Do Christians Freely Choose Christ if God has Foreordained it?
Part III: The Intercessor’s Choice (or “Your Ticket to Heaven was Probably Punched by Grandma”)
(Pre-Ramble: We’re discussing three key decisions that bring an unbeliever to faith in Christ: God’s choice, an intercessor’s choice, and the believer’s choice. We covered God’s choice in Part I here; then jumped to the unbeliever’s choice in Part II; and here we address the intercessor’s choice. We’ll also wrap up a loose end by addressing this question: Why are those born into sin and governed by a fallen nature still accountable to God?)
What of a human intercessor’s choice to pray for an unredeemed soul? It is nearly always true that someone has pled with God for each soul that He saves. (Matthew 5:44; Ephesians 6:18) I am perhaps especially sensitive to the import of intercessory prayer, in that my grandmother prayed for my salvation for 30 years before the slightest evidence of it appeared. Apart from the primary cause of my faith — addressed in part one of this series, I attribute the mediatory influence of Emily Johnson — my grandmother — as by far the most important secondary cause. We didn’t pray, read the bible, or go to church (except maybe at Christmas and Easter) in my home. I honestly can’t recall a single instance my parents, both of whom came to faith much later in life, spoke about God. My grandmother, except for a short time, didn’t live with us. Yet, I and two of my siblings are born again Christians (Is there any other kind?). That’s hard to explain aside from the efficacy of intercessory prayer.
What a legacy my grandmother left behind: the eternal blessedness of her grandchildren, and (I trust) their children and grandchildren. What worldly accomplishment or notoriety — which Emily never came remotely close to achieving — can possibly compare with that? Parents and grandparents, a permanent legacy of incredible value can be yours through your persistent and humble petition to the Sovereign of this universe. 
Intercessory prayer endows lasting significance to otherwise unremarkable lives, while often bestowing eternal blessings on its beneficiaries. How many Christian men and women owe their faith to a praying mother or grandmother? (Sorry, dads and granddads, but you don’t come close to your female counterparts in relentlessness of prayer.) Heaven is full of saints with praying moms and grandmoms.
Indeed, God can rescue the faithless apart from the prayers of the saints, but He is pleased to involve his followers in the work of redemption, and to reveal His saving power through their prayers. Of course, both primary causation by God (via the Holy Spirit) and secondary causation by the intercessor are at work in prayer.
Loose Ends: The Sin Nature and Human Responsibility
Let’s consider human responsibility in light of our being born into sin. Biblically, an unbeliever is only capable of following the desires of the fallen nature, resulting in separation from God. How, then, is someone responsible for the acts of a nature inherited from birth?
I think scripture gives us two principal reasons. First, acting upon the desires of our fallen nature is contrary to what our God-given conscience tells us is right, which is why unbelievers must work hard to suppress the voice of conscience. Doing what one knows is wrong is a strong basis for culpability. (Romans 2:14-15)
Second, the human race is not merely a grouping of individuals, but connected as a family through our first parents, Adam and Eve. Although our culture sees humanity in a highly individualistic and atomistic way, God does not. We are inextricably related through our common parentage: “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.” (Romans 5:12) Our sin tendencies reflect those of our parents, tracing all the way back to the Garden. Moreover, it is a reasonable inference from scripture that we would have acted no differently than our “parents,” Adam and Eve.
Summing up, the fallen nature is inherited at birth from Adam, and imprisons us in sin. (Romans 5:12; John 8:34) A renewed — or “non-Adamic” — nature is a gift from God. The alternative? Sin, death, and hell. (Romans 6:23) Apart from a spiritual epiphany, these truths tend to remain elusive. They may seem harsh and arbitrary to the complacent. But why should reality conform to what we expect or hope it to be? We shouldn’t be surprised it is surprising; life itself is wildly improbable and enigmatic. Indeed, why is there something instead of nothing?
In the end, a Christian is the happy consequence of three choices: God’s; the intercessor’s; and, of course, the regenerated person him or her self. Naturally, God’s choice is first and decisive, but the secondary choices of both the intercessor and the believer nonetheless are exercised freely, and, therefore, quite real.