Free will extends from the infinite love which God has for all His creations, including human beings: When you love someone, you set them free!
Mankind is the body of Christ (Romans 8:19-21 KJV), whom the Son of Man, God’s Son, Jesus Christ, placed on the earth for the devil to search, for the evidence (Revelation 12:4-6,13-17), the devil claimed he could provide from them (Job 1-8); (Revelation 12:10); etc., to convince God to overturn his conviction for wickedness, and rescind the punishment he had received for it.
Love dictates freedom. And freedom means “free from domination.” Where there is love, everyone lives righteously and gives of themselves, to ensure that everyone else has enough to live on.
But when someone decides to take more than their own fair share, and leave others with nothing, thereby using the freedom from God to do hurtful things to others, that becomes wickedness, and calls for law. And law is meaningless without law enforcement.
Law aims to contain disorder, but law never creates order! Only love produces order. (Galatians 3:19-25)
Why does God risk people walking off with their freedom and doing wicked things that destroy the love He intends for all when God’s infinite knowledge tells Him that such possibility exists?
Because wisdom shows that only love can achieve perfect harmony and peace.
Although the wicked often exploits the freedom that comes with love for selfish gains, authority (which fosters love by freeing love from domination) effectively and efficiently deals with all evil exploitations of freedom:
““I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. 24 No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.” (1 Corinthians 10:23-24 NIV)
And freewill makes love a choice also. Life is more meaningful when someone decides to stay with love—when they have the freedom to do whatever else brings them the most gain but decides against that and remain with love. That is what makes love a sacrifice!
When you love, you are giving up what provides you with the most personal benefits, so you can do what is right and just:
1 John 3:7 NIV — “Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.”
Is sacrificing for one another not exactly what we all want in our own households: our children making sacrifices for one another; and we and our respective spouses making sacrifices for each other as well as for our children?
Jesus Christ’s first sacrifice was separating from His body (Revelation 12:4-5)—his body being humankind of Genesis 1:27 and Romans 8:19-21 KJV—which was the church in the beginning (Genesis 2:8-9). Jesus made this sacrifice to give an evil man (Satan) the chance he sought (Revelation 12:10) to receive justice, after God had granted Satan that opportunity (Job 1:8,12):
“… 8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? … 12 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.” (Job 1:6-12 NIV)
We were all made and given special protection in Jesus Christ, to limit how far Satan can go in roughing us up in this search (Job 1:12); and were each guaranteed safety in Christ (1 Corinthians 10:13), and commanded to stand our ground against anything outside of what Satan has received permission from the Supreme Judge (God) to do with us (Ephesians 6:13).
Here is 1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV — “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
God punished Satan for wickedness, because Satan’s wickedness would, and did in Genesis 3:1,4-5, made law and law enforcement necessary in the human life — Genesis 3:16 NIV — “To the woman he said, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Law does not make human beings to stop doing evil. Instead, law incentivized human beings to look for loopholes in the law to exploit, thereby bringing exceeding anger to God who gave the law:
“For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, 15 because the law brings wrath.” (Romans 4:14-15 NIV)
Law and law enforcement lead to subjugation through the abuse of power, and ultimately to slavery in which superiors completely strip the subordinates of all rights.
That is what Satan brought into the equation of life, which God had designed and commissioned to work entirely on everyone sacrificing for everyone else.
Love dictates freedom, but freedom easily becomes a burden to love, because freedom challenges the authority that warranted love in the first place: Love is necessary anywhere there is authority because authority without love leads to subjugation and deprivation.
Human government has no capacity for love because of the politics that controls human governments. Yet government must allow freedom to its citizens to be fair and just. Many people in society invent clever ways to go around the laws, making law enforcement the only avenue through which human governments can bring their citizens into compliance. But enforcement can easily take the form of sheer brutality if the enforcer considers themselves above the law. We see this in governments around the world.
Through God’s infinite wisdom, God gave free will to all beings (human and spiritual). Therefore, freedom to choose automatically means accepting the responsibility to live with whatever consequences that result from one’s exercise of their free will. Free will is not a free hand-out. Free will alerts one to boundaries they should not cross and helps them learn to act more appropriately.
In the hands of the human authorities, not being discovered is all it takes to avoid the punishment for choosing wrongly. But in the hands of the God of the earth and the universe, there is no escape whatsoever from anyone’s misuse of their free will.
God is beyond nature! And God remains in all of nature for everything in nature to exist in the first place. God’s presence in nature, also imparts life to all nature that has life, for example, the human beings.
Without this basic knowledge of God and His continued presence in all of nature, for everything in nature to remain what He created them to be, a human being can never gain full understanding of the truths of life.
Grace is the substance of being, of energies, of intelligence and of life. Grace is the essence of creation (Hebrews 11:3). Without Grace, nothing would have been created that is created (Psalm 104:30). Grace is the God-particle—the finest and most potent particle there is. See the diagram below.
Figure 1: Grace is the substance of being, of energies, of intelligence and of life.
And every part of God represents all of God. Therefore, Grace is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit! And all power and authority belong to Grace, hence the following conclusion:
God is the sum of all the energies that exists everywhere on the earth and in the universe; visible and invisible, known and unknowns; enthalpies and entropies! God is, indeed, both omnipotent and omniscient; and in all things, He has supremacy (Colossians 1:18).
The Bible says that mankind disobeyed God and pursued its own righteousness because mankind does not know the righteousness of God. Here is that passage from the Bible:
“Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4 Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:3-4).
{Author’s Note: Adam and Eve clearly did “not know the righteousness of God,” so Eve “sought to establish” her “own” (Genesis 3:6).}
“Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: “The person who does these things will live by them.”But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,”that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: 9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” (Romans 10:5-10)
{Author’s Note: If you believe that saying strongly that you trust God and His Christ reflects the strength of your faith in God and His Christ, you really do not know yourself:
How many times have you refused to own up to something you did that you were going to get into trouble for? Our minds are experts at convincing us of things that are not so, because that is what we desire at that moment. You can only measure your faith in God and His Christ by your painstaking compliance to the commands of God in the Bible (John 15:10,14); etc.}
God’s command to Adam and Eve not to eat off the tree of good and evil, was not a law to them but a fatherly warning, which was necessitated by God’s granting of justice to Satan: to freely search human beings for the evidence he claimed he could produce from them to convince God to overturn his conviction by God for wickedness.
Law is never necessary wherever love abounds! Law is only necessary in a family when there is sin. And there were no sins in the human family until Eve ventured away from God’s righteous commands to them (Genesis 3:6).
That is why Genesis 2:25 tells us that Adam and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed of their nakedness because they were still innocent. But as soon as they sinned, they became ashamed of their nakedness and hastily covered it up, because they lost their innocence by sinning.
God never wanted Adam and Eve to live by the law, but rather, by faith in God and in God’s every word.
People obey the law not necessarily because they care about the law or the authority that instituted the law, but simply because they do not want to get into trouble and lose their freedom and comfort. In other words, obedience of the law is not necessarily a mark of love.
Love is the ingredient that will allow human beings to live in peace and harmony, without taking advantage of one another or exploiting and oppressing one another. In our current world, obedience of the law is a mark of civility.
Replacing love with civility in the human societies is a scheme of the devil, and of the beast that is politics, through politics’ world systems (Revelation 13:1-18)!
Replacing love with civility is what got the Europeans promoting and advancing politics over religion and the word of God; further preventing the world citizens from working out their respective salvations with fear and trembling, as commanded all human beings — Philippians 2:12-13 NIV — “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”
Evil was in the world before the humans came into the world because the devil was already here, thus the darkness that enveloped the earth and the water of creation in Genesis 1:2.
Keeping Adam and Eve from the knowledge of good and evil, means keeping mankind away from the devil and the evil he brought into the world with him when he was forced out of heaven with the fallen angels (Revelation 12:7-9).
Temptation is evil, and evil is inert to the love. That is the reason why throughout the time human beings acted in love, evil had no effect whatsoever on them.
But the moment they made themselves susceptible to temptation (Genesis 3:6), temptation pushed them into sin, which is the curse that adversely affects the body, the mind and every other creation of God on the earth (Genesis 3:17).
Sin was in the world, not only before the law was given, but also before human beings were created, which prompted God’s warning to Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:17), to stay away from the devil.
The question we must all ask, to fully understand why the human life has been full of troubles from God’s creation of Adam and Eve is: Why was it necessary for God to make human beings, so we can be searched by the devil, for God to demonstrate that His conviction of the devil is just?
And the answer to that question is as follow:
Before Satan’s wickedness brought sin into life’s equation in heaven, the angels of God had not seen death. They never even knew that something like death existed, which is the reason why God called death a “foreigner” in Ezekiel 28:6-8 NIV.
The permanence of death’s drastic effect on life was astonishing, that the angels wondered what was happening and where all of that came from:
“‘You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper,lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared.
14 You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. 15 You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.
16 Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones.
17 Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings.
18 By your many sins and dishonest trade you have desecrated your sanctuaries. So I made a fire come out from you, and it consumed you, and I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the sight of all who were watching.
19 All the nations who knew you are appalled at you; you have come to a horrible end and will be no more.’” (Ezekiel 28:12-19 NIV)
So, God, who knows everything and the thoughts of every heart, decided to answer all of that to the angels (the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, Ephesians 3:10 NIV), as well as to all human beings (the church, Ephesians 3:10 NIV), who were to come in the process of God giving those answers to the angels (Ephesians 3:10); (1 Peter 1:10-12).
Here is 1 Peter 1:10-12 NIV: “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.”
And Jesus Christ, who always does the Father’s will, chose to use Himself — “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord,” John 10:18 — to show the angels in Ephesians 3:9-11, why the devil deserves the punishment he had received for his wickedness: Christ separated from His body, the church, which consists of all human beings that were created in Christ for “good works” before time began (Ephesians 2:10), to show the angels that life is all about sacrifice and not about greed, competition, and extortion, as Satan had been carrying on in heaven (Ezekiel 28:16), as Lucifer!
Here is Jesus Christ explaining that He choose to sacrifice for all out of His own heart, to please the God the Father:
“Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.[a] They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (John 10:7-18 NIV)
Life being all about sacrifice, is the mystery of God that had been hidden in God through all ages, which God had accomplished in His Son, Jesus Christ; that God, upon Lucifer’s demise in the water of creation in God’s mighty hand, wanted the angels of heaven to watch unfold in Christ, whose body is all sacrifice—the church(Ephesians 3:9-11).
Yes. Church is nothing other than service and sacrifice to others (Matthew 23:1-39)—same as Christ, the Son of Man, from whom the church separated to demonstrate life as service and sacrifice to others, to “the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to [God’s] eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:10-11 NIV)
Christ’s demonstration to the angels of heaven that life is all about sacrifice, started with Christ separating from His body in Revelation 12:4-5, as a sacrifice for others. He, then, resumed His throne beside God in heaven, and left His body on the earth (Revelation 12:6,13-17) to provide justice to Satan, by allowing Satan to go through all of Christ’s children whom God had created in Christ’s body before time began (Ephesians 2:10).
Christ did this to prove to the angels that life is truly about everyone sacrificing for everyone else, which makes God’s wisdom impeccable!
Christ’s separation from His body to reunite later with the body (Revelation 19:7) after Satan is done with his search (Revelation 12:17), was Christ’s sacrifice, before time began, to accommodate the desire of the wicked (Satan and the fallen angels) for justice. Christ’s provision for justice to the wicked includes human beings of all human generations who, through their victimization of other human beings, were convicted by God of wickedness to their brothers and sisters on the earth.
The point in God’s acceptance to hear the devil’s appeal for his conviction by God—which the Bible describes as Satan’s non-stop accusation of everyone, Revelation 12:10—was to satisfactorily show God’s loyal angels the egregiousness of what Satan had brought into God’s kingdom of heaven, which is “all light and no darkness” (1 John 1:5).
Hebrews 5:8 said that from what Jesus Christ suffered as a human being on the earth, he learned obedience, even though He was the Son of God.
Hebrews 5:8 is the Bible’s confirmation, that Jesus Christ, whose divinity was one with God (John 10:30), kept His 100% divinity from adding any special advantages to His 100% humanity while He was a human being on the earth, so He could feel the torment of everything the devil brings into the lives of human beings on the earth the way every human being the devil victimizes feels it—so He can judge each human being justly and compassionately:
“Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.
24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” (John 5:19-30)!
Living His earthly life as described in Hebrews 5:8, was Jesus Christ “through the church,” making known “the manifold wisdom of God” to “the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to [God’s] eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:9-11 NIV). That was the same exact way all human beings of all human generations were designed by God, to, through the lives they each live, demonstrate God’s manifold wisdom for all to see and glorify God (Matthew 5:13-16).
Living and moving and having our being in Christ (Acts 17:28) makes Jesus Christ feel the pain from everything every human being on the earth suffers in the hand of the devil—just as every one of us feels whatever pain our respective bodies feel!
The “Son of Man,” therefore, knows your life; your joys and your sorrows and regrets. That is the reason why He gives you all the encouragement He gives to you in the Bible—like these:
“Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?
27 “Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! 29 And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. 30 For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
35 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. 37 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.
38 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. 39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” (Luke 12:13-40 NIV)
And here is Apostle Paul telling us that we were all covered if we trust God and go through life as God had commanded us:
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.
15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
20 The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 5:12-21)
It now becomes obvious that Roman 11:32 comes from God’s granting of justice to the devil (Job 1:8), which gives the devil permission to search all human beings as the devil had requested (Revelation 12:10) in his non-stop accusation of human beings:
Roman 11:32 says: “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” (Romans 11:32 NIV)
What the Bible is saying in Roman 11:32, is that God had, at birth into the world, committed all human beings to be searched by the devil, for the evidence the devil seeks in his bid to receive clemency from God, for God’s conviction of the devil for wickedness.
Unbeknown to the devil is the fact that anyone who asks for mercy, must show mercy to others, which the devil is not doing to the human beings whose lives he is making a living nightmare!
However, it is this commitment to justice by God, that every human being born into the world be searched by the devil, that automatically mandates God to show His mercy to every human being, for being unfairly targeted by the devil, even before they were, each, brought into the world (Revelation 12:1-17).
Essentially, every human baby that is born into the world, is born to be searched by the devil throughout their natural life here on the planet earth, to give the devil a chance to prove his accusation of all human beings, of corruption (Revelation 12:10).
And being searched by a person whose only intent in searching you, is to provoke you into sin, is no ordinary search. That is why roughing you up in his search of you, is an additional sin on the devil on every occasion, because his permission from God was not to provoke you to sin, but to search you and expose your intent to sin, which he had alleged — Genesis 3:11 NIV — “Who told you that you were naked?”
And because the baby has done nothing to deserve such brutality, but was subjected to it simply because the devil wants what he wants, it becomes imperative that God forgives the human being that the baby grows into, as long as the person repents of the wicked things the devil made them do to get his so-called evidence; and begin to seek God’s righteousness:
“Therefore, you Israelites, I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. 31 Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel? 32 For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!” (Ezekiel 18:30-32 NIV)
So, Romans 11:32 is not saying that God committed all human beings to doing evil, so he can have mercy on them.
Not even human parents stoop that low: God is eternally holy (Luke 18:19) and averse to wrongdoings (1 John 5:17), which is the reason why God chose love and willing submission that unifies, over law that brings wrath (Romans 4:15). That is also why He chose mercy that corrects and reinstates, over law enforcement that brutalizes and hardens the wrongdoer (Hosea 6:6).