Free Will, Part 2

This is a continuation from the answer to the question that was asked yesterday: Under what conditions does a man have free will. If you missed Part 1, scroll down or click here. (By the way, if you ever want to comment on a particular article I've written, click on the article title and scroll to the bottom of the page.)

Yesterday I taught that when Adam expressed his free will in the Garden of Eden by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he did not lose his free will; he only lost the ability to choose righteousness. 

As a result, when man expresses his free will - whenever man makes a choice - whether for good or evil, he is always choosing from the realm of unrighteousness. His way is blocked to the Tree of Life until by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit the man is given life and the ability to see the Tree of Life (the kingdom of God, as John put it in John 3.3).

I was reading yesterday in one of my old books – a study of Ephesians by Watchman Nee entitled Sit, Walk, Stand. I read it many years ago (1972, in fact), but have forgotten most of it. Here is a passage from the section on walking:

Since the day that Adam took the fruit of the tree of knowledge, man has been engaged in deciding what is good and what is evil. The natural man has worked out his own standards of right and wrong, justice and injustice, and striven to live by them. Of course as Christians we are different. Yes, but in what way are we different? Since we were converted a new sense of righteousness has been developed in us, with the result that we too are, quite rightly, occupied with the question of good and evil. But have we realised that for us the starting point is a different one? Christ is for us the Tree of Life. We do not begin from the matter of ethical right and wrong. We do not start from that other tree. We begin from Him; and the whole question for us is one of Life. (Nee, Watchman. Sit, Walk, Stand. Christian Literature Crusade:Ft. Washington, PA, 1972, p. 25.)

It’s funny how something I read almost 40 years ago now comes to surface in my current understanding of how God works. I love it.