Freedom of the Will

Lesson One

if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  

John 8:36

18^th century cleric Jonathan Edwards, who is said to be one of the greatest theologians and philosophers America has yet produced, defined “The will as simply the mind’s faculty of choosing.” We will choose what we want at any particular point in time, though a fraction of a second latter we may regret the actions that come about as a result of our choice. Whether or not we act upon that choice also depends on our ability to do so. The choices that humans have made throughout history differed before the Fall of Adam, after the Fall and after one has been born anew. That is the context in which we should view either the freedom or the bondage of our wills. Over the next few weeks this blog spot will address the state of the human will under each of those three separate conditions.

Pre-fall: When God created Adam He gave humans a free will; freedom to chose right from wrong; to choose good from evil. This is revealed to us in Genesis 2:15-17: The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Using his free will Adam chose the wrong instead of the right; the evil instead of the good. As a result of his disobedience, Adam, his wife Eve (who also chose to disobey God’s singular command) and all of their off spring became sinners, fell from grace and fellowship with their loving, Creator God and lost their ability to choose things considered divinely good as opposed to that which God considers evil. As proof of their fallen state, when the two heard God moving about in the Garden of Eden they hid from Him; they were even afraid of the One who had been their friend. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.  But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”  He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” Genesis 3:8-10.

Christianity is a One Way Street

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 14:5-6

King Solomon, the wisest of all humans, once wrote There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death. Proverbs 14:12 The way of which he spoke is the wrong path to salvation, a path strewn with good works which have been done for the purpose of attempting to appease God’s wrath for our sin; those works are patently futile. There is a right way and the 1^st century church knew where to find it because they believed what Jesus had told the disciples; that which John recorded in the 14^th chapter of his gospel. In fact, before they were called Christians the faithful were known as people who “belonged to the Way” (Acts 9:2). The apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians’ church reminding them of what they had received and what were to tell non-believers regarding the proper way to salvation: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor who was martyred (hung by the Gestapo) for his stand against the evils of Nazism and Hitler’s Third Reich wisely said, “If you board the wrong train it is no use running down the isle in the opposite direction.” Some people sitting in pews each Sunday are simply playing church, trying to strike a balance between the sin which we all possess (Romans 3:23) and some futile good works. Unknowingly they have simply boarded the wrong train; one that will inevitably derail and send them into a Godless eternity.

Only the work of Christ, living the perfect life none of us can attain and then going to the Cross to receive God’s judgment for carrying our sin, can satisfy the Holy God Almighty against whom we have sinned since our birth. When we avail ourselves of hearing the spoken Word of God taught so clearly each Lord’s Day at Old North Church, then God will speak to our hearts and show us the way. 600 years before Christ’s first advent he prophet Isaiah taught this fact; Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Isaiah 30:21