The protestant church has divided itself over predestination and free will. John Wesley sought and found a middle way in prevenient grace. In it he taught that all persons are given a measure of grace, which enables them to freely choose. The implications of this are huge. Without prevenient and ongoing grace we are still in chains; with grace we are free to choose. This is true freedom because grace keeps us from being held forever in the clutches of sin’s bondage. Our Lord, by grace, sets us free. Oh, the wonder of God’s great freeing grace!
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1-4 (ESV)
