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Is Free Will Biblical?
We are free to make choices, but does that mean our will is free?
We obviously make real decisions every day. You chose to click on this, and right now you’re deciding whether to keep scrolling or stay.
But our choices aren’t nearly as independent as we like to think. If this grabs your attention, you’ll probably finish reading it. If it doesn’t, you’ll click away. Even when you force yourself to read something boring, you’re not acting without a reason. Maybe you want to learn something, or maybe you just hate leaving things unfinished. Either way, something is driving that decision.
We aren’t neutral observers making choices completely detached from our desires. We choose according to what we want most in that moment.
Paul describes our former condition in Titus 3:3:
“At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures.”
So although we make real choices, our will is enslaved to sin. And if our will is enslaved, how free can our choices really be? We are free to choose according to our desires, but those desires are not free from sin.
Why Did You Believe When Others Didn’t?
Think back to when you came to faith. Why did the gospel take root in your heart when someone sitting right next to you could hear the exact same message and walk away unchanged?
Was your heart naturally softer? Were you smarter, more humble, or simply more open-minded?
If the ultimate deciding factor was something in you rather than God’s grace, then what made you different from the person who rejected the gospel?
Were you more humble, more obedient, or more willing to believe? Whatever it was, your salvation ultimately came down to something you contributed that they didn’t.
“But I didn’t earn it. I just received it.”
Many Christians would say God gives grace to everyone, and our part is simply to receive it. Nobody brags about accepting a gift.
But imagine two people hearing the same sermon, receiving the same grace. One believes. The other walks away. If the grace was the same, the difference must be in them. One was simply more willing than the other.
That’s the very thing Paul says no one can claim: “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).
The open hand that receives the gift is itself a gift.
And that’s exactly what Scripture teaches.
We were spiritually dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:1). And dead people don’t seek life. We had no desire for God (Romans 3:11). The problem wasn’t that nobody had invited us to come to Him. The problem was that, left to ourselves, we didn’t want to come.
We were enslaved to what we loved, and we didn’t love God.
You didn’t turn to Christ because you somehow managed to produce enough faith through your own willpower. You turned because God showed you mercy. He gave you a new heart, one that could finally desire Him.
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But doesn’t that make God unfair?
Paul anticipated that very objection:
“Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!” (Romans 9:14)
If God owed everyone mercy, it wouldn’t be mercy anymore. It would be an obligation.
Justice is what we deserve. Mercy is what we don’t deserve.
God gives some people the justice their sins deserve, and He gives others mercy they could never earn. But nobody receives injustice. No one is condemned for sins they didn’t commit, nor is anyone denied mercy they were owed, because mercy, by definition, is undeserved.
And those who are saved have no reason to boast, because the difference was never that they were better than anyone else.
If God Is Sovereign, Why Share the Gospel?
God didn’t just ordain the end. He also ordained the means by which He would accomplish it. Throughout Scripture, we see God using ordinary people to carry out His purposes.
Maybe you came to faith because a friend shared the gospel with you.
Or think about Saul.
He stood there watching as Stephen was stoned to death. Stephen’s final prayer was, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60).
And among those witnessing his death was a man called Saul who would later describe himself as a blasphemer, a persecutor, and the foremost of sinners.
In our eyes, Saul was probably the last person anyone would expect to become a Christian.
He wasn’t looking for Jesus. He was hunting down His followers. Yet on the road to Damascus, Christ Himself appeared to him.
The man who once persecuted the church became the very man who proclaimed Christ to the nations.
Not because Saul was looking for Jesus, but because Jesus came looking for him.
And that’s exactly why we shouldn’t lose hope when someone seems too hardened to believe.
We were once in darkness too. We didn’t want God either. Yet He had mercy on us.
If God could save a man like Saul, who are we to decide that someone is too far gone?
So we preach the gospel. We pray for unbelievers. We plead with people to come to Christ, even when they seem completely uninterested.
Not because salvation depends on how persuasive we are, or because we can somehow change someone’s heart ourselves.
We do it because God has chosen to use ordinary people to accomplish His purposes.
And the same God who opened our hearts is able to open theirs.
