Heaven is Scary, For Real
Why “Love = Choice” Is A Problem
Do you know how God showed His love for us? Most would respond with Romans 5:8 and that would be true. But for some people, that answer falls second to another. Their answer? Free will.
Some people think if God didn’t give people free will that they would be robots, and that there is nothing so tragic as a robot Christian. If there was a charge leveled against Calvinists the most, it would be that the doctrines of grace make us robots, unable to “choose” loving God. I have even heard people say they would rather go to hell than to serve a God who doesn't give free-will.
But if a lack of free-will is the worst thing that can happen,
then heaven is the worst and scariest place you could ever go to.
Think about it. In heaven and/or in the age to come (after the return of Christ), there will be no more sin. Not only will there be no more sin, there will not be any desire to sin. The world will be free completely from its influence. The Bible promises that we will never again fall away, never again be separated from God.
Hear me clearly: in the next age, there won't be any chance, ability, or choice to sin or for evil. There won't be any choices like the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And the Bible hails God as loving and perfect in this.
Yet many people can't imagine loving God without free-will. However, none of these people think that heaven will be a problem for them. They think that they will simply choose each moment to love God based on the perfection they see. They believe that free-will must always exist because they can't imagine love being true if their is no choice involved.
The living creatures and elders around the throne would wholly disagree with this though. No living creature or elder has ever had the choice to love God or not. They have had no temptation to rebel against God. And their passion for God and the trueness of their love puts ours to shame every moment.
So if free-will is not an eternal thing, it is not a true thing, since truth must always be true. Like the living creatures and elders, we love God when He awakens us and show us a glimpse of Himself in the beauty of holiness, not because we simply choose to love Him. We will also continue to love God because His grace will keep us. This should cause us to glory in His electing, irresistible grace now as it sanctifies us. At the end of time, we will praise Him for what He chose to do, not what we chose to do. Let’s start praising Him now for that.
Love may be a choice, but it’s always been God’s choice, not ours.
