KINGDOM - OLOGY 23

The central issue of contingency in relation to the Mediatorial Kingdom

            Inasmuch as Adam was made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26-27), it follows that he possessed the quality of freedom of the will. God is absolutely free (Psa. 51:12). All His actions are determined by His own will and nature, and not by anything outside of Himself. Creation was an action determined by His own free will (Rev. 4:11). His actions in the heavens and among the sons of men were determined solely on the basis of His own will (Dan. 4:35). In fact, He works all things after the counsel of His own will (Eph. 1:11). In this respect, as well as in many others, man was made in the image and likeness of God. But this moral freedom of man is not absolute. Somewhere within the circle of God's will it operates. This quality possessed by man is one of the marks of personality that distinguishes him from an animal. We are not apes that finally stood upright. An animal is unable to rise above its environment. But man has demonstrated through millenniums of time that he is able, within limits, to live above his environment. At his creation he was given the full range of activity to exercise freedom of will. Though one restriction was placed upon him, his response to it was to be voluntary. Even after the fall the same free and voluntary moral action on the part of man was expected. God continues to declare His will to men, but He does not compel obedience.

            There can be no alternative to this fact of free moral agency without reducing man to the level of automation or robot. If man is not free, then all morality is a mirage, a sham and a pretense. Such things as honor and reward are desperate delusions perpetrated on mankind. And punishment of any kind the loss of honor or reward are vicious inventions imposed upon men, and they become the victims of a predetermined scheme, an inexorable fatalism. In the absence of freedom, meaning is swept from the scenes of life along with morality, and men are plunged into the awful throes of hopelessness and despair. This would lead to the conclusion that nothing matters and the answering response on the part of men would be to throw caution and restraint to the winds. Atheism mimic this train of thought and they have NO hope..

            But there is risk involved in the creation of free will. And God was willing to take that risk in order that He might accomplish the twofold purpose of revelation and redemption. As Andrew puts the matter: “To man unfallen and obedient God could have revealed Himself in ever enlarging measure. The history of a holy people would be one of progressive revelation, for each new expression of His will meets with ready and willing obedience. The more they know of God, and the closer their communion with Him, the more do they grow into His likeness, and His will becomes the law of their life. But to men fallen and sinful, God must come as their Redeemer, delivering them from the law of sin and death, working righteousness within them, and restoring in them His lost likeness, ere He can manifest Himself to them in His glory."

            In the application of redemption, man is lifted to even a higher level than he possessed at creation, and eventually there will be reflected in him the light of the knowledge of the glory of God that shines in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). The saved man will work out his salvation because it is God that works in him both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Phil. 2:12-13). But this does not mean that there is not a mystery concerning the human will.

             However, the exercise of free will is an amazing privilege granted to mankind, and men use that privilege. That is the reason Tennyson wrote:

Our wills are ours, we know not how,
Our wills are ours to make them thine.