.5 | Hello and welcome to the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind. |
| 0:48.7 | On Saturdays, we're featuring R.C. Sproles series, Willing to Believe, the controversy over free will. Through the ages, |
| 0:56.8 | the disagreement has boiled down to this. Does God choose us, or do we choose him? There are strong |
| 1:03.6 | feelings on both sides of this debate, so stay with us. Here's Dr. Sprole now on what he calls |
| 1:09.3 | voluntary slavery. |
| 1:13.6 | When we get to the role that John Calvin has played historically, |
| 1:18.7 | theologically in this whole question of human freedom and original sin, |
| 1:25.8 | we get to the name of the theologian who is most closely associated |
| 1:32.3 | in the public thinking of denying the doctrine of free will in light of Calvin's view |
| 1:41.3 | of election and predestination. |
| 1:45.3 | Let me say a couple of things about that before we actually explore Calvin's views. |
| 1:51.7 | The first place, Calvin, like Luther, was devoted to the study of St. Augustine. |
| 1:59.3 | And if you would read the works of Calvin, you would see that the |
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