Free will verses Ownership
By Dr. Stephen E. Jones
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Free Will And God's Sovereignty 1
The Question of Free Will 1
Who is Really Sovereign Here on Earth? 8
Sin is Reckoned as a Debt 10
The Jubilee Ends All Debt 11
Chapter 2: Ownership and Liability 13
The Creator Has Land Laws 13
It is Not a Question of Free Will: It is a Question of Ownership 15
God's Liability Laws Based Upon Ownership 16
Conclusion 22
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Chapter One
FREE WILL AND GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY
The Question of Free Will
I believe this booklet will be helpful in understanding the sovereignty of God and the entire question of free will. Every Christian, it seems, believes that God is sovereign in the universe. On the other hand, man's theology also seems to deny His sovereignty when we question them on the details. God is sovereign, they tell us, yet for whatever reason, God has chosen to relinquish His sovereignty, or His control over His creation, in order to give man a free will.
To complicate matters further, many believe that one of God's top angels decided, by his own free will of course, to overthrow God. This Lucifer, or the devil (according to the commonly held view) was also endowed with a free will, and he convinced other disgruntled angels who were jealous of or angry with God for reasons unclear, to join the rebellion. The bottom line is that it is commonly believed that both men and angels have a free will and can sin or not sin by their own decision.
We do see in the Bible that man is told to choose what is right and to shun that which is wrong. Man does have a will; there is no question about that. It is commonly believed that if man has a will at all, then it must be totally free. The problem is that we are told in John 6:44 that no man is able to come to the Father except the Father drag him. The Greek helkuo means "to drag." It is translated in the King James as "draw."
John 6:44
44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
NT: #1670
helkuo (hel-koo'-o); or helko (hel'-ko); probably akin to NT:138; to drag (literally or figuratively).
You will find this same word used in other parts of the Bible, such as John 21:6,
John 21:6
6 And he said unto them, "Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find." They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.
The same idea is expressed when fishermen drag their nets. There are fish in the net, and the fish do not have a whole lot of free will to escape once they are caught in the net. The fish do not know this, but we of higher intelligence know it. You also find this same word in James 2:6,
James 2:6
6 But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?
Do the rich and powerful oppressors come knocking on your door and say, "You have a choice here. We would like you to come down to our court because we want to sue you." I do not think they give anyone the free will option to decline. They put the handcuffs on you and drag you into court. That is the theme in James 2 - it means "to drag." To drag implies that they do not have much free will in the matter. They may fight and scream all they want, but it is not their decision to make. Someone of a higher authority has already made the decision for them, and they are forced to comply.
John 12:32
32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.
Here, Jesus uses that same word - drag. It does not sound like men have much to say in the matter. In other words, if the expression "to drag" implies the rich and powerful are dragging you into court or the net is dragging fish into the boat, then the ones being dragged are having their "free will" overruled by a higher will. Therefore we can say that if Jesus was lifted up, that is on the cross - which He was - He will drag all men unto Himself just as He plainly said He would do.
What does this do to free will? The word "draw" really does not allow much in the way of free will.
John 6:37
37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
Whomever the Father has given to Christ will come to Him. In other words, those who decide to come to Christ by their own "free will" are the people whom the Father has given Him already. There is Someone behind the scenes Who has called these people, and therefore their response is, "I think I want to come to Christ." They think it is all by their own free will, but yet God has played a hidden role in the background, choosing to remain anonymous.
God has chosen them, so they will in turn choose God seemingly of their own free will. God preserves this illusion of free will, and this gives us the idea that we all have decided our own course. We hold this illusion of free will in our immaturity. Once we begin to understand who God is, and see His sovereignty and His glory and understand that He really is the Sovereign of the universe, then we begin to see that our will is merely a response to His will. The more we come to know Him, the more sovereign He seems to become, and the less free our will seems to be.
So the question becomes, why do men feel the need to question God's sovereignty and establish the idea of their own free will? What is behind this need to question God's sovereignty? What is the motive behind it that is so strong that people feel absolutely obligated to maintain free will, and without it their entire universe falls apart? There are three basic motives for the maintenance of free will among men.
The first element is human pride and man's need to do something in himself in order to be saved. Man wants God to think that he (man) has come to Him on his own initiative, so that God will be pleased with man's decision. In other words, "I have some participation in my salvation. It is a cooperative effort between God and me. God can do nothing without me, as much as I can do nothing without God." We hear much about this cooperative effort. Well, I agree that on one level it appears that we need to cooperate with God - at least on the surface - and I have no real problem with that. My question is: Who is it that implanted the idea within our heart to make us cooperate with God?
The second motive behind the idea of free will is that the Adamic self-life is still very much alive. The self-life wants to maintain itself and survive. It does not want to die. It is the carnal mind, and it uses man's ego to focus upon man. It makes man's will the originator of all his decisions. Man becomes the measure of all things, as philosophers have said. Essentially, at its core it is a humanistic view of the world.
Thirdly, and perhaps most important for our purposes, the reason for the free will idea is the need to explain the existence of evil in the world in a way that does not make God liable for it. In other words, if God is sovereign (we are asked), then why does He allow all this human suffering to take place? People always bring up all of the terrible events that happen and continue to happen. If God really were sovereign, then why does He not do something about the world's problems? Surely He cannot be held responsible!
Christian theologians and philosophers have proposed two opposing solutions to this third question. One group says that they do not really understand God's purpose for evil, but they know that God will work all things out for good (Romans 8:28). The other solution is that God is not really responsible, that it is all caused by mankind and the devil who inspires them. Jeremiah had something to say about this:
Jeremiah 31:18-19
18 I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; "Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God. 19 Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth."
By the Spirit, Jeremiah heard Ephraim praying "as a bullock" that was plowing a field that God would turn him because then he would be turned. To turn means to repent, to go in another direction. In other words, the farmer is the one responsible to turn the bullock in the right direction as it is plowing the field. The problem is that this particular "bullock" is the tribe of Ephraim, or the nation of Israel in general, and they were not accustomed to being obedient to God, the Farmer.
Ephraim goes on to say that after God turned him, he turned, or repented. The passage does not say that Ephraim repented and then God turned him, as if God were reacting to His "bullock." God is clearly shown to be "at the reins," so to speak. He is the One in control of the bullock. So Jeremiah is showing that God has to initiate everything - otherwise it will not be accomplished.
None of us will be saved unless God has initiated it first. No man can come to the Father, except the Father drag him. If God has ordained some event from the beginning (call it "predestination" if you want - the "P" word); if He has determined something and ordained it, then it is going to happen, BUT it will seem as if we did it all by ourselves.
Jeremiah 17:14
14 Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.
Again, who is the cause and what is the effect? Man's flesh cannot initiate any good thing. In my flesh is no good thing. James 1:17 says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above." One of the greatest gifts God can give us is the gift of repentance. Romans 2:4 that "the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." If God leads us to repent and begins to drag us to the Father, then we should stop taking credit for our repentance and begin to praise and thank God for giving us this good and perfect gift.
If God does not turn us - which causes us to respond by turning to Him - we simply will not turn to Him. So between this reality and the word "drag," we can ask the question: Is this really free will? Man would always like to take credit for his turning to God, his acceptance of Jesus Christ as his Savior, as if his salvation is based upon his own free will decision. To many theologians this is the only thing that gives salvation any legitimacy. They believe that if God exercises His will or interferes in any way with man's decision to come to God, then somehow this goes against the nature of God.
1 John 1:11-12
11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not. 12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
Thus far it sounds like man has free will. But then John says in verse 13,
1 John 1:13
13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
It is not the will of the flesh; it is not the will of man; it is not blood lineage. It is done only by the will of God. Of all the gospel writers, John makes the clearest case for God's sovereignty. Was John unaware of the debate over free will? No, for this issue was debated just as hotly in his day as it is in ours. There were three Judean schools of thought in those days. The Essenes believed that God was totally sovereign. The Sadducees believed that man had total free will. The Pharisees were in the middle, believing that God "helps" people to do good. These same schools of thought have come down to us today.
Of course you recall in Ephesians 1:11 that God does all things by the counsel of His own will.
Ephesians 1:11
11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.
To absolve God of any responsibility for evil in the world, many Christian theologians today feel the need to take back most of God's sovereignty. First they attribute the sovereignty to God, and then they take it all back and give most of it to the devil and to man. Free will, when taken to its logical conclusion, removes all sovereignty from God leaving Him totally impotent to do anything but stand on the sidelines and threaten people with ever-increasing punishment. He stands there and hopes and hopes and hopes that somebody will listen, but He is impotent to actually do anything. Little wonder, then, that so many Christians live in fear of the devil, rather than by faith in God. While they express faith in God with their lips, they go home believing that God is in serious need of help to accomplish His goals on earth.
I think that most people agree that God did not have to do it this way, if He had so chosen at the beginning. But, most of them say that God did do it this way, because, for some mysterious reason not explained in the Bible, He had to preserve man's free will. Some go so far as to insist that God had to preserve the free will of angels also. Remember we are taught often that the devil sinned by his own free will.
It is interesting to me that God has to stand on the sidelines wringing His hands, hoping that people will turn to Him. He stands there in despair when things do not go His way, but the devil has no such constraints. "The devil made me do it," because (they say) the devil is not a gentleman, but God is. God set the rules limiting Himself and His own will in the affairs of men, so He cannot do anything about our decisions. However, the devil has free will, they say, even if God does not. The devil has not set any rules for himself, so he is free to impose his will upon everyone.
When the spirit of God inhabits your body, you still sin because of your own free will, right? But when the devil inhabits your body and you still sin, then you have no free will - the devil made you do it. Why is this? We are told that the devil can override your free will, but then God cannot. Is that not interesting? Is it any wonder that in the end the devil wins at least 99% of humanity?
Who is Really Sovereign Here on Earth?
Has the devil taken sovereignty, and has God abdicated? Is that the kind of God we serve? When you stop and think about it, to leave free will intact in man creates a very scary situation in the world, because if God is on the sidelines and cannot override man's free will, then how can God prophesy anything? There are books out there today that even agree with that premise. They say, "That's right, even God does not know what is going to happen yet because man has not decided, and the devil has not decided." It is all a tactical matter, and God has no control over the situation.
We might ask ourselves, how much free will did the Apostle Paul have when he was converted? A light came and threw him on his back, the light shined in his eyes, and a voice out of heaven spoke to him. Put yourself in his shoes. Would you have said "no"? Paul called himself the chief of sinners in 1 Timothy 1:15. God saved the chief of sinners by throwing him down on the ground, conscripting him, and saying, "You will follow Me from now on," totally overruling Paul's free will. This may be treated like an exception to the rule. But ask yourself one thing: what if God did that to every human being in the world? How many non-Christians would the world have today?
If the rules of free will have been established, then apparently God set aside those rules when it came to the Apostle Paul. This is not fair. How can anyone believe that God really does want to save all mankind, and yet He reveals Himself to only a few? If He really loved all mankind, would He not do with all men as He did with Paul?
The fact of the matter is that if God wanted to save everybody on this very day, He could do so very easily. All He would have to do is to repeat what He did to the Apostle Paul. Throw everyone down and say, "I am Jesus, the One that you are persecuting." Who would argue with Him? In fact, look at some lesser situations. Every time there is a genuine revival meeting, where the Holy Spirit moves in power, you see them turning to Him and repenting. Why does God not do this all of the time? We would not have the situation in the world today if He did, but He has chosen not to do so.
When the world comes along and says that it does not believe in a God who would allow all of these evil things to happen, they may have a point because God could stop it at any point that He so chose. But the church does not like that solution. Their solution is that God is not responsible because God is basically helpless. Be assured: God is not helpless; God is sovereign, and He can change the effects of evil any time He wants. The world is often more justified than the Church, because they at least assume that God must really be sovereign if He is God at all. The Church often wants to water down His sovereignty to the point where God is totally impotent, a helpless giant in the sky.
The question is not resolved by removing sovereignty from God; the question is resolved by understanding why God does things the way He does. That takes more study and work and knowing who God is in order to understand the real solution to the world's problems.
Sin is Reckoned as a Debt
We know that all sin is reckoned as a debt. When we sin, we obtain a debt to the law. The law has set up its liability laws so that if you sin against your neighbor, you owe them restitution. Therefore, it is reckoned as a debt. This is why Jesus taught the disciples to pray, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" (Matthew 6:12). Luke's version of it says, "Forgive us our SINS; for we also forgive every one that is INDEBTED to us." God reckons sin in terms of debt.
In man's way of thinking debt continues forever and ever. It is always eternal punishment. But God's laws are not that way. (And man has the nerve to say that the Old Testament God was merciless and unloving!) We are like the man in Matthew 18 who owed ten thousand talents, a huge debt that he could not pay. So the man, his wife, his children, and all that he had, were sold for payment.
Matthew 18:23-25
23 Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. 24 And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. 25 But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.
Think about this. Adam was given a wife, children, and dominion over all the earth. This represented "all that he had" - the whole earth. When he sinned, all that he had was sold to sin, and sin held the debt note until Christ paid that debt. Because Christ paid our debt note, we have now become His servants just as Paul described himself in Romans 1:1,
Romans 1:1
1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God . . .
The Jubilee Ends All Debt
How long was the debt to last for the man in the parable of Matthew 18? There is a year of Jubilee that limits all liability for debt. This is God's law. We do not have the authority or the sovereignty that would allow us to sell ourselves into debt so far that the year of Jubilee could not free us. We do not have that right; nor did we ever have that right or authority, because we do not own us. You do not own yourself. You have limited authority over yourself, and when you marry, you relinquish to your spouse even more of your authority.
Ownership is ultimately from God. God owns; we have only limited authority. When we talk about ownership - such as when we say that we own our land or we own our house - we must recognize that in the eyes of God we do not really own the property. God owns all the land (Lev. 25:23). We have authority over it that is always limited by God's sovereignty and His law. God has laws that limit our liability for debt. When we go into debt, there is a time in which to pay the debt. But there is a Jubilee year that limits the liability for all debt.
That is done out of God's sovereignty. It is a comfort to me to know that when all the evil is happening out there in the world, all this debt to sin is being incurred by so many people, it makes no difference if they owe a trillion dollars or six dollars. The Jubilee can handle all of it. There is no amount of debt where the law of Jubilee no longer applies to you. The Jubilee will cancel a six-dollar debt and a trillion-dollar debt equally well with one stroke of the pen. It is called God's law, and His law is so merciful.
So we raise the question: Could God save every man by the same method that He saved Paul? Or, were the rules of free will set aside in the case of Paul? Did Paul receive preferential treatment? If God demonstrated His ability to turn the chief of sinners and cause him to repent, why does He not do it more often? So if God does not exercise His sovereignty and save everyone now as He did Paul, who is liable for lost souls?
Chapter Two
OWNERSHIP AND LIABILITY
The Creator Has Land Laws
I want to shift this whole issue of free will to what I believe is the real issue. The question of free will is a side issue. It is not a question of free will, it is a question of ownership. We will go through the Scriptures and the law to show you this.
Genesis 1:1
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
This is always a good place to start - the beginning. Do we all believe that God was the Creator? Or, do some people believe that the devil created the earth? The ancient Greeks believed that the devil was the one responsible for the creation of matter (material things) because they believed that matter was inherently evil. They could not see how a good God would create evil matter. Their basic premise was incorrect. Physical matter was created and pronounced "good" at every stage of creation (Gen. 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31).
As Christians, we believe that God is the One who created. He is a good God, not a bad God, and that this God of the Old Testament is not different from the God of the New Testament. There are some who claimed to be Christians in the early church, some sects, who believed that the God of the Old Testament was a vengeful, hateful God, but the God of the New Testament, Jesus Christ, is a God of love. They believed these were two different gods opposed to each other.
To me, that is blasphemy. God created all things, including man. In Chapter 2, verse 7, we read the following:
Genesis 2:7
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Note here that man was formed of the dust of the ground. This ground, or this earth from which man was formed, was something that God had created in Genesis 1:1. So, the devil did not create; God created the earth and then formed and shaped man out of this material that He had created. That is why it is "dust to dust, ashes to ashes." When we die, our bodies return to dust. They return to the elements of the ground from which our bodies were originally created. Turn to Leviticus 25:
Leviticus 25:23-24
23 The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. 24 And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land.
These are God's land laws. The land must always be redeemed. This is God's law. On what basis does God have land laws? Remember when Israel went into the land of Canaan, Joshua divided up all the land among the citizens of Israel - first among the tribes and then to each family. They all had a land inheritance. Yet even though they inherited the land, they were not given absolute sovereignty over their land. They were tenants on God's land. There were conditions to which they were subjected. Man had authority over the land, but God retained sovereignty.
Today, we call it "eminent domain." The government claims eminent domain over your land so that if it wants to build a highway, it can come in and condemn your land. Basically, they come in and buy it. You are subject to them, and you do not have a whole lot of choice in the matter. Ultimately the government claims eminent domain over your land.
In the same way God claims eminent domain over your land as well. This is based upon the fact that He created all things. We own what we create, and the labor we put into any project is the basis of our ownership. Even so, God owns all of the earth because He created all of the earth. It is very simple. His ownership is based upon the fact that God put His labor into creating all things. Sovereignty is based upon ownership. Authority is a lesser form of sovereignty that is limited by the power that is above it.
So when Israel was given land as their inheritance, they were given only limited authority over that land. They were not given sovereignty. God retained sovereignty; man was given limited authority. Everyone needs to know that distinction. Authority is always limited by the will of the one who is sovereign.
It is Not a Question of Free Will:
It is a Question of Ownership
God created man out of the dust of the ground. If God owns all the land by right of creation, and we are made of the dust of the ground, God owns you and God owns me. It is not a question of whether or not you have a free will; it is a question of who owns you. By right of creation, can anyone deny that God owns the dust of the ground? Did God form man from this very dust? Does anybody deny that God created all things? If God created all things, then He owns all things, and there is where we find the crux of the whole matter.
We can argue all day long, back and forth, about whether or not man has free will. That debate makes for good mental gymnastics, but the whole issue is really beside the point. The point is, who owns all things?
Why do we say that?
Turn to Exodus 21.When you begin to look at the laws of liability, then ownership becomes very, very important. Remember, we are asking ourselves this basic question: Who is liable for the evil that is done in the earth? The church has developed the idea of free will in order to explain evil and remove the liability from God's shoulders. They do not want God to be responsible for anything bad that is happening, and to do this they put the responsibility upon man and the devil. Is that not the basic motive? If that is the basic motive, then free will teaching does not solve the problem that it was intended to resolve.
Who created the devil? Who created man? God did not have to create the devil, nor was He compelled by external force or coercion to create man. But because He did so, He owns and is responsible for that which He has created. If either man or devils have done evil, the owner is legally liable, regardless of their "free will."
God's Liability Laws Based upon Ownership
To prove this liability, let us look at some of the laws of ownership:
Exodus 21:33-34
33 And if a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein; 34 the owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his.
The liability here is based upon ownership. If a man digs a pit and does not take the necessary steps to cover it and an ox comes along and falls in by his own free will or by his own stupidity, guess who is liable according to God's law? This is the law that sets the standard of liability. It is the owner of the pit who is liable, and he must then buy the dead ox for himself. The owner has to pay for it as though it were a live ox, and the dead ox is his.
Back in the Garden of Eden, God dug a "pit." He did not cover it up, and man fell. Why did man fall? Why did he die? He died because God planted a couple of "trees" in this garden and gave man the "free will" to make the decision, fully aware what decision Adam would make. Yet God did not cover the pit to prevent Adam's fall. He did not take the precaution in this case. He did not build a ten-foot fence around that tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Man fell because God did not take the proper precautions that would have been necessary to prevent man from sinning.
Could God have prevented man from sinning? Of course He could have. He did not have to plant the tree in the first place, or if He did, He did not have to omit the fence. Even then, He did not have to create a tempter and allow him entrance into the garden. Did the tempter come in without God's knowledge? Did God turn off the security alarms and somehow the devil entered the garden without God's knowledge? Did God say "oops!"? Is God really that ignorant?
The fact is that God knew the end from the beginning. He was not taken by surprise. He dug that pit and left it uncovered because He had a plan, and the plan called for man to fall. And so he did. By God's own liability laws, then, He is responsible. So what did God do about it? He sent His only begotten Son who was lifted up on the cross in order to drag all men to Himself. He paid for the sin of the whole world because all of creation became subject to death through Adam's fall. He bought the dead ox. The ox is now His.
Do you realize what this means? He bought all who fell, and they are now His. Has anyone escaped falling? At the present time it may not look like all mankind is His, but the fact is that God created them and therefore, by His own liability laws, He purchased the world. In doing so, He fulfilled the law perfectly. This is the Good News of the New Testament. His blood was sufficient and worth enough to pay for the sin of the whole world.
1 John 2:2
2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Let us take a closer look at the law regarding the ox in the pit. It is obvious that under normal circumstances, the ox simply did not see the pit or got too close to it. At any rate, the ox fell into the pit by his own free will or by his own blindness or stupidity. In such cases, the law clearly says, the one who dug the pit (its "owner") would be liable to pay for the ox.
But suppose I had pushed the neighbor's ox into this pit. Would that make any legal difference? Well, it does not say anything about that, because that point is legally irrelevant. If he pushed the ox into the pit, he may perhaps owe the owner five oxen (Ex. 22:1). But even if it were totally accidental, the owner of the pit is liable because he owns the pit. Either way, the owner of the pit is liable. The issue is not whether the ox fell by his own free will or if someone (like the devil) nudged him into it. The question remains the same: who owns the pit? It is not a question of the ox's free will; it is a question of ownership.
Let us look at another liability law that came from the mind of God:
Deuteronomy 22:8
8 When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.
According to this law, all you have to do to be liable is fail to build a railing on the roof of the house. In those days the people built houses with flat roofs, because they liked to fellowship in the cool of the evenings on the top of the house. Because of this, God required them to put a railing ("battlement") around the roof, so that people would not accidentally fall. If there were no railing, and if someone were to fall off the roof, who is liable?
If a man pushed his neighbor off the roof, of course, he would be held liable for murder. But our issue is not whether he fell by accident or if someone pushed him deliberately. There is liability either way, and the only difference would be the degree of liability. Our issue is whether or not the man could have prevented the death of his neighbor by building a railing around the roof of the house. The fact is that if you own the house, you are responsible for putting those safety precautions into place. If you do not do so, "it was an accident" does not remove all liability from your door.
God's house is the whole heavens and the earth. His abode is in the heavens now, but He is making His home in the earth, and that is why He is coming - to make His home here. The problem is that when He built this house, man fell off the "roof." Who is liable? We agree that God did not PUSH Adam off the "roof." One cannot blame God for murder. Yet we cannot simply blame the devil in order to remove all liability from God. We cannot merely claim that man was careless and fell off by his own free will. To say it was totally man's fault is not a lawful answer. Ownership of the house makes God liable by His own liability laws.
There is another liability law that should help us understand this issue.
Exodus 22:5
5 If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man's field; of the best of his own field, and of the best of his own vineyard, shall he make restitution.
What happens if an ox tears down a fence by his own free will, plods into another field, and eats his neighbor's grass? Who is liable to pay for the grass? The owner of the ox, of course. The law is clear.
Suppose the owner of the ox opens the fence, pushes the ox into the neighbor's field, and pushes the ox's nose to the ground, saying, "Now you eat this grass, or I will beat you to death." The ox is forced to eat the grass and has no free will in the matter. Who is liable? The owner of the ox. The only difference in penalty is that if the offense is deliberate, he would have to pay at least double restitution. If the ox committed the offense by his own "free will," the owner has reduced liability. But he is still liable either way. To insist upon putting the entire blame upon the ox does not solve the problem of ownership. Whether that ox got in there by his own free will or whether the ox was pushed to go in against his free will, does not free the owner of liability itself. Ownership itself brings liability.
The theologian's insistence upon man having a free will may reduce the problem of God's liability, but it can never eliminate it altogether. This reminds us of the theory of evolution. The evolutionists insist that life came into existence by random particles coming together in the ocean at the same time. Yet they can never answer the question of how matter came to exist in the first place.
Likewise, the ancient Greeks attempted to reduce God's liability for creating "evil" physical things by postulating a lesser evil god who created evil matter. They called him the Demiurge (sort of a "devil" figure). But this did not solve their problem either, for they could never figure out how a good God could create the evil Demiurge! By making the Demiurge to be the creator of evil matter, they only succeeded in reducing God's liability and hoping no one would notice that it was still there.
Ownership is the only relevant, legal issue. Can you see that? That is why the question of free will really does not enter into the problem because putting free will upon man or the devil does not absolve God of liability according to His own law. It does not make any difference from a liability standpoint. Look at Exodus 22:6,
Exodus 22:6
6 If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.
What if I light a fire and deliberately do so in order to burn another man's field of grain, what is the penalty? Obviously, I may have to pay double restitution for the field, because I stole his grain and burned it. But what if I accidentally burned the neighbor's crop? Does this absolve me of liability? Absolutely not. If I lit the fire, I own the fire. It all boils down once again to a question of ownership. The liability laws show that free will does not even enter the picture in God's court of law.
That is why I say that free will is a side issue for philosophers to debate. From a legal standpoint dealing with liability, declaring man's "free will" does not do what they say it is supposed to do. The idea of free will was developed primarily to absolve God of liability for man and his actions. It is inadequate to the task. It does not do what it is intended to do. The only real issue is this: Did God create man, and could He have created man in such a way that would prevent him from falling into sin? The answer is "yes" on both counts. This makes God liable by His own concept of liability, as stated in the divine law.
So free will is not the central issue, ownership is. All through the law, and the New Testament as well, God claims ownership of all that He has created. On that basis God takes responsibility for all that He owns. He wrote the laws on liability, so that we would have the revelation to understand that He legally obligated Himself to purchase the whole world. That is why He paid for the sins of the whole world and not just for the sins of two percent of humanity. The Bible never, never says that He only paid for the sins of a few. He paid for the sin of the whole world, and when He did so, He absolved and justified Himself as Creator and Owner of the Universe.
Conclusion
God has created this whole situation, and for whatever reason, it was His will to create vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor. We may not understand this, and if we do not understand, then, as Paul says in Romans 9:20, we are not to question God. Shall the clay say to the potter, why have you made me thus? That is enough of an explanation for those who cannot understand these in-depth things. But ultimately, as we come to know the mind of God, we ought to begin to understand why He created man the way He did - and why evil was allowed to invade the earth.
We do know that all things are going to work out for good - and that the sufferings of this present age are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to come (Rom. 8:18). That we know. I do not have an explanation for each piece of evil in the earth. I do not understand it all, but I do know one thing. My faith is in God. I know that He created. I know that He is sovereign. And I know that He will work it out for good. It may not be much of a solution today as people are going through problems and going through the horrendous things in their lives. But I know that on the last day we will look back on all that has happened and we all will be able to say that God is justified in all that He has done. That much I know, and that is a matter of faith.
I have faith that God knows what He is doing, and I have faith that God is a good God. Every injustice that is in the world, He will rectify. He will make it good. He will turn it into a good thing. How He will accomplish this, I do not know, but that is where my faith lies. I believe in a sovereign God who knows what He is doing. He has not relinquished any control over the creation, even though He has indeed given man authority. We have authority over our land, but we do not have sovereignty. Our authority is limited. As we have shown before in the land laws, there is always to be a redemption allowed for the land. But even if redemption does not take place in the time of redemption, all will be set free in the year of Jubilee (Lev. 25:54). That is a law that God has established, and no man can thwart that ultimately.
Writings and Sermons of Stephen E Jones 