Free Will

“God’s greatest gift to man in all the bounty He was moved to make throughout creation – the one gift the most close to His goodness and the one He calls most precious – is free will.”
Dante Alighieri in “Paradiso”

This is a simple succinct insight into a view of the “FREE WILL” of human beings as noted in Ephesians 1.
As they have done for centuries scholars continue to debate the issue. This is not an attempt to make such an important and complex issue seem simple. It is a brief insight into one aspect of the issue.

In a debate every point has a counterpoint. This is an attempt to make a point, not to deal with the counterpoint.
As a strategic sidebar to this issue God’s sovereignty must be acknowledged. His priority and preeminence is unimpeachable. What follows is predicated on the concept that God in His sovereign will determined to give human beings a free will. This is, “according to the good pleasure of His will” Ephesians 1: 5.

The issue was determined “before the foundation of the world” Ephesians 1: 4. Prior to the “cosmos” (KATABOLES) being created how, upon sinning, human beings could be redeemed was determined. God “predestined,” that is, He predetermined the destiny of individual humans. (Don’t stop here.)

Predestined translates the Greek word PROORIZO, which was a surveyor’s term meaning to “mark out a boundary.”

In the shaping of America surveyors went through a region of the South and marked off a boundary and designated all within that boundary as “Georgia.” All living within the boundary were Georgians.

Before the dawning of creation God marked out a boundary and said all who voluntarily enter it should be saved. That boundary is noted several times in Ephesians 1 as being “in Him,”

“In Him,” “in Christ,” “in Him,” and in verses 11 – 13 as, “in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.”

Those within the boundary of Christ are predestined to share His destiny. They are those who “first trusted in Christ,”those who “having believed” in Him should be saved.

Man’s ability to “trust,” that is, choose is attested to by the Scriptures that follow .
God in His sovereignty allows human beings the choice.
By God’s grace we determine the action. God determines the results.
God decrees. Man decides.

Throughout the Bible God is depicted as choosing. Being sovereign He obviously has a free will to choose who and what He pleases.

Starting with Adam and Eve, who chose between eating or not eating of the tree in the midst of the garden, human beings have been making choices. They would not have had this free will were it not given them by our sovereign loving God.
A classic example of free will is the charge given by Joshua to Israel, “…choose for yourselves this day who you will serve….” The people responded “…we will serve the Lord….” Joshua 24: 15 & 21 Meaning, we will of our own free will serve the Lord.

Logic makes it clear man has a God given free will. That logic is based on the fact that biblically and currently human beings make choices, therefore it can be concluded from this that man has the ability to chose.

God is sovereign. Again it deserves to be said, man would not have free will had not God acting in His free will, given it to him.

God in His grace and by His sovereign will elected, that is chose, to give man the right and ability to choose. Man therefore is a free moral agent responsible for his choices. The following Scripture passages show this principle to be logical.

Deuteronomy 30:19
“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;

2 Samuel 24:12
“Go and tell David, ‘Thus says the LORD: I offer you three things; choose one of them for yourself, that I may do it to you.’”

1 Chronicles 21:11
So Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Choose for yourself,’”

I Kings 18:23
“Therefore let them give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it.

2 Kings 10:3
“…choose the best qualified of your master’s sons, set him on his father’s throne, and fight for your master’s house.”

Job 9:14
“How then can I answer Him,
And choose my words to reason with Him?”

Job 15:5
“For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
And you choose the tongue of the crafty.”

Job 34:4
“Let us choose justice for ourselves;
Let us know among ourselves what is good”

Job 34:33
“Should He repay it according to your terms,
Just because you disavow it?
You must choose, and not I;
Therefore speak what you know.”

Psalm. 65:4
“Blessed is the man You choose,
And cause to approach You,
That he may dwell in Your courts.
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,
Of Your holy temple.”

Proverbs 1:29
“they hated knowledge
And did not choose the fear of the LORD…”

Proverbs 3:31
“Do not envy the oppressor,
And choose none of his ways;”

Proverbs 12:26
“The righteous should choose his friends carefully,
For the way of the wicked leads them astray.”

Isaiah 7:15
“Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good….”

Isaiah 7:16
“For before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings.”

Isaiah 56:4
For thus says the LORD:
‘To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths,
And choose what pleases Me,
And hold fast My covenant,’”

Philippians 1:22
“But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell.”

Luke 10: 42 “Mary hath chosen the good part….”

To “decide” is to chose as the king of Israel said, “So shall your judgment be; you yourself have decided it.” I Kings20: 40

“Bachar,” translated “chose” and its derivatives are used for: men choosing wives (Ge 6:2); Lot choosing the cities of the Plain (Ge 13:11); often of kings and generals choosing soldiers for their prowess (e.g. Ex 17:9; Jos 8:3; 1Sa 13:2; 2Sa 10:9; 17:1). The most important uses of bachar are these: of Israel choosing a king (1Sa 8:18; 12:13); of moral and religious choice: choosing Yahweh as God (Jos 24:15,22), or other gods (Jud 5:8; 10:14); the way of truth (Ps 119:30); to refuse the evil and choose the good (Isa 7:15,16); compare David’s choice of evils (2Sa 24:12).

Paul testified before Agrippa of the heavenly vision given him: “I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.” Acts 26: 19. He had a choice and chose to obey.

To accept a thing indicates there was an alternative not accepted. This requires a choice. Accept, acceptable, acceptably, acceptance, acceptation, accepted, accepts, and accepting are listed 64 times in the Bible. Each act required a choice.

To “determine” a thing, a selection has to be made requiring a choice. “Determined” appears 30 times in the Bible.

To judge is to choose. Repetitiously persons in the Bible are said to have judged. Thus, they had to make a choice.

In all of these and more instances persons used their God given gray matter to exercise their will freely.

This and nothing else detracts from God’s sovereign will. He is free and able to do whatever He chooses. These and many other verses depict human beings as making choices. They would not have that ability were it not given them by our sovereign God.

It is the reader’s choice as to whether or not to chose this concept. The alternative is that things are arbitrarily imposed on persons by God. Conditions in the world make it impossible to believe their happening is the design and desire of our sovereign, righteous, and loving God.