Isaiah 42-45: Behold My Servant: Chapter 20: The Question of Free Will

The Bible speaks of the will of God and the will of man, but nowhere does it use the term “free will.” Men adopted the idea of free will after sin entered the world. The “old man” (as Paul would call those naturally born) was self-centered and desired self-determination apart from God. The old man imagined that salvation was by the will of man, forgetting God’s sovereignty. Such people have not comprehended John 1:13 and many other Scripture passages.

The Old Covenant pattern of salvation, which is set forth in Exodus 19, is that man is saved by his own vow to be obedient. Once saved by his own vow/decision, he would then pray that God would help him to fulfill that vow so that he could live a godly life. The same method of salvation is evident today in most church teaching.

Yet we know that the Old Covenant cannot save anyone unless they are truly able to keep their vows and be perfectly obedient. I know of no one who has ever been saved by that method. Those who are honest can be severely tormented by the awareness of their imperfection.

We ought to reorient our thinking in accordance with the New Covenant, where God vows to save mankind. He alone is able to keep His vows. He alone is able to lead us by the right path of salvation, a few in this age and the rest in an age to come. In the end He will succeed and not fail. When we have faith in His promises, vows, oaths, and covenants, we will be the children of Abraham, following his example.

Authority

Rather than claiming “free will,” we ought to be focusing upon exercising our authority. Authority is authorized by a higher power. Proper authority does not usurp the power of the sovereign God but respects it and remains subservient to it. Authority is not freedom to act as one wishes. True authority is subject to the will of the Sovereign who gave that authority to men.

We must pray that God will impart to us the knowledge of His will, so that we may exercise our authority properly. That is where our own will is relevant. But to claim “free will” implies that we are yet functioning by Old Covenant faith. Old Covenant prayers of faith say, “God, help me fulfill my Old Covenant vow of obedience.” New Covenant prayers of faith say, “God, show me Your will and accomplish Your purpose in my life, for it is ‘not I but Christ’ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). In other words, I have replaced my “free will” with Christ’s “free will.”

Free will was an attempt from the beginning to usurp God’s sovereignty, making us the masters of our own destiny. When you add up all the “free will” in every man, God is left with very little sovereignty, and men tend to resent it when God overrules men’s will, as if the Creator has no right to do so. But we ought not to feel violated but comforted by this. Our inadequacy is overcome by the adequacy of our heavenly Father who loves us.

God has taken the responsibility upon Himself to correct all wrongs that began with the sin of Adam. If this were left to man, it would be impossible to accomplish this. For this reason, it is usually assumed that only a few will be saved. God may coax or bribe men to follow Him, they think, but God has made it a sacred law not to mess with “free will.” Such theology, if true, would only ensure God’s failure to fulfill His promise.

For this reason, not many have understood how God could possibly save all of mankind. The majority of humanity would be locked in the prison of sin forever. God would lose most of humanity to the devil. Very little of God’s creation would actually be put under His feet. It would be impossible for God to be “all in all” (2 Cor. 15:28).

God gave Israel the Old Covenant in order to make it clear that man cannot be saved by the power of his own will, no matter how sincere he is in vowing obedience. When the Old Covenant’s failure was fully evident, God then sent the Messiah as the Mediator of the New Covenant to show us the only successful path to salvation.

Yet we should understand that the New Covenant has been with us from the beginning to counter Old Covenant teaching. God’s covenant with Noah was a promise to save the whole earth (Genesis 9). God’s covenant with Abraham was to bless all families of the earth (Gen. 12:3). These covenants were decreed long before Israel made their Old Covenant vow at Mount Sinai. Both types of covenant were in operation at the same time. Those who believed that God was able to fulfill His New Covenant vows were the overcomers in their day—the remnant of grace, the true Israelites of their time.

Did Jesus have free will? Jesus Himself said that He did nothing of His own initiative (John 5:30; 8:28). In other words, He exercised the free will of His heavenly Father. That is our own goal as well. When we are fully in the image of God, we will cease to usurp God’s sovereignty and we will no longer think in terms of having a free will. Instead, we will think only in terms of doing what we see our Father do and speaking the words that our Father speaks.

The day will come when we are perfected and our minds are renewed. Then we will be like Jesus, doing only what we see our Father do. At that point alone will we have free will (if we can call it that), because then our will and the will of God will be one. Being in full agreement, God can then trust us to do all things in accordance with his will.

In the end, all authority over other men will be irrelevant, for all will know God from the least to the greatest, and all will know the will of God instinctively, or by nature. The New Covenant says in Heb. 8:11,

¹¹ And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizens, and everyone his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for all will know Me, from the least to the greatest of them.

Authority itself will be irrelevant. Once God has reconciled all things and established full harmony in the earth, all will be in full agreement with Him. Paul says in 1 Cor. 15:24,

²⁴ Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power.

Authority is important in the age of sin, but it is temporary. It is even more temporary when we, as believers, give it up in favor of God’s will. I do not want free will, because my will has been an utter failure in bringing me into the image of God.