Recently while answering questions in my Latin class about God's sovereignty, I related to my students that I firmly believe that God does foreknow, predestine, and foreordains whatever he wills to occur. I also believe that humans must have some sort of will in general so that we are held responsible for our own sin, although I am unsure how free it is. I think these concepts tend to frighten believers into thinking that if God predestines some to salvation, then humanity functions more like a puppet on a string with a puppetmaster pulling the strings. This does not sound like a real relationship, or so we would think. The question I posed to my students was how do we define our freedom biblically? Speaking directly about freedom, Paul says in Galatians 5:13 "For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another." This is one of many verses in the Bible that speak of our freedom to function as slaves of righteousness by serving God and others. Peter himself defines biblical freedom perfectly when he says "Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, do use it as bondslaves of God." (1 Peter 2:16) Real freedom in Christ is not our ability to do whatever we want, it is our freedom to serve our creator in whatever way he deems best. If this is how we should define freedom, which is very unlike the rampant individualistic understanding of our era, then issues such as predestination can be seen from a different perspective. Instead of saying that reformed theology makes us appear to be puppets, we must recognize that the Bible teaches us that our freedom, our true being, is found in an absolute slavery to the will of a holy, righteous, infinite, and loving God. Freedom and slavery, at least in the mind of God, do not have to contradict. Our chains help us to acknowledge that we have never been in control and never will be. We exist to serve our master, and have been granted the most fulfilling freedom there is; not a freedom to serve the kingdoms of our own hearts, but to serve the kingdom of God.
