As someone who holds to the Reformed Tradition, one of the criticisms that I often hear is that I don’t believe in “free will.” The heart of the argument centers around the notion that Calvinists (to use what many consider to be the “dirty word” to describe those who hold to Reformed Doctrines) teach that the stain of sin is so deep that men and women cannot, of their own initiative “accept Jesus as their personal savior.” This is true. I believe that Scripture portrays the affects of sin as being so severe that Paul means it when he describes unregenerate sinners as being spiritually “dead” (Ephesians 2:1, etc.). The physically dead cannot “choose” to bring themselves to life and neither can the spiritually dead.

But this is not to say that I don’t believe in “free will.” I simply don’t believe in what many understand as an “autonomous free will.” Quite bluntly put, this is the idea that I can do whatever I want whenever I want however I want with no limitations. This is simply unrealisitc. I cannot “will” to jump to the moon because I live within the confines of gravity. Likewise, unregenerate people live in the confines of sin.

Yet the problem of “freedom” relates to more than just the salvation experience (regeneration) itself, it also extends to the way in which many people understand salvation itself. Rightly understanding the Exodus event as a picture (a type) of salvation, many understand the Bible’s descriptions of unsaved men and women being in slavery to sin (John 8:34, Romans 6:15-23, Galatians 4, etc.). The problem, however, is that many people picture salvation as simply being redeemed from slavery into autonomous freedom.

It is true that the Bible describes salvation as a sort of freedom (Galatians 5, etc.) with Galatians 5:1 stating quite clearly that “For freedom Christ has set us free.” But salvation is not the process of enslaved sinners being set into an autonomous freedom so that now they can do whatever they want whenever they want however they want. As D.A. Carson points out in his book Love in Hard Places,

The heart of the Christian message is not that human beings are made in the image of God and therefore must be set free to be autonomous. The heart of the Christian message is that although human beings, made in the image of God, created by him and for him, have catapulted themselves into a squalid revolution with disastrous consequences. God himself has taken action to reconcile them to himself. When they become reconciled to God, they are set free in principle from sin - not in order to become completely autonomous, but to return to the God who made them and who owns them.

The Bible not only says that we are freed from slavery to sin, it says that we are saved into the freedom of slavery to God, to Christ (Romans 6:15-23, etc.). Believers do not belong to themselves; we have been purchased (1 Corinthians 6:20). Yet in this slavery there is glorious freedom. What an amazing paradox!

Redemption is not becoming autonomous, it is being restored to the first slavery, the slavery we were created for. We are Christ’s. Colossians 1:15-20 says that we were made by and for Him. Believers are not only His by creation but by redemption. The freedom of slavery to Christ is freedom from the bonds of sin, freedom from the chains of legalism, fear, racism, sexism, and just about any “ism” you can name. We must not think more of ourselves than does God. We are His, for we have been bought with a price. Oh, but what glorious freedom there is in slavery to Christ!

• Read Love in Hard Places by D.A. Carson