092. I. More Direct Scripture Proofs.
I. More Direct Scripture Proofs.
1. Testimony of Particular Texts.—A few out of very many will suffice. In the texts which we shall adduce the truth of native depravity is mostly given as an implication of their contents, rather than in the form of direct statement. There are indeed but few proof-texts of the latter class, but there are very many of the former. The proof in the former is just as conclusive as in the latter.
“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” “For the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 6:5; Genesis 8:21). In both texts there is reference to the great wickedness which preceded the flood and provoked its judicial infliction. This wickedness in all its forms of violence and crime is traced to its source in the heart of man, and to the evil tendency of its incipient impulses, its earliest and most elementary activities. Such an account is rational and sufficient only with an inclination to evil which is at once the characteristic and the proof of native depravity.
“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.” “What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?” (Job 14:4; Job 15:14) The first text may be taken as proverbial. Its principle is that every thing inherits the quality of its source: the stream, the quality of the fountain; the fruit, the quality of the tree. From a corrupt source there can be no pure issue. The principle applies to man. The fountain of the race was corrupted by sin, and depravity flows down the stream of human life. This accounts for the evil tendencies of human nature. The second text illustrates the principle of the first, with special application to man. “What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?” Each man inherits the moral state of the race, and hence is corrupt in his nature because the race is corrupt. Hence the appetence for evil, the relish for sin, the drinking iniquity like water (Job 15:16).
“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” “The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies” (Psalms 51:5; Psalms 58:3). With a fully awakened conscience, David came to a very deep sense of his recent sins, and in very earnest words expressed his consciousness of their enormity. Only the utmost intensity of expression could do any justice to the reality. Below these actual sins he found the corruption of his inner nature; and hence his earnest prayers: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” In this intense introspection he carries the view of inner corruption back to the very inception of his existence. It would be easy to call this an exaggeration springing from the whelming intensity of feeling, but we should thus destroy this profound and instructive lesson of penitence, for we might in like manner account its whole expression an exaggeration. The truth of native depravity is clearly given in the first text cited in this paragraph, for otherwise there is nothing to justify or even to render permissible the use of its words. The second text further expresses the same truth. The only rational sense of a moral estrangement from our birth, and a straying into sin as soon as we are born, lies in the truth of native depravity. This is the only sense consistent with the Scriptures and the relative facts. The words cannot mean an actual sinning from one’s birth, and therefore must mean a native depravity, the incipient activities of which tend to evil. This is the only consistent interpretation.
“What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Romans 3:9-13). In this strong passage Paul sums up and applies the arguments conducted in the first and second chapters. He had proved in the first the universal sinfulness of the Gentiles, and in the second the universal sinfulness of the Jews. This proof he assumes in the passage just cited. Instances of personal righteousness, even many such, are entirely consistent with his position of universal sinfulness. The ruling purpose of his argument requires this consistency. As sin is universal there can be no personal righteousness simply by the law; but righteousness is still possible through faith in Christ. All are sinners, but many are thus saved from sin. While many are righteous through grace, it is still true that none are righteous on the footing of nature. Paul confirms his position of universal sinfulness by a citation from the Psalms (Psalms 14:1-3; Psalms 53:1-3), as we see in the passage now in hand. These texts in the Psalms refer directly to the great wickedness just preceding the flood. St. Paul, however, is not attempting a mere parallelism between widely separate ages, but is maintaining the sinfulness of man in all ages. This is the presupposition and requirement of his doctrine of justification by faith. Such a universality of sin must mean, as we shall more fully point out, a native inclination or tendency to sin. The argument of Paul in proving the universality of sin is replete with the evidences of such native tendency.
There are many texts which incidentally but strongly convey the sense of a disordered state and evil tendency of mankind. We cite from a collection by Mr. Watson. “‘Madness is in the heart of the sons of men, while they live’ (Ecclesiastes 9:3). ‘But they like men have transgressed the covenant’ (Hosea 6:7). ‘If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children’ (Matthew 7:11). ‘Thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men’ (Matthew 16:23). ‘Are ye not carnal, and walk asmen?’ (1 Corinthians 3:3.) The above texts are to be considered as specimens of the manner in which the sacred writers speak of the subject rather than as approaching to an enumeration of the passages in which the same sentiments are found in great variety of expression, and which are adduced on various occasions.”[474] They fully give the sense of a native quality of evil in man.
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2. Impossibility of Righteousness and Life by Law.—Full obedience, or the fulfillment of all duty, must be sufficient for both righteousness and life. If the fulfillment of all duty is not sufficient for personal righteousness there must be some divine requirement for righteousness above one’s whole duty. This, however, cannot be, for any requirement for righteousness must take its place as one’s duty. The fulfillment of all duty must be the very reality of personal righteousness. Such righteousness must be sufficient for life—life in the blessedness of the divine favor. If it should be objected that there is no merit in obedience, it may suffice to answer, that the divine economy of reward is not commercial in its ground. Full obedience must be sufficient for personal righteousness and life, for otherwise sin and death would be an original necessity with all moral intelligences.
Yet neither righteousness nor life is possible to man by deeds of law. This is the doctrine of Paul, and underlies his doctrine of justification. He finds all men guilty before God, and concludes: “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight” (Romans 3:20). “This is not because the fulfillment of duty is not sufficient for personal righteousness, but because the obedience is wanting and all have sinned. “For if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Galatians 2:21). The very necessity for the atonement in Christ was the impossibility of righteousness under law. “For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law” (Galatians 3:21). But the law could not give life because it could not give righteousness; so that neither righteousness nor life is possible by deeds of law.
Why this impossibility? It must lie in the impossibility of full obedience to the law of duty; for we have previously shown the sufficiency of such obedience for both righteousness and life. We do not mean an absolute impossibility, but an impossibility without the grace of redemption and the office of the Holy Spirit in the ministry of that grace. Why such an impossibility? Either the law of duty must be above the ability of man as originally constituted, or he must be in a state of moral lapse and disability. The former alternative must be excluded; for a primary law of duty above the power of obedience would involve the necessity of sin. We must accept the alternative of a moral lapse, with its moral disabilities. This is the truth of native depravity.
3. Necessity for Spiritual Regeneration.—The ground of this argument is furnished in the doctrine of regeneration as set forth by Christ in his lesson to Nicodemus (John 3:3-7). The passage is familiar, and we may omit its formal citation. The construction of the argument requires little more than an analysis of the passage and a grouping of its leading facts. The nature and necessity of regeneration are set forth in connection. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Regeneration is an inner renovation, a purification of the inner nature. This is its sense as signified by the water of baptism, and by the agency of the Holy Spirit, through whose gracious power the work is wrought. We may trace the idea of this work through the Scriptures, and, while we find it under many forms of expression, we find in all this deeper meaning of an inward renewal and purification. Its necessity to our salvation is declared in the most positive manner. Without it we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. The ground of this necessity lies in a native quality of our nature. This is the clear sense of the words of Christ. After the repeated assertion of the necessity of regeneration to salvation, he adds: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee. Ye must be born again.” Flesh cannot here be taken in any mere physical sense. Such a sense could neither express the necessity for spiritual regeneration nor allow its possibility. The two ideas are utterly incongruous. Through regeneration the spiritual quality replaces the fleshly quality. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit—in the sense of moral quality. Hence the regenerate, while still physically in the flesh, are in moral quality or subjective state no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit, or the spiritual state produced by the Spirit in the work of regeneration (Romans 8:9; Galatians 5:24-25). It is thus clear that flesh find spirit stand in contrast, the former meaning a depraved state, the latter, a renewed and holy state. This interpretation is confirmed by the further contrast which the Scriptures draw between the flesh and the Spirit, or the fleshly mind and the spiritual mind, and between the works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit (Romans 8:1-13; Galatians 5:16-17; Galatians 5:19-24). We thus have the sense of flesh as our Lord used the term in his doctrine of regeneration. It must mean a depraved state, a corrupt nature. The proof of native depravity is right at hand: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” On the ground of Scripture this one proof is conclusive. In the proofs of native depravity thus far adduced it is manifest that the question is not a merely speculative one, but one that is fundamental in Christian theology. We have seen that it underlies the necessity for an atonement, for justification by faith, and for spiritual regeneration. These are distinctive and cardinal truths of Christianity. Native depravity is the presupposition of each and all. Without this deeper truth there is no requirement of any one. If these doctrines are true, the fallen state of man must be a truth. “If he is not a depraved, undone creature, what necessity for so wonderful a Restorer and Saviour as the Son of God? If he is not enslaved to sin, why is he redeemed by Jesus Christ? If he is not polluted, why must he be washed in the blood of the immaculate Lamb? If his soul is not disordered, what occasion is there for such a divine Physician? If he is not helpless and miserable, why is he personally invited to secure the assistance and consolations of the Holy Spirit? And, in a word, if he is not ‘born in sin,’ why is a ‘new birth ‘so absolutely necessary that Christ declares, with the most solemn asseverations, ‘Without it no man can see the kingdom of God?’”[475] [475]