WHAT DO YOU MEAN, “YOU WILL BE MADE FREE?”

Virgil Thompson

At a point in John’s Gospel, Jesus promises “to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word . . . You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.’” To which the people protest, “What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free? We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone’” (8:31-33, NRSV translation altered). The irony, of course, is that despite their adamant denial, the people of Israel had been slaves in Egypt. This brief exchange between Jesus and the believers of John’s Gospel begs the question addressed in this essay. Do humans have free will or not?

Throughout history, among believers and unbelievers alike, human freedom appears to be all but taken for granted. It is no less true today. The modern imagination clings to, cherishes, and fights for the presumption of human freedom as fiercely as ever. In fact, one might say that the presumption of human freedom qualifies as the ecumenical dogma that unites all persuasions of faith and unfaith alike Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, Islam, Atheism, and Agnosticism. If, however, the Bible has anything to say about it, then what humans regard as their freedom, God regards as their bondage. If Jesus speaks for God, as he does here in John’s story, then there’s no escaping it. In fact, this is the consistent message the whole Bible through, from Genesis to Revelation. Humans, as Jesus presumes, are in fact “unfree.” His promise is to make us free. My purpose in this essay is twofold. As a reader, I will report the sense in which humans, according to the biblical story, are unfree in relation to self, neighbor, and God. As a believer in Christ’s promise, I seek to declare the truth of God’s word that makes us free. The arc of the essay is taken from Gerhard Forde’s The Captivation of the Will: Luther vs. Erasmus on Freedom and Bondage. “If you start from freedom; you will end in bondage. If you start from bondage, you are more likely to end in freedom.”1 In that sense the arc of the essay travels the path of the biblical narrative itself.

If, however, the Bible has anything to say about it, then it appears that what humans regard as their freedom, God regards as their bondage.

The Scope of the Question

We begin by defining the scope of the question that we are dealing with in the essay. With respect to human freedom, the biblical witness draws a distinction between the things above and the things below. In the biblical view, humans are not free with respect to the things above. Namely, humans are not free in relation to God. What else belongs to the things above is perhaps a bit fuzzier to distinguish. I will come back to the matter further along in the essay. With respect to the things below, however, God has, according to the biblical story, granted humans freedom. Among the things below are choices related to work, family, friendship circles, and civic involvements; moral, political, and economic choices; personal preferences in diet, style, and pastimes; and so forth.

To clarify the Bible’s distinction between things above and below we turn to its stories of creation, of which there are several—not only in Genesis, but also in the Psalms and Prophets. Here the focus is on the first two stories as they appear in Genesis 1 and 2. Both stories speak in one accord on the question of human freedom with respect to the things below. In the first of the Genesis stories (1:1-2:4a) God grants to his human creatures the freedom to “Have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth and bring it under their control. I am putting you in charge of the fish, the birds, and all the wild animals . . . So God created human beings, making them to be like himself. He created them male and female” (Gen 1:2728 TEV2). In the second story (beginning at 2:4bff TEV), it is reported that God “took some clay from the ground and formed a man out of it; he breathed life-giving breath into his nostrils and the man began to live . . . God formed a woman out of the man’s rib, brought her to the man as a partner . . . God placed the couple in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and guard it . . . God took more clay from the ground and formed all the animals and all the birds. Then he brought them to the couple to see what they would name them; and that is how they all got their names” (Gen 2:19 TEV, translation altered).

Together, the stories attest that God has granted human freedom with respect to the things below. Humans are free to decide what to eat; how to dress; where to live; what to do to earn a living; who to have as friends; to live a moral life or an immoral life; to care for creation or to trash creation; how to order, or disorder, social, political, and economic life; to make war or to make peace. People are free to attend the church, synagogue, or mosque of their choice. “See, no strings!” People are even free to do stupid and self-destructive things. And they do so all the time. Of course, there are consequences to the way in which humans exercise or forsake their freedom in the things below. But that is a matter for another essay, another time.

Human Unfreedom in the Things Above

Human freedom in the things below is not unrelated to human unfreedom in the things above, as we will observe further on in the essay. But not to get ahead of ourselves, let us return to the central focus of the essay. We began with Jesus’ promise, “If you continue in my word . . . You will know the truth and the truth will make you free,” to which the people, contrary to the historical and biblical evidence, responded, “What do you mean by saying, ‘you will be made free’? We have never been slaves to anyone” (8:31-33 NRSV). The promise “to make humans free” presumes that they are unfree. This does not appear, however, to be an assumption that the people in the narrative share with Jesus. So, our question is: Are humans free or unfree? Who is correct about it, Jesus or humanity?

Human freedom in the things below is not unrelated to human unfreedom in the things above.

John’s story, consistent with the rest of the Christian scriptures, argues that there is no choice in the matter. John’s narrative and all the biblical stories tell the story of God and humanity to bring the reader, through the power of Jesus’s death and resurrection, to the same mind on the matter. In that interest, the first point is to observe that the biblical evidence is absolutely and indisputably overwhelming on God’s freedom to do as God sees fit with his own creation.

Let me draw attention to a few of the more famous instances that drive the point home. There’s the elderly couple, Abraham, ninety-nine years old, and his wife, Sarah, ninety years old. At their advanced age they thought that the Lord’s promise of a child was hilariously ridiculous. But regardless of what they thought, God gave them no choice in the matter. “God dealt with Sarah as he had promised. She conceived and bore a son” (Gen 21:1-2). And just to draw a line under it, the child was named, Isaac, which means laughter, great belly-rolling laughter, as in guess who gets the last laugh when it comes to God’s freedom to do with his creation whatever he wills.

There was also Moses, dithering before God at the burning bush, tossing out every excuse in the book as to why he should not be the one sent to do God’s bidding in Egypt. But God wasn’t having any of it. Moses was given no choice in the matter. There is no escaping the truth. God had elected Moses to be the one to do his bidding in Egypt and Moses was compelled by God to do it. And then practically in the same biblical breath there was the mighty Pharoah, king of all Egypt, to whom Moses was sent to declare God’s will: “Let my people go!” Just so no one misunderstands who is God and who is not, who is free and who is not, God hardened the heart of Pharoah in opposition to God (Ex 4:21). So, when finally, the willful Pharoah is defeated and compelled to let God’s people go free, there can be no mistake about it. Not in the mind of Pharoah. Not in mind of the Israelites. And not in the mind of the readers. As God himself declares to his elect people, “I am the Lord, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my people, and I will be your God” (Ex 6:6-7a NRSV).

It is not an isolated chapter in the long history of God and his people. It is a summary of the entire history from Genesis to Revelation. Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Deborah, Samuel, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, they all get the same treatment from God. The story of faith is driven forward by the will of God. God elects to have his way, and God does have his way with the people of his creation. The only conclusion to be drawn is the conclusion drawn by the prophets of God. Jeremiah (18:5-6) and Isaiah (64:8) are driven, the hard way to confess, “God is the potter, we are the clay.” At some point readers of the biblical story are bound to recognize that a pattern emerges with respect to humans in relation to God.

Karl Barth

Karl Barth, one of the twentieth century’s theological giants, somewhere in his vast corpus of writings, put the matter in stark terms. Either God is free, or humans are free. It does not appear according to the Bible’s report of God’s acts in history that there is much doubt in God’s mind with respect to which one is free. The biblical record leaves no room for doubt in any one’s mind. It’s indisputable on the face of it. Readers believers and unbelievers alike can complain about it. Reject it. Attempt to weasel around it. Save some little bit of freedom for humanity. “But, but, but we need to decide, don’t we? We need to accept, don’t we?” Humans can and will protest the fairness of it. In fact, we are bound to protest. “If humans are not free in relation to God, it ruins everything. What’s the point? Who will be good?” God appears to be neither unaware of the protests nor much moved by them. When Job complains about the injustice of being swept up in the almighty ways of the willful God, God meets the complaint head on. Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? “Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you declare to me . . . Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements . . . who stretched the line upon it? . . . Will you condemn me that you may be justified? Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?” (Job 38:2-5; 40:6-9).

So it goes through the rest of the biblical story of God and his people. Act One concludes as it had begun. God is free; humans are not free in relation to God. Readers can protest it all they want but what does it change? Malachi, whose book brings the long saga of Act One to a close, reports God’s answer, “I the Lord do not change.” With that divine declaration, glory of glories, the promise of God as the saving God breaks through. God, give us ears to hear, eyes to see, hearts to believe. God continues to speak pure, unbound promise, “therefore you, O children of Jacob have not perished. Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statues and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’” (Mal 3:6-7). With that question Act Two of the biblical story begins.

Unfree, the Choice Humans are Bound to Make

The problem of not knowing the path by which to return to God is muddied by the fact that humans do not want to know the path to return to God as God. We will not have a God who determines all things. We will not have a God who chooses to exercise God’s freedom regardless of what we think about it. The reader of the Bible experiences this truth at many points in the story. For example, God declares, “Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated” (Mal 1:2). It is not that Jacob is deserving of God’s love and Esau undeserving. According to the story, it was simply a decision that God exercised apart from any worthiness or merit of the recipients at all. The apostle Paul draws a line under the promise of it as the pathway out of our bondage. Quoting the Lord’s declaration from Malachi, “Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated,” Paul faces the anticipated protest head on, “What are we to say? Is there injustice on God’s part?” He is quick to answer, “By no problem of not knowing the path by which to return to God is muddied by the fact that humans do not want to know the path to return to God as God. means! For God says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So,” Paul concludes, “it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy” (Rom 9:13-16). In other words, the path out of our captivity to self is not a path that humans travel to God. It is the path that God travels to us. God in Christ takes sinners, who will not have God as God, away from their captivity. That is the word, the truth, that makes us free.

The problem of not knowing the path by which to return to God is muddied by the fact that humans do not want to know the path to return to God as God.

The problem is that humans on this side of Genesis 3 do not have ears for the good news of it. In my experience of reading the Bible with others—believers and unbelievers alike, with members of the church and students in the university classroom—readers struggle to accept God’s resolve in its plain sense. Frequently the readers’ response is the old song and dance that Adam and Eve perfected in the garden. They seek to assert their freedom to choose at the expense of God’s freedom to save. The impulse is not isolated to just Genesis 3.

Think, for example, of how readers commonly respond to the vineyard owner in Jesus’ parable. The owner pays the vineyard laborers the same wage regardless of what time of day they were hired. Readers are incensed. The parable sets off a litany of resentment, incredulity, and grumbling among readers: “It isn’t fair! It makes no sense. Who would do any work if they all get the same at the end of the day?” The response of readers sounds very much like the grumbling of the parable’s laborers who had worked from the early hours: “These last worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat,” they complain (Matt 20:12). To which the landowner replies, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Matt 20:15).

Or think of this. At one point in Mark’s report of Jesus’ public ministry the disciples ask him why he teaches in parables. Jesus answers, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything comes in parables; in order that they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven” (4:11-12).

Clearly, according to the grammar of Jesus’ reply, he teaches in parables to prevent those outside from entering the inside community or the kingdom of God. Again, readers frequently have difficulty taking Jesus in the plain sense of his explanation. He teaches in parables to harden the hearts of those outside, lest they “turn again and be forgiven.” This is what readers will not have. They will not have a God who unilaterally does the choosing apart from any worthiness or merit of the elect at all. The human heart is set hard against it. In other words, the parable accomplishes exactly what Jesus has said about why he teaches in parables. Hearts are hardened in relation to God who insists upon doing what he wants with what belongs to him. But there’s the promise. Being convicted of our bondage—our hardness of heart, our desire to protect our freedom at all costs qualifies us to hear Christ’s promise that he will free us from our self-imposed captivity.

Being convicted of our bondage-our hardness of heart, our desire to protect our freedom at all costs-qualifies us to hear Christ’s promise that he will free us from our self-imposed captivity.

That’s the singular aim of the biblical story on every page. The disciples themselves, according to Mark’s story, suffer the same fate as typical reader. The longer Peter and the cohort of followers are with Jesus, the more uncomprehending of him and his ways they become. To illustrate: In the boat, after Jesus calms the storm and the panic of the disciples in the same breath, they can only ask, “Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (4:41 NRSV). On another occasion, when he comes walking toward them on the sea, they fail to recognize him. They can only imagine that he is a phantom, coming to do them harm. They are terrified. But Jesus does not, as he had intended, pass them by, leaving them stranded in the sea of their hardheartedness, rather he climbs into the boat with his uncomprehending, unbelieving, scared witless humanity. He takes them into his merciful heart. “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid” (6:50). The storm of wind and fear simultaneously calm, to their utter astonishment.

So the story of faith goes, bounding over rough and stormtossed seas of unbelief and fear, until finally, in exasperation, Jesus confronts human bondage once and for all, “Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? . . . Do you not yet understand?” (Mark 8:17b-18, 21 NRSV). Judging from what transpires in the remainder of the story the only answer can be that the disciples do not understand. To make matters even worse, they grow ever more fearful of even asking for explanations. Finally, despite their avowals to the contrary, they all forsake Jesus in his deepest hour of trial. One of them betrays him into the hands of his enemies. Peter denies ever having had any association whatsoever with Jesus. He confesses to the mob, “I do not know this man you are talking about” (14:71). But if Peter was aiming to free himself from the peril of being associated with, or believing in, the willful God in Christ, he fails miserably. He only succeeds in confessing his sin of biting the hand that promises to feed him.

That is the last the reader hears from Peter and the rest of Jesus’ disciples in the story. They have burned their bridges with their Lord and God. Jesus seals the judgment, “Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of Father” (Mark 8:38 NRSV). And then he overturns the judgment. He promises to forgive the unforgivable. He comes to them like a physician comes to the terminally ill, in the promise of life beyond death.

It is not that the disciples have been forced into failing Jesus, as though God is a puppet master pulling the strings. Rather they suffer self-inflicted bondage. They are bound to think human thoughts, unfree to think the thoughts of God. The promise of the freedom that Christ brings is lost in their desperate obsession to protect their theoretical freedom. They betray themselves to be blind, deaf, and dumb to the ways of God. They prove powerless to free themselves. Think of Peter vowing to Jesus that he will stick with him, never forsake him, let alone deny association with him. But that is exactly what he does. He was bound to do it.

It is not that the disciples have been forced into failing Jesus, as though God is a puppet master pulling the strings. Rather they suffer self-inflicted bondage.

The Promise by Which Christ Makes Free to Be

If there is hope for Peter and the rest of them it will have to come from outside themselves. In this sense the disciples are much like the sick and possessed that Jesus helps. The sick and demon-possessed are bound by their condition and powerless to help themselves. A leper, condemned to a life of isolation apart from the saving promise of God, a paralytic paralyzed by sin, a demoniac driven by his demons into a living death among the tombs, a daughter sick unto death—they all receive the same thing from Jesus. As he explains, when he is criticized for keeping company with tax collectors and sinners, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come not for the righteous but for sinners” (2:17).

Sinners who are bound by this sickness unto death to their own judgments; to trust, above all else, their own attempts to save themselves; bound to their unbelief in all things related to God—cannot free themselves from their bondage. They cannot because they will not. They don’t want to do it. Jesus seems to be aware of this from the outset. “No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered” (3:27). And that is what Jesus does in his public ministry. He defeats Satan for the sake of those in the grip of unbelief (1:12-13). Jesus preaches release to the captives. “And they were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they have no choice about it, they are compelled to obey him” (Mark 1:27, NRSV translation altered). He restores the outsider to God and the community of faith. The kingdom that he creates is like a mustard seed, the tiniest of all the garden seeds, but when it is grown it becomes the greatest of shrubs and puts out branches so that the birds of the air can nest in its shade and fly free. That is the good news which the Bible has to proclaim. But the good news consists of merely silent words on the biblical page. It requires someone to give voice to the words, so that the promise of Christ may silence the debate about whether humans are free or not. The promise of Christ renders the question moot. I like the way that Paul declares it to the Galatians and so I pass it along to you, the readers of this essay, “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of the Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God” (Gal 4:4-7). Free to be, as God set you free in your baptism, by trust in the promise of Christ for you and by love in the neighbor, here and now, to dwell evermore in the everlasting kingdom of Christ’s righteousness, blessedness, and innocence. This is most certainly true!

And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of the Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God” (Gal 4:4-7

Rev. Virgil Thompson retired from Gonzaga University as a Senior Lecturer in biblical studies. In retirement he has continued to serve the church as Managing Editor of Lutheran Quarterly, Adjunct Professor at St. Paul Lutheran Seminary, and as author and lecturer. He and his wife Linda currently make their home on Lummi Island, across the bay from Bellingham, WA.

Endnotes:

1Gerhard Forde, The Captivation of the Will: Luther vs. Erasmus on Freedom and Bondage (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005), 52.

2Good News Bible (Philadelphia: American Bible Society, 2003), other citations in this article will reference TEV, except as noted.