Highways, Byways and Hedges

God’s Sovereignty, Predestination and Human Free Will, Part 3

Does our free will carry the same weight as God's sovereign will?

In the last two blog posts, we briefly looked at the topics of God’s sovereignty, our predestination (what it is and is not, from a biblical perspective) and now it’s time to focus on the final part of this trilogy: human free will.

Have you ever wondered that if God is sovereign (He is) and He knows everything we’ll ever say, think or do (He does), then do I really have a free will? Yes, my friend, you do. We all do. Simply put, free will is the ability to choose from among the options that Sovereign God gives us. We don’t get to create our choices but we get to select from among those He created for us. And this is where some seem to get tripped up, confusing or conflating sovereignty with free will. Once a person wraps their mind around the distinction between the two, understanding each of them becomes a straightforward process.

For whatever reason, the Lord has given humanity (and even the angels) free will, choice. Chief among them is trusting and obeying Him. Starting with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, He gave them the choice to trust Him and do what He said (refrain from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Gen 2:17) or not. Did the Lord already know before He created everything that Adam and Eve would rebel and sin against Him by eating from the one single tree they were told not to, being fully aware of the consequences? Of course He did. Yet Adonai still moved forward with His plan. For all the ‘why’ people out there, this can be a hard thing to wrap one’s mind around. As the Lord reminds us all, His ways are not our ways and His ways are higher than ours (Isa 55:8-9). We don’t need to figure it out but rather just trust Him and that He knows what He’s doing.

What impact does predestination have on our free will? Based on what I’ve seen in scripture, and in my opinion, it has absolutely none. God knows our beginning from our end, the choices we’ll make and the resulting consequences, before He even creates us. This knowledge is because He’s omniscient and not because of anything to do with us. God’s sovereignty, on the other hand, always outranks or overrules human free will. Always. Only one who is sovereign has the authority to determine what choices their subjects or subordinates will have. And make no mistake, we are all subjects and subordinates of the Lord, whether we know it or not.

Balaam is a very good example of how human will is subordinate to God’s sovereignty and will. The condensed version of this story is that Balaam was hired by Balak, an enemy king of Israel, to curse Israel as they were making their way to the promised land (see Numbers 22 – 24 for all the details).

Did Balaam want to do what he was paid to do, which was curse Israel? I believe so.

Was it the Lord’s will that Balaam speak curses over Israel? No.

Was Balaam successful in speaking curses over Israel, as Balak wanted? No. Not even close.

Balaam spoke blessings over Israel, just as the Lord willed, and did so three times. Neither the will of Balaam or Balak overruled God’s will, and thereby His sovereignty. What those two men failed to realize is that they didn’t have the option from the Lord to curse Israel, therefore it wasn’t something they could choose. They could want to curse Israel until the cows came home and those wants, those desires would only amount to wasted energy and sinning against God. What would’ve happened to Moab and King Balak if he’d asked the Lord what he could do to bless Israel on their way to the promised land instead of be their enemy? What opportunities did Moab and Balak miss because of their hatred for a people who’d never wronged them? What opportunities do we miss when we sin against God? Is it possible that sinning against Him can result in the Lord withdrawing choices from us, removing opportunities? Hmm...

Let’s go back to Adam and Eve for a moment. Prior to their rebellion, they lived in the garden of Eden and had opportunity to eat from the tree of life. When they believed Satan’s lie and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God removed them from the garden, removing the opportunity, the ability, the choice, to eat from the tree of life. Sin has consequences, always. ALWAYS. They may not be immediately seen or felt but there’s no avoiding said consequences. Add to that, nowhere in scripture do we see the Lord promise that we have a right to informed consent in matters of obedience to Him, that we are owed an understanding of all the choices that are available to us from Him, and a detailed list of consequences for those choices. Throughout the bible, the expectation that I see from Him to us is that one should do as He says, based on Who He is, His character and that He alone is God.

To wrap this up and put a bow on it, our free will involves choices that lead to other choices, which can add great opportunities, blessings, etc. to our life or they can lead to the removal of them. We have no promise or guarantee that we’ll always know the full impact of our choices prior to making them. Perhaps that’s because our criteria for making a decision should start with “Lord, what would you have me do?”, then trusting the Lord enough to do what He says.

April 4, 2026