In the deepest sense for the will to be free it must be free from God. Can there be a will that is free from the will of the all-present, all-wise, and all-powerful God? Can anything happen apart from His sovereign will and perfect wisdom? If the will is free from God, then what is it enslaved to? These questions may not be common ones, but they point to ultimate reality. In an effort to get at the reality concerning the will, we can ask several more questions. What is it that moves the will? Is it the power of grace or the power of self? Is it the power of the life of Christ in the soul or the power of self? Is it the power of love in the soul or the power of self? If the will is free to make choices according to itself, then it is free from God to do those things. But if the will is free of God, it is also “free” from the power of grace, the life of Christ, and true love. Surely no will can do one spiritual act apart from the life of God in the soul exercising Himself in and through the soul by grace, Christ, and love.
Scripture is absolutely clear on the fact that God is absolutely sovereign over all things. A bird cannot fall from the sky apart from His sovereign will. A lion will not eat if the Lord has shut its mouth. Large fish will swallow and vomit human beings at His direction. Fire will not consume bushes or human beings apart from His will. As Psalm 127:1 puts it, “Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain.” Lamentations 3:37 puts it with clarity: “Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, Unless the Lord has commanded it?” Proverbs 16:9 shows us the sovereignty of God over the mind and plans of man: “The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.” According to Daniel 4:35 man is as nothing and God does as He pleases. “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’” Just how free is man and the will of man in light of these verses?
If the sovereign and all-present God who never sleeps does as He pleases at each point of space and time, then how free can man be? As Jonathan Edwards has pointed out so clearly, we are free to will according to our nature. This is simply to say that God does not force human beings to do things against what they desire, but human beings will in accordance with the nature of who they are in their hearts. The will is enslaved to its nature and cannot desire or choose anything that is against it, or at least it cannot carry out a desire that is against its nature. The human soul is either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ because the human nature cannot do anything but act according to its nature. If the nature is sinful, it will always sin even in its most religious actions. If the human soul has been delivered from its sinful nature, then the person has Christ as his or her life and is a love-slave of Christ. There is no absolute or libertarian freedom of the will, but instead the will is always bound to either sin or Christ.
The will that is bound to sin is an enslaved will. It may feel free to the sinner, but it is bound fast in its love for sin. Not only is it a slave of sin, but it is a slave to the devil and is a child to the devil. Jesus taught us in John 8:34 that “everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” Paul taught that salvation is to be delivered and freed from the bondage of the kingdom or dominion of darkness (Col 1:13). We are also taught in Ephesians 2:1-3 that the soul is dead in sins and trespasses, which is to be in bondage as well. The Gospel is the Gospel of the kingdom as well as the Gospel of God and the Gospel of grace. It is also the Gospel of the glory of God. The Gospel of the kingdom is the good news of the reign and rule of Christ in the soul. This is good news because the soul that is enslaved to sin, self, and the devil is in true bondage with debts of sin that it cannot pay. The soul cannot free itself because only grace can free the soul from its sinful nature to which it is bound. The soul which is born of flesh is enslaved to the will of the flesh and cannot do anything beyond the limits of its bondage.
The bondage of the soul to sinful flesh and the fleshly nature is one that pride blinds the soul to. It is a devilish bondage to hide the depths of bondage and chains of bondage to those in bondage. If they could but see what held them in bondage they would seek the Lord and cry out to Him to be free from their bondage (salvation). The children of Israel groaned in their bondage to the Egyptians and the Lord heard them. Until men and women understand the depths of the bondage of their wills they will not cry out to the Lord to deliver from that bondage. They will seek to escape hell by praying a prayer, but they will not seek the Lord to be free of their bondage. So they will perish in their bondage even if they have been deceived by religion and by many who tell them the so-called modern gospel. But they will not have been delivered from their true bondage so they will enter into eternal flames while still in bondage. It is there that they will see how they have been deceived about their slavery but it will be too late. There is no true peace with God apart from a release from the bondage of the enslaved will.
God Loves... Himself 
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