Devotional 56: Perfect Freedom in Glory: The Will Made Perfectly Free

The Confession Read

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

— Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 9, Section 5

Introduction

A man lies dying. The room is quiet; the breath grows shallow; the eyes that once looked upon wife and children and the open fields of earth are turning now toward another country. For forty years this man has walked with God — haltingly, repentantly, never as he wished he could. He has known the conflict Paul describes in Romans 7: willing the good yet finding another law in his members, delighting in the law of God after the inward man yet groaning under the body of this death. A thousand times he has confessed the same sins. A thousand times he has tasted forgiveness. And now, as the last hour approaches, a strange stillness settles over him. The war is ending. The enemy that has dogged his steps since conversion — the remaining corruption that has made every act of obedience a battle and every prayer a wrestling — is about to be put down forever. What awaits this man on the other side of death is not merely rest but transformation: a will made perfectly and immutably free to good alone. This is the truth our Confession now sets before us in the briefest section of the entire chapter, a single sentence that bears more weight than many volumes. The Divines have walked us through the fourfold state of man: natural liberty retained even in the fall (Section 1), original uprightness that was mutably good (Section 2), total inability to will spiritual good (Section 3), and the regenerate will that freely wills good yet also wills evil (Section 4). Now we reach the summit. Section 5 describes the fourth and final state: the state of glory, in which the will is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone. No more conflict. No more divided heart. The long war is over, and the victor is grace. Do not hurry past this section, not because it is long — it is the shortest section in Chapter 9 — but because it supplies the hope that makes every other section bearable. The man in Section 3, dead in sin, needs to know that resurrection is possible. The man in Section 4, warring against indwelling corruption, needs to know that the war will end. Both need Section 5. And all of us, whether we feel ourselves today nearer to the corpse of Section 3 or the conflict of Section 4, need to know where this story is going. The destination shapes the journey.

Scripture Foundation

The Confession's teaching on the will in glory rests upon a broad foundation of biblical revelation. The Scriptures do not merely gesture toward a vague blessedness after death; they describe with precision what the Spirit accomplishes at the consummation. Four passages illuminate the truth that the will is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone. 1 John 3:1-3 — "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." John begins with astonishment. The love of the Father is not a measured affection but a love bestowed, lavished, poured out — a love whose manner is beyond natural comprehension. And its effect is nothing less than adoption: we are called the sons of God now, in the present tense. Yet the apostle immediately qualifies: it doth not yet appear what we shall be. The present sonship is real but hidden; the future sonship is unimaginably greater. The transformation that awaits is not a supplement to what we already possess but a metamorphosis so complete that John can only describe it by its cause and its result. The cause is vision. "We shall see him as he is." The Greek verb opsometha, we shall see, carries the sense of beholding with the eyes — not a mystical absorption into the divine essence but a real, personal, face-to-face encounter with the glorified Christ. And this vision transforms: "we shall be like him." The Greek homoioi autō, like him, is not a superficial resemblance but a conformity of nature. The one who sees Christ as He is becomes like Christ in moral perfection. The will that now wavers, that now divides its affections between God and the world, that now wills good and evil in the same hour, shall be simplified and purified by the sight of Christ. You cannot see perfect holiness and remain impure. You cannot behold infinite love and remain cold. The vision of God completes the sanctification that the Spirit began. John draws the practical conclusion before he even finishes the doctrine: "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." The hope of being made perfectly free to good alone is not an opiate that dulls present striving; it is the very engine of present holiness. Because we shall be like him, we labor now to become what we shall be. The will's future perfection is the motive for its present purification. 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 53-54 — "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body... For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." Paul's great resurrection chapter speaks primarily of the body — but the body is not renewed in isolation from the soul. The whole man is raised, and the whole man is transformed. The language of corruption and incorruption applies as much to the will as to the flesh. The Greek aphtharsia, incorruption, describes a moral quality as much as a physical one: that which cannot decay, which cannot deteriorate, which cannot tend toward dissolution. The will in glory is raised in incorruption. It no longer carries within itself the principle of decay. It cannot slide backward. It cannot degenerate. The mutability that belonged to Adam in Eden, and that still belongs to the believer on earth, is finally removed. Paul's series of contrasts maps precisely onto the Confession's adverbs. Sown in corruption — the will as we know it now, ever tending toward sin, ever requiring the Spirit's renewing grace. Raised in incorruption — the will made perfectly free to good, with no contrary principle, no remaining corruption, no gravitational pull toward evil. Sown in dishonour — the will that even at its best produces obedience tainted with mixed motives. Raised in glory — the will that wills good with undivided heart and unmixed intention, purely for God's sake, without the alloy of self-love. Sown in weakness — the will that cannot do the good it would, that fails in the moment of testing, that sleeps when it ought to watch. Raised in power — the will that is never again overcome by temptation, that never falters, that never wearies in well-doing. This transformation is not optional but necessary: "this corruptible must put on incorruption." The divine must — dei — is the same word that governs the necessity of Christ's suffering and the necessity of the new birth. Glorification is not a reward added to salvation; it is the completion of salvation. The will that God has begun to renew He will finish renewing. The work that is now partial will be total. The freedom that is now contested will be uncontested. Revelation 22:3-5 — "And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever." The apostle John, exiled on Patmos, is given a vision of the consummation that answers every longing of the divided heart. Three affirmations in this passage bear directly upon the will in glory. First, "His servants shall serve him." The Greek verb latreusousin, shall serve, denotes priestly service — worship offered in the immediate presence of God. This is the will in its perfected operation: serving God not from a distance, not through veils and intermediaries, but in the unmediated presence of the throne. The service is not forced; the will that is perfectly free to good alone serves from the overflow of its own perfected desire. The commandments that now chafe the flesh will then be the natural expression of a heart that loves God purely. Duty and delight will be one. Second, "They shall see his face." Here is the beatific vision — the sight of God that the old covenant saint could not endure, that Moses was permitted only in part, that the seraphim cover their eyes before. The glorified will looks upon God and is not consumed but completed. The sight of perfect holiness does not expose shame but confirms perfection. The face of God, which Adam hid from, is now the believer's eternal home. Third, "His name shall be in their foreheads." This is the seal of ownership, the mark of belonging, the sign that the will is no longer its own master but is perfectly aligned with the will of God. The name on the forehead signifies complete, visible, irreversible consecration. There is no shame in this branding, for what the will most deeply desires is exactly what God commands. The law written on stone tablets in the old covenant, written on hearts in the new covenant, is now written on the very being of the glorified saint. Jude 24-25 — "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and for ever. Amen." Jude's doxology is a confession of confidence in the God who finishes what He starts. Two phrases anchor the hope of the will made perfect. The first is "him that is able to keep you from falling." The Greek phylaxai, to keep or guard, expresses the same confidence Paul voices when he says "the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom" (2 Timothy 4:18). God's keeping power is the bridge between the regenerate will that still stumbles and the glorified will that cannot stumble. We are kept not by our own grip on holiness but by God's grip on us. The second phrase is even more striking: "to present you faultless before the presence of his glory." The word amōmous, faultless or without blemish, is sacrificial language. The Old Testament required unblemished animals for the altar; a single defect disqualified the offering. Jude applies this language to the believer presented before God. How can a sinner who has spent a lifetime battling indwelling corruption stand before the divine glory without blemish? Only because the work of sanctification has been brought to its intended end. The will that was defiled is now cleansed. The heart that was divided is now single. The saint who was simultaneously justified and a sinner is now only justified — the sin having been finally expelled, the corruption having been finally destroyed. And God presents us to Himself "with exceeding joy" — agalliasei, exultation. The Father does not reluctantly admit us, overlooking defects with a sigh. He presents us faultless because the project of redemption — planned before the foundation of the world, executed at Calvary, applied by the Spirit across a lifetime — has reached its consummation.

What the Divines Meant

The Westminster Divines wrote Section 5 with the precision of men who understood that eschatology is not speculation about the future but the anchor of present faith. They did not compose a treatise on the beatific vision or a topography of the New Jerusalem. They stated, in the sparest possible language, what the Holy Scriptures teach about the will in the state of glory. And every word was chosen to exclude error while establishing truth. "Perfectly and immutably." The two adverbs are the heart of the section. "Perfectly" means without defect, without remainder, without the admixture of any contrary principle. In this life, the regenerate will truly wills the good — Section 4 has taught us that — but it does not perfectly will it. The willing is real but incomplete, genuine but mixed. The holiest saint on earth simultaneously wills good and evil, delights in the law of God yet discovers another law in his members. In glory, that mixture is resolved. The will is made perfectly free — free from the dominion of sin and even from the presence of sin. The perfection they describe is absolute. "Immutably" is the second adverb, and it is no less crucial. Adam in Paradise possessed a will that was free to good — but mutably so. He could fall, and he did. The believer on earth possesses a will that is freed from bondage — but mutably so, in the sense that remaining corruption ensures ongoing instability. But in the state of glory, the will is made immutably free. The Latin immutabilis, from which the English word derives, means unchangeable, not subject to alteration. What Adam lost because his freedom was mutable, the glorified saint can never lose because his freedom is immutable. The possibility of a second fall is excluded. The history of sin is closed forever. This is the Augustinian non posse peccare — not able to sin — which we encountered in Section 2 as the fourth term in the great sequence that structures the entire chapter. Man in innocence was posse peccare, able to sin. Man in the fall is non posse non peccare, not able not to sin. Man in grace is posse non peccare, able not to sin. Man in glory is non posse peccare, not able to sin. The progression is not a circle but an ascent. What was lost in Adam is restored in Christ — restored and raised to a higher condition, for the liberty of glory exceeds the liberty of Paradise. Adam could sin; the glorified saint cannot sin. Adam's freedom was the freedom of the unproven creature; the glorified saint's freedom is the freedom of the creature who has passed through redemption and emerged on the other side. "To good alone." The exclusivity of this phrase is deliberate. The will in glory is not free to choose between good and evil, as though liberty required the perpetual availability of opposite options. That is the modern notion of freedom — freedom as indeterminacy, as the unconstrained power of contrary choice. But the Reformed tradition has always understood that true freedom is the power to will in accordance with one's perfected nature. The will that is perfectly conformed to God is most free precisely when it can will nothing but good. Just as God Himself cannot sin, yet is the freest of all beings, so the glorified saint, conformed to the image of Christ, cannot sin, yet is perfectly free. The inability to sin is not a limitation on freedom but its highest expression. This point dismantles the popular notion that freedom means being able to go either way. A piano that can play only beautiful music has not lost its freedom; it has reached its purpose. A compass that points only north is not defective; it is working as designed. The will in glory, fixed immovably upon God, is the will restored to its created telos. It does not oscillate between God and the creature; it rests, with entire satisfaction, in God alone. "In the state of glory only." The temporal qualification is the safeguard against perfectionism. The Divines were writing in an age when Anabaptist and enthusiast movements claimed that believers could attain sinless perfection in this life. Against such claims, the Confession places the perfected will exclusively in the state of glory. Not in conversion. Not in the second blessing. Not in entire sanctification. Only in glory, when faith gives way to sight and the soul is freed from the body of this death. As Section 4 has already established, the believer on earth still wills evil by reason of remaining corruption. The war continues until death. The glorified will is a promise, not a present possession. To claim otherwise is to mistake the battlefield for the victory feast. The Divines also had in view the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, a post-mortem state of purification. The Confession's silence on any intermediate purgation is deliberate. The will is made perfectly free in the state of glory — not in purgatory, not by the fires of temporal suffering, but by the immediate act of God at glorification. The perfection is bestowed by grace, not achieved by suffering. The blood of Christ that justified is the same blood that sanctifies, and its sanctifying work is completed in the presence of God Himself. The brevity of this section deserves comment. The Divines devoted five lengthy sections to the will in its various states — natural liberty, original uprightness, total inability, and the mixed condition of grace — and then, reaching the pinnacle, wrote one sentence. The state of glory exceeds our present comprehension. We know we shall be like Christ, but what that likeness entails for the operations of the will we know only in outline. The Divines refused to speculate where Scripture is silent. They gave us what God has revealed: the will shall be made perfectly and immutably free to good alone. The rest belongs to the mystery that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.

Theological Depth

The Reformed tradition has not treated this one-sentence section as an afterthought. Theologians and pastors have drawn out the connections between the perfected will and the beatific vision, the believer's union with Christ, and the very nature of human blessedness. B.B. Warfield, writing on the final perseverance of the saints, pressed the logic of Section 5 to its necessary conclusion. If the will in glory is immutably free to good alone — if the saints in heaven cannot sin — what makes the difference between the believer on earth, who can and does sin, and the believer in heaven, who cannot? Not a change in God's decree, which is eternal and unchanging. Not a change in the merit of Christ, which is perfect and complete. The difference lies in the application of redemption. On earth, the Spirit sanctifies progressively, battling remaining corruption without yet extinguishing it. In glory, the Spirit sanctifies perfectly, removing corruption entirely. But Warfield insisted that the removal of corruption in glory is the completion of a work already begun, not the inauguration of a new work. The same Spirit who enables the believer to will the good imperfectly on earth enables him to will the good perfectly in heaven. The continuity of the Spirit's work across the threshold of death is the ground of the believer's assurance. The God who has begun a good work will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. This continuity is essential pastorally. The dying believer does not face an uncertain transition to an unknown God. The Spirit who has indwelt him through all the years of his pilgrimage, who has prompted every prayer, who has kindled every spark of love for Christ, who has waged war against every sin, is the same Spirit who will perfect him in the moment of glorification. There is no change of administration, no handover to a different divine Person. The familiar Comforter who has been the believer's constant companion will be the agent of his final transformation. The perfection of the will in glory is not an alien experience imposed from outside but the natural culmination of a work that has been going on within. Richard Sibbes, that sweet physician of souls whom we have not yet met in this chapter, meditates on the soul's satisfaction in the beatific vision. In his work The Soul's Conflict, Sibbes teaches that the divided will is the source of all human misery. So long as the heart is pulled in contrary directions — toward God by grace, toward the world by remaining corruption — the soul cannot rest. Peace is not the absence of external trouble but the unification of desire. And the unification of desire can only come when the will is fixed upon its proper object: God Himself, seen face to face. Sibbes writes that in heaven the soul "shall be swallowed up with the fullness of God, and, being perfectly refined, shall have no dross of self-love or any creature-love cleaving to it." This is precisely the Confession's "perfectly and immutably free to good alone." The dross of self-love, which even in the regenerate man pollutes his purest acts of service, is burned away. The will loves God not partly but wholly, not intermittently but unceasingly. Sibbes makes a connection that is easily overlooked: the perfected will is the ground of the soul's perfect happiness. The essence of heaven is a will that wants nothing but God and finds in God everything it wants. The divided will is misery, for it is always at war with itself. The unified will is blessedness, for it rests in that which cannot be taken away. The man who dies still battling corruption dies in the hope that his next conscious moment will be one of perfect, undivided love for Christ — love without distraction, love without reserve, love without the dull ache of knowing that even his best love is tainted. And Sibbes would have us know that this hope is certain, because it rests not on the soul's capacity to perfect itself but on God's promise to perfect it. Wilhelmus à Brakel, the Dutch Second Reformation divine whose Christian's Reasonable Service instructed generations of Reformed households, structured his entire theology around the believer's experience of God. In his treatment of glorification, Brakel emphasizes that the state of glory is not a reward earned by the believer's striving but the free gift of the covenant of grace. The perfected will is not the payment for a lifetime of holy effort; it is the promised inheritance of those who are in Christ. And because it is an inheritance rather than a wage, it is certain. The weakest believer, who has struggled with the same sins for sixty years and seems to make no progress, will receive the same perfection as the strongest saint. The will of both will be made immutably free to good alone, not according to the measure of their sanctification in this life but according to the measure of Christ's fullness. This point brings real comfort. The believer who lies on his deathbed lamenting his imperfect love, his wandering thoughts in prayer, his coldness of heart — this believer may fear he is not fit for glory. And in one sense he is right. But Brakel insists that fitness for glory is not a quality the believer produces; it is a quality grace bestows at the moment of entrance. Admission to heaven brings with it the completion of sanctification. The dying thief on the cross had no opportunity for progressive sanctification, yet he entered Paradise that very day with a will made perfect. The ground was not his holiness but the word of Christ: "Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise." The Genevan theologian Turretin, though cited in earlier sections of this chapter, is worth recalling for his distinction between the formal and the material perfection of the will. Formal perfection means that the will operates without any defect in its mode of operation. Material perfection means that the will's objects are wholly good. In the state of glory, both are present. The will operates with perfect clarity of judgment, perfect intensity of affection, and perfect constancy of purpose — this is formal perfection. And it is directed exclusively toward God and whatever is pleasing to Him — this is material perfection. The two together constitute what the Confession calls being made perfectly free to good alone. Turretin also answers an objection: if the glorified will cannot sin, is it still a human will? He distinguishes between the essence of the will — rational self-determination — and its accidental qualities. The essence persists in all four states. In glory, the will chooses freely according to its perfected inclination. That it cannot choose evil is not a defect but the perfection of its health. Just as a healthy eye cannot help seeing clearly, and we do not call it unfree for that, so the glorified will cannot help loving God purely. The inability to sin is the highest liberty.

Puritan Application

The doctrine of the perfected will is not a speculation for theologians but a truth for the trenches. It addresses the believer in the midst of conflict and says: this will not last forever. The applications are immediate, searching, and sustaining. First, let the doctrine of the perfected will anchor your hope in the midst of present struggle. Every Christian who takes sin seriously knows the exhaustion of the long war. We confess the same sins week after week. We mortify the same lusts, only to find them alive again. The danger is not that we will stop fighting, but that we will doubt the Spirit is at work at all. Section 5 is God's answer. The fact that you still struggle is not evidence you are unregenerate; it is evidence you are still in the state of grace described in Section 4. And the state of grace is not final. The war will end. The will that limps toward God will one day run. The heart that loves Christ with divided affections will one day love Him with undivided ardor. Do not measure your progress by the distance you still have to travel; measure it by the certainty that you will arrive. The God who promised to perfect your will has never broken a promise. Second, reject every teaching that promises sinless perfection in this life. The Confession is explicit: the will is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone "in the state of glory only." The word "only" is a locked door against every form of perfectionism, whether it wears the robes of medieval mysticism, the plain dress of Anabaptist enthusiasm, or the modern garb of Wesleyan entire sanctification. If any teacher claims that you can reach a state in this life where you no longer sin — where the will is perfectly free to good — that teacher is contradicting the plain testimony of Scripture, the unanimous witness of the Reformed confessions, and the experience of every honest believer. The apostle John, writing to believers, said, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1:8). The present tense is deliberate: sin remains, and the claim to sinlessness is self-deception. The perfected will is a promise for glory, not a possession for earth. To claim it now is to short-circuit the biblical pattern of already and not yet — to seize in arrogance what God has reserved to bestow in grace. Third, let the certainty of glorification sustain you in the hour of death. The believer does not face death as those who have no hope. Death is not the end but the passage — the narrow gate through which the soul enters Christ's presence. And the moment of passage is also the moment of perfection. The soul that leaves the body behind leaves remaining corruption behind as well. The will that for a lifetime was the arena of conflict becomes in an instant the sanctuary of peace. The things you have hated most about yourself — the temper you cannot control, the lust you cannot extinguish, the pride that poisons your prayers — will not cross the river with you. They belong to the old creation, which is passing away. You are not dying into nothingness; you are dying into perfection. Fourth, pursue holiness now in light of what you shall be then. The apostles never set future hope against present effort; they made future hope the engine of present effort. John says, "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." The hope of being made perfectly free to good alone is not a reason to relax the pursuit of holiness but the strongest reason to intensify it. You are being prepared for a world in which nothing impure can enter. Your present mortification of sin, weak and halting as it is, is the Spirit's preparatory work for glory. Every sin you put to death now is a foretaste of the final death of sin. Every act of obedience, however imperfect, is a rehearsal for the perfect obedience of heaven. Do not despise the small victories. They are the advance guard of the ultimate triumph. As à Brakel wrote, the holy life on earth is the beginning of eternal life — not yet perfect, but already real, already moving in the same direction, already animated by the same Spirit who will bring it to completion. Fifth, learn to long for Christ's appearing. The New Testament closes not with speculation about the millennium but with a prayer: "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." The perfected will is a doctrine meant to produce longing. If you are content with your present spiritual condition — if the thought of being made perfectly free to good alone does not stir desire — then something is wrong. The regenerate heart groans under remaining corruption and yearns for deliverance. Paul cried out, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The answer was Christ, but the full deliverance was yet future. To long for Christ's appearing is to long for the completion of His saving work in you. It is to say with the psalmist, "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness" (Psalm 17:15). Let this longing characterize your prayer life. Ask for strength to fight the battle — and ask for the battle to end. Ask for grace to resist temptation — and ask to be placed beyond temptation's reach. The prayer for Christ's return is the prayer for the perfected will.

Prayer

O Lord God Almighty, who hast formed the will of man and knowest its frame, we bless Thee for the hope set before us in Thy Word. We confess that our wills are still divided, still prone to wander, still drawn toward that which we hate and away from that which we love. We groan under the body of this death, and we long for the redemption that Thou hast promised. We thank Thee that the war will not last forever. We praise Thee that the day is coming — as certain as the resurrection of Thy Son — when our wills shall be made perfectly and immutably free to good alone. Not by our striving, but by Thy finishing. Not by our merit, but by Thy mercy. We rest in the promise that the blood of Jesus Christ speaks better things than that of Abel, and that the Spirit who began a good work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. O Lord, make this hope lively in our hearts. Let it strengthen us in the battle, comfort us in our falls, and sustain us in the hour of death. Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Teach us to love Thy appearing more than we love the comforts of this present age. And when our earthly pilgrimage is ended, receive us into glory. Sanctify us wholly. Perfect that which concerneth us. Let us see Thy face in righteousness. Let us awake in Thy likeness. Let us serve Thee with undivided hearts in the temple not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen.