free will from God.. If “free will” means that #God gives humans the opportunity to make choices that genuinely affect their destiny, then yes, human beings do have a free will. The world’s current sinful state is directly linked to choices made by Adam and Eve. God created mankind in His own image, and that included the ability to choose. However, free will does not mean that mankind can do anything he pleases. Our choices are limited to what is in keeping with our nature. For example, a man may choose to walk across a bridge or not to walk across it; what he may not choose is to fly over the bridge—his nature prevents him from flying. In a similar way, a man cannot choose to make himself righteous—his (sin) nature prevents him from canceling his guilt (Romans 3:23). So, free will is limited by #nature. This limitation does not mitigate our accountability. The Bible is clear that we not only have the ability to choose, we also have the responsibility to choose wisely. In the Old Testament, God chose a nation (Israel), but individuals within that nation still bore an obligation to choose obedience to God. And individuals outside of Israel were able to choose to believe and follow God as well (e.g., Ruth and Rahab). In the New Testament, sinners are commanded over and over to “repent” and “believe” (Matthew 3:2; 4:17; Acts 3:19; 1 John 3:23). Every call to repent is a call to choose. The command to believe assumes that the hearer can choose to obey the command. Jesus identified the problem of some unbelievers when He told them, “You refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:40). Clearly, they could have come if they wanted to; their problem was they chose not to. “A man reaps what he sows” (Galatians 6:7), and those who are outside of salvation are “without excuse” (Romans 1:20-21). But how can man, limited by a sin nature, ever choose what is good? It is only through the grace and power of God that free will truly becomes “free” in the sense of being able to choose salvation (John 15:16). It is the Holy Spirit who works in and through a person’s will to regenerate that person (John 1:12-13) and give him/her a new nature “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). Salvation is God’s work. At the same time, our motives, desires, and actions are voluntary, and we are rightly held responsible for them.... #What whould you think that we Happened to Free Will when Sin Entered the World.. When Adam and Eve misused their wills in the Garden of Eden by eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, sin entered into the world, and with it came death, decay, and destruction. Earlier in this chapter, in the discussion on Romans 7:15-20, we saw that when Adam and Eve sinned, they died spiritually and sin corrupted their body, which also began to die. #But what about the soul? #Was it corrupted by sin? #Did the soul also begin to die? Scripture seems to indicate that the death which affected the bodies and spirits of people, does not affect the soul in the same way. We cannot speak of soulish death the same way we can speak of physical or spiritual death. The reason is because the soul is the “life” of a person. It is the breath of life, the animating principle of a human being (cf. Gen 2:7). To speak of soul death would be to speak of life death, which makes no sense. Though the Bible occasionally speaks of the death of the soul (cf. Ezek 18:4; Matt 16:25-26; Jas 1:21; 5:20; 1 Pet 1:9) these texts do not refer to the death of the soul itself, but to the separation of the body from the soul, which results in physical death (see the following articles by Bob Wilkin: “Soul Talk, Soul Food, and Soul Salvation”; “Saving the Soul of a Fellow Christian (James 5:29-20)”; “Saving Your Soul By Doing Good (James 1:21)”; “Gaining by Losing (Matthew 16:24-28)”; “Suffering which results in Abundant Life (1 Peter 1:9)”). When there is no “life” (soul) in the body, the body is dead. Though the soul can live without the body, the body cannot live without the soul. All this is to say that the faculties of the soul, which include imagination, memory, reason, and emotions, were not themselves damaged by sin. Certainly, since these faculties of the soul are dependent upon the health of the physical brain, and the brain is dying as a result of being part of the physical body, our imagination, memory, reason, and emotions are not used to their full capabilities. #Nevertheless, the soul is able to utilize its capacity to imagine, create, remember, reason, and feel emotions. The will, being an interplay of all of these soulish capacities, is therefore also able to function. It interesting that those who teach the inability of the human will to function almost never teach the inability to function of the imagination, memory, reason, and emotions. Just as these are able to function, so also is the will. God bless u as u read and understand the way of Lord.......
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 16:55:58 +0000
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