Free Will's Requiem

 
Free will is a human concept the purports that God gave mankind a free and unencumbered will upon his creation.  The teaching claims that man has the capacity to FREELY choose.  I have proved the preposterousness of this heresy in many of my writings, and I wish to further show the error of this concept.

Consider the Jews.  These were a people chosen by God out of many nations.  They were given a covenant that was not given to ANY other nation.  It is important to realize this, because the covenant that the Jews had was between them and God.  It was not OPEN to any of the other nations. The covenant outlined a list of things that God was requiring of them.  Embedded in this list was a plethora of promises and a host of curses.  In order for the Jews to experience UTOPIA all they needed to do was OBEY THE LAW.  Do you understand this?  This is key to revealing the error of free will.  The Jews only needed to obey the words of the covenant and their lives would have been HEAVEN ON EARTH. All their physical needs would have been met and they would have wanted for NOTHING.  Why did the Jews NOT exercise their supposed FREE WILL to access this option?  It is because their will was NOT free!  And I thank God that they DID NOT OBEY; you will agree in a bit!

EVERY man born into the world is a SLAVE!  A slave has NO ability to exercise his own will but by nature is UNDER the will of another.  We are not born free but rather we are born slaves to sin:

Psalms 51:5
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,And in sin my mother conceived me.

Psalms 58:3
The wicked are estranged from the womb; These who speak lies go astray from birth.

Genesis 8:21b
“I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is EVIL FROM HIS YOUTH; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.

The  Jews were no different from you or me.  The day before the received the covenant they were slaves to sin and the day after they received the covenant the were STILL slaves to sin!  The covenant DID NOT CORRECT THEIR SINFUL DISPOSITION.  But this is all besides the point because if mankind, inclusive of the Jews, had the capacity to choose freely then why do they ALL invariably choose darkness rather than light.

Consider what would have happened if the Jews had chosen by their supposed free will to OBEY God.  What would that mean for you GENTILES that were NOT God's chosen people:

Hebrews 8:7
For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.

DID YOU READ THAT???  If the the Jews had somehow been able to exercise their 'free' will and had chosen to obey God the scripture says that 'THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO OCCASION SOUGHT FOR A SECOND' covenant. Where would that lead us who were not of the physical lineage of Abraham?  We would to this day be HOPELESS.  This was all part of God's plan because we read in the very next verse:

Hebrews 8:8
For finding fault with them, He says,“ Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, When I will effect A new covenant With the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;

In which way did God find fault with THEM (the Jews)?  It was in their INABILITY to keep the covenant.  They had NO capacity to obey the Law because they were SLAVES to sin. It was THIS that made the second covenant necessary.

Okay now we have a New Covenant, but can we choose by some free will to obey God even in this new covenant?

Philippians 2:13
For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

It is God that is doing the willing in you AND the doing.  This is the reason why the Israelites were UNABLE to obey the law.  God was NOT in them.  The Law was an EXTERNAL stimuli that had NO POWER of the internal condition of mankind which was INCLINED to sin.  Now that we are in a new covenant does he now tell us to use OUR FREE WILL to live rightly? The new covenant has God now working IN us both to will and to do his good pleasure.  What is this good pleasure:

Jude 1:24
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,

His good pleasure is to make us stand in the presence of his glory.  What is required for this to happen? We MUST keep from stumbling AND be blameless. But consider, WHO IS IT THAT KEEPS YOU FROM STUMBLING? God, NOT free will.  Well can our free will cause us to stand blamelessly?  Of course not:

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

It is GOD who does the sanctifying, NOT OUR FREE WILL!!!  He confirms this in the VERY next verse:

...Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.

Listen to this. IT IS GOD WHO BRINGS IT TO PASS NOT US OR A MYTHICAL FREE WILL!!!!

So, since we can't even use free will to freely will ourselves to NOT sin what good is it to lay claim to this BLASPHEMOUS and DEMONIC concept? We do well to heed this warning:

Colossians 2:8
See to it that no one takes you captive through PHILOSOPHY and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, RATHER than according to Christ.

The last nail in the coffin of FREE WILL.

The REALITY: Man is a puppet
The PROBLEM: He cannot see the strings
The DELUSION: I am the master of my fate; the captain of my soul

The doctrine of free will is THE MOST destructive doctrine held by the church today.  The doctrine goes something like this:

When God made man he put in him the ability to freely choose.  This free will is what allows man to come to God or to refuse him.

This doctrine and variations of it has permeated the church, and has become the lynchpin for a host of heresies that in and of themselves CANNOT stand without it.

Can a person choose?
This is a valid question because if we are to lay to rest the teaching of free will this glaring reality must be addressed.  The question 'can a person choose' is a good one, but it does not offer proof of free will.  Yes, a person can choose; but the real question is 'Is a person FREE to choose'.  As Christians we often see the world in black and white.  To us there are those who are of God and those who are not.  Let us examine the unbeliever.

Is the unbeliever free to choose?
We see the unbeliever as a reprobate CHOOSING to live a life of sin and refusing God.  What does the bible say of him:

Psalms 51:5
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Psalms 58:3
The wicked are estranged from the womb; These who speak lies go astray from birth.

Here we have the BIBLICAL description of EVERY human EVER born.  We are born NOT with a clean slate, but rather we are all born with a propensity to sin.  Notice that the scripture does not tell us that we come to CHOOSE sin but that we are BORN sinners.  Now since we are born this way what does this birth produce:

Ephesians 2:3
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Paul tells us that unbelievers 'live in the lust of the flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind'.  Why is this?  It is because they are 'BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH'.  Do you see that?  Let me pose a question 'Are these people operating by their own will?'.  Let the word of God answer:

2 Timothy 2:26
...and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

Do you see the condition of EVERY man born into the world.  They are ALL being HELD CAPTIVE BY THE DEVIL TO DO HIS WILL.  They are not performing their OWN will as the doctrine of free will purports.  The bible says that they are in the SNARE of the devil.  The word snare means trap.  If you are in a trap ARE YOU FREE?  Not only are they in a trap but they are being held captive to perform the WILL OF THE DEVIL.  Do you see any freedom here?  Whose will are they performing, their own or the devil's?

As you continue to grasp at the brittle threads of free will you may say 'well, they can escape at any time the want'.  Oh really?  The following verses tell us how they got into the trap in the first place and why:

Romans 11:32
For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.

Galatians 3:22
But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

I have written before in the post 'Why do sinners sin' that the unbeliever can no more stop sinning than a blind man can avoid a ditch. God is the ONLY ONE who can set the sinner free from the captivity of Satan; NOT some FREE WILL.  Consider:

2 Timothy 2:25
...with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, IF PERHAPS GOD may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,

But surely the Christian has free will doesn't he?
You may still want to cling to the heresy of free will by concluding that the Christian has free will since he is of God.  NO HE DOES NOT.  Consider this scripture:

Philippians 2:13
...for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Solomon understood this:

1 Kings 8:57-58
May the Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers; may He not leave us or forsake us, that He may incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances, which He commanded our fathers.

It is God doing then inclining! The Christian has been led to believe that it is he that is choosing to obey God by his own free will.  Consider:

1 Peter 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has CAUSED us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
  
We are all slaves.
The New Testament uses the Greek word 'Doulos'.  This word is translated as 'slave' in english.  This is an important description because it helps us to understand how man operates.  The word translated as slave means 'ONE WHO HAS NO WILL OF HIS OWN AND IS UNDER COMPLETE CONTROL OF ANOTHER'. Since this is the case we can see how the doctrine of free will can finally be defeated by the following:

Romans 6:15-22
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey –whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 

Remember that this 'offering' of ourselves to sin occurs at CONCEPTION.  Let us continue:

...But thanks be to God that, though you USED to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 

Remember this obedience occurs BY GOD's WILL.  Continue:

...You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

The Christian now is a slave, that is WITHOUT HIS OWN WILL, to righteousness.  Notice that the condition of slavery does NOT cease; we simply move from one master to another.  He continues:

...I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever- increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 

Did you see that?  Sinners are FREE FROM THE CONTROL OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.  Go on:

...What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

There it is, the one born of God is himself a SLAVE to God.  No free will here.  In fact Paul takes it further in telling us thatWE ARE OWNED:

1 Corinthians 6:20
For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

I pray that God will grant you understanding as you too come to see that indeed we are ALWAYS slaves.

Do you really ACCEPT Jesus as Lord?

The Christian's clarion call to the world is 'Accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior'. The word accept means: To take or receive with approval or favor, to agree or to consent to.  You will come to see that the use of the word 'accept' has become the basis of misunderstanding of how salvation really works.

Most Chrisitians have the following viewpoint of God: 

God sent his son, Jesus, with a message that if the world would receive it they would be saved from destruction.  All day long God has his arms stretched out longing for people to respond favorably to this message of life.

The greatest problem with this line of thought is that the responsibility is placed on the unbeliever, and all he need do is ACCEPT Jesus and he will be saved.  This is nonsense, because the scriptures paint a very different picture of salvation. Consider:

Acts 13:48
When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many AS HAD BEEN APPOINTED to eternal life believed.

The word 'accept' denotes a choice of the accepter.  If you ask me to accept something that must mean that I have a choice in the matter.  But is salvation a CHOICE?

John 1:12-13
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

John tells us here that those who come to God DO NOT do so by THEIR OWN will but by THE WILL OF GOD.  In order to continue on to understanding you must come to see this verse as a GOVERNING principle when dealing with salvation.  We are born of God NOT BY OUR WILL but BECAUSE of God's will.  We see this again in Galatians:

Galatians 1:4
...who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the WILL OF OUR GOD and Father,

Again, acceptance denotes the will of the accepter.  But salvation is not based on our choice.  Consider

Ephesians 1:4-5
...just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

Here we see God doing the choosing AND the predestination.  The problem is that when most Christians read this they assume that God does this by his foreknowledge.  This is ridiculous because we just read in John where it states that salvation is based on an act of the will of God. 

Ephesians 1:11
...also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will,

Again this act of predestination was ACCORDING to his PURPOSE.  Just as a side bar let me try and explain predestination.  God wants to build a fence so he FIRST makes a hammer.  When the time comes when the job requires the use of a hammer he selects that hammer.  The hammer DOES NOT accept him.  The hammer was MADE FOR THIS PURPOSE. Consider:

2 Timothy 1:9
...who did save us, and did call with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, that was given to us in Christ Jesus, before the times of the ages,

Ephesians 2:10
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

What were the tools used to BRING us to God?  Grace and faith, consider:

Ephesians 2:8
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

Acceptance?  Not hardly!  The grace was GOD's and the faith used was GOD's gift.

Colossians 3:12
So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;

Again the choice was God's.

Listen to Paul's description of his salvation:

Galatians 1:15-16
But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles...

Look at this; God set him apart, God called him through his grace, WHEN IT PLEASED GOD he revealed his son in him.  Wow this is amazing.  NONE of these things that established the salvation of Paul had ANYTHING to do with him but EVERYTHING to do with God.

1 Thessalonians 1:4
...knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you;

God's choice and NOT your acceptance.

2 Thessalonians 2:13
But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.

This verse again shows that our salvation is BASED NOT ON the foreknowledge of God but the CHOICE OF GOD.  So we must conclude that salvation is NOT based on our ACCEPTANCE but on GOD's choice.

What about whosoever believeth?
Let us look at the most famous verse of the entire bible:

John 3:16
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Ahhhhhh you say does not this verse denote us choosing and accepting God. Nahhhhhhh it doesn't.  There are several 'whosoever believeth' verses throughout the New Testament but does that tell us HOW we are saved or does it allow us to IDENTIFY who is being saved?  When we see the phrase 'whoever believes' this is an identification, because we see that belief comes about by faith and we saw earlier that the FAITH THROUGH WHICH WE BELEIEVE IS OF GOD.  This therefore is a way of DETERMINING who is born of God.  It is like having a bunch of fruit trees in your yard and not knowing which of them is a Mango tree.  So I come to you and say 'the tree that produces a mango fruit is a mango tree'.  In the same way whosoever believes IS born of God

So do we ACCEPT God into our lives?  No, but he CHOOSES us into his.  The fallacy that we 'accept Jesus' bears exposing because Christians the world over harbor the SILLY notion that unbelievers RESIST God.  We are born of God BY HIS WILL and NO ONE can resist his will.