Predestination & Free Will

Monday, November 13th, 2023

by Ken Pullen

A Crooked Path

It is easy to have our individual ship of working out one’s salvation encounter stormy weather, and rough seas, and find ourselves on some rocky shoals having trouble navigating the course of predestination and free will. We find ourselves in a similar circumstance as the disciples in the storm while the Lord Jesus Christ slept. He reminded them, asking them where was their faith [Matthew 8:23-27].

Predestination and free will do not contradict each other as is the prevailing understanding. They are compatible and part of God’s plan.

In searching for images to use with this I found many more posturing — Predestination VERSUS free will. The general universal thinking is that predestination and free will are mutually exclusive. That is not true. If we are to attempt to better understand these matters it would be taking the wrong route from the beginning of that journey if we adopt the map most folks are following. Predestination and free will is not an either-or consideration. Not mutually exclusive.

If having difficulty with these subjects please consider the following…

Free Will

Creation was brought about by the will of the Triune God merely saying, “Let there be…” and everything was judged and determined good by the Lord. Including man, especially man and woman, whom God had direct communion with in Paradise giving man and woman one and only one commandment.

Yet by their willful disobedience, they did what we all know they did. Just as Cain slew his brother Abel of his own free will, and conversely Noah obeyed God, being a righteous man, of his own free will and built the ark. Abraham lied to King Abimelech about Sarah being his wife out of fear of losing his life [see Genesis 20].

King David committed sexual immorality in bedding Bathsheba and plotting the premeditated murder of her husband, Uriah.

Even Saul of Tarsus had free will on the road to Damascus. He could have reasoned the voice he heard and what happened to him in some other way, perhaps asking himself if he was going mad, as many likely would in such a circumstance — but God knew, God knew Saul that he would come to know and understand and the Christian leader that Paul would become. The Lord Jesus Christ knew that Saul would be receptive to hearing His voice and recognizing it.

Do we? Would we? If only we would stifle the noise within and quiet our spirits to hear, our eyes to finally see — just as Saul’s had.

Noah, Joseph, Abram, Sari, Hagar, Cain, Esther, Moses, Jonah, and every individual in God’s Word given us as an example had free will. The righteous ones as well as the wicked. The difference is God knew His people before they were even born and that they would recognize His voice — eventually, and do His will. Humbling themselves.

Every person ever born has always had free will as God created man — because God did not create the heavens and the earth and all there is including man to be an eternal dictator, a puppeteer. God created us with free will to honestly, earnestly love Him and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, any acts of faith, affection, or obedience would not be genuine and would be exactly like a wooden puppet having its strings pulled giving the illusion of life.

God created us with free will to genuinely serve Him out of love and understanding. Recognizing Him for Who He is. Everyone ever born or yet to be born cannot hide or deny God and each knows what is right and wrong and by their free will chooses to rebel and continue to listen and obey the Serpent from the Garden [see Romans 1].

There is no new thing under the sun [see Ecclesiastes 1:9]. Free will among men and women reigns supreme in each of us. It is how we were created. Each of us by our free will either serves the Lord or we serve the world and he who has dominion here for a season.

God did not create robots, puppets, or a creature devoid of thought, of choice, or of having free will. In everything every day. Every part of our lives is orchestrated by the choices we make according to what resonates within our hearts, our minds, our spirits — our individual will. The story of our lives thusly is written.

A story God knew before the foundations of the world were formed.

Predestination

This subject appears to get so many folks twisted up inside out and upside down to the point of paralysis, and if not paralysis leading to endless debates that ought not arise in a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. This particular subject causes doubt and brings about the questioning of God and how He operates and if everything is predestined then why bother living a certain way, believing certain things? Right?

Wrong. Because that view of predestination is looking in the wrong direction. No differently than beginning a journey never embarked upon before and from arrogance or pride without taking time to know the route to take sets out only to become lost along the way.

First, it is rather important to come from a position of knowledge of words and language. All words have origins. Meaning. Though many can be misinterpreted, misunderstood, or even altered in meaning as what has been and is occurring today with language only adding to the confusion. Taking people in the wrong direction.

It is vital with all words, and especially ones that can cause endless debate or consternation and confusion to take the time to come to grips with the word.

Predestination is a compound word. “Pre” means before, prior to, or in advance of. That is all.

To understand what predestination is Scripturally a person needs to not only understand how the word in question is constructed and what that means, but more importantly in context to have an understanding of God so as to clearly understand what predestination means.

Context is everything.

God is outside of time as we know it. There are no clocks in heaven where God resides. We need to begin to think as perhaps we never have before — with the help of the Holy Spirit Who is far wiser than any of us and Who truly is the Comforter and Helper in every spiritual matter.

God is outside of time as we are constrained and understand time.

Take some time to pause and ponder exactly what that means.

God established creation as it is for us, so we could exist in it comfortably, so we could have order in our days, the seasons, the seasons of our lives. Not because it is what God needs to exist. God set the heavens and the earth, all that there is in that establishing of days and seasons. Man as his knowledge increased began quickly creating calendars, and then ways to measure time. Creating timepieces that measure the seconds as they tick by.

Many people emulate the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland obsessing about time, never having enough time, with most running late due to not taming time, managing their time, but living disorderly lives, or for whatever reason taking on too much thusly not really taking time to pause, think, keep their eyes and hearts on the Lord rather than their endless activities here on this temporal earth.

All of that is man’s creation. Not God’s.

God is Omnipotent, Immutable, Omnipresent, total pure holiness, and in our feeble finite abilities beyond our comprehension — yet all we need to know is that God resides outside of time as man perceives time. And there is more than enough in Scripture for us to understand the God we say we love and desire to please for what He did for us through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross and the Lord’s resurrection on the Third Day fulfilling God’s promise. God always keeps His promises. He isn’t like us.

Predestination as in the Holy Bible is simple to understand. Really, it is. We make it a difficult subject by overthinking it and by our will trying to figure everything out rather than submitting wholly to the Holy Spirit for understanding beyond our own.

Too many people think of predestination as God in heaven going eeny meeny miny moe and where God’s finger stops that person is saved. Where His finger does not stop that person is not saved. That is how far too many people think of this very important subject in Scripture thus totally true and also of importance for us to know and understand.

God, Who knew and saw Jesus crucified on the cross, Who knew Adam and Eve would rebel and listen to the lying tongue of the devil and would choose to disobey Him, the God Who knows the day the world as it has been known ends, Who knows the precise moment in history that His Son returns a Second and Final time, the God Who knows every hair on every head from Adams’s head to yours and mine and knows every thought in every mind — and knew all this prior to saying by His will, “Let there be…” in His Omnipotence knew every person ever born that would hear His voice and become one of His, or a person who loved the world more than they would the Lord Jesus Christ and the truth of God’s Word being in darkness while being darkness refusing any light and truth of God, and they would never come to be one of God’s people.

Almighty God, the Triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Who knows everything before it ever happens, every thought, every bird that falls, every hair that falls from every head is known within the hearts and minds at some point of every human life Almighty God knitted in their mother’s womb. They may rebel, they may remain blind and deaf — but God sends out His call to salvation to all men, and all women and He knows the hearts of every man and woman. God calls and He knows, He knew before the foundation of the world was set who would hear and respond. Who would remain in darkness and in constant rebellion with Him.

God knew all of this prior to the heavens and the earth came into existence — before the foundation of the world as the Bible tells us God knew all these things.

Predestination is something many people get snagged on. Hung up on. It can distract, consume, or even lead one away from God as they begin to hear in their minds that if everything was decided before they were even born why bother? What is the point? If God has not selected them beforehand why even pursue God, believe in Jesus, read the Bible, or attend a Bible-centered Bible-preaching and Bible-believing church?

The point is for us in our limited capacity in this realm to understand we all can know enough with regard to predestination because God and the Holy Spirit provide such knowing and understanding to those who faithfully ask for such wisdom [see James 1].

Simply put, before the foundation of the world, before there was Genesis 1,2,3, and to Revelation 22 God knew exactly what every person to ever be born would think, believe, who they would follow, who they would obey. Either Him and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, or they would rebel and serve Satan. Just as He knew when one hair fell, or falls from every head and every thought of everyone that has ever been born or ever will be born. Ponder that truth for a bit.

God is that vast and infinite and then some. Beyond our limited comprehension. This is something that must be understood, believed, and accepted before advancing to walk closer to the Lord, with the Lord. We ought never begin to lower God to our level but rather strive to rise up to meet Him in His Word and ways heavenward. More held by His Word than the ways of this world or the words of man. Held more by the Lord’s ways which are found in His Word than what is imagined in our own minds. What we allow to fashion us and shape us.

And love is not true love as the Lord has for us, as we have for those we love if it is controlled and manipulated and the person we love and seek their love is by some means controlled by us and they do not love us in return of their own free will.

God so loved the world…

And He knew before the Creation all those who would of their own free will return His love to Him in their faithfulness and obedience to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

No eeny meeny miny moe about it, as far too many reduce this subject to.

Think of predestination as being familiar with family members. Knowing them. Even knowing them before they are born upon discovering someone in your family is pregnant and you have never seen or heard the person entering into your family — yet, but you know they are coming into your family. Assured of it.

We can do that in our limited ways.

God knows in His infinite ways who enters into His family and who rejects Him and refuses to enter into the family of God. God knew this before the Lord was nailed to the cross. Before you or I were born. God the Father, Jesus our Friend and Saviour, and the Holy Spirit save. God is the one inviting an individual into salvation and opening the door of salvation to them.  And He knew before the earth and heavens were formed who would accept His invitation and enter into that door of salvation and who would not. Whose name was in the Book of Life before Genesis 1:1 occurred.

And this was not done using the eeny meeny miny moe method. Take some time to seriously ponder this truth considering the vastness of God versus the the mind of man. Something as eternally important as salvation versus condemnation cannot be reduced down to thinking God is like us, that His thoughts and ways are like ours, and that He would do what we would do, thinks as we do, act as we do — which is to resort to the eeny meeny miny moe method as if we were on a playground or yard with some others picking up sides for a ball game!

This is something basic to accept faithfully.

Stop intellectualizing and start giving thanks. Rather than spend so much time in endless debate that truly achieves nothing, it never does, not really, how about using that time to give thanks to the Lord — for every breath given, for every heartbeat given, for every bit of food given, for every blessing given, even the ones we may not understand are blessings and instead of helping our spiritual growth we become ensnared in such debates of willfulness vainly imagining we know better than God or somehow are being manipulated and used. Be thankful to be one who heard the Lord calling and responding. So why then do some stop along the path to glory and question these matters? Could it be the doing of Satan within and not coming from the Lord? Coming from the world, coming from self and pride within rather than coming from anything gleaned from our time in the Word of God?

Again, all these are things to accept faithfully. Just as Jesus accepted faithfully being nailed to that tree. As Noah accepted in building the ark, as Joseph, Moses, Jacob, David, Abram, and every person of God accepted faithfully that which they came to know. Free will. Resist, rebel, or receive. Every person’s choice. Not a puppet on strings. Not a robot. Not controlled. Free will cannot be separated from predestination.

God our Father, Your will be done, on earth as in heaven.

Everything is part of the ongoing and escalating spiritual war which begins with do we believe, and if so, truly, do we then humble ourselves and always, daily, continually go to the Lord asking, praying, thinking — Heavenly Father, Your will be done on earth, as in heaven, Your kingdom come? Or are we being swayed, distracted, perhaps even consumed by self-will and the ways and teachings of the world which have at their root the ways and teachings of Satan more than they have the ways and teachings of God?

Accept faithfully.

Not to allow to cause endless debate or doubt. God freely offers the gift of grace. That free gift of grace is either accepted or rejected. God knew every person to accept His free gift and thus eternal life, as well as every person who would refuse His free gift never allowing their heart or eyes to be opened to the truth, to receiving His free gift. Eons in eternity before the earth was in a void and without form and the First Day of Earth’s history. It is not time to stop and become entangled in endless debate with our fellow Christians or unbelievers. It is time to allow the Holy Spirit to give us a sound foundation in understanding. To walk in faith. Faith is not blind — faith is founded on thinking, rational thought, reason, logic, and using the good mind that God created us with coupled to our hearts, united with the Lord Jesus Christ through the Word of God. Rather than getting bogged down and stuck we need to keep soldering on. Walking continually forward alongside the Lord Jesus Christ. Not permitting the devil to have his way with us, which is to cause doubt, dissension, endless debate and attempt to remove us from our walk with the Lord. To cause us to stagnate. To cause divisions rather than unity.

Predestination is nothing more than God in His infinite knowledge, being outside of human time constraints and finite human knowledge, knew every person that would receive eternal life or eternal damnation due to their free will before He said, “Let there be…”

The approach.

We ought to come to terms with this that constant or repeated consternation and debate about these matters may not be coming from God — but from Satan to weaken the disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If a person is truly transformed by the Holy Spirit and born anew from the inside, their thinking, how they see things, and what is in their heart as a result of the Holy Spirit entering they ought not to allow these subjects to take inordinate amounts of time in their lives or have these begin to allow doubt to creep in planting weed seeds to germinate and begin to choke out the light, and to grow. Let it be, have faith, and keep moving forward with the Lord Jesus Christ maturing along the way, increasing in our spiritual understanding along the way. Carrying too much self along this journey, carrying the ways of the world along this journey only bogs one down or can even pull one off the path altogether. Going nowhere. Being a born anew Christian is not about stagnation or being bogged down with self or the beliefs and knowledge of this world. We need to stop crawling, stop living on milk, and not only stand up, begin to ingest and digest the necessary meat, but run in the ways of the Lord found exclusively in His Word rather than the endless debates presented to us by the world. Did God begin this debate within? Or are its roots found elsewhere? Ask this in everything that presents itself.

If an unbeliever, a wall sitter? At odds with the subject of predestination and free will? Read, study, and mediate within God’s Word — think deeply about what you read and take time to ponder it regarding the events and circumstances of every individual history happened upon in that Book. Pray humbly, faithfully to the Lord asking for discernment and wisdom, and come to see and know within your heart and mind what predestination and free will are and mean. Because it may not be what was perceived, it may not be what you have been told. Ask the Lord through His Word to reveal His truth and ways, ask faithfully, and He will tell you.

If a true believer, or a truly pagan person, each needs to ask themselves why it is they attempt to go to war with God and His Word over this matter, over any matter that can cause division and cripple us in our pursuit of God and our walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus, Who was truly fully a man while also being truly fully God did not debate His Father’s Word. Question His Father. Debate His Father, did He? Why are these subjects such sticking points for some? Spending an inordinate amount of time on these matters can reveal the place we are in the spiritual war taking place within and around each of us. In order to win that war a soldier must obey the King, the Lord, the Leader they are under, and keep advancing in every battle. Not remaining in their foxhole for the duration of the war. Not giving the Enemy room to advance towards them.

And while many go AWOL in this war or attempt to become conscientious objectors or believe they can be mere spectators every person is enlisted in this raging and always escalating spiritual war whether they choose to believe this or not.

A self-willed soul in greater rebellion with God, with the Lord Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit and the whole Word of God will approach the subject of predestination carrying the wrong heart before the throne of God. Mired in self, the greatest enemy of grace and spiritual understanding, spiritual maturity, and growth.

It is only when humbling oneself, coming to understand God as best we can — and that is only done, always done in continual going to the everlasting well of His inerrant infallible living and active Word and seeking spiritual wisdom only made possible from a submissive, seeking, pure heart asking — actually asking continually for the Holy Spirit to help. To show. To reveal. To instruct. To make possible that which is impossible if we keep going it alone or placing the intellectual above the spiritual.

Ask for the faith and understanding required to conquer the ways of the world ingrained within to come to see, to hear, to know God as God desires us to know Him, to know His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Not in continued resistance, endless debate, and rationalizing as the world does, a world in which most obey the Evil One and do not resist him while they resist the ways and words of the Lord — even those, many of those professing to be Christian do such. Always have and always will. Do not be counted in their number, even though given eternal security, be among the number faithfully believing, serving, and bearing good fruit for the Lord and what he has done for us. Be as one of the five virgins who always keep their lamps filled with oil not emulating the five who couldn’t be bothered and were otherwise occupied.

Seek faithfully spiritual wisdom rather than the wisdom of this world. That is only achieved by casting self aside, the ways and beliefs of the world aside, and coming boldly yet always humbly before the throne of the Lord. Take those steps to Him daily through His Word, through prayer, increasing in faith, and the only knowledge of value — the knowledge of God, of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.