Free Will And

FREE WILL AND/OR HUMAN FREEDOM By: Velmat 6/25/09 The apostle Paul wrote several of his letters or epistles inside prison cells like the books of Ephesians, Colossians and Philippians. When we heard someone is in prison we can say that he is not free. Of course, he is not free to go anywhere he want. A prisoner lost his freedom either temporarily or permanently. In the body of Christ there is a theological dispute or disagreement about the condition of human beings after the ‘fall of Adam’. Some says man is still a free moral agent and he has freedom to either accept or reject God’s offered of salvation or Christ’ forgiveness. This article will show biblical proofs that human beings has no ‘free will’ or he is not a free moral agents and that God has not offered His gift of salvation because mankind is not capable of either accepting or rejecting Christ’ forgiveness because he has no freedom being a slave of Satan the devil who is the god of this world. We are told in Genesis that as soon as our first parents ate the forbidden fruit they immediately died spiritually meaning they have been separated from God. Death in biblical terminology always means separation. And ‘separation’ in the Bible is always connected to losing freedom or losing the truth. Jesus Christ is the personification of the abstract word freedom. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. We are told “you shall know the truth (Jesus) and the truth (Jesus Himself) shall set us free. If we are truly ‘free” the Bible will not declare that Jesus will set us free. If we do not know Jesus Christ we are truly not free because we are separated from the truth who will give us real freedom. When our first parents rebelled against God by disobeying Him he lost the truth and his freedom because God who is the truth is also the source of true freedom. Apostle Paul also mentioned in his letter that he is the prisoner of the Lord because he is now a slave of righteousness serving God. This means he is no longer ‘free to serve Satan because God has set him free to serve Him. In contrast Paul is servant of Satan before Christ make Himself known to him or before Christ set him free who rescued him from the power of darkness (Col. 1:13 ). In Jeremiah we are told that human beings has a deceitful and lying heart. That is why he is a slave of sin and the god of this world. Therefore he really has no moral freedom unless God and Christ set him free by giving him His Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Freedom. God is truly the only one who is truly free because He Himself is the Truth. If we are apart from God we are apart from the truth and we can never be free apart from the Truth who is the only one Who can set us free. Before Christ set us free by giving us His Holy Spirit (also His gift of salvation or gift of forgiveness) we are slaves of our own sin and Satan the devil who is the father of all lies

therefore we are not truly free. To say that we have the freedom to either accept or reject Christ’ forgiveness is contrary to the teaching of the scripture. Our will is not free because it is a servant or slave of our sinful human nature which also under the influence of the god and ruler of this present evil world. If Christ indeed ‘offered’ His gift of forgiveness we will reject it automatically because of our nature who is a slave of sin and we will be seeing a ‘disappointed god’ who can never be the God of the Bible because the God of the Bible never fails and He will never experience disappointment. Christ’ forgiveness is never offered by God to His chosen adopted children because He will never experience disappointment and rejection. God simply gave Christ unconditionally to those who is the object of His mercy and love. Again, nobody deserve God’s love and mercy. God is free to decide whom He wanted to be the object of His mercy. Grace is undeserved favor given by God to the ill-deserving sinners like the writer. If God decided not to choose anyone because all of us deserve God’s wrath and if He decided to sent all of us to hell God is still the God of love and the God of justice. But praise God! God is free to make a decision according to the good pleasure of His will. “For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight (Ephesians 1:4)