Freedom of the Will

Lesson Two

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

John 8:36

The choices one makes are determined by the inclination of one’s mind or heart. In the first lesson we saw that Adam and Eve had been created with freedom of the will and the ability to chose the right from the wrong. In other words, Pre-fall humanity had the freedom to choose for or against God’s will. God had warned Adam, who in turn taught Eve, that disobedience to God’s only law would result in death; God had said, you will certainly die. The result of their disobedience was immediate spiritual death, an inability to do the will of God, and also ultimate physical death. Having been created to live eternally, they would now die within a finite period of time. Thus all of Post-fall humanity would only be inclined to evil in disobedience to God’s will. The Bible clearly teaches that, though some may feel that they do good all the time. From a human point of view, good deeds and things right versus things done in a wrong manner, have differed from age to age. There was a time when abortion was considered evil; now a majority of humanity regards it as a right of choice.  Ever since the fall human inclinations are evil and immutable from the day of our conception unless God intervenes. Genesis 6:5-7: The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.  So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”

God lamented this lack of mankind’s spiritual inclination in Deuteronomy 5:29: Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever! In Jeremiah 7:23-24 God complains:  But I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you.  But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. The apostle Paul teaches us that we are spiritually dead from our birth and only inclined toward evil. Ephesians 2:1-2: As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.