Knowing God Better: The Gift of Free Will—Part 3

Although God is sovereign over all things, He has chosen to give humanity free will. This freedom to make our own moral choices without outside coercion is an extraordinary gift. Whereas it is a priceless blessing, the misuse of free will carries serious consequences.  

Why would God entrust humanity with such tremendous liberty? Why was free will so essential to His purpose? To understand, we must go back to God's intention in creating mankind. His desire was to create humans in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26) who would live in a loving relationship with Him. Such a relationship cannot exist where there is no freedom to choose. 

Without a choice, a person becomes little more than a programmed machine—or even a slave. Only when love is given freely can a relationship be genuine and complete. This is the kind of relationship God desires with humanity—one that exists not by force, but by freely given love.

The Opportunity to Choose

Free will is exercised when a person is faced with a moral choice. Such an occasion presented itself to the first couple. The Scriptures tell us that the Lord God planted a garden in Eden that was to be their home. In that garden, He "made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." (Genesis 2: 9 NIV)

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil provided the setting in which Adam and Eve would exercise their free will. God gave Adam a clear command: "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die." (Genesis 2:16-17 NIV) 

The will of God, "which is good and pleasing and perfect" (Romans 12:2 NLT) had been made clear. Adam and Eve had everything they needed to obey God. Each was free to decide whether to trust the Creator or choose another way.

The Ploy

Before that choice was made, however, another created being entered the scene. Unlike Adam and Eve, he had already exercised his free will to rebel against the Creator. The consequence of his rebellion was a swift and decisive expulsion from his heavenly abode. Jesus said, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." (Luke 10:18 NIV)  

Using the serpent as his instrument, Satan approached Eve with a plan. He did not need to force her to disobey. He only needed to convince her that his ideas were true and that what God had said was false. To do so, he first had to undermine her view of God. He must persuade Eve to see God not as a loving Father but as One who was withholding something good from her.

So Satan began with a question—a blatant distortion of God's command. "Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?" (Genesis 3:1 NLT)

Eve corrected him: "Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden...It's only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said...if you do, you will die." (Genesis 3:2-3 NLT)

Satan then contradicted God's Word and presented his lie as truth: "'You won't die!' the serpent replied to the woman. 'God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.'" (Genesis 3:4-5 NLT) Satan had impugned God's character, called Him a liar, and presented himself as the source of truth.

God's word had been overshadowed by the serpent's deception. Eve believed the more appealing version of reality he had presented. "So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too." (Genesis 3:6 NLT) Eve had believed Satan's word rather than God's.

The consequences were devastating—shame, fear, separation from God, blame, conflict between the couple, and the onset of physical mortality. (Genesis 3) Adam and Eve were banished from their home—the Garden of Eden. By choosing Satan's lie, they embraced not only deception but also its consequences.

The Father of Lies

Satan does not sometimes tell the truth and sometimes lie. Jesus said, "He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies." (John 8:44 NLT) 

The most effective lies often contain an element of truth. Satan used this crafty maneuver during Christ's temptation in the wilderness when he quoted from the Word of God. "Then the devil took him to... the highest point of the temple. 'If you are the Son of God,' he said, 'throw yourself down. For it is written, "He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone."'" (Matthew 4:5-6 NIV)

Satan was quoting Scripture, but he was using truth to advance a lie. He attempted to entice Jesus to test His Father's promise rather than trust it—to act as though His Father's Word required proof. Jesus saw through the deception and responded: "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" (Matthew 4:7 NIV)

Satan's subtlety is so great that Scripture warns us that he also, "masquerades as an angel of light." (2 Corinthians 11:14 NIV) Because he can so cunningly disguise falsehood as truth, believers must develop spiritual discernment and know God's Word well. Only then can we recognize deception and respond as Jesus did—with the truth of Scripture.

Satan's Tactics Today

Although Satan no longer approaches us through a serpent in a garden, he still uses the same tactics he used on Eve. His ultimate goals have never changed—"to steal, and to kill, and to destroy." (John 10:10 KJV) Nor have his methods. They have proven effective from the beginning.

Satan's greatest weapon is his subtlety. "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." (Genesis 3:1 KJV) One of his primary avenues of attack is our thought life. At first, the thoughts may seem to come from ourselves rather than an outside source. Before we recognize what is happening, we may entertain thoughts that contradict God's Word, distort His character, or distort our perception of reality.

As we dwell on these thoughts, we engage in the same conversation that Eve had in Eden. We begin to agree with them and allow them to grow. Gradually, we become more persuaded by the enemy's lies than by the truth God has spoken in His Word. Once again we face the choice that confronted Eve: Whose word will we believe?

Escaping Before the Trap Shuts

There is a way to escape before the trap shuts, but it requires vigilance. We must become more aware of our thoughts, and test them against the Word of God. When a thought does not align with God's Word, we must follow Paul's instructions: "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV)

The enemy still seeks to distort God's Word, undermine our confidence in God's character, and persuade us to believe a twisted version of reality. But we are not helpless. We can recognize the deception, reject the lie, and choose to believe what God has said "in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes." (2 Corinthians 2:11 NIV)

Conclusion

The first exercise of human free will was more than a choice between two trees. It was a choice between trusting God's goodness and His Word or believing the enemy's lie. Every moral decision since then has involved the same choice. Free will is exercised by deciding which voice we will believe.

In the next blog, we will examine three areas of human weakness and how Satan exploits them to his advantage. 

For more from Julia, see her Substack, “Reflections on Knowing God” @juliakamleiter.