The Free Will of God - Isaiah 65

Last week, we discussed in brief the Doctrines of Grace that are outlined by the acrostic TULIP:

1. Total Depravity (or Total Inability or Pervasive Depravity)
2. Unconditional Election (Salvation is by the grace of God alone)
3. Limited Atonement (or Particular Redemption; Christ died to save the elect)
4. Irresistible Grace (the saving grace of God always wins over the hearts of the elect)
5. Perseverance of the Saints (or the perseverance of God in saving and keeping the saints forever)

If these doctrines are true, and they are, they do great damage to the common understanding of the doctrine Free Will.  It is generally understood by the vast majority of Christians AND non-Christians that men have free will.  You hear this in sermons from conservative pulpits that teach the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture, you hear it from Hollywood in all kinds of movies, and you hear it from Washington where we are taught that we all have the freedom and even the right to do nearly anything we want, as long as it doesn't smack of Christianity encroaching upon the sacredness of a secular, humanistic society.  We are regularly reminded that we all have free will.

But the Doctrines of Grace teach us that God is sovereign over absolutely everything.  If He is sovereign over all, that would necessarily include the free wills of men, and over salvation.  And thus the rub.  Virtually no one within Evangelicalism would deny God's sovereignty.  Everyone would agree that God rules as King over His creation.  But multitudes vehemently deny God's sovereignty in salvation because, they say, that would violate man's free will to choose to be saved.  Apparently, in their minds, God is sovereign over everything BUT man's free will.  God, they would eventually have to admit, is not sovereign in the matter of salvation.  Salvation is not entirely of the Lord.  God's saving grace is not a sovereign grace which He may dispense at His will.  Rather, God saves people as a reaction to their free choice to accept Him.

If man possesses completely free will to either believe or reject the Gospel, and a man chooses to remain lost and condemned to Hell forever, then God cannot save that person.  If God did somehow save such a person, God would indeed be violating their free will to reject salvation and the forgiveness of all their sins.  He would clearly be violating their free-will choice to forfeit eternal life and the infinite joys of Heaven.  If God saved a person who didn't want to be saved, according to these teachers, He would be violating their inalienable human right to choose to go to Hell.  The doctrines of Grace do indeed teach that God violates the free will of man in salvation, if man does indeed possess that kind of free will.

But it is exactly at that point that they are very wrong.  The Arminian position is very mistaken in its understanding of free will.  Men do not have the freedom to make morally correct decisions that lead to salvation.  On the contrary, men are naturally slaves to sin.  Men are naturally enemies of God.  Man's natural heart is desperately wicked, hard, unresponsive to God, and spiritually dead.  In other words, all men have wills.  All men make choices.  But their choices are not made by free and uninfluenced wills which result in salvation.

On the other hand, God possesses totally free will.  God has free will.  God is not only able to do, but He actually does whatever pleases Him in Heaven and on Earth (Ps 135:6).  He works all things according to the counsel of His own will (Ephesians 4:11).  The Earth all those who dwell therein belong to God (Ps 24:1) and He rules over them all.  God does whatever He pleases with everything He has made, including the human race.  He is entirely sovereign over it all: Heaven and Earth, angels and men, salvation and condemnation.  It is this completely authoritative and total sovereignty of God that makes Him God.  Not only that, but the Lord Jesus possesses all authority in Heaven and on Earth (Matthew 28:18).  He holds the keys to Death and Hades (Revelation 1:18).  No one is more powerful than God, the human will is subject to God, and no one has the right to say to God, "Why have you made me this way?" (Romans 9:20).

It is God who has libertarian free will.  He is at liberty to do whatever He pleases, and everything that happens does so because it pleased God for it to be so.  Nothing hinders Him from doing all His good pleasure.  He is not motivated by anything except His own infinite perfections.  Everything God does is in perfect harmony with His own perfect holiness.  His will is always perfect and righteous.  His actions are always just and good.  And His work of saving men from their sins is in complete agreement with His own perfect will.  Truly, God can do no wrong.

Look with me at our text today in Isaiah 66, beginning in verse 1 and reading through verse 6.  In this passage we see how men typically exercise their wills in defiance of God, and how God exercises His will in defiance of men.  The particular men God speaks of here are religious men.

[66:1] Thus says the LORD:

This passage speaks of the religious leaders in Judah.  In verse three, Isaiah describes them as those who slaughter oxen, sacrifice lambs, and present grain and memorial offerings.  In other words, this is the priestly class in Judah, the Levites.  They are the ones responsible for being the mediators between the people of Judah and God.  But God says they are like murderers, like men who violently abuse animals, like those who bring pig's blood as an offering to God, and like those who bless idols.  In other words, the priests in Judah go through their priestly motions and duties.  But otherwise, they are indiscernible from the pagans around them.  They are like those who do not worship God at all.  These priests and Levites live exactly like the unbelieving and idolatrous Gentiles all around them.

Then the Lord says at the end of verse 3, "These have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations." Some would say they exercised their God-given free wills and chose to become apostate from the true religion of the Jews.  They have freely chosen to reject God and their souls love the things God calls "abominations".  And this, they say, is because men have free will.

Now some would say that while men obviously have free will, it seems God must not have free will.  Or at the very least, they deny God's right to act in certain ways.  To be more specific, they would say God does not have free will in the sense that He is under a self-imposed moral obligation to treat all men everywhere equally with love and respect.  There is no Scriptural support for such a statement, but it is a commonly held view.  In fact, it is said that God loves and respects mankind so much that He allows men to freely choose to go their own way and abandon God and reject Christ and there's really not much He can do to prevent it because He has given them the freedom to do exactly that.   God sent His Son to the cross and He offers all men everywhere the chance to accept Christ.  But that's about all He can do.  God respects the free will of man too much to coerce or manipulate him to love and accept His Son against their wills.

But in the next verse of our text we see that God is not willing to allow men this kind of freedom of will, especially men who claim to belong to God, without bringing serious consequences to bear upon them for their choosing to love abominations.  God holds all men accountable for the choices they make.  Here we read that God exercises His free will and makes a choice:

God called them, He spoke to them, but they freely chose not to listen to God.  Isn't free will a wonderful thing?

Having this ability to choose whatever one desires is not a wonderful thing because fallen men consistently choose sin over God.  Even in spite of God's calling and speaking to the men of Judah, they ". . . chose that in which I did not delight." Yes, men can choose to do whatever they want, but what do men want?  Men do not naturally want to be holy.  They want to sin.  These men, in spite of God's reaching out to them repeatedly by means of the prophets, delighted in abominations.

This inability to freely choose to follow God and be obedient to Him is the result of the curse of Adam's sin.  When unsaved men choose between sin and holiness, they always "freely" choose sin.  They choose exactly what they want, what they will to have.  Now if this really is the case, namely, that men can choose whatever they want, but they always want sin rather than holiness, then do they really choose freely?  If unregenerate men always choose in the direction of sin and self and rebellion, to the neglect of God and holiness and obedience, can their choice genuinely be considered an act of "free will"?

It would seem that a truly free will would at least occasionally result in a nearly sinless life.  You would expect to eventually find someone somewhere who had chosen never to sin at all.  If right moral choices are based solely upon free and uninfluenced acts of the human will, then, although it would be quite rare, it seems reasonable to think that somebody out there besides the Lord Jesus would be able to truthfully say, "I have never sinned."

But that is not the case.  On the contrary, the Bible tells us exactly the opposite.  With the single exception of Jesus Christ, all men who have ever lived or ever will live, have sinned and have fallen short of sinless perfection.  All, without exception, sin.  A lot.  But if the doctrine of free will as it is generally understood is true, if it is true that from birth, or at the very least, from the so-called age of accountability, all people have the innate capacity to make right moral choices, then how is it possible that no one has ever succeeded in living a perfectly holy life?  Or even a substantially holy life?  Or even living sin-free for a year?  Or for a month?  Or even one week?  Sometimes I wonder if it is possible to go one entire 24-hour period without committing a sin in either word, thought or deed.  I don't know about you, but I've even sinned in my sleep.

But God has totally and completely free will.  He is sovereign over all of His creation.  He does what He pleases.  Everything He does is good.  And He is fully capable of saving men, all men, from all their sins.  He has chosen no to do so.  Obviously, this is true.  And He obviously holds men responsible for their actions.  In this passage He says, "I also will choose harsh treatment for them and bring their fears upon them, because when I called, no one answered, when I spoke, they did not listen; but they did what was evil in my eyes and chose that in which I did not delight.”

The London Confession explains very succinctly what the Bible teaches in regard to the will of man and the will of God:

1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith

Chapter 9: Of Free Will

3. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto. (Romans 5:6; Romans 8:7; Ephesians 2:1, 5; Titus 3:3-5; John 6:44)

4. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so as that by reason of his remaining corruptions, he doth not perfectly, nor only will, that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil. (Colossians 1:13; John 8:36; Philippians 2:13; Romans 7:15, 18, 19, 21, 23)

5. This will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in the state of glory only. (Ephesians 4:13)

That is an excellent statement concerning the effects of the sin of Adam upon the wills of men.  We all have wills, but we have fallen wills that possess an incurable desire for sin, except that God sets them truly free, and then only in eternity.  But what does the Bible teach us about the will of God?

Chapter 3: Of God's Decree

1. God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established; in which appears his wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree. (Isaiah 46:10; Ephesians 1:11; Hebrews 6:17; Romans 9:15, 18; James 1:13; 1 John 1:5; Acts 4:27, 28; John 19:11; Numbers 23:19; Ephesians 1:3-5)

3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated, or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace; others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of his glorious justice. (1 Timothy 5:21; Matthew 25:34; Ephesians 1:5, 6; Romans 9:22, 23; Jude 4)

This is how God exercises His free will.  He has decreed in Himself, according to His own purposes for everything He has made, everything that comes to pass.  This includes the salvation of His people from their sins for eternal life through Jesus Christ.  It also includes His leaving others in their sin and in the abominations in which their souls delight.  The salvation of His people is to the praise of His glorious grace, and the condemnation of the guilty is also to the praise of His glorious justice.  God works all things according to the purposes of His own good and glorious free will.

These are the things we believe because these are the things the Bible teaches us.  And in our text, in verses 2 and 5, we see that God delights in those who tremble at His word.  Even though some things in the Scriptures may cause us to tremble, it is the God who has heaven as His throne and the earth as His footstool who has said it.  We would do well to listen and believe all that He has said.