The Most Precious Commodity (Part Three of Three)

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

(John 8:32 NIV)

If there was one thing that really kept me from accepting the Gospel, it was my love of freedom. My personal freedom that is.

You see, the moment you accept the truth that there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and sovereign God, the implication is that personal freedom no longer exists. And boy is that ever going to ruffle a lot of feathers.

It certainly did mine.

And proud rooster that I am, I had fought tooth, claw and nail against that offensive portion of the Gospel.

Jesus’ call for morality I can accept. I could also accept (sometimes even smugly so), that all people will one day make an account of all the good and bad things they’ve done in this life and that they would go to heaven and hell accordingly.

But to say that God had already planned it all from the very beginning?!

After all, if God really is all powerful and all knowing, He would have already known what every single human being was going to do even before time began, right?

Predestination is an ugly word. Especially today, when individual freedoms are being touted, heralded, cherished, and even fought for as a basic human right.

“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings,” says the heroic Autobot leader Optimus Prime of the sci-fi series Transformers.

I wonder if the irony of robots championing the cause of freedom had been intentional among the creators of the series.

Because if you ask one of the most respected scientists and physicists alive today, he will tell you that that is exactly what human beings are: biological machines that are the result of the interplay of the physical laws of the universe. He argues that humankind’s coming into being was inevitable due to the predictability of these physical laws. We are simply obeying the immutable laws of physics by our very existence.

In fact, he believes that the very predictability of the physical laws of the universe would even allow us one day to actually predetermine what each individual will do in the future even before he/she commits an act simply by monitoring the physical and chemical changes occurring within an individual human being.

Might I also add that this same noted physicist does not (currently) believe in a personal God.

So there you have it, even a well-noted, atheistic scientist is basically telling us that personal freedom does not exist. It is but an illusion resulting from our inability to perceive (and therefore accept) that everything that has been, is, or ever will be, has already been predetermined, if not by God, then by the laws of physics.

That’s ridiculous! I KNOW I have freedom because I make personal choices everyday! So do the people around me! Everybody makes choices!

But are we really able to make choices on our own?

To be free means to be able to make a choice without being influenced. To have personal freedom is to be able to shape the course of our own destiny.

When we talk about personal freedom, we talk about a situation where WE are in control of our own lives, and that the choices that we make are purely ours and are not influenced by anything else. We make those choices voluntarily out of our own free will without coercion of any kind.

But is that really true? Are the choices that we make purely done out of our own will and not influenced at all by anything external to us?

I have personally realized that the individual and personal choices that I make are themselves already the result of factors external to myself. In fact, given the chance, I wouldn’t have chosen to make some of the decisions that I had to make in my life.

The very act of choosing therefore had already been forced upon me.

That doesn’t sound like I’m free at all doesn’t it?

If we look more closely at the all the decisions and choices that all of us make every day of our lives, we will eventually come to the realization that they are all the result of factors outside of ourselves.

The food that we eat, the clothes that we wear, the things that we buy, the work that we do, the people that we are with. None of these are the result of choices that are purely the result of our own free will.

To be human, by very definition, is to be subject to the context in which we find ourselves in. Our very existence depends upon and is dictated by the very physical reality that we live in.

We can only ultimately choose what the world around us influences us to choose.

But that’s not true! If I really felt like it, I can choose to do things apart from what the world tells me to!

Well, if personal freedom meant that we are free to do what we felt we wanted to do, then we make our feelings the basis of that freedom.

However, are not our own feelings themselves the result of context? We feel sad because we encounter something sad. We laugh because we experience something funny. We feel anger because something or someone made us angry.

Our feelings are themselves the result of external circumstances. Therefore, choices that are the result of what we feel are also externally influenced.

Besides, I have also learned (and still am learning) that choosing based on what I feel at the moment only leads to an erratic life. And an erratic life is anything but a life of freedom. It is a life of whim and fancy that leads to all kinds of nasty and unwanted consequences.

Which leads me at last to the strongest argument against personal freedom:

No matter the choices that we make, we cannot escape the consequences of our decisions.

We can pretend all our lives that the choices we made had been purely ours to make. But the consequences of those decisions will always come back to haunt us and the people around us.

In fact, every consequence of every decision every human has ever made echoes throughout space and time, affecting humanity and the rest of the physical world in more ways than we can possibly perceive or determine.

Because regardless of what our opinions are of each other, we are ALL linked to one another. Every individual and collective thought, word or action are like pebbles being dropped in a pool of water: it ripples across all the surface, affecting the whole pool.

In diplomacy and international relations, we talk about the “sovereignty” of nations and the right of every country to determine the course of its own existence. In reality however, any diplomat would tell you that a truly sovereign nation does not exist. (There wouldn’t be any need for diplomats otherwise).

Every single human being, even when in a collective nation or country, is subject to and influenced by each other’s existence. Our governments and leaders may love to champion the cause of independence and self-determination, but the truth is that it is impossible for anyone to truly live apart from anyone else.

We all live on one planet and share the same resources. The very air that we breathe is part of one continuous atmosphere that covers all of the earth. Whatever chemicals we pollute our environment with will eventually have consequences for every single human being on the planet. Whatever policies we adopt have implications, not only on ourselves, but also on our neighbors and the very physical world around us.

Anything we do has consequences.

There is no escape from consequence.

There is only one possible conclusion from all of this and it is that personal freedom does not exist. It is an illusion.

But how can that be? If personal freedom does not exist, then where did the idea come from? If it isn’t real, then why do I yearn and long for it so?

It is as though some voice inside of us is trying to convince us that it is real.

And oh how we listen to that voice. We do its bidding almost instinctively. “Personal freedom is REAL. It is the most precious thing in the world. Fight for it!” it commands. And we obey. With every fiber of our being we obey.

Scripture tells of the account when humans first heard that voice. It also tells us the consequences of obeying that voice. The whole story is what we now know as Original Sin.

The day humankind rebelled against their Maker.

Because we thought we could be our own gods.

"God knows that when you eat the fruit of that tree, you will know things you have never known before. You will be able to tell the difference between good and evil. You will be like God." - (Genesis 3:5 NIrV)

We are told that all the evil and suffering that is occurring in creation right now is the result of that one act of rebellion.

Because we choose to do things our own way and not how it's supposed to be.

And now comes the real rub of predestination:

If God is who He says He is, then couldn’t He have predicted the Fall of Man? Why couldn’t He have stopped the Serpent from tempting Eve? Why allow that one act of rebellion to pass down and poison the entire human race all this time? Why allow sin to enter the world in the first place?

Is not God being unjust and unfair in holding us accountable for choices that He already knew we would make as a result of situations that He already knew and in fact willed to happen?

If all sin was birthed by the Original Sin, then God must have known and allowed it to happen in the first place. If God is good and sin is evil, then God had contradicted Himself by allowing sin to exist alongside Himself.

Anything that is self-contradictory is non-existent.

Therefore God does not exist.

The logic is flawless. Or so I had thought.

What the logic does not take into account is what God’s purposes are.

Scripture essentially makes the following claims about God:

1)    That He made all of creation.

2)    That all of creation has a purpose.

3)    And that purpose is to give glory back to God.

To glorify means to draw attention to and to consider precious or valuable.

All of creation therefore, is meant to point back to the Creator and to praise and cherish Him above all things.

Christianity tells us that the only way for us to truly do this is through His Son, Jesus Christ.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. - (Colossians 1:19-20 NIV)

And it is through the cross that the Messiah draws all to Himself:

And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to Myself." - (John 12:32 NLT)

The message of the cross would lose all of its significance had not Original Sin occurred. Without sin, the power of the cross and entire Redemptive History would be rendered meaningless.

But as it is, everything that has happened thus far is so that God may be glorified through His Son. All of what is recorded and written in Scripture points to the Son. As the Messiah Himself notes:

"You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to Me! - (John 5:39 NLT)

Everything points to the Son.

The Son. Who is also God. Who chose to become human. Who lived and died with us as a human. And lived again. Just so that we would know, that everything that He did, He did for us.

So that we may glorify Him.

I realize now that there is only One who is truly Sovereign. There is only One who is truly free to do as He pleases throughout time and space. All of history is essentially His story.

When He made us after His own image, He intentionally passed down to us the desire for freedom. This too is by design. This too is predestined.

For to desire freedom is to desire God. And to desire God is to give Him glory.

And that fulfills His purpose.

Real freedom then, is to be found only in God through His Son.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. - (John 8:36 NIV)

Free to do what, exactly?

Free to pursue and be satisfied most fully by the one thing that is truly most valuable in life.

You see, humankind’s desire for money, fame, and freedom can never, ever be satisfied. For we can only be truly satisfied with what we were intended to desire for in the first place.

Namely God Himself.

It is His will and purpose that ALL of humankind be saved from a life of emptiness and suffering resulting from our trying to fulfill our desire for Him through money, fame, freedom, and whatever else we think will make us happy.

For He is a God:

who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

(1 Timothy 2:4 ESV)

And the truth will set us free.

He promises us that if we earnestly seek for Him with all our hearts, soul, and strength, we will find Him. For He was always there in the first place, where He always is and always should be in our hearts: IN FIRST PLACE. Everything else comes secondary to Him.

He is the One True Commodity that we cannot do without.

He is all we need.

I pray that He open the eyes of your hearts so that you may know Him and His true value in our lives.

Because to know what is truly valuable and desirable, and to be given all the opportunity in all of creation in order to reach that desire…that my dear friends, is true freedom.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need. - (Matthew 6:33 NLT)