In the book of Jeremiah, a point comes when God convicts the Israelites of failing to free their slaves after six years as was commanded of them. They repent and finally free the slaves. But as is typical human fasion, it isn’t long before they backslide in their repentance an turn and force their slaves back into labor.

See how the transition is described in the text. Jeremiah 34:16:

“…but then you turned around and profaned my name when each of you took back his male and female slaves, whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them into subjection to be your slaves.”

Returning to sin is an act of profanity on God’s name. I guess that is why Jesus said, “Whoever is not with me is against me…”

In Edwin Palmer’s the Five Points of Calvinism, he writes the following on the notion of “free will”:

“And just because a man is free, man is a slave. Just because man does what he wants to do, man has no free will (which is different from saying that he is free); that is, man is totally unable to choose equally as well between the good and the bad. A compulsive drinker—an alcoholic—is not free. Technically he has the external choice of drinking or not drinking. But really there is only one thing he can do. He can no more stop drinking than he can stop breathing. He has to drink. He is a slave to alcohol. And yet he is free. He does exactly what he wants to do. Nobody is compelling him to drink.”

This proves to be an apt explanation as to why the term “free will” is a mythical idea. It’s not that man isn’t “free”. He is free to do as he pleases. But his will places him in bondage to himself. He makes no unbiased decisions in reference to good and bad. In fact, he makes only the most biased decisions toward bad.

The term “free will” implies that a person is able to make moral choices without bias of will. If this were not so, what is the higher decision making power in a person’s mind that governs the will? There is none. It stops at the will. We have to act according to our will. Whether it be our direct will, “I want that piece of cake, so I will eat it”. Or, our indirect will, “Even though I want to eat a piece of cake, I want to fit into my jeans more, so I will not eat the piece of cake.”

No matter how we look at it, we must act according to our will. Therefore, for our will to be “free”, it must not have a moral bias. But as any person aware of their sin knows, it is definitely biased.

Paul eludes to this in Romans chapter 6; more specifically verse 19:

“you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.”

According to Paul, the notion of a truly “free will” is unheard of. It’s not that people are bound to do evil by some force outside of them, but the very will people claim is free is in fact what keeps them in bondage. And, since there cannot be a higher decision making power in the person’s mind, then the will itself will remain not free until something or someone frees it.

Which Paul gets to to only two verses later in Romans 6:22:

“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”

The will is not free. It is in bondage to itself.