Free Will and Its Consequences

 

Free Will and Its Consequences

I hear this lament all the time by those not believing in God or his mercy. They say, “I do not want to believe in a God who condemns me to eternal punishment just because I do not believe.”

But the Bible, always true, speaks on the other side. He that believeth not is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God (John 3). It is a basic error in logic. Such a person reasons that it is horrible of a God to judge them for not believing. Yet what is God to do? He has sovereignly given free will to man. It is upon the man to turn towards God, but what if he just will not? Logic dictates that someone exercising free will must have choice, or he will no longer be free.

I am well aware that God must do the calling and open the doors for salvation. John says elsewhere that all who come to him will in no wise be cast out, and again, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. But leave all that aside for a moment and let us focus on the free choice part.

It also says in the same passage (John 3), that God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved. He has provided for the “sins of the whole world”, but the world has rejected him. The natural man, unregenerate, thinks in his folly that God is being unfair in condemning him to an eternal hell just because he denies his Creator.

But what is God to do? Having given free will to man, man must be left to his choices, and the desserts from those choices. God, in his wisdom, deemed that man should be made in his image, capable of making choices.  God, in sending his Son, offered redemption to all of mankind. In giving his own Son, he has given everything possible to bring peace with man. Exactly what is he to do with man who desires to stay unredeemed?

It is not God who puts himself in such a place of judgment; all the while it is man who runs from every offer of redemption. All the while charging God with imagined offences. All the while fleeing from the only offer of redemption that will provide his cure; all the while blaming God for the judgment while he could freely choose to receive mercy in its place.

In essence, repentance for man is saying to God, “Thy will be done”. The blood of Christ is recognized by the sinner and every condemnation from God is taken care of. In the bitter end, the man who will not bend his will to receive mercy, will hear from God the final judgment, “Thy will be done.”