The Free Will of Man vs. The Free Will of God
Sinful man thinks more highly of himself than he ought to. Pride fills his heart and occupies his mind. He imagines he is good, despite his hatred of his neighbor and lust for his neighbor’s wife. Near the top of his arrogant sin list is his insistence that he is like God. Some men work diligently at their divine status, thinking that they are free. Their penchant to control people and possessions…even God, exposes them.
How do men delude themselves into thinking they can control God? Free will. When a man believes he is free to choose good or evil, he is blinded by his evil taskmaster, Satan, the deceiver. Man, in his delusion, pretends he is God, deciding whether he will accept or reject God’s will for his salvation.
Lucifer, that old serpent, inspires every man into rebellion against God. When Adam was tricked into changing his allegiance from God to Satan, man lost much in his very poor, free will decision. His loss included the free will God had equipped him with to exercise dominion over the earth. In the fall, man was no longer free to choose good. Instead, he was now a slave to choosing evil.
Satan continues to impress upon man that he has free will like a god. However, every inclination in his heart is only evil all the time (Gen 6:5). Man wills only to sin, and his ability is only to sin in the state of his total depravity. What is man, deluded in his mind and a slave in his flesh, missing in this bondage of his will?
The main issue, missed by those who espouse the error of human free will, is the free and sovereign will of the one true God. God is not equal to nor challenged by Satan and his slaves. The will of men and demons was not lost in their fall into sin against God. What was lost was their spiritual freedom to choose good.
God sits in the heavens, and He does as He pleases (Ps 115:3; 135:6). His will, derived from His eternal good pleasure, is glory for Himself. He is God, and there is no other. His free and sovereign will must be done, and it is not superseded by the will of anyone else. In His omnipotence, God is entirely able to do all His holy will. Put another way, His will is done.
Man again deludes himself into imagining that God gives His sovereignty and will away to others. If this were true, God would no longer be God. He says, “I will do all My pleasure (Is 46:10).”
Man is told by God, in His revealed Word of truth, that God is the Potter and man is but clay (Jer 18, Rom 9). Whose will is the determining factor in the existence and outcome of the clay? God, the Potter, even reveals He has made two kinds of vessels, with two very different outcomes (Rom 9:22–23).
Nothing can change the will of God, which is eternally decreed. It is simply obnoxious for clay pot sinners to inform God of their free will decision to let God be God. When men teach this idea to other men, it is rank heresy.
Can totally depraved, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, change the sovereign will of their Creator, who in His eternal counsel, has eternally decided to reprobate such a one? To answer affirmatively only proves the delusion. God is God, and no one is going to “let” God be God.
The will of man has always, is, and will forever be subservient to the sovereign will of God, even when God has ordained for the will of man to be enslaved to sin and the will of Satan. What can be said in conclusion, other than to rejoice, if God, in His will and by His work, has set you free in Christ Jesus. Then you are free indeed, by the will of God, alone.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
September 8, 2021
