MAN’S FREE WILL AND RESPONSIBILITY TO OBEY GOD The Bible teaches that we have the ability to obey or to disobey God. We can make this choice by a decision of our will. God created man with free will in the beginning because we were created in the image of God. God Himself has a free will and He created man with that natural ability. God has held man responsible to obey His commandments from the Garden of Eden, all the way through the Old Testament and throughout the New. We are continually faced with moral responsibilities and moral choices. We have the ability to respond in obedience to the commandments of God and therefore if a person disobeys he is held properly guilty. All of God’s warnings, pronouncements of punishment and condemnation for disobedience assume that in God’s mind man is responsible for his moral conduct. This means that we have the ability to obey or disobey God’s moral law – a free will. By free will I don’t mean that we have the ability to do something that is beyond our natural ability, such as fly like a bird by merely flapping our arms or live under the water permanently like a fish. We don’t have the ability to do anything we think of, such as instantly walk on Jupiter, but by free will I mean the ability to make moral choices, namely that we have the ability to obey or disobey God. God does not force anyone to love Him. Love for God has to come from a person’s will. When the apostle Paul asked believers for a favour, he said that this was not forced but had to come from their own consent; that is from their own free will (Philemon 14). It is known and observed naturally every moment of our lives that each of us has our own will by which we can make our own choices. Numerous theologies under the disguise of Christianity have tried to teach people that man has no free will. These theologies are fundamentally flawed. A flawed theology claims that man sins not because he chooses to but because God predestines what every man will do. This means that men go to Hell because God has decreed it and not because men have chosen it. This is ridiculous and absurd; a false claim against the nature of God’s love and a denial of the proper responsibility of man to obey God. Theologies that believe that man doesn’t have a free will have stemmed from a misunderstanding of predestination and election, namely by John Calvin and others before him, such as Augustine towards the later part of his life. Many of the reformers who broke free from certain false doctrines within Roman Catholicism continued to promote other teachings that were false. Therefore, they often had a mixture of good and bad teachings. This has continued to this day. Each of us can receive or reject the salvation that is offered to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. God knows all things and therefore He knows what choice we will make, but God doesn’t make the choice for us. God chooses those who will accept Him and He rejects those who deny Him; and that is predestination and election beyond time. God predestines and elects people according to their free will and not without it. Does it matter what Christians think about free will? Can you love God? Do you have the ability to love God? Can you choose to love God? Do you have the ability to do what you know God requires you to do? God requires people to repent of their sins and to believe the gospel, but how can a person do this if he has no free will? If we don’t have a free will then everything is already determined without our choice but if we do have a free will then we are responsible for our sins. If we have a free will we are required to obey God. If we don’t have a free will we are merely robots fulfilling what has already been decreed or forced upon us by a higher power. If we have a free will we can be the people that God wants to choose to live with Him in eternity – the people who truly love God. Everybody knows that we have free will otherwise we wouldn’t blame anybody for what they do. God wouldn’t punish sinners unless they are responsible for choosing to reject Him. God doesn’t make people sin nor does He tempt people to sin, yet this life is a test to see what we will choose. In a similar way our beliefs are determined by what we choose to believe. If we believe a lie we are responsible for that. People reap what they sow and that is why God hands people over to their own decisions. God establishes you in the path you choose to follow, yet God is not to blame for that. The lost sinner is the one who is to be blamed. Without a free will we would just be like trees or rocks or puppets being controlled or picked up and thrown by someone else, but the Bible clearly teaches that we are responsible for our own choices. The failure to understand man’s moral nature as God created us and the true consequences of sin leads to a lack of upholding man’s responsibility. Man is responsible to obey God and this leaves us with no excuses for our own disobedience and sin towards God. Every person’s character is determined by whether they choose to obey God or not. When sin is seen for what it is there is a rise in accountability. Instead of making excuses for immoral behaviour people need to see their accountability before God. Moral failure in churches, in politicians, in fathers and mothers in regard to how they bring up their children, etc, illustrates the importance of accountability. People can love and obey God and therefore they must do it. They are living in sin when they don’t. When there is a proper understanding of accountability there will be a rise of conviction in regard to people’s sin and then there will be a humbling before God because people realize that they are responsible for what they have done. This type of inner awakening needs to take place on a national scale in order for a nation to be won for God, but it starts with individuals acknowledging the truth of their own responsibility to live for God. Having a free will means that we can do what God has commanded us to do. God has not commanded us to do something that is morally beyond our ability. We are therefore held responsible for our decisions. God’s requirements are good and there is no injustice on His part. The problem is with us if we disobey God. In the light of our ability to obey God we can see our true character when we deliberately walk in sin. The Bible speaks of those who deliberately sin, laying the full weight of the sinner’s guilt upon himself. Use your free will to do what God has commanded you to do. If you are disobedient you should be convicted of your sin and acknowledge that God is righteous to punish you. Any person who rejects Christ and continues in sin is on the path to Hell. No doubt about it. The justice of God calls for the punishment of those who pursue evil and refuse to repent. On the Day of Judgment it will be clearly seen that people have no excuse for their sin. People need to realise this now so that they can repent be saved. If a person is blaming someone else for their own sin it shows that they are deluded and in no condition to go to Heaven. When you see that you are responsible for your sin you can clearly see that you can repent. Since you are the cause of your own sin you are the one who can stop it. You can meet God’s condition of salvation. You can love God with all your heart. You can become a loving, obedient disciple of Jesus. You can do what is right instead of being a rebellious. You can be saved. You can give your life to Jesus. You can stop making excuses and start to truly live for God.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 09:10:20 +0000
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