Freewill and Free Agents - Bible Teaching #24

For this we will be doing a dive into free will in the Bible. I have been running through this doctrine, combatting many Calvinists. So, now the question, what is free will and who or what has free will according to the Bible? 

Free will is a combination of 2 words. Free and will. 

According to Oxford dictionary, free means, "not under the control or in the power of another; able to act or be done as one wishes."

According to Oxford dictionary, one definition of will is, "expressing desire, consent, or willingness."

So basically free will, is the ability to want or desire something without an external force influencing that desire. You can desire sin or righteousness on your own, without God dictating your desires or decisions. This is exactly why God will reward us according to our works, our works, not His. 

Now here we will investigate further if man has free will. We see in Exodus 35:29 that the people brought an offering to the Lord of their own free will. Literally a free will offering. A voluntary offering. Not decreed or commanded. But from their own freedom of choice, which implies free will. So we see that men do have free will to make offerings or not. Now, what about free will to sin or not? 

Genesis 4:7 states, "If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it." So according to God, Cain had the ability to sin or not. The choice was his, the power was of Cain, to say yes or no. Showing that we have free will to sin or not. Note that this was after the fall of man. 

As Joshua also states this, "And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." You choose who your master is. You can only serve one master according to Jesus. Who you obey, that is your master. The choice is yours. This is crucial to understand when investigating some New Testament concepts, such as slavery to sin. 

When Jesus says, "whoever commits sin is a slave of sin". That goes along with Jesus saying that whoever we obey, that is our master. But that does not mean that we can not switch masters at will. Sinners have the power to stop sin. That is called repentance. There is no forgiveness of your past sins unless you repent, (stop willful sin). That is becoming a "new creation". Our actions changing. If you no longer lie, you are no longer a liar. If you no longer steal, you are no longer a thief. Your actions make you who you are. If you are a "Christian", you do the works of Christ. Christ did what was right, making Him righteous. But sinners commit sin. 

Another question that I have heard asked, do angels have the same type of free will that man has? Do they even have free will?

I think it is pretty easy to prove that angels have free will.

As Satan is the father of lies and it is impossible for God to lie. Thus making it necessary for Satan to operate outside of God's will to invent lying. That would imply freedom of choice, which would in turn imply freedom of will or desire, which most call free will. If Satan caused a third of the angels to fall with him, that would imply that a choice could be made. Freedom of choice implies free will. 

This is where God is just, in punishing free agents for their free choices made by their own free will. It would be unjust to punish agents for a forced action determined by a dictator. 

This would bring up more interesting points and questions. Why would God get mad over what He has determined? Why would God sorrow over what He has caused? Did God make a mistake? I submit no. But free agents that God created did not do what God desired for them to do. The blame is on the free agents, not on God. 

So at the end of the day, you can desire or choose what you want. But remember that God will judge everything that you do on Judgement Day. Including every secret thing, whether good or evil. We are not puppets. We are responsible for and will be rewarded for all of our works, good or bad. Stop doing what you know is wrong and faithfully obey the Lord Jesus Christ. Then your past willful sins, along with all of your ignorant sins, will be wiped away. That is the only way to forgiveness for sins and reconciliation to God. 

May God bless you. Godspeed. 

I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts and am willing to discuss any of these topics and more, in great detail. If you would like.

Email:

Michael.servantofchrist@gmail.com