Hi Mike,

I’m writing you to thank you for the information on your web site and to comment on some things I saw. First off it’s because I find you and the subjects on your web site so interesting to my Bible study that I write you today. I became a Christian a little over a year ago after being an atheist/humanist since the age of 12, I’m now in my 50’s.

My becoming a Christian could only have been the Will of God because I was never going in that direction. My study was of the natural world and the spiritual wasn’t on the radar. To add insult to injury I was invited to a mega-church by a friend, and it was a ridiculous experience, 95% involving the raising of money with about 5% that could fall under the heading “other” added in.

make a long story short I started to read the Bible and was instantly struck with the incredible similarity between God and his Word and man and his word. Could this be because man invented God? No.

As I read on through the Bible it became clear that we are really an image of God (God wasn’t lying when he said that we are) and our relationship to our word is a small reflection of our creator and not the other way around. I saw that Christ is the Word of God making him both “from” God and in that respect, one with God. Christ is also not a creation of God but is rather part of the creative process of God. Christ (Word) had to have been there at the creation, yet the Word is not the Father (the creator) but is OF the Father.

John 1:10  He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

John was speaking of Christ or the Word of God in that passage. The Word of God is separate from the Will of God yet it is from the Will that the Word is. Sound familiar? It did to me.

Joh 1:1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 1:2  The same was in the beginning with God.
Joh 1:3  All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

God spoke everything into existence, and He couldn’t have done it without Christ as His Word. This is not an intellectual pursuit of mine (it’s the spirit and Will of God that brought me to God) and is actually just an observation that explains part of the so called “Trinity” in a way that allows Jesus to be one with God yet distinct.

That Christ is called the Word of God is so completely obvious to me and all the pieces fall into place. Our words are from us, we are the father of them and our words cannot be different from our speaking of them so at the same time, they are us.

When the Father and Christ say they are the “I AM” they are describing their relationship. Word and Intent as separate yet inseparable. Intent cannot form without Word (in thought) and Word cannot be formed and spoken without Intent, which is the Father to the Son.

With that said, I need to talk a bit about man’s so called “free will”. I read your work on “free will”, and some things are missing from that work, making it incomplete and also contrary to scripture.

Mat 7:21  Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

That one is also contrary to universal salvation, but I’m not going to be talking about that at all.

Mat 12:50  For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

Both these verses are very telling about man’s will but first this Bible fact.

It was the will of the Pharaoh of the Exodus to release the Israelites from bondage but God intervenes several times. Did God soften the heart of Pharaoh to make Pharaoh want to release the Hebrews and then harden Pharaoh’s heart to keep them in Egypt? No, Pharaoh had had enough and wanted the Israelites to go, and then God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Did God take away or change Pharaoh’s will? That’s not what the Bible says. It says God changed Pharaoh’s heart.

If we don’t have the gift of free will, then how can we – Not Do the Will of God? That makes Mat 7:21 and Mat 12:50 senseless and is a red flag. If it is the Will of God that we – Not Do His Will- then aren’t we are really doing his will? Can we separate the “free” from man’s “free will” and still have a will? Nope. Can man have a will that is distinct from God’s Will?

John 1:13  Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

2Peter 1:21  For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Yes, man very much has his own free will, distinct from God’s Will as scripture says over and over again. We can’t have a will unless it is free, and we see man’s will throughout the Bible. So we either have free will or none at all. “Man’s will” is an oxymoron, but man’s free will is not. The Pharaoh of the Exodus clearly had his own will which had to have been free.

Everything is always “God’s Will” including that we have our own free will. Did God gave us free will and then sometimes take it back in favor of his Will? It looks like we are given free will, and God never touches it.

God did not change Pharaoh’s “will”. He changed Pharaoh’s heart. God did nothing to Pharaoh’s free will and as far as I can see, never has with anyone at any time. We have free will obviously as a gift from God, and God has never taken that gift away from us.

Man without free will is not interesting to me and wouldn’t be interesting to God. It makes us puppets and God a puppet master with all the world a stage. That’s pagan Greek mythology with no scriptural support.

God did not change the “will” of Saul of Tarsus on the way to Damascus. Christ spoke to him, blinded him and left Paul’s will alone. Now Paul had a choice. To do his own will or the Will of God.

Jonah ran from God’s Will. Did God change his will or put him in a big fish for 3 days? Jonah chose God’s Will over his own after spending 3 days in a fish, but it was Jonah himself who changed his will.

I can’t find an example in the Bible where God moved his hand against anyone’s “will” directly. He could but that would make him a puppet master rather than a chastener.

Hebrews 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

That God will do ALL his Will is consistent with everything I have said. If it is God’s Will that that we have free will, so be it. Scripture now lines up, and there are no contradictions.

I have read this concept that man has no free will before, and it’s usually based on a few lines of scripture that essentially say God will do ALL of his Will. That is entirely true and is easily reconciled with, “it is God’s will that we have free will”.

I will be studying universal salvation with “man’s free will” in the background. I am suspicious that the two cannot coexist because the other universal salvationists I have bumped into on line also think man has no free will, but haven’t gotten that far into it. I will say that if the two cannot coexist I will be forced to toss universal salvation away as man’s free will is obvious to me and not only supported by scripture but the opposite is contradicted by scripture.

Thank you, Mike, and just know that your words are going to be a part of my Bible study this week.

Thank you and God bless you.

B____

Hi B___,

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with me.

If you have not yet done so please read Is God Really A Trinity? in the essential reading section of the home page.

I am also grateful that the Lord has opened your eyes to see all the apostasy and the “peddling” of the gospel that takes place within His “house”.

2Co 2:17 For we are not as the majority, who are peddling the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God in Christ, are we speaking. (CLV)

Mat 21:13  And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves

God at this time has us differing in our understanding of where mankind’s will originates. Continue to read God’s Word, and you will come to see that the scriptures teach that even the preparations of our heart, which is the source of our actions and our will, “is from the Lord”, and we are told throughout His word that He “prepare[s] our hearts” to do “all things after the counsel of His own will”, and that “it is not of him that wills but of God”.

Pro 16:1  The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD. 

1Ch 29:18  O LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee:

Psa 10:17  LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear:

According to Christ, no one chooses of his own free will to come to God.

Joh 6:44  No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw [Greek: ‘drag’, like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus] him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

I am sorry, but I cannot follow your distinguishing of the heart and the will in light of this Truth:

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13  For [Greek: because] it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

There it is again. God tells us plainly that He works our will to do His good pleasure. To deny that is to simply to keep the beast on the throne of God, which is our hearts and minds.

“It is not of him that wills, but of God…”

Rom 9:15  For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

Four times in one verse God declares “I will”, and He follows that by saying of mankind, “it is not of him that wills”.

So the scriptures do not make the distinction between the heart and the will that you draw. Rather it warns us against following our hearts and our own will:

Jer 17:9  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

According to the Word of God, we are less than robots or puppets. God does not use those words in speaking of how He deals with the hearts and minds of mankind. Here are His words concerning this very subject:

Jer 18:3  Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Jer 18:5  Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
Jer 18:6  O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

That is why our “heart is deceitful, and desperately wicked”. It has nothing to do with our will; it has everything to do with these “vessels of clay” being ‘marred in the potter’s hand’.

This is also what the Christ taught when He told us that we cannot come to Him unless He drags us to do so (Joh 6:44), and that is also what Paul tells us in these verses:

Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me [marred clay vessel that I am].
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 
Rom 7:21  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

If Paul wills to do good and he has a free will, then why does he not just do the good that he would? His answer is “it is not I that do it, but sin that dwells in me… [a] vessel of clay… marred in the Potter’s hand [by] a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me”. In the very next chapter he calls that law “the law of sin and death” which law is overcome only by “the spirit of life in Christ”.

Rom 8:2  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

Who gives and sustains all laws?

Jas 4:12  There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

So we are right back to “God which worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure”, and to “God who works all things after the counsel of His own will” and “it is not of Him that wills… but of God”.

I hope you will continue to read the web page and that the Lord will grant you to appreciate what He is working within the clay we all are in His hands. We are His creatures, and as such we have no right to ask, “why did you make me thus?”

Rom 9:18  Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Rom 9:19  Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Rom 9:20  Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

That is the same as saying ‘If we don’t have free will, then we are just puppets’ or  ‘We are nothing more than puppets’. We are not puppets or robots. We are “clay in the Potter’s hand, to do with “after the counsel of His own will”.

In the end we will all thank Him that he is indeed “working all things after the counsel of His own will” and is working nothing according to our will.

Isa 46:10  Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

Eph 1:11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Mankind having a ‘free will’ is totally inconsistent with “predestination”. On the other hand, “predestination” is completely consistent with “Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will”.

Here is the good news Christ brought to all men of all time:

1Ti 2:4  Who [God] will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

1Ti 4:10  For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, [not exclusivesly, but] specially of those that believe.

2Pe 3:9  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

1Jn 2:2  And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only [believers while still in these clay vessels], but also for the sins of the whole world [as resurrected spirits in a ‘lake of fire’].

That is truly “good news”, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Joh 3:17  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 

The condemnation of the world is the fate of the marred clay vessel, which “cannot inherit the kingdom of God”.

1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

We will all suffer that loss of all corruptible flesh and blood, but we ourselves will be saved by fire, at a great white [not black] throne, which presides over a “lake of [purifying] fire”

Jer 5:14  Wherefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them. 

Here is what that “fire” does within “every man”.

1Co 3:13  Every man‘s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man‘s work of what sort it is. 
1Co 3:14  If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
1Co 3:15  If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. 
1Co 3:16  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

“He himself shall be saved”. I hope you find these scriptures to be instructive.

Your brother in Christ,

Mike