53 Sermon Illustrations on Original Sin

Could we view things in semine, and look through principles, what a nest of impurities might we see in the heart of the least infant, like a knot of little snakes wrapped up in a dunghill! what a radical, productive force of sin might we behold in all his faculties, ready, upon occasion and the maturities of age, to display itself with a cursed fertility! Dr. South.

The leprosy, in the beginning, was unseen; and many a one might have looked upon the man, and have said he was not a leper. The seed of the thistle, at first, is hid in the ground; and many a traveller might pass that way, and never observe it. Many diseases of the body commence internally, away from the gaze of men. So with sin. In its original, it exists in the infant, although parents and friends may not perceive it. And as the leprosy, unseen, will in time develop itself, and the thistle-seed spring up, and the disease break out, so will the original sin of the infant grow with his growth, and strengthen with his strength, until no one shall doubt whether he is a sinner or no.

— Bate

Sigmund Freud died a bitter and disillusioned man, with little compassion for the common man. Freud wrote in 1918,

"I have found little that is good about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all."

Schuller's view of sin.

Four traditional views of sin:

1. Sin does not exist. (Humanism, communism)

2. Sin is something everyone has, but no one is born with. (Pelagianism)

3. We are born in sin - that is, every person is born as rebellious as Adam

was when he willfully chose to disobey God. (Federal theology)

4. Every person is conceived and born in sin. But this condition is, unlike

that in the thrid view, a state of unbelief first - before it is an

act of rebellion. [1485]

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Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr called the doctrine of original sin the only empirically verifiable Christian doctrine.

[Holwick: Yancey attributed the statement to famous agnostic George Bernard Shaw but I cannot find anyone else who does. Others attribute it to G. K. Chesterton, who did write that Original Sin "is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved," by which he meant that the fact of sin is "a fact as practical as potatoes."]

Last month, Jesse Jackson made headlines by defending six students who were expelled from a Decatur, Illinois, high school for fighting at a football game. In a spirit of compromise, the school board agreed to send the boys to an "alternative school" for disruptive youth.

Dealing with youth violence is one the hot issues in today's public square. But if we want to change kids' attitudes, we need to do more than send them off into exile.

Interestingly enough, a story about exiled boys may help us understand how to address the root causes of youth violence.

I'm talking about William Golding's brilliant 1954 novel, LORD OF THE FLIES.

The story begins when a planeload of British boys between the ages of six and twelve are marooned on a desert island. At first, they institute a British-style government based on civility and order. But order erodes into savagery when most of the boys secede from the group and commence a wild cycle of hunting, dancing, and feasting. One night, the renegade group murders a boy, and the desert island, which began as a mirror of orderly British society, dissolves into a picture of brutal mayhem.

Golding says the theme of his novel is that the "defects of society" can be traced "to the defects of human nature." At one time, he explains, he held the typical liberal belief "that man was perfectible" - that "all you had to do was to remove certain inequities and provide practical sociological solutions, and man would have a perfect paradise on earth." But World War II shattered Golding's utopianism, and in Lord of the Flies he portrays a more realistic view of human nature-showing that youngsters can be quickly overtaken by the evil within, if adults do not provide moral direction and guidance.

What Golding gives us is a powerful parable of the Christian doctrine of original sin. And today, in places like Decatur or Littleton, we are seeing a Lord of the Flies mentality emerging in all its horror. The Littleton killers were not on a desert island, but they were certainly insulated in a separate culture of violent movies and video games. Their own parents apparently failed to notice that they were building bombs in their bedrooms.

Unfortunately, Americans have created a broad range of institutions that segregate children into a parallel world. Many kids today spend so much time in day care, camps, sports groups, and malls that they bond more closely to their peers than to their parents. The entertainment industry offers teens a parallel culture with their own movies, their own videos, their own music, their own Internet games.

If we hope to prevent kids from falling prey to the chaos depicted in print in Golding's Lord of the Flies -- and at a football stadium in Decatur -- passing new laws or sending troublemakers to different schools is not enough. We have to recommit ourselves to giving children the supervision and moral guidance they so desperately need. This might be a good time for mature adults to reread Golding's classic novel -- and then be sure to give our children the love and discipline that helps keep us all civilized.

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Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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As I record this [October 2007], the New England Patriots are off to one of the greatest starts in NFL history, winning their first three games by an average of 26 points.

But their on-the-field accomplishments have been overshadowed by off-the-field controversies — controversies that say more about our culture than they do about football.

A few weeks ago, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell fined the Patriots and Coach Bill Belichick $750,000 for videotaping opponents’ signals in violation of league rules. In addition, the Patriots will probably forfeit their first-round draft choice in the April 2008 NFL draft.

Some commentators insisted that the Patriots and Belichick got off too lightly, but theirs was definitely a minority view. For most commentators, it was much ado about nothing. They argued that the “strategic advantage” to be gained from breaking the rules was minor. In fact, many were shocked that Coach Belichick bothered to cheat. After all, the Patriots’ lopsided victories proved that they did not need to cheat to win — as one writer put it, “it’s a whole lot easier to catch the spy than it is to actually beat him.”

This is why we do not, or at least should not, turn to sportswriters for moral guidance.

Perhaps a better guide would be St. Augustine of Hippo. In Book Two of his CONFESSIONS, Augustine recalled the “past wickedness and the carnal corruptions of [his] soul.” The sin whose memory caused him the most anguish was not his sexual misconduct and debauchery. Instead, it involved fruit.

Specifically, it was a pear tree close to his family’s vineyard. He writes that neither the pears’ flavor nor their color was tempting. Yet, one night he and his friends “went to shake and rob this tree.”

Augustine wrote that he was “compelled to [robbery] by neither hunger nor poverty.” He had plenty of pears at home that were of “much better quality.” He did not “desire to enjoy what [he] stole, but only the theft and the sin itself.”

He recalled how he and his companions “laughed because,” as he wrote, “our hearts were tickled at the thought of deceiving the owners, who had no idea of what we were doing and would have strenuously objected.”

As he put it, he acted out of “a contempt for well-doing and a strong impulse to iniquity.” He stole the pears precisely because it was the wrong thing to do.

This “impulse to iniquity” was, for Augustine, what it meant to be fallen — original sin. People are not calculators whose actions are solely, or even largely, determined by rational self-interest. Our natures have been, in C. S. Lewis’s words, “bent” — we often do the wrong thing because it feels better than doing the right thing.

We break rules because our fallen natures tell us that the willingness to break them proves our “superiority” to those who do not. We test the limits, not because it yields an advantage, but to see what we can get away with. Belichick and the Patriots cheated, got caught, and were punished. Good. But it should come as no surprise to Christians that someone who does not need to cheat to win, cheats anyway. That’s what we humans do.

The attempt to explain human perversity solely in terms of “strategic advantage” is a reminder that without Christianity, a culture not only cannot understand God — it cannot understand man, either.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was added to HolwickID #5274]

I've been getting a lot of questions lately about baptism - the usual dunking/sprinkling, infant/adult discussions, but other queries as well. Often the letter writers wish to know if their beliefs about baptism are grounded in the practices of the early church. The answer is usually yes and no, for while most churches retain some early baptismal practices (in altered form), I'm not aware of any church that repeats the entire ancient ceremony.

In about A.D. 215 Hippolytus, an important ecclesiastical writer and theologian who was for some reason quickly forgotten after his death, recorded in detail the process by which converts in Rome were baptized. As summarized by scholar Michael Walsh, Hippolytus's account began: "Immediately before the ceremony came a fast, a long period of prayer, an all-night vigil in a darkened building. Then, in the dim light of wavering torches, the Devil was solemnly abjured to flee in a series of exorcisms. The candidate entered the baptistery.

First he or she turned toward the west to renounce Satan, then

toward the east to confess Christ. There were repeated

anointings with oil, the symbol of strength. Once at least the

naked candidate was anointed from head to toe. Then, oiled as if

for bathing, the candidate entered the font, climbing in ... or

stepping down until knee-deep while a deacon poured water over

the head, or pressed the candidate's head down into the pool.

The baptismal candidate also had to answer a series of questions, which Hippolytus lists:

And when he who is being baptized goes down into the water, he

who baptizes him, putting his hand on him, shall say thus: "Dost

thou believe in God, the Father Almighty?"

And he who is being baptized shall say: "I believe."

Then holding his hand placed on his head, he shall baptize him

once. And then he shall say: "Dost thou believe in Christ Jesus,

the Son of God, who was born by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin

Mary, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and was dead and

buried, and rose again the third day, alive from the dead, and

ascended into heaven, and sat at the right hand of the Father,

and will come to judge the quick and the dead?"

And when he says: "I believe," he is baptized again.

And again he shall say: "Dost thou believe in the Holy Ghost; in

the holy church, and the resurrection of the flesh?"

He who is being baptized shall say accordingly: "I believe," and

so he is baptized a third time.

After the baptized converts came out of the water, they were anointed again with oil, clothed, and brought into the church. The bishop prayed over and anointed them separately, then signed each on the forehead, saying, "The Lord be with thee." He who was signed responded, "and with thy spirit." The ceremony concluded with converts taking their first Communion.

This Roman ceremony was probably not copied exactly in every Christian community, and it may reflect significant changes from first-century practices. More changes would soon follow, for by the end of the fourth century Augustine prescribed infant baptism to erase the guilt of original sin. So an investigation of early church practices cannot settle all of our questions about baptism, but it can remind us of the awesome power this ceremony has held for nearly two millennia.

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This article was adapted from Christian History issue 37: Worship in the Early Church, which is available at http://www.christianitytodaystore.com

Elesha Coffman is associate editor of Christian History.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today.

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #13200]

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(Evidences of Original Sin) Test this on the toddlers in your home or church this Christmas!

1. If it's in my hand, it's mine.

2. If I can take it from you, it's mine.

3. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine. 4. If it's mine, it must

never appear to be yours in any way. 5. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine.

6. If it looks just like mine, it's mine.

7. If I saw it first, it's mine.

8. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it

automatically becomes mine. 9. If it's broken, it's yours.

- Deb Lawrence, Missionary to the Philippines with SEND

International, quoted in Prokope, November/December, 1992, Page 3

The mother put the boy in the closet for punishment. After some

time she opened the door. He was not penitent at all and looked out at

her defiantly. She said, "Son, what are you doing?" He angrily

replied, "I 'pit on your shoes, and I 'pit on your dress, and I 'pit

on your coat, and I am just standing here waiting for more 'pit, and I

will 'pit on something else."

William Moses Tidwell, "Pointed Illustrations."

A PRINCE had some Monkeys trained to dance. Being naturally great mimics of men's actions, they showed themselves most apt pupils, and when arrayed in their rich clothes and masks, they danced as well as any of the courtiers. The spectacle was often repeated with great applause, till on one occasion a courtier, bent on mischief, took from his pocket a handful of nuts and threw them upon the stage. The Monkeys at the sight of the nuts forgot their dancing and became (as indeed they were) Monkeys instead of actors. Pulling off their masks and tearing their robes, they fought with one another for the nuts. The dancing spectacle thus came to an end amidst the laughter and ridicule of the audience.

Although some may be good "actors" at deceiving themselves and deceiving others on whom they really are, deep beneath their clothes lie their true natures and their true selves. Indeed, we are sinful creatures by nature and a day will come when God will expose the hidden sins of those who haven't repented.

A SAILOR, bound on a long voyage, took with him a Monkey to amuse him

while on shipboard. As he sailed off the coast of Greece, a violent

tempest arose in which the ship was wrecked and he, his Monkey, and

all the crew were obliged to swim for their lives. A Dolphin saw the

Monkey contending with the waves, and supposing him to be a man (whom

he is always said to befriend), came and placed himself under him, to

convey him on his back in safety to the shore. When the Dolphin

arrived with his burden in sight of land not far from Athens, he asked

the Monkey if he were an Athenian. The latter replied that he was,

and that he was descended from one of the most noble families in that

city. The Dolphin then inquired if he knew the Piraeus (the famous

harbor of Athens). Supposing that a man was meant, the Monkey

answered that he knew him very well and that he was an intimate

friend. The Dolphin, indignant at these falsehoods, dipped the Monkey

under the water and drowned him.

No matter how hard we try, we cannot ignore or mask that we are born

in Original Sin. Indeed, without this realization and without our

need for our Savior, we will ultimately drown in our sins.

In a recent episode of the HBO series SIX FEET UNDER, the youngest daughter, Claire, is waiting to take the college admissions test, the SAT. When she hears her best friend's name called, she turns around to look for her friend and is surprised to see someone else answering, "Here."

She realizes that her friend has paid another student to take the test for her. When confronted by Claire, her friend replies, "Get over yourself," and tells her that this is the way the game is played.

The audience is meant to sympathize with Claire, but, given our culture's ideas about human nature, I wonder if they do.

Evidence of widespread cheating is easy to find. Wall Street is depressed because of fears that Enron and Arthur Andersen are only tips of the iceberg. And there are admissions by several best-selling, well-respected authors that they plagiarized other peoples' work. The author of an award-winning book about gun ownership in pre-Civil War America has been accused of falsifying the data upon which the book's argument is based.

Our culture has no trouble recognizing cheating, but it does have trouble answering the question, "Why do people cheat?" National Public Radio recently put this question to Vivian Paley, a retired kindergarten teacher in Chicago.

Paley is no ordinary kindergarten teacher. She's the winner of the prestigious MacArthur Foundation "Genius" grant and the author of books about the moral and social development of children.

For Paley, competition is the serpent in our children's garden. The problem, she says, lies in the way we define success as being the best. She believes that children enter education "with the highest morality of all: give everyone the same thing."

Cheating enters the picture when this morality is replaced a by new, more competitive set of demands: "Be smart," "Be fast," "Know everything," or at least "Know more than someone else does." That's when our more cooperative and empathetic concerns are set aside in favor of the more competitive demands in life.

Given this explanation, it's easy to see why Claire's friend had someone take the SAT for her. But what Paley's explanation can't tell us is why Claire should be outraged. Her friend was simply acting in accordance with the demands placed on her by society.

Paley's worldview is widely shared by modern liberals. It excuses the individual of all moral responsibility. This idea comes straight out of writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau wrote that human instincts are good, but that it is the restraints imposed by institutions of culture that corrupt us.

This is, of course, an explicit rejection of the biblical idea of Original Sin and individual moral responsibility. People like Paley rightfully insist on the importance of teaching kids to respect rules. But their efforts are inevitably undermined, as we see all around us, because they are mistaken about why it is that people break the rules, and so they cannot apply the right restraints.

Dealing with cheating requires acknowledging that the problem of cheating, like all evil things we do, lies in ourselves -- our wrong moral choices. That's an idea that our culture learned from Christianity. In other words, the answer to dishonesty lies in getting over ourselves, but not in the way Claire's friend meant.

For further reading and information:

Listen to "Playing by the Rules," NPR, 30 April 2002.

J. Budziszewski, THE REVENGE OF CONSCIENCE: POLITICS AND THE FALL OF MAN (Spence Publishing, 2000).

Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, THE CHRISTIAN IN TODAY'S CULTURE (Tyndale House, 1999).

BreakPoint commentary no. 020205, "Do (and Believe) the Right Thing."

BreakPoint commentary no. 020111, "The Wild Lie."

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Copyright © 2002 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. 'BreakPoint with Chuck Colson' is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

One of the principle aspects of Jesus' teachings is his poignant understanding of human nature. In fact, Christ's appraisal of humanity is undoubtedly one of the distinguishing features between Christianity and other worldviews, evident even in our political and cultural theories. Consider the two perspectives of Jean Jacques Rousseau and Blaise Pascal on human nature.

Rousseau opened his book THE SOCIAL CONTRACT with these well-known words: "Man was born free; and everywhere is in chains." Rousseau believed that humans are inherently good; yet he saw that goodness did not prevail. His political theory described social contracts that would capitalize on this innate goodness. But such notions were soon overturned in the flames of the French Revolution. Any philosophy that assumes that man is innately good finds its optimism ever disappointed. History continues to show us this.

In distinction to Rousseau's estimation of human nature, listen to what Blaise Pascal said:

"It is in vain, oh men, that you seek within yourselves the cure

for all your miseries. All your insight has led to the knowledge

that it is not in yourselves that you discover the true and the

good. The philosophers promised them to you, but they were not

able to keep that promise...Your principal maladies are pride,

which cuts you off from God, and sensuality, which binds you to

the earth.... Those who have grasped the vanity of such a

pretension have cast you down in the other abyss by making you

believe that your nature is like that of the beast and have led

you to seek your good in lust, which is the lot of animals."(1)

Is Pascal right? What he is saying here is that we tend either toward thinking that we are like God, or that we are beast-like. So then who are we?

Jesus taught that we are essentially superior to animals, but immeasurably less than God. The contrast in both comparisons is one of kind, not just degree. Jesus clearly taught that our wills are bent in rebellion against God, the only source of goodness, but that we can know the working of God's goodness in our lives when we acknowledge our rebellion and seek Him. Rousseau said, "Man was born free; and everywhere is in chains." Jesus teaches us that man is born in chains, but everywhere can be free.

1. Blaise Pascal, The Mind on Fire, editor James M. Houston (Portland Oreg.: Multnomah, 1989), page 115.

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Copyright © 2002 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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Our daughter was just a toddler, like her son Jordan is now. I hope she can make sure he doesn't do what she did one day. Lisa would often talk with me while I was getting ready in the morning. I'd be brushing my teeth, shaving, and combing my hair. But one morning, unbeknownst to Karen, Lisa got in the bathroom, stood on something, and got the blade razor that I shaved with. When her mother walked in, Lisa was stroking that razor across her face, minus any shaving cream - and leaving some serious scratches and scrapes behind.

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "When It Hurts To Copy Your Father."

All our daughter was doing was copying her father - and inflicting wounds as a result. That's a mistake a lot of folks - grownup folks - have made ... copying their father, or their mother, and inflicting wounds as a result.

There are things our father and mother did, things they said, that we were determined not to repeat when we had kids. Well, so much for that good intention. All too often, the longer we live, the more we sound like or act like our father or mother - in ways that we never wanted to repeat. We know how much those things hurt us, and, in spite of ourselves, they are now hurting our children. That same temper, that same critical spirit, the same manipulating, guilt tripping, harsh words, or selfishness.

It seems like we're almost powerless to change the dark side of us that we hate, especially what was handed down to us by what I call "family sins." If we could have changed these things, we would have by now. Which makes our word for today from the Word of God really, really good news. It's in 1 Peter 1:18-19.

God says, "You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers." In other words, there's actually hope of changing, of actually getting rid of some of those "empty ways" handed down to us by our father or mother. How does this "redeeming" happen? The Bible goes own to say "you were redeemed ... with the precious blood of Christ." So there's a connection between my family baggage and the violent death of Jesus Christ on the cross?

All the connection in the world. Because all this dark stuff inside us - whether it's from our past or from our own choices - is wrapped up in God's word for it - "sin." And our sin is what Jesus died for on the cross - to forgive it, to break its power, to make possible a relationship where Jesus comes right into your heart, in personality, and changes you from the inside out!

That's good news, not only for you, but for all the people you love. There's a Savior who stands ready to save you from the sin that's already done enough damage. The transformation begins when you reach out to Jesus and trust Him to be your personal Savior from your personal sin - which He died to make possible. If you've never begun your personal relationship with Him, you can do that right where you are. And I'd like to send you the booklet, "Yours For Life," that I wrote about this relationship. Just let me know you want it.

Doing what your parents did can cause a lot of scars, a lot of pain. But when you open up your life to Jesus, you have - for the first time in your life - the power to say, "It stops in this generation!"

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Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

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Malcolm Muggeridge observed that the depravity of man is at once the most unpopular of all dogmas, yet the most empirically verifiable. Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, we want so badly to believe that humans are basically good, and that our evil acts are a problem of conditions or environment, but do not stem from evil in the human heart.

This false idea was well documented by historian Christopher Browning's book on the Holocaust, hauntingly titled ORDINARY MEN. Said one critic: "The most frightening aspect of ... Browning's ... book is the knowledge it conveys to us that it was not a few brutes, but many good and ordinary men, who committed murder for Hitler."[1] One might think that the men who engineered such atrocities were somehow of a different breed, perhaps genetically predisposed or psychologically imbalanced. I do not mean to mitigate the power of false beliefs or influence of a mob mentality, yet I cannot escape the fact that those capable of such ghastly acts against millions of people were, by all accounts, ordinary men.

Malcolm Muggeridge tells of a time when he was a journalist in India, and left his residence one evening to go for a swim. As he entered the water, across the river he saw a woman bathing. Muggeridge impulsively felt the allure and temptation of the moment. He had often felt this kind of struggle but had resisted because he was a married man. On this occasion, however, he wondered if he could cross the line of his conscience, and swam furiously toward the woman. His mind fed him the fantasy that stolen waters would be sweet. Finally only a few feet away from her, he emerged from the water and looked at the woman. At once he realized that he was looking into the eyes of a leper - a toothless old woman was grinning at him. He was gripped with disgust and thought, "What a dirty lecherous woman!" when suddenly the rude shock of it dawned upon him. It was not the woman who was lecherous; it was his own heart.

Friend, perhaps you, like me, need only to look as far as your own life to see that your heart is bent on following its own devices and falls short of what God intends. Let me say that God stands ready to forgive sin and offer new life for the asking. He is in the business of turning wayward hearts toward Him and bringing hope and healing to "ordinary men." That's an extraordinary answer for ordinary people.

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1. Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), jacket copy.

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Copyright © 2002 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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Forged in the heat of theological battle, Augustine's five most distinctive teachings remain controversial.

Despite Augustine's long and dominating shadow over 1,500 years of Western church history, his central ideas have not been universally accepted or uniformly interpreted. The Eastern Orthodox regard some of Augustine's key ideas as pernicious, if not heretical. Anabaptists have rejected much of his theology, while Protestants in general claim selected teachings and ignore others.

Nonetheless, Augustine is widely regarded as the church's most influential philosopher and theologian. His five central ideas were forged in the heat of theological conflict, and they remain controversial today:

1. The nature and source of evil.

2. The nature of the church and its sacraments.

3. Original sin.

4. The relationship of grace and free will.

5. Predestination.

Augustine refined each of these doctrines as he battled what he believed were heresies, or at least false worldviews: a dualistic "cult" known as the Manichees, a Christian sect in North Africa known as the Donatists, and the beliefs of a British monk named Pelagius and his followers. Augustine's distinctive teachings are essentially answers to these theological enemies.

EVIL NOTHINGS

One of the most pressing theological problems in Augustine's time was how to justify belief in an omnipotent and perfectly good Creator when sin and evil were obviously deeply woven into the created beings.

The Manichees taught that two eternal beings control the universe, one of them good and the other evil. Even if the all-good deity is superior, they argued, it cannot at present conquer or control the evil one. The Manichees also taught that evil is intrinsically associated with matter and that only spirit is good. Thus, the good deity created spirits but not matter.

Against this double dualism (reminiscent of both Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism), Augustine developed an idea he believed was consistent with biblical revelation and the best of philosophy: evil is not some "thing" or "substance" but only the privation of the good (privatio boni). It is to goodness what darkness is to light.

The source of evil, then, is not God's creation (how could God create "non-being"?) but the misuse of human free will. According to Augustine, evil "is nothing else than corruption, either of the measure, or the form, or the order that belong to nature." Elsewhere Augustine wrote, "The only evil thing is an evil will."

The vast majority of later Christian thinkers depended on Augustine's "theodicy" (defense of God) to reconcile the reality of evil with God's goodness. Some Christians, though, have found Augustine's concept of evil insufficient to account for the power and types of evil we experience. Nonetheless, Augustine's response to dualism was largely triumphant over Manicheism.

CHURCH AS A MIXED BAG

Augustine also fought with the Donatists, especially their perfectionist theology of the church.

Donatists believed the grace of God could be found only in an undefiled church, and since they restricted their membership to those they believed to be true saints, they believed they had a monopoly on grace. Thus they considered only their baptism and Lord's Supper valid.

Augustine, however, argued that the church is both universal (not limited to a particular branch) and mixed (some members saved, others not). Only God can know definitely which baptized persons are truly regenerate. Augustine accused the Donatists of a sin worse than condoning impurity: dividing the church.

Augustine and the Donatists also differed on the qualifications of priests. Donatist priests had to be morally pure; specifically they must not have lapsed during Roman persecution. Augustine, like his North African predecessor Cyprian of Carthage, based priestly authority not on irreproachable behavior but on the criterion of apostolic succession — Jesus' disciples laid hands on the next generation of leaders, who laid hands on the next, and so on.

Augustine contended that God's saving grace was conveyed ex opere operato, that is, by Christ himself through his priests regardless of their character or beliefs. If the recipient of the sacrament is not resisting grace, and if the priest performing the sacrament is rightly ordained and in good standing with the Catholic church, grace is conveyed. The human priest is merely Christ's extended hand in the sacrament.

"What these [priests] administer," wrote one Augustine scholar, "is the baptism of Christ, whose sanctity cannot be corrupted by unworthy ministers, any more than the light of the sun is corrupted by shining through a sewer."

Augustine's ideas became the Catholic church's bulwarks against all forms of sectarian and schismatic reform. Even the "magisterial" reformers (Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer) accepted most of Augustine's answers to Donatism, though they all rejected ex opere operato, arguing that recipients of the Eucharist must have faith for grace to be effective. The Anabaptists, on the other hand, rejected these ideas and repeated Donatism's insistence on a pure, or at least regenerate, church.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Augustine's notions of original sin, grace and free will, and predestination are inextricably bound together, and they were shaped by his debates with the Pelagians.

Augustine believed that humankind suffers from original sin, meaning that since the fall of Adam, we are depraved — incapable of doing good without supernatural help. The commands of God to do good were given, Augustine concluded, simply to point out our inability and throw us on the mercy of God.

Pelagius, however, believed that if God commands us to live good and even morally perfect lives, he must give us the ability to obey without any special, supernatural assistance. Thus Pelagians denied there was any "original sin" or "depravity." Instead of being "depraved," the only disadvantage we currently have is that, living in a sinful world, we are more likely to develop sinful habits. Sin is a social disease, not an inherited spiritual-genetic defect.

Thus, Pelagius concluded, we are capable of living sinless lives simply by exercising our wills for the good. "A man can be without sin and keep the commandments of God, if he wishes," he wrote, "for this ability has been given to him by God."

Augustine was more outraged by Pelagius than by any other rival, and in response, he argued even more forcefully that we are born condemned for Adam's sin and incapable of not sinning.

"A man's free will," he wrote against Pelagius, "avails for nothing except to sin." Only the supernatural power of God's grace, imparted through baptism, could heal the deadly wound of sin upon the human soul. (Hence the need for infant baptism — to heal that wound immediately.)

Furthermore, only the power of God's grace could restore in some measure the free will lost in the fall of Adam's race. Grace cannot be received by an act of human will or even cooperated with (synergism) — it must be given as a gift.

"The Spirit of grace therefore causes us to have faith," he wrote, "in order that through faith we may, upon praying for it, obtain the ability to do what we are commanded."

THE CHOSEN FEW

Why do only some receive this gift of faith? In On the Predestination of the Saints, written not long before he died, Augustine concluded that God simply chooses some persons out of the mass of fallen humanity to save and leaves others to their deserved condemnation. The reason some are so graced and others passed over lies only in "the hidden determinations of God."

The basic outlines of what later came to be known as "Calvinism" are found in Augustine's later anti-Pelagian writings. The Catholic church appropriated some of these ideas, such as inherited guilt (though not total depravity) and the absolute necessity of supernatural grace for meritorious works of righteousness. However, Catholic theology by and large passed over Augustine's doctrine of predestination in favor of an emphasis on human cooperation with grace after baptism.

Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, and other reformers reaffirmed Augustine's doctrine of predestination, inherited depravity, and the sovereignty of grace — though Anabaptists and other radical reformers rejected the same (but without affirming Pelagianism).

Most theologians define their positions in relation to Augustine's doctrines. Almost all of them can appeal to something in the great North African church father, and almost all of them neglect some aspects of his teaching in favor of others. But no one after him can ignore him. Augustine's teachings on these and other controversial subjects have determined much of the agenda for Christian theology for a millennium and a half.

Martin Luther refers to Augustine more often than to any other theologian, echoing, for example, his gloomy view of human will: "Where reason is in error and the will turned away, what good can man attempt or perform?" But Luther felt he had moved beyond Augustine on the matter of justification: "In the beginning I devoured Augustine, but when the door into Paul swung open and I knew what justification by faith really was, then it was out with him."

Thomas Aquinas cited Augustine when defending his views on original sin and infant baptism: "According to the Catholic Faith we are bound to hold that the first sin of the first man is transmitted to his descendants, by way of origin. For this reason children are taken to be baptized soon after their birth, to show that they have to be washed from some uncleanness. The contrary is part of the Pelagian heresy, as is clear from Augustine in many of his books."

John Calvin, when accused by the Roman Catholic church of theological innovation, argued that he was instead hearkening back to Augustine: "Augustine is so completely of our persuasion, that if I should have to make written profession, it would be quite enough to present a composition made up entirely of excerpts from his writings."

When English Reformer Thomas Cranmer commissioned a portrait of himself from Gerlach Flicke, he had a copy of Augustine's De Fide et Operibus ("On Faith and Works") painted on the table in front of him. In Cranmer's personal copy of the book, he had underlined the phrase "a good life is indeed inseparable from faith."

Anabaptist leader Menno Simons disagreed with Augustine on many things, including church leadership, the nature of Christian community, and infant baptism. In fact, he dismissed any influence when he wrote that if Augustine and other church fathers could support their teaching "with the Word and command of God, we will admit that they are right. If not, then it is a doctrine of men and accursed according to the Scriptures."

__________

Roger E. Olson is a professor of theology at Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University, in Waco, Texas. He is author of The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform (InterVarsity, 1999).

Copyright(c) 2000 by the author or Christianity Today

Dartmouth College is older than the United States of America, having been established in 1750 as “Moore's Indian Charity School.” That's a part of Dartmouth's history that would be unknown to most Americans, but the school was established by Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, a leading figure in the nation's first Great Awakening. Wheelock established the school with the purpose of evangelizing American Indians, and he intended for the school eventually known as Dartmouth College to compete with Harvard and Yale in terms of academic distinction. In other words, Dartmouth College is an Ivy League institution originally established for the evangelization of Native Americans.

Keep that in mind as you learn of more recent developments. On September 20, Dartmouth's student body president, Noah Riner, delivered the customary convocation address -- a responsibility that comes with his elected position. Mr. Riner's speech was relatively short, intensely personal, and intellectually courageous. All that explains why Mr. Riner, a home-schooled native of Louisville, Kentucky, soon found himself at the center of controversy.

The response to Riner's speech included vitriolic outrage. He was denounced, criticized, and lambasted for the content of his controversial address. The Student Assembly's vice president for student life resigned the very next day, indicating that she could not serve with Riner because of his “appalling” speech to incoming freshmen.

What in the world did Riner say? “You really are special,” he told the Dartmouth class of 2009. But Mr. Riner didn't stop there.

“But it isn't enough to be special,” he continued. “It isn't enough to be talented, to be beautiful, to be smart. Generations of amazing students have come before you, and have sat in your seats. Some have been good, some have been bad. All have been special.”

Just a few words into his convocation address, Riner signaled that he intended to address the incoming students with something more than emotionalism, congratulations, and simplistic affirmation. He had another issue in mind -- character.

His speech took a fascinating turn when Riner recited a list of Dartmouth graduates who had ended up as examples of deficient character. A member of the class of 1939 became a Soviet spy, even as a later graduate committed murder and yet another was arrested for sexually assaulting a fifteen-year-old student.

“These stories demonstrate that it takes more than a Dartmouth degree to build character,” Riner asserted. Even at this point, we must recognize that Riner's convocation address must have broken the norm. After all, he was addressing the bright, privileged, and ambitious new class with the message that a Dartmouth education, while important, was not ultimate.

From that point, Riner expanded his focus to include developments such as looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and a crisis of character that affects the entire nation.

“We have the same flaws as the individuals who pillaged New Orleans. Ours haven't been given such free reign, but they exist and are part of us all the same.”

We can be fairly certain that at least some of those bright young people sitting in the audience would have been surprised, if not offended, to be told that they are sinners. “Let's be honest,” Riner insisted, “the differences are in degree.”

But if Riner's assertion that character is primary was not offensive enough, his example of character set many to squirming in their seats.

“Character has a lot to do with sacrifice, laying our personal interests down for something bigger,” Riner argued. “The best example of this is Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane, just hours before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed, 'Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.’ He knew the right thing to do. He knew the cost would be agonizing torture and death. He did it anyway. That's character.”

Noah Riner went on. “Jesus is a good example of character, but He's also much more than that. He is the solution to flawed people like corrupt Dartmouth alums, looters, and me.” As he later explained, “Jesus' message of redemption is simple. People are imperfect, and there are consequences for our actions. He gave His life for our sin so that we wouldn't have to bear the penalty of the law; so we could see love. The problem is me; the solution is God's love: Jesus on the cross, for us.”

The response was immediate, vitriolic, and revealing. The cartoonist for the college's campus newspaper, The Dartmouth, drew a comic strip depicting Riner as a crusading theocrat and Jesus as a marijuana smoker. Kaelin Goulet not only resigned as vice president for student life, but also condemned Riner for his speech. “Your first opportunity to represent Student Assembly to the incoming freshmen was appalling,” she wrote. “You embarrassed the organization; you embarrassed yourself.” In an email message cited by the campus newspaper, Goulet charged, “I consider his choice of topic for the Convocation speech reprehensible and an abuse of power.”

“I have been looking forward to working with you all and thought we were in agreement for what SA stands for,” the former vice president wrote. “Apparently, I was incorrect.” Her spirit of cooperation evidently did not extend to Mr. Riner's right to speak his mind in his convocation address.

Leaders of Hillel and Shanti, the Jewish and Hindu religious groups on Dartmouth's campus, wrote a letter to the campus newspaper that described Noah Riner's convocation address as a “disrespectful action” which represents “the complete antithesis of the value that Dartmouth espouses.”

The editors of The Dartmouth acknowledged the college's roots, reminding readers that Dartmouth had been founded “to bring Christianity to Native Americans.” Nevertheless, the paper celebrated the fact that “Dartmouth has more recently eschewed this goal in favor of providing a balanced, secular and inclusive education to its students.”

According to the editors, “The problem with Riner's address was his insinuation that turning to Jesus is the only way to find character. Indeed, Jesus was the only positive example of character Riner offered. While many of the ideas Jesus exemplified and his followers espoused stretch across faiths, statements such as, 'Jesus is a good example of character, but He's also much more than that. He is the solution to flawed people like corrupt Dartmouth alums, looters, and me' and, 'The problem is me; the solution is God's love: Jesus on the cross, for us,' are explicitly Christian and, as such, managed to alienate many in the audience regardless of their faiths.”

Note clearly -- the very fact that Dartmouth's student body president would espouse convictions consistent with the college's founding vision was considered an act virtually tantamount to treason against Dartmouth's current “secular and inclusive” vision.

Brian Martin, guest columnist for the campus newspaper, described Riner's convocation address as “fire-and-brimstone remarks” that demonstrated “casual disrespect for the diversity of the captive audience.”

“We are a community that welcomes and respects all its members, no matter what your creed,” Martin insisted. Evidently, this means welcome and respect to all members and all creeds -- except for the founding creed of the institution.

Martin pushed his point one step further, arguing that “Jesus would not have wanted to make new students feel unwelcome, to make faculty feel uncomfortable or to make alumni question whether this was the same Dartmouth that they had attended.” Are we to assume that Jesus Christ would have felt himself constrained by Ivy League etiquette? So much for cleansing the Temple.

Mr. Riner was not without his defenders. “Had Noah Riner opened his convocation speech with 'I'm gay,' this wouldn't be happening. That's not Noah, but if it were, no one would have resigned. No one would be organizing protests. Such a reaction, according to our rigid social standards, would be bigotry. If there were any Op-Eds or outcries, they would be praising his ability to encourage individualism and progressivism in Dartmouth.” Those are the words of Stacey Kourlis, who defended Riner in a column published in The Dartmouth. “We chose a leader who is willing to stand up and articulate his or her beliefs,” Kourlis argued. “We didn't default to someone who's doing this for a resume. That's a testament to how special we [are] as a community. So let's take it one step further and allow Riner to say precisely what he thinks, without fear of political correctness.”

The charter that established what we now know as Dartmouth College was granted by King George III of England, who stated that the purpose of the institution should be “for civilizing and Christianizing the children of pagans, as well as in all liberal arts and sciences, and also of English youths and any others.” Noah Riner's crime was to fulfill that mission by speaking honestly, courageously, and sincerely about his Christian faith. It was a bold and powerful demonstration of Christian witness, and it was one young man's demonstration of the very strength of character that authentic education is to stimulate and strengthen, not subvert and marginalize.

The controversy over Noah Riner's convocation address at Dartmouth is a bracing reminder of the fact that America's most prestigious academic institutions have become openly hostile to the very convictions upon which they were established. In the name of diversity, voices such as Noah Riner's are decried and condemned. Just sixty years ago, Ernest M. Hopkins, then president of Dartmouth, said, “Dartmouth is a Christian college founded for the Christianization of its students.” One wonders whether Reverend Wheelock and President Hopkins would be welcomed today on the campus of the college they respectively founded and led.

====================================================

From Baptist Press, October 12, 2005, by Erin Curry:

His speech has been called “appalling,” “reprehensible,” “an abuse of power,” “disrespectful” and “embarrassing.” What could have drawn such consternation?

The outrage is over a convocation speech by Noah Riner, student body president of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, one which employed the sinless example of Jesus Christ as how men and women can manage to display good character as they make their way through a sinful world.

Riner gave the speech as he welcomed freshmen to the Ivy League campus Sept. 20, beginning with compliments toward the accomplished students.

“You’ve been told that you are a special class,” he said, according to a partial transcript published by The Washington Times. “A quick look at the statistics confirms that claim. Quite simply, you are the smartest and most diverse group of freshmen to set foot on the Dartmouth campus. You have more potential than all of the other classes. You really are special.”

The seasoned student went on to point out that it’s not enough to be special, talented, beautiful or smart because plenty of students have been so and have even graduated from Dartmouth but have gone on to commit crimes rooted in their corrupt character. Riner listed some examples, including a graduate who became a Soviet spy, one who murdered and one who sexually assaulted a young girl.

Then came the controversy.

“Character has a lot to do with sacrifice, laying our personal interests down for something bigger,” he said. “The best example of this is Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane, just hours before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed, ‘Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine, be done.’ He knew the right thing to do. He knew the cost would be agonizing torture and death. He did it anyway. That’s character.”

Riner added that Jesus is the solution for sinners like him and all others and Jesus’ message of redemption means there are consequences for actions.

“He gave His life for our sin so that we wouldn’t have to bear the penalty of the law, so we could see love. The problem is me; the solution is God’s love: Jesus on the cross, for us,” Riner said.

The next day, the vice president of the student body resigned, telling Riner, “Your first opportunity to represent Student Assembly to the incoming freshmen was appalling. You embarrassed the organization; you embarrassed yourself.”

Others heaped vicious criticism on Riner, including opinion pieces and cartoons in the student newspaper.

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, addressed the debacle in his Oct. 7 commentary on albertmohler.com.

“The controversy over Noah Riner’s convocation address at Dartmouth is a bracing reminder of the fact that America’s most prestigious academic institutions have become openly hostile to the very convictions upon which they were established,” Mohler wrote, after noting that the predecessor to Dartmouth College was founded in 1750 for the purpose of evangelizing Native Americans.

*

“Path to scandal: Why does this keep happening?” a recent USA Today headline asked. The “this” in the headline referred to the recent revelation that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer had been unfaithful to his wife with a prostitute.

The USA Today article interviewed experts in an effort to explain why intelligent, well-educated, successful people, like Spitzer, risk their careers and reputations by cheating on their spouses.

Most of those interviewed by USA Today seem to believe that good people with great lives must have some special reason for being unfaithful. Surely smart, successful people could not be driven by a base desire like lust, could they?

The two main reasons, suggested by USA Today’s experts, to explain why Spitzer and others cheat are arrogance and the need to take risks.

Those with egos big enough to be in the public eye, the experts say, eventually feel like rules do not apply to them. Either that, or one of the reasons they are in positions of power is the ability to take risks. Cheating, then, becomes just another aspect of their risk-taking personality.

The problem with those interviewed by USA Today is they begin with a faulty premise. They believe that people are basically good. Therefore, it must be some circumstance that drives them to cheat.

If there are special reasons to explain why intelligent and successful people cheat, why are “average” people unfaithful? USA Today focused most of its attention on the infidelity of men. What drives an “average” woman to cheat?

One Internet site keeps tabs on female teachers who seduce teenage boys to have sex. Currently 135 cases are chronicled and most of the women were married when they committed their crimes. Why were these women unfaithful?

The truth is that human nature is not basically good. We are flawed with nature bent toward sin -- an old-fashioned word that means we want what we want, when we want it, and we don’t want anyone telling us no. And we don’t care who is inconvenienced or hurt by our behavior.

Those who insist human nature is good have not spent enough time around toddlers. Two-year-old children are selfish, self-centered and overly demanding. It is a good thing they are tiny and weak. If they were six feet tall and weighed 210 pounds, they would throw mom and dad out of the house and take over.

A child does not have to be taught to be bad. Children must be taught how to be good. They must be socialized in the art of good manners. They need no instruction on how to be mean and rude.

David Mamet, a self-professed former liberal, recently shared his transformation concerning human nature in a recent column in the “The Village Voice” titled, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal.’”

Mamet explained that he once believed everything in society was wrong. However, “I accepted as an article of faith ... that people are generally good at heart,” he wrote.

Eventually Mamet’s view changed.

“And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong [while] at the same time that I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it?” he asked.

“I began to question what I actually thought”, Mamet wrote, “and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart.... I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine....”

Mamet realized that even the founding fathers rejected the idea that man was basically good. “For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.”

Mamet is correct. Mankind is basically swine and good behavior is the result of the inculcating of moral behavior and abiding accountability. The real surprise is not that people behave badly, but that they do good.

Perhaps USA Today should explore the reasons a spouse remains faithful to his or her spouse. We already really know the reason for infidelity. No matter how you try to explain it, the bottom line is sin -- we want what we want, when we want it. And we don’t care who is hurt or inconvenienced by our behavior.

There’s a bizarre trend going on in Great Britain. Former church members are getting “de-baptized.” As Time magazine reports, “More than 100,000 former Christians have downloaded ‘certificates of de-baptism’ in a bid to publicly renounce the faith.”

Now, there have always been people who have walked away from their faith. But what’s behind this public display? And why are so many downloading an apostasy certificate?

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, has some theories about why his group’s idea has found unexpected popularity. He told Time that “churches have become so reactionary, so politically active that people actually want to make a protest against them now.... They’re not just indifferent anymore. They’re actively hostile.”

Well, maybe. But the Church has always been active in public life, standing against wrongdoing in the culture. And there have always been people who resented that.

Sanderson also states that the “de-baptism” rite is meant to “mock the practice of baptizing infants too young to consent.” But again, infant baptism has long been a subject of debate within the Church. There’s nothing new about that either.

I’m more interested in something on the NSS website, which reads in part, “Liberate yourself from the Original Mumbo-Jumbo that liberated you from the Original Sin you never had.”

Now that, I suspect, is an idea that is appealing to a large number of people. Believing in your own innate goodness isn’t exactly new — it has its roots in the lie that the serpent told Eve. But in this postmodern, therapeutic culture, I can understand how “liberating” it might feel not to believe in personal sin or evil.

And that should terrify us. Where does most of the evil in our world come from, if not from people who believe they’re incapable of evil?

Is it really possible to look at the past 10 years even — from Enron, to 9/11, to Bernie Madoff, to dozens of other scandals — and not believe in the sinfulness of human nature?

In my opinion, a person who can do that is a candidate not for “de-baptism,” but for a padded cell.

I don’t mean to be too harsh, but that attitude is a total denial of everything that human history and human culture teaches. And yet that just might be the attitude the “de-baptized” are celebrating.

The eminent scholar Alan Jacobs, professor of English at Wheaton College, puts it well in his book ORIGINAL SIN: A CULTURAL HISTORY. As Alan explains, even though the doctrine of original sin is unattractive and difficult to understand, we cannot deny its effects on our world. He writes, “Again and again the literature and culture of the West have returned to this doctrine, worrying over it, loathing it, rejecting it — only to call it back in times of great crisis or great misery.”

Let’s hope it doesn’t take another catastrophe to bring the “de-baptized” back to their senses.

The sad truth is that every time we think mankind has liberated itself from the dusty old notions of sin and evil, we discover how disastrously wrong we were.

________

Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

The role of the “great Politician” can only be found in the person of Jesus Christ.

________

“It is the Part of a great Politician to make the Character of his People; to extinguish among them, the Follies and Vices that he sees, and to create in them the Virtues and Abilities which he sees wanting. I wish I was sure that America has one such Politician, but I fear she has not.” – John Adams, January 8, 1776

It’s been over 240 years since John Adams (second President of the United States) penned these words to Mercy Otis Warren. Although his words concerned the benefits of a Republic vs. a Monarchy, these words speak volumes to us in many contexts and cultures today.

When reading this quote, some may focus on the latter part and immediately find the correlation between Adams’ statement and the affairs of our political system in America today. Others may tease out the responsibilities of a good and effective leader and use it as a five-point sermon, or the topic of the next series on discipleship.

What strikes me about what Adams said, however, is that it reminds us of our complete inability to change the hearts of others. Even a cursory look at history reminds us that, although certain times may be perceived as “glory days” and certain leaders as “the greatest of all time,” none lacked flaws or imperfections. The hearts of all men and women still ebb toward sin. There is a reason the Prophet Jeremiah declares, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9).

I have a dear friend who used to lovingly refer to her children as “little sinners.” This is not because she didn’t love them deeply, but because even by the age of 2 she saw the effects of the Fall in them. The truth is that no matter how hard we try to “extinguish” the “follies and vices” that Adams (and many others throughout the ages!) referred to, we always come up empty handed.

For it is always God in the hearts of men and women who does the work. He can and He will. See passages like Ezekiel 36:26, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Jeremiah 32:38-40, and Philippians 1:6 to read these promises.

As we look at our political system today (which John Adams’ statement lends us to do), we may have different reactions: (1) if we agree with what’s going on, we may staunchly stick our feet in the proverbial mud because we will not be swayed; (2) we critically assess each matter independently and seek to err on the side of rightness and justice; (3) we loudly protest against the side we oppose; and/or (4) we “speak to the palm” all issues related to politics, hoping others will just say and do the right thing.

Obviously, some of these choices are better than others. Here’s the point: as Christ-followers, we are called to continually pursue righteousness, justice, and peace in a world which leans away from these virtues. But we can’t do it on our own.

As I read Adams’ letter to Mercy Otis Warren, I am convinced that the role of the “great Politician” can only be found in the person of Jesus Christ, crucified, buried, risen, and now reigning forever. Even the greatest of leaders, whether from historical biblical times (i.e. Abraham, King David, the Apostle Peter, etc.) or recent times (i.e., Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., etc.) came up short of the ability to call all peoples to extinguish vices and create virtues.

It is God alone who does this.

As I’ve watched the last year’s political scene unfold (especially from the vantage point of serving as Ed’s editor for this blog), I have wondered why, no matter how often or how loud Christians (and others) yell at the ‘opposing side’, we still don’t see hearts moved. My hunch is that it’s because our voices may have gotten louder, and more frequent, than our prayers. I am certainly guilty of this! How much easier it is to tweet out 140 characters than to spend 30 minutes in silence with God?

So what do we do? If we are helpless to change hearts, what is our role?

First, we reimagine Jesus. At the Billy Graham Center where I work, we have a phrase that we use continually in the different events and resources that we create: reimagining. We re-envision things under the Lordship of Christ. New hearts, new cultures, new relationships, new ways of seeing our world, which is broken, but beautiful.

As we continue to encounter brokenness around us, whether in the one-on-one relationships we have, or in the systemic fractures we see across the cultural spectrum, we fix our eyes on Jesus, who alone changes individual hearts and entire communities. We reimagine Him on the throne.

This may seem easy on the surface but, in reality, there is perhaps nothing more challenging, because as we sit with God and reimagine and rediscover who He is and His ways of being and working, we come to the crushing reality of idolatry.

Second, we dethrone idolatry. In an effort to make the world around us more like us, we have made ourselves into demigods. Sometimes, an honest look in the mirror reveals something tragic and gnarly. We are faced with the fact that we think we are right, or perhaps we have placed our trust where it needn’t be placed. We have bought into the lie that although we profess to know Christ, we believe our thoughts and passions always run exactly parallel to His.

And this just isn’t so. No matter how close to godliness we may appear to be, we are all tainted with sin at the end of the day. This isn’t a bad thing, for it reminds us that there truly IS One “great Politician” who desires for us to see clearly and desires for hearts to be changed. The image of Christ on the throne is perhaps more needed today than ever. His rule requires our bended knee to seek truth in all its forms.

Third, we regroup as Christ-followers. I believe the Church plays a critical role in our political and cultural environment today. No amount of government policy or institutional law can trump the role of God’s Church at work today. Once we have diligently sought to understand God’s work in the world and our submissive role under His leadership, we begin to notice things differently.

Perhaps it’s that those we have placed on proverbial thrones need instead to be seated in chairs at the table. Perhaps it’s understanding that those on the margins really are first in God’s economy. Perhaps it’s that, as my dad likes to say, “We really do have two ears and one mouth for a reason,” and listening to the other side is the best plan of action.

If you are looking around and wondering when those around you will change, maybe it’s time to look elsewhere. Maybe it’s our hearts that need changing as well. If God does not have favorites (Rom. 2:11), then He desires all of us to grow in our understanding of Him. Maybe it’s time we shut down that tweet and instead enter into the Holy of Holies, where God beckons us near. Only then will we rightly face each crisis of the day with integrity, humility, and understanding.

________

Laurie Nichols is Director of Communications for the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College.

We begin our study of God’s sovereign grace in salvation with the biblical teaching regarding the effect of the fall upon man and the doctrine of original sin. This teaching is crucial for understanding the doctrine of salvation because one’s understanding of the effects of the fall upon mankind will largely determine one’s view of salvation. In other words, a person’s view of man’s state resulting from Adam’s sin is foundational to that person’s concept of how man appropriates salvation. Obviously, a person who views man as spiritually dead and unable to do anything that meets with God’s approval will view salvation differently than a person who believes that man is sick and weakened but is still able to cooperate with God in the salvation process.

What Happened When Adam Sinned?

The Bible teaches that Adam was created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26) with true knowledge, righteousness and holiness (Gen. 1:31; Ecc. 7:29; Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24). Adam’s nature was intrinsically good and he had the spiritual and ethical ability to perfectly obey anything that God required of him. After God created Adam He made a covenant or verbal agreement with him. God promised Adam that if he rendered a perfect and personal obedience to God he would never die. (This promise is clearly implied by Gen. 2:17; Gal. 3:10; Rom. 5:12-20; 10:5.) If Adam at any time violated God’s law by eating the fruit from the forbidden tree he would certainly die (Gen. 2:17). Genesis chapter 3 records Adam’s failure to obey God. Adam sinned in eating the forbidden fruit (Rom. 5:12ff); fell from his original righteousness; lost his communion with God; was cast out of paradise; and “became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body” (Westminster Confession of Faith, 6:2; see Gen. 6:5; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 3:10ff; Tit. 1:15; etc).

The Bible teaches that Adam’s sin not only had very negative spiritual consequences for himself, but also for the whole human race (i.e., everyone descending from Adam by ordinary generation). The teaching that mankind is guilty of sin in Adam and corrupted in nature because of Adam’s sin is commonly referred to as original sin. This teaching is part of the faith of every branch of Christendom. The disagreements on this teaching are over the nature and extent of man’s corruption (this will be considered below).

God’s Word says that the guilt of Adam’s sin is imputed to all men. (To impute Adam’s sin means that God reckons it to, or lays it to one’s account.) The teaching that “in Adam’s fall we sinned all” is explicitly taught by Paul in Romans 5:12, 15-19: “Through one man [Adam] sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned [in Adam’s transgression] ... by the one man’s offense many died ... judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation ... by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one ... through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation ... by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.” There was a kind solidarity between Adam and the human race because God determined that Adam (the first created man) was the federal head of all mankind. “It is no less a doctrine of Scripture than a fact of experience that mankind are a fallen race.”[1] Tragically, as a result of Adam’s sin all men also inherited Adam’s moral corruption. The pollution or inner corruption of sin passes from Adam to his posterity by ordinary generation. “That our first parents are now not only really guilty before God but also morally corrupt throughout their entire being is also immediately evident in the fact that their first transgression is immediately followed by a series of transgressions. It is now their nature to act in accordance with their new sinful condition. We see Adam and then Eve refusing to acknowledge openly their willful act of disobedience and to take the blame for it. Adam blames his wife and, indirectly, God himself for his situation. Eve then blames the serpent.”[2]

“The consequences of Adam’s sin are all comprehended under the term death in its widest sense.”[3] Because of Adam’s sin spiritual and physical death passed to all men. All men naturally born of Adam’s seed come into this world spiritually dead, with an innate hatred and hostility toward God, with a depraved soul that loves sin and cannot cease from it, with ethical pollution that extends to every aspect of his nature. “The imagination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21). Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Ps. 51:5). “The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born speaking lies” (Ps. 58:3). “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin” (Eccl. 7:20). “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6). “We were by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3; see 1 Kg. 8:46; Isa. 53:6; 64:6; Ps. 130:3; 143:2; Rom. 3:19, 22, 23; Gal. 3:22; Jam. 3:2; 1 John 1:8, 10; 5:19, etc). According to Scripture Adam’s sin and its consequences (real guilt, liability of punishment, spiritual death and man’s inherited moral corruption) have rendered man unable to respond to the gospel and even unable to cooperate by his own self-determining power or “free will” with the first motions of grace. Our state after the fall is spiritual death, not a mere sickness. Therefore we must acknowledge the greatness of our sin, slavery and misery and earnestly acknowledge that salvation is absolutely and solely a work of God’s grace.

The Debate over “Free Will”

Before we proceed with Scriptural proofs for the teaching of total depravity and total inability we would do well to spend some time examining the controversy over human ability in church history. The importance of the doctrine of the fall and its consequences as it affects the doctrine of salvation cannot be overestimated. Throughout history one’s concept of original sin has had a profound effect on many other doctrines such as regeneration, effectual calling, conversion, the nature and extent of the atonement, justification and perseverance. As we study the controversy over free will, some questions that we need to continually ask ourselves are: Which person’s theology is rooted in the exegesis of Scripture? What theologians are attempting to impose a human philosophy upon the text of Scripture? What doctrine ascribes all the glory for salvation to God? What teaching appeals to our fallen human nature? What doctrine of original sin supports rather than contradicts the other great doctrines of the Bible?

Pelagianism

The first great controversy over the doctrine of original sin and its relationship to how God’s grace operates was the Pelagian controversy. The Pelagian movement was named after Pelagius (A.D. 360-420) a British layman who advocated asceticism. Pelagius had become a teacher of asceticism in Rome (c. 400) and believed that the church’s view of original sin, which at that time was dominated by Augustine, denied human responsibility and thus discouraged holiness. Pelagius was the first theologian to set forth the principle “that man must have plenary ability to do and to be whatever can be righteously required of him ... The intimate conviction that man can be responsible for nothing which is not in their power, led, in the first place, to the Pelagian doctrine of the freedom of the will.”[4] The philosophical presupposition set forth by Pelagius regarding freedom of the will and human responsibility completely and consistently dominated his whole theological system.

In the attempt to preserve his concept of human responsibility Pelagius and his followers taught the following: (1) Adam’s sin only brought injury to himself and no one else. (2) There is no such thing as original sin, or inherent hereditary moral corruption. (3) Everyone born after Adam is the same as Adam was before the fall. (4) Adam’s sin was only a bad example to his posterity and nothing more. (5) Since all men are born without the contamination of original sin and moral depravity, everyone has the full ability to do everything that God requires and many men have lived without sin. Pelagius and his followers taught that men could be saved without the gospel by keeping the law. “The only difference is that under the light of the Gospel, the perfect obedience is rendered more easy.”[5] (6) Adam in a state of innocence was mortal and would have died whether he sinned or not. Therefore, the fact that all men grow old, and die, has nothing to do with the fall. (7) The grace of God refers not to unmerited favor to undeserving sinners but simply to the natural endowments of men which are gifts from God. “[G]race merely enables us to do more easily what we could still do without it, albeit with greater difficulty.”[6]

The teachings of Pelagius and his followers were condemned at the council of Carthage (A.D. 418) and again at the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431). While Pelagianism was a dangerous heresy because it denied the grace of God and the gospel, it nevertheless was used by God to greatly sharpen the early church’s understanding of original sin and the nature of saving grace. The controversy raised the question that is still with us today. Are sinners saved because of their own will, strength or exertion or are they saved solely by God’s grace, solely by what God does? Although the modern evangelical will recognize the obvious, gross deficiencies of the Pelagian system, nevertheless the central presupposition underlying Pelagianism lives on. That is the philosophical idea that responsibility presupposes human ability.

Semi-Pelagianism

After Pelagianism was defeated with the help of great theologians such as Augustine (A.D. 354-430), bishop of Hippo,[7] it went underground and reemerged in a milder, more palatable form. Although the original semi-Pelagians differed in many areas, the general teachings of Semi-Pelagians are as follows. Contrary to Pelagius, the sin and corruption of Adam did pass on to his posterity causing disease, suffering, mortality and a propensity toward evil. Therefore, man needs divine assistance if he is to do anything spiritually good. But contrary to the pure grace system of Augustine they held: “(1) That the beginning of salvation is with man. Man begins to seek God, and then God aids him. (2) That this incipient turning of the soul towards God is something good, and in one sense meritorious. (3) That the soul, in virtue of its liberty of will or ability for good, cooperates with the grace of God in regeneration....”[8]

Although there are differences between Semi-Pelagianism and classical Arminianism, the similarities between Semi-Pelagianism and what is taught in many modern evangelical churches is striking. Most modern evangelicals do not believe that man is really spiritually dead and totally depraved as a result of the fall but merely that man is spiritually sick. In other words man still has spiritually ability and thus can make a move toward Jesus and even choose Him if the right techniques are employed. Further, the common doctrine among evangelicals and fundamentalists called “decisional regeneration” is very similar to semi-Pelagianism. In many evangelical churches people are told to come to the front of the church (“the altar call”), choose Christ, or pray a prayer and the result will be that God will respond to man’s act or choice and then man will be born again. In other words, man cooperates with God and allows God to save him. This teaching is very different from the biblical view that men are dead in trespasses and sin and the Holy Spirit raises the dead heart to life, regenerates it and causes it to savingly embrace Christ.

Although Semi-Pelagianism was condemned by the church at the Second Council of Orange in A. D. 529, the church accepted a modified version of Semi-Pelagianism (a semi-Semi-Pelagianism) and thus eliminated the contradiction between Augustine’s soteriology and ecclesiology. The Roman Catholic Church accepted a synergistic doctrine of salvation which better suited their man-controlled channels of grace concept of the sacraments. Thus, tragically in the sphere of salvation most of modern evangelicalism has unknowingly sided itself with Romanism and not the Protestant Reformation.

Arminianism

Arminianism is named after a Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609). As a professor in Leiden, Arminius began to challenge the doctrines of grace as then taught in the Dutch Reformed churches. His views were developed and systematized by his followers in the five theses of the Remonstrant Articles (1610); now commonly known as the five points of Arminianism. Regarding original sin and man’s state after the fall the first point of Arminianism reads:

Free Will or Human Ability. Although human nature was seriously affected by the Fall, man has not been left in a state of total spiritual helplessness. God graciously enables every sinner to repent and believe, but He does so in such a manner as not to interfere with man’s freedom. Each sinner possesses a free will, and his eternal destiny depends on how he uses it. Man’s freedom consists of his ability to choose good over evil in spiritual matters; his will is not enslaved to his sinful nature. The sinner has the power either to cooperate with God’s Spirit and be regenerated or to resist God’s grace and perish. The lost sinner needs the Spirit’s assistance, but he does not have to be regenerated by the Spirit before he can believe, for faith is man’s act and precedes the new birth. Faith is the sinner’s gift to God; it is man’s contribution to salvation.[9]

Like Semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism teaches that human nature is injured by the fall but man still has the ability to do that which is spiritually good and turn to God.

Although Arminianism as a system is more developed and sophisticated than Semi-Pelagianism, it still adheres to the central core of Semi-Pelagianian teaching. That is, that man is only partially depraved and thus, his will though damaged still has the ability to see spiritual good and generate faith toward Christ. Sinners just need a little help. Man needs “the preventing, exciting and assisting grace of God in order to their conversion....”[10] Further, “This divine grace is afforded to all men in sufficient measure to enable them to repent, believe, and keep all the commandments of God.”[11] Thus, man and not God is sovereign over his own salvation. Man according to Arminian doctrine does not need a spiritual resurrection from the dead in order to believe, but merely some first aid. According to Arminianism, salvation is a cooperative effort between God and man in which man plays the most important role. This teaching is synergistic in that man contributes something to his own salvation. Indeed, man allows God to regenerate and save him. “The Arminian order of salvation, while ostensibly ascribing the work of salvation to God, really makes it contingent on the attitude and the work of man. God opens the possibility of salvation for man, but it is up to man to improve the opportunity.”[12]

John Wesley (1703-1791) and his followers made some changes in classical Arminianism by teaching that as a result of the fall man’s depravity was total; that the natural man does not have any intrinsic power to cooperate with the grace of God. But, he argued, that since Christ died for all men without exception and they are justified in Him, this guilt and total depravity is immediately removed at birth. Thus, all men come into the world with an ability (bestowed by Jesus) to cooperate with God in salvation. The Wesleyans called this new system Evangelical Arminianism. Wesley believed this clever method of arriving at a universal unencumbered will, while maintaining the orthodox doctrine of original sin eliminated the charge that he was teaching a form of Semi-Pelagianism. Although we must give credit to Wesley for attempting to avoid Semi-Pelagianism his free-willism through the back door of the atonement has no basis in Scripture at all. It suffers from a number of exegetical and theological difficulties (e.g., How is the removal of the guilt and pollution of sin attained without regeneration and faith? Why would Jesus’ death only restore human ability and yet not forgive all sins, past, present and future? If the merits of Christ’s death are applied at birth then why is faith, conversion and repentance needed later on? If Jesus’ death is universally applied, then why is there not a universal salvation? Wesley has placed free will in a citadel of iron at the expense of the atonement. His system is arbitrary; has no biblical proof and is irrational.)

Although Arminianism was condemned by the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619) and was soundly and thoroughly refuted by Scripture, it spread throughout the whole world; permeated every branch of Protestantism; and came to thoroughly dominate modern evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Because of Arminianism’s affinity with Semi-Pelagianism, Romanism and humanism, the sharp antithesis that once existed between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism has in recent years been greatly obscured (e.g., in 2005, when the Pope died several “evangelical” leaders spoke of his greatness, piety and orthodoxy.).

The Biblical Evidence for the Bondage of the Will

The one thing that Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism and Roman Catholicism have in common is the idea that after the fall man still has the ability to think, do or will spiritual good; that man still has a “free will.” “This is the Helen whom they so ardently love and for whom they do not hesitate to fight as for their altars and firesides.”[13] Such a view shades their whole doctrine of salvation. Therefore, it is extremely important that we carefully establish the biblical teaching that man’s heart is spiritually dead because of the fall and so thoroughly corrupt spiritually that the unsaved sinner is dead, blind and deaf to the things of God.

In order to deal with the question of “free will” we need to carefully define two terms. First, what do we mean when we speak of the human will? Second, how do we define the freedom that is attributed to this will? These questions are important because: (a) Many people assume that the will is some entity that is independent of the human heart; (b) The Augustinian or Calvinistic position is almost always misrepresented by Arminians as holding that men are mere robots. We will see that the Bible upholds the validity and freedom of man’s decisions as secondary agents; yet, also teaches that every person’s choices are determined by the heart.

Although there are many different definitions of the term will, this term in the context of the debate over free choice or determination refers to volition or a choice of the mind. When people discuss the soul or heart of man they often will speak of different aspects of the soul such as the intellect, the emotions and the will. Indeed, it is proper to think of the will as a function or part of the human mind. Therefore, as we consider the subject of “free will” we must not separate the will from the intellect or mind as if it has some independent power. The debate over “free will” cannot be settled unless we understand that the will always decides in accordance with the mind or, as Scripture puts it, the inclinations of the heart (Prov. 4:23; Luke 6:45; Matt. 7:17, 21). “[T]he decision of the intellect is terminated in the will, so the liberty of the will has its roots in the intellect.”[14]

For example, when a man decides to go to the refrigerator to get a piece of pizza he exercises his will. This act of the will, however, did not occur spontaneously or in a vacuum. Before the act of the will the mind received hunger pangs from the stomach; the mind thought about the food options available; the mind decided what food it preferred (this choice was based in part on culture, habit, availability and ease of preparation) and this choice terminated with an act of the will. The will had a prior reason, argument and motivation to get the pizza. If that person’s mind did not like onions but did like pepperoni, then that person would never choose onion pizza but rather would always choose pepperoni pizza in such an incident. The man’s will was free to choose onions; but his will was subservient to this mind which did not like onions. The mind chose something else instead. Similarly, a lion in Africa is free to eat grass when it is hungry. But it never does so, because lions by nature are carnivorous. Their minds crave meat. A water buffalo is also free to eat whatever it desires. But it only chooses grass because it is in the buffalo’s nature to do so.

Now that we have an understanding of the will (that the human will is not an independent force but rather always follows the mind) we can begin to understand human freedom. On the one hand we can in accordance with Scripture and experience affirm that man is truly a free agent. As beings which are created in the image of God with rationality and intelligence men are valid secondary agents that are free to make choices. Men are not puppets, robots or impersonal machines. Men have the ability to observe, evaluate, deliberate in the mind and then choose between a, b, c, or D. Men are not coerced by anything outside of themselves to choose something they do not want to choose. If this is a person’s definition of “free will,” then we can agree and say that people have a free will. Unfortunately, this definition is not what the proponents of “free will” have in mind.

While in one sense we can say that man has a free will (i.e., men are free to choose and are not coerced by outside forces), in another sense we can say that man’s will is not free. Men are free to choose whatever they want; but, because of the fall, man’s heart or soul is thoroughly corrupt. If, as we have previously demonstrated, the will always follows the mind or heart, then a corrupt heart will not and cannot choose spiritually good things. The will of man always acts in accordance with his sinful nature. This is not simply the opinion of someone like Augustine, Luther or Calvin but is the explicit teaching of Scripture. Jesus says, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). A man’s outward life is a reflection of what is in his heart. Men speak and do evil deeds because they are by nature evil. Thus, Solomon warns believers, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23). “For from within, out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders...” (Mark 7:21).

Christ says that the source of sinful thoughts and acts is the heart, not the will. The will carries out the desires, inclinations, habits, etc of the heart. Thus, in the Sermon on the Mount our Lord teaches that “a bad tree bears bad fruit” (Matt. 7:7). “Heart” in the Bible refers to the innermost core of man’s being. It includes the whole human nature (i.e. the mind, will, intellect, emotions, etc). So, although man is at liberty to choose whatever he desires, since his heart is evil, he will only choose between greater and lesser evil. Those outwardly good deeds that he does do are not prompted by love for God and thus are not spiritually good. “Why does the sinner choose a life of sinful indulgence? Because he prefers it, all arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, though of course he does not prefer the effects of such a course. And why does he prefer it? Because his heart is sinful.”[15] Boettner writes: “Man is a free agent but he cannot originate the love of God in his heart. His will is free in the sense that it is not controlled by any force outside of himself. As the bird with a broken wing is ‘free’ to fly but not able, so the natural man is free to come to God but not able. How can he repent of his sin when he loves it? How can he come to God when he hates Him? This is the inability of the will under which man labors.”[16]

Total Depravity

Because the Bible describes fallen man’s heart as thoroughly wicked and corrupt theologians refer to man as totally depraved. This doctrine does not mean that man is as wicked as he could be. Obviously, there are some men that are more wicked than others. The pagan man who works hard to support his family, who is faithful to his wife, who obeys the civil laws is much better than a hardened criminal or serial murderer. Further, this teaching does not mean that an unsaved man cannot do good deeds. Jesus Himself acknowledged that evil men could give good gifts to their children (Matt. 7:11). Also, contrary to certain false misrepresentations, this doctrine does not mean that the image of God in man in the broader sense is destroyed. Man still has reasoning capacities and a conscience that discriminates between good and evil. Man has an active spirit that creates beautiful works of art, music, architecture, engineering and makes great strides in science and technology.

What total depravity does mean is that man’s inherent corruption extends to every part of man’s nature. Because of the fall man’s whole being or heart is in rebellion against God. “Everything that unregenerate man does or thinks is undergirded by rebellious inclinations against God or motivations that are sinful.”[17] Since the fall man’s whole nature has been polluted by sin. As a result man has an innate hostility toward God and spiritual truth. Paul tells us that all men (apart from a prior work of special grace) suppress the truth about God in creation and replace God with idols (Rom. 1:21-25). Man’s mind or will is not neutral or a blank state at birth but is evil. “The imagination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21). “The wicked ... go astray as soon as they are born speaking lies” (Ps. 58:3). “We were by nature the children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). “The heart is deceitful above all things, who can know it” (Jer. 17:9)? Consequently, men are actuated by wrong principles. The natural man’s thoughts, words and deeds are corrupt, because they all flow from a corrupt source. Thus, unregenerate man cannot choose or do spiritual good. He cannot generate the love of God or Christ in his heart and he cannot do anything meriting salvation. It is for this reason that Paul writing under divine inspiration can say that not even one man in the whole world “seeks God” (Rom. 3:11).

The fact that men can do outward good deeds or what theologians refer to as “civic goodness” does not in any way contradict the doctrine of total depravity. The Bible teaches that if a man’s thoughts or deeds are to be truly good in the spiritual sense, they must flow from a true love of God and His glory. They must originate from a heart that has been spiritually reborn by the power of the Holy Spirit. An unbeliever may work at a soup kitchen or donate to charity to feel good about himself or impress his friends. But, he never does these things in Christ’s name to glorify God. The unbeliever (whether he is aware or it or not) does “good deeds” with selfish, humanistic, evil motives. To the unregenerate man, even religion is something for man’s glory (anthropocentric), to make himself feel good; or to receive glory from other men.

The fact that man is inherently corrupt or totally depraved explains why the Bible teaches that spiritual goodness can only be founded upon faith in the triune God of Scripture. The author of Hebrews says that “without faith it is impossible to please Him” (11:6). Paul says, “Whatever is not from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23). Unbelievers cannot anything that is well pleasing to God simply because they do not have faith in God or His Word. They continually suppress the truth about God in order to serve their own sinful lusts (Rom. 1:18-32). Because everything the unbeliever does is rooted in their wicked heart and actuated by corrupt principles Solomon can say that even “the plowing of the wicked [is] sin” (Prov. 21:4).

True faith in Christ, which issues forth from a regenerate heart, is the foundation of genuine virtue. An act which is outwardly good, but done in the service of self and Satan cannot please God. “The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7-8).

Man’s Spiritual Inability

The doctrine of total depravity is intimately connected to the biblical teaching regarding man’s total inability. Since the corruption of sin extends to every part of man’s nature and men have hearts that are hostile to God and spiritual truth, men do not have the spiritual power or discernment to savingly embrace Christ or believe the gospel. Berkhof writes: “When we speak of man’s corruption as total inability, we mean two things: (1) that the unrenewed sinner cannot do any act, however insignificant, which fundamentally meets with God’s approval and answers to the demands of God’s holy law; and (2) that he cannot change his fundamental preference for sin and self to love for God, nor even make an approach to such a change. In a word, he is unable to do any spiritual good.”[18] The Westminster Confession of Faith describes total inability as follows: “Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto” (9:3).Gordon Clark writes: “... Adam’s ability to will what is good was lost by the fall. From that time on man could not choose to will ‘any spiritual good accompanying salvation.’ True, a man might will to be honest, to support his family, to discharge most of his obligations as a citizen. In colloquial language these things are called good. But they are not spiritual goods, and they have nothing to do with salvation. Furthermore, a man cannot will to be saved. He cannot convert himself, nor even make preparation for conversion. The simple reason is that he is dead in sin.”[19]

The doctrines of total depravity and spiritual inability are foundational to one’s understanding of the nature of Christ’s redemptive work. If men are dead in sin, helpless, spiritually blind and cannot believe in Christ; then the salvation of sinners of necessity involves much more than Christ dying for all men and then waiting passively to see who will accept His gift. If unsaved men are unable to choose or to will any spiritual good, then apart from a spiritual rebirth, no man would choose Christ. If the doctrine of total inability is true, then Christ’s death not only removed the guilt of sin and God’s curse against sinners, but also must be the foundation and guarantee of the application of His work to specific individuals. Thus, salvation must be a supernatural work of God from beginning to the end. All synergistic views (semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism, Romanism) must be rejected in favor of a monergistic view of salvation (Augustinianism, Calvinism).

The common evangelical view is that Christ, by His death, made salvation possible for all men; that forgiveness is there waiting for men to receive; that the Holy Spirit may gently urge men to change, but cannot interfere with man’s free will. In other words, the sovereign almighty Spirit of God can only do what the sinful, corrupt, depraved will of man allows Him to do. Man is in charge of the application of redemption, not God. But, we ask, can the Arminian position be true biblically or even logically if men are spiritually dead and don’t simply need a gentle push or a little medicine? What if men need a spiritual heart transplant, a spiritual resurrection, a quickening? The diagnosis determines the nature of the remedy.

A biblical understanding of man’s state after the fall ought to cure us of the sinful and somewhat blasphemous notion that a thrice holy God has associated Himself with sinful depraved man as only a minor partial cause of a sinner’s salvation. The fact that the natural man is a spiritual corpse without any ability to seek God or take even one step toward Jesus means: that regeneration must precede and not follow saving faith; that God works directly upon the human soul in salvation; that Christ is not passively waiting, but is actively saving His people. An understanding of the fall leads to the doctrine of salvation by the grace of God alone. Salvation is totally a work of God. Man does not have the ability to contribute anything to his own salvation; even faith and repentance are gifts from above (Eph. 2:8; Phil. 2:13; Acts 5:31, 11:18). Therefore, let us bow the knee to Christ and give our precious Redeemer all the glory for our salvation.

Since the doctrines of total depravity and inability are so important as they relate to our understanding of salvation, let us carefully consider the biblical evidence for these teachings. We will see that the biblical evidence for these doctrines is overwhelming. What follows is a summary of the biblical teaching regarding the state of fallen unregenerate man.

1. The Unregenerate are Spiritually Dead

In Genesis 2 God told Adam that if he ate the forbidden fruit, that very day he would most certainly die (vs. 16-17). In this passage Jehovah was speaking of spiritual death which refers to the dissolution of man’s union with God and its consequences. In Romans 5:12 and following Paul says that because of Adam’s sin spiritual death spread to the whole human race. In Ephesians the apostle says that everyone (except Christians who have been born again or made [spiritually] alive by God) is dead. “And you He made alive, who were once dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we [Christians] all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (2:1-5, cf. Col. 2:13).

In this passage Paul makes it clear that everyone who is spiritually dead is a slave of sin, the flesh or the corrupt human nature. All persons who are spiritually dead are in a state of subjection to Satan and live in a continual state of condemnation. Not only their specific sins, but their very nature makes them “children of wrath.” The apostle also teaches that spiritual death is the universal state of all men apart from Christ. According to God’s infallible Word the state of spiritual death can only be remedied by a direct act of God upon the human heart, a spiritual quickening. This fact is totally at odds with the common modern evangelical notion that unregenerate man has the ability to choose Christ. According to Paul regeneration must precede saving faith.

Paul, under divine inspiration, used the word “dead” for a reason. There is no middle ground between being alive and being dead. Unregenerate men are not just sick, handicapped or impaired but dead. Clark writes “A certain Bible professor, whom I knew only too well, explained to his classes that man was spiritually sick, that Christ had provided the remedy in the corner store, and that we must drag ourselves there, take the medicine and so regain our health. This is utterly unscriptural and anti-Christian. The Bible in many places tells sinners that they are dead and must be resurrected. No medicine in a drug store ever brought a dead man back to life.”[20] Obviously, a man who is spiritually dead can no more see spiritual truth or choose Christ than a rotting corpse can play tennis or debate philosophy. A Christian can quote Scripture and speak the gospel to an unsaved person from morning until late in the evening. But if the gospel message is not accompanied by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit that person will not believe. “You may use all human persuasion possible, but you cannot give spiritual life where death reigns. God alone, by a creative act, can bring life out of death. Spiritual arguments to an unregenerate man are only warm clothes to a corpse.”[21] “If a man is dead spiritually, therefore, it is surely equally as evident that he is unable to perform any spiritual actions, and thus the doctrine of man’s moral [or spiritual] inability rests upon strong Scriptural evidence.”[22]

2. The Unregenerate Cannot Understand or Receive Spiritual Truth

The Lord Jesus Christ taught that the human nature is so thoroughly ruined and corrupted by the fall that the Holy Spirit must first radically change it before a person can understand and embrace spiritual truths. “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see [comprehend, perceive] the kingdom of God’” (John 3:3). As the man who is born blind has no power to see, the unregenerate man whose mind is spiritually darkened (Eph. 4:18; 5:8), whose heart is made of stone and devoid of spiritual sense (Ezek. 36:26), cannot know spiritual truth or do anything spiritually good.

Therefore, Paul could declare, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). The apostle tells us plainly that the natural man (that is the unregenerate person who is devoid of the Spirit of God) does not receive any spiritual truths from God at all because he regards such things as foolish, stupid, absurd or ridiculous. Such a person may take a Bible class and give accurate answers on a test regarding the crucifixion, the resurrection and even the doctrine of salvation. However, he does not regard any of these doctrines as true; and, he will not embrace these teachings but rather ridicule them. Why? Because, as Paul says, such things are “spiritually discerned.” That is, they can only be discerned or truly understood and lovingly embraced by a person in whom the Spirit of God dwells.

When our Lord confronted the unbelieving self-righteous Jews He said, “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My Word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do” (John 8:43-44). In this passage Jesus explains why the unbelieving Jews repeatedly misunderstood His language. The reason is that these Jews did not have the spiritual or moral ability to hear His word, message or doctrine. The word “hear” (KJV) is a Hebrew idiom which means to receive, believe or obey. These wicked men repeatedly twisted the meaning of the Savior’s speech and refused to believe and submit to His doctrine because they were unable to do so. Why? Christ tells us that they did so because they were of the devil. They had a devilish nature. “Identity of inner passions and desires established spiritual descent: they are constantly desiring (present continuous tense) to carry out the wishes (desires, yearnings) of the devil; so he must be their father.”[23] Like their father whose desires can only be for evil and against all spiritual goodness, the unregenerate Jews hated the Messiah and His message. Obviously, then, if a man is to embrace Jesus, God must first change his nature. Regeneration must precede faith. Now we can understand Paul when he says, “The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile. Therefore let no one boast in man” (1 Cor. 3:20-21).

3. The Unregenerate Cannot Please God

If a person defines “free will” as an unsaved man’s autonomous ability to choose Christ, then we must ask a few simple questions. Is choosing the Savior a good thing or a bad thing? Obviously, it is a good thing. Does choosing Jesus please the Father? Of course it does. If the unregenerate human will is capable of choosing God’s Son and this choosing pleases God, then how are we to interpret Paul’s explicit statement that unbelievers cannot do anything that pleases God? “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:5-8).

Paul teaches that people who are unregenerate live according to the flesh (that is, their sinful depraved human nature). Further, their minds by nature are focused on the things of the flesh. Why is this so? Because, by nature, the carnal or unregenerate mind hates God and always takes a position of hostility toward Him, His Son and His Word. Luther writes: “Let the guardian of ‘free will’ answer the following question: How can endeavors towards good be made by that which is death, and displeases God, and is enmity against God, and disobeys God, and cannot obey him?”[24] Murray writes: “Here we have nothing less than the doctrine of the total inability to be well-pleasing to God or to do what is well-pleasing in his sight. In the whole passage we have the biblical basis for the doctrine of total depravity and total inability. It should be recognized, therefore, that resistance to these doctrines must come to terms not simply with the present day proponents of these doctrines but with the apostle himself. ‘Enmity against God’ is nothing other than total depravity and ‘cannot please God’ nothing less than ‘total inability.’”[25]

4. The Unregenerate Cannot Come to Christ

Two passages that speak very clearly on the issue of human inability come directly from the lips of Jesus Christ in the gospel of John. The Savior said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (6:44). “I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father” (6:65). There are a number of things that both these passages have in common. First, they both begin with a universal negative (“no one”). This means that what our Lord says applies to every human being. Not one sinner is excluded.

Second, the word “can” refers specifically to human ability. In Greek the passage literally reads: “No one is able to come to Me.” Jesus assures us that not even one person has the moral or spiritual power, strength, wisdom or ability to come to Christ. Why is this true? Because when man fell every part of his being was corrupted by sin. Man’s heart is darkened. His will is enslaved to sin. His carnal mind is at enmity with God. Man cannot embrace that which he hates. Man can no more come to Christ than can water flow uphill. Thus the world cannot receive the Spirit of truth (John 14:17). “[M]an likes to think that his salvation is in his own power. Such notions are flatly contradictory to the text before us. The words of our Lord here are clear and unmistakable, and cannot be explained away.”[26] To predicate the freedom of the will is to deny that man is totally depraved. To say that man has the power within himself to either reject or accept Christ, is to repudiate the fact that he is the captive of the Devil.”[27] It is to totally contradict Paul when he says there is not one good thing in the flesh (Rom. 7:18); there is not one who does good (Rom. 3:12); there is none who seeks God (Rom. 3:11). Further, it explicitly contradicts this teaching of the Son of the God.

Third, the word “unless” signifies that before any person can come to Jesus something must occur first that will make that coming possible. There are no exceptions. Because man does not have the power or ability in and of himself to come to the Savior, God must do something so that certain people will come. In this passage Christ explicitly contradicts the Arminian notion that sinful man and not God is the ultimate decider of who will or will not be saved. God is sovereign over salvation. “Man never of himself begins with God. God must first begin with man.”[28] “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy” (Rom. 9:16). When Jesus said, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), He really meant nothing. Luther writes: “It is totally unheard of grammar and logic to say that nothing is the same as something; to logicians, the thing is an impossibility, for the two are contradictory!”[29] Turretin concurs. He writes: “He does not say, without me ye can do little or can do something with difficulty, but without me ye can do nothing. He does not say, without me ye do nothing or will do nothing, but ye can do nothing (which excludes not only the act, but the power itself) ... Now why should the Holy Spirit so often [e.g., 1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 3:5; Rom. 8:7; Matt. 7:18; John 6:44; etc.] insist upon that impotence except to take away from man all power to good and ascribe to grace alone the entire work of regeneration and salvation?”[30]

Fourth, God is the only one who can give sinful depraved men the ability to come to Christ. One passage (John 6:65) says that in order for a man to come to Jesus, it must first be granted to him by God. This means that the ability to come to Christ is a gift from God. If man already had this ability, or if man had a free will spiritually, then our Lord could not make such a statement. Therefore, the common evangelical notion that salvation is like a cup of medicine that is of no use whatsoever until a person accepts the cup and drinks it is unscriptural. The Bible teaches that the work of Christ is a gift and the ability to understand and savingly embrace the Savior and His redemption is also a gift. This means that God “in his saving operations, deals not generally with mankind at large, but particularly with the individuals who are actually saved.”[31] This teaching explains why the Bible calls both faith (Eph. 2:8; Phil. 1:29; 2 Pet. 1:2-3; John 6:44, 45, 65) and repentance (Acts 11:18; 16:14; 2 Tim. 2:25) gifts from God. If man could generate his own faith or if man only needed a little assistance form God then the ability to come would not be a gift.

The Lord’s statement in John 6:44 helps us to understand why the ability to come to Christ is a gift. Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” God actively does something to a sinner before he will come to the Savior. This activity is described by the word “draw.” What exactly does this word “draw” mean?

Before we go to Scripture to give the biblical definition of this word let us consider some common misconceptions regarding its meaning. A very common understanding of “draw” in John 6 is that it refers to a gentle wooing of the sinner on the part of God. The Father is attempting to entice men to come to Jesus but they can resist this divine activity. This is essentially the view of John Wesley. He writes; “No man can believe in Christ, unless God gives him power. He draws us first by good desires, not by compulsion, not by laying the will under any necessity; but by the strong and sweet, yet still resistible motions of his heavenly grace.”[32] In other words, God’s power or grace is applied to sinners but the human will is really the ultimate deciding factor in salvation. This is the typical Arminian interpretation. God’s grace is necessary for a man to come; but, it is not sufficient to guarantee a man’s coming. This interpretation not only explicitly contradicts the biblical definition of the word “draw” (as we shall see in a moment), but also completely contradicts the immediate context. Note the promise our Lord attaches to His statement about God’s drawing power. Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:44, italics added). According to the sinless Son of God the drawing activity of the Father always results in a resurrection unto life.

Further, earlier in the same discourse Christ said that a person cannot come to Him unless he is given to Him by the Father; and, the all who are given will certainly come. “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37). This whole statement presupposes that God’s granting and drawing power are irresistible. If the Arminian interpretation was true then our Lord could not make such promises. If Wesley’s interpretation was true the passage would read, “All that the Father gives Me who of their own free will cooperate with God’s grace and do not resist and reject it will come to Me.” Unfortunately Wesley and his Arminian followers have a bad habit or following their own humanistic presuppositions instead of the clear teaching of God’s infallible Word.

Another interpretation ascribes the drawing power of the Father to the Word of God itself. The idea is that the Holy Spirit operates upon the heart of man through the Word and entices the sinner to embrace the Savior. While there is no question that the Holy Spirit can accompany and apply God’s Word to convict men of sin, to convert hearts (cf. 1 Pet. 1:23; Jam. 1:18), and sanctify believers (cf. John 17:17; Ps. 119), one cannot ascribe the conversion of one person over another to the influence of the Word alone. For, if the Spirit operated through the Word alone and all were equally drawn by the use of the Word, then it ought to have the same effect upon all. Yet many men reject the Word and others heartily embrace it. The difference lies in those who hear the word and are regenerated and effectually drawn to Christ by the Holy Spirit. (With the unregenerate the Holy Spirit must work immediately upon the human soul before He works mediately through the preached word. As noted above, Christ says this drawing power is irresistible. It always results in a resurrection unto life. This means that the Holy Spirit operates on some men and passes others by. While man is the architect of his own damnation, (contrary to Arminianism) he is not the architect of his own conversion. How could he be? He is dead in trespasses (Eph. 2:1-5), helpless (Ezek.16:4-6), spiritually blind (1 Cor. 2:14) and cannot repent (Jer. 13:23). Further, Paul says that the Word apart from the converting-drawing power of the Holy Spirit brings death (Rom. 7:10). It only brings greater judgment, not life (2 Cor. 2:14-16).

All Arminian and semi-Pelagian concepts of grace are utterly destroyed by the biblical meaning of the word draw. “The Greek word used here is elko. Kittle’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament defines it to mean to compel by irresistible superiority. Linguistically and lexicographically, the word means to ‘compel.’”[33] This word means much more than a mere moral influence of the Word, or a gentle wooing by the Father. God does not merely woo, beg, beckon, or attempt to influence, He compels with divine power. Hendriksen writes: “The same verb (elko, elkuo) occurs also in 12:32, where the drawing activity is ascribed to the Son; and further, in 18:10; 21:6, 11; Acts 16:19; 21:30; and Jas. 2:6. The drawing of which these passages speak indicates a very powerful — we may even say, an irresistible — activity. To be sure, man resists, but this resistance is ineffective. It is in that sense that we speak of God’s grace as being irresistible. The net full of big fishes is actually drawn or dragged ashore (21:6, 11). Paul and Silas are dragged into the forum (Acts 16:19). Paul is dragged out of the temple (Acts 21:30). The rich drag the poor before the judgment-seats (Jas. 2:6) ... Jesus will draw all men to himself (12:32) and Simon drew his sword...”[34] The Greek word elko means what it means. All attempts to deny the meaning of this term are not based on Scripture but on humanistic concepts of fairness that are imposed on the text.

Arminians reject the plain meaning of the text because they believe that it would violate the idea that man has a free will. But this objection fails to consider three important things. First, as we have previously demonstrated the will of man is not free in the sense that the will always follows the depraved heart which cannot do anything which pleases God. Second, the state of unregenerate man’s heart (spiritually dead, dark, blind, depraved, etc.) necessitates a drawing power that powerfully effects in us to will and to do. A gentle persuasion or a wooing is ineffectual on a spiritual corpse. Thus, the Bible describes this drawing in terms of a creation, a spiritual resurrection, a quickening, a regeneration. The removal of heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh (i.e., a heart with a new spiritual nature) is obviously much more radical than a gentle urging. Third, the drawing power of God should never be falsely characterized as some form of mindless coercion. God in the new birth implants a new spiritual life in the heart of a sinner which powerfully influences every aspect of that person’s being in such a manner that: (a) his will or personal responsibility is not violated; and (b) he now has an understanding and love of Christ so that he voluntarily embraces the Savior. As a flower is drawn to the rays of the sun in spring, the new heart of the regenerate person looks to Jesus with a living faith.

The biblical meaning of the word “draw” is supported by Paul in 1 Corinthians. He writes: “For who makes you to differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (4:7)? Paul teaches that God is the one who makes the difference between those with and without Christ. The apostle explicitly rejects the whole Arminian paradigm. “And yet if after the fall the free will has still some strength by which it can dispose itself to good and admit the offered grace, man will make himself to differ from another and will have what he had not received and of which he may boast because the admission of grace (and his own act) distinguishes him from another who rejects it ... Could he not glory against the unbeliever because he cooperated with the grace of God which he [the unbeliever] despised.”[35] The consistent Arminian allows exactly what Paul prohibits. Therefore, we must reject the synergistic notion of wooing in favor of the monergistic concept of drawing. “Salvation is of the Lord” (Jon. 2:9).

5. The Unregenerate Cannot Repent

Because men are depraved by nature and spiritually dead, they in and of themselves do not have the power to repent. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may you do good who are accustomed to evil” (Jer. 13:23). “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one” (Job 14:4). “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit” (Matt. 7:18). “They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions ... having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin.... It has happened to them according to the true proverb: ‘A dog returns to his own vomit,’ and, ‘a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire’” (2 Pet. 2:13-14, 22). “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6). “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7-8).

Biblical repentance involves a change of mind regarding sin, Christ and the gospel. It involves a turning from a sinful, selfish lifestyle to the true and living God. The Arminian view is that men need some assistance from God to repent. With careful persuasion and a gentle urging by the Holy Spirit men can repent and turn over a new leaf. This view, however, explicitly contradicts Scripture. Because man is so thoroughly corrupt only the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit applied to man’s heart can enable a man to repent and believe. Therefore, repentance is something that must be granted to a sinner by God. “They glorified God, saying, ‘Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life’” (Acts 11:18). God circumcised their hearts (Deut. 30:6) and replaced their stony hearts with hearts of flesh (Ezek. 11:19). Because men are spiritually dead and hostile to God by nature, only the Holy Spirit by the miracle of the new birth can make men new creatures. This is the clear teaching of Scripture. “For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). “Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31). “In humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth” (2 Tim. 2:25). The whole New Testament teaches that conversion is in the hand of God, that He has the power to grant repentance unto unsaved sinners so that they become new creatures.

6. The Unregenerate are Under the Power of Satan

Mankind apart from Christ is enslaved to the god of darkness and lives, breathes and thinks in terms of the great satanic lie that sin and idolatry are true freedom. “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (2 Cor. 4:3-4). “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do ... When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe Me” (John 8:44, 45). “I [Jesus Christ] will deliver you [the Apostle Paul] from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:17-18).

If man is bound by his sinful flesh to the prince of darkness and is blinded by Satan, then obviously his will is not free. Men who have “been taken captive by him [Satan] to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:26) can only be set free by someone stronger than Satan — Jesus Christ and His Spirit (Matt. 12:29). Because “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19) and all unbelievers are children of the devil who do not practice righteousness (1 John 3:10) and everyone walks “according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2) we can only be liberated by the almighty power of the Holy Spirit sent by the victorious Mediator at the right hand of power. Thus of Jesus we read: “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:14).

7. The Unregenerate Dwell in Darkness

As a result of the fall men live in spiritual, ethical and epistemological darkness. “In Him [Jesus Christ] was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4-5). “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (John 3:19-20). “The words ‘every one that doeth evil,’ mean every unconverted person, every one whose heart is not right and honest in God’s sight, and whose actions are consequently evil and ungodly. Every such person ‘hateth the light, neither cometh to the light.’ He cannot really love Christ and the Gospel, and will not honestly, and with his whole heart, seek Christ by faith and embrace His Gospel, until he is renewed.”[36] Unbelievers prefer the moral and spiritual darkness of sin not because they are simply ignorant or partially corrupt, but because they are totally depraved: every aspect of their nature hates the light. Such people cannot cooperate with grace or the Holy Spirit because their darkened natures have an innate antipathy toward the light. “People of this type resemble loathsome insects that hide themselves beneath logs and stones, always preferring the darkness....”[37]

When Paul sets out to demonstrate the ethical darkness, guilt and helplessness of the whole fallen human race he writes: “They became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened ... God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting” (Rom. 1:21, 28). Pure darkness is the absence of all light. Those who are not born again dwell in spiritual darkness. How can those who are in total darkness, who hate the light, choose or cooperate with light? The unregenerate will not choose the light because he cannot choose the light. It is impossible with man. “Non-existent spiritual life cannot give being to itself. Light is not brought out of darkness, neither does love come from hate. Every seed bears its own kind. ‘That which is of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit’ (John 3:6). A new creature, therefore, cannot be the product of natural power.”[38]

[continued at HolwickID #63509]

Have you ever wondered why you are the way you are? What is it that stirs you to help when you see an elderly woman struggling to get across the street or a crying child lost in the grocery store? On the other hand, what can explain the dark places of the mind where thoughts arise such that you wouldn't dare voice aloud?

For many, sin is a ridiculously ancient concept, the fallen nature of mankind, a snobbish notion used by the church to keep its doors open for business. But can we deny that there is a certain duality within our nature? As Winston Churchill once said, “We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glow worm.” On the one hand, we seek what is noble; on the other, we struggle with what we know is not. Bravery, compassion, and generosity are traits universally valued. And yet, greed, lust, and pride linger regardless of religion, culture, or worldview. How do we explain this?

The great 17th century philosopher-scientist Blaise Pascal saw an immeasurable need for man to understand his nature; to ask ourselves the imperative question, “Why am I the way I am?” And he offered pointed words for those standing content with the inconsistent philosophy that man is the measure of all things. Says Pascal: “It is in vain, oh men, that you seek within yourselves the cure for all your miseries. All your insight has led to the knowledge that it is not in yourselves that you discover the true and the good. The philosophers promised them to you, but they were not able to keep that promise. They do not know what your nature is. How should they have provided you with a cure for ills which they have not even understood? Your principle maladies are pride, which cuts you off from God, and sensuality, which binds you to the earth.”

At times don't we also recognize with unsettling awareness that it is in vain that we seek within ourselves a cure? No matter how good a person is, no matter how noble and courageous and generous we might become, we are aware that there is a standard we haven't yet reached, and in fact, cannot reach. Though we seek and strive for glory, we are still aware that we have somehow missed the mark.

In the gospels we learn that John the Baptist was called greater than the earlier prophets because he proclaimed a fuller message. And yet, his testimony in a few words expresses what we know intuitively of our own lives: “I am not the Christ,” said John repeatedly. His message compelled crowds and angered those unwilling to repent and believe: “I am not the standard,” he insisted, “But I know there is one who is.” If we look closely at the realities of human nature, at the two-sided quality of our own personalities, we find these words not only a recognizable logic (there is a standard and I am not it) but also a hopeful truth: There is a standard and he has come to save.

To write the concept of sin out of our lives is to write away our ability to know who we are, to understand why I am the way I am, and to know personally the one who comes to set us free.

A renowned professor of psychology, one time president of the American Psychological Association, once made a statement that shocked those around him. He observed, “For several decades we psychologists looked upon the whole matter of sin and moral accountability as a great incubus and acclaimed our liberation from it as epoch making. But at length we have discovered that to be free in this sense, that is, to have the excuse of being sick rather than sinful, is to court the danger of also becoming lost... In becoming amoral, ethically neutral and free, we have cut the very roots of our being, lost our deepest sense of selfhood and identity, and with neurotics, themselves, we find ourselves asking: Who am I, what is my deepest destiny, what does living mean?”(1)

John the Baptist pointed the crowds to the one who not only fulfilled all of Scripture, but came to tell us what living really means. In the fullness of time, in a real moment of history, Christ came down to be among us, one greater than Moses, one greater than your sin and mine. May it be at his feet that we proclaim with the hymnist, “Just as I am, and waiting not/ to rid my soul of one dark blot/ to Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot/ O Lamb of God, I come, I come!”

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1. Hobart Mowrer, “Sin, the Lesser of Two Evils,” American Psychologist, 15 (1960): 301-304.

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Copyright © 2005 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

*

A PRINCE had some Monkeys trained to dance. Being naturally great mimics of men's actions, they showed themselves most apt pupils, and when arrayed in their rich clothes and masks, they danced as well as any of the courtiers. The spectacle was often repeated with great applause, till on one occasion a courtier, bent on mischief, took from his pocket a handful of nuts and threw them upon the stage. The Monkeys at the sight of the nuts forgot their dancing and became (as indeed they were) Monkeys instead of actors. Pulling off their masks and tearing their robes, they fought with one another for the nuts. The dancing spectacle thus came to an end amidst the laughter and ridicule of the audience.

Although some may be good "actors" at deceiving themselves and deceiving others on whom they really are, deep beneath their clothes lie their true natures and their true selves. Indeed, we are sinful creatures by nature and a day will come when God will expose the hidden sins of those who haven't repented.

The role of the “great Politician” can only be found in the person of Jesus Christ.

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“It is the Part of a great Politician to make the Character of his People; to extinguish among them, the Follies and Vices that he sees, and to create in them the Virtues and Abilities which he sees wanting. I wish I was sure that America has one such Politician, but I fear she has not.” – John Adams, January 8, 1776

It’s been over 240 years since John Adams (second President of the United States) penned these words to Mercy Otis Warren. Although his words concerned the benefits of a Republic vs. a Monarchy, these words speak volumes to us in many contexts and cultures today.

When reading this quote, some may focus on the latter part and immediately find the correlation between Adams’ statement and the affairs of our political system in America today. Others may tease out the responsibilities of a good and effective leader and use it as a five-point sermon, or the topic of the next series on discipleship.

What strikes me about what Adams said, however, is that it reminds us of our complete inability to change the hearts of others. Even a cursory look at history reminds us that, although certain times may be perceived as “glory days” and certain leaders as “the greatest of all time,” none lacked flaws or imperfections. The hearts of all men and women still ebb toward sin. There is a reason the Prophet Jeremiah declares, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9).

I have a dear friend who used to lovingly refer to her children as “little sinners.” This is not because she didn’t love them deeply, but because even by the age of 2 she saw the effects of the Fall in them. The truth is that no matter how hard we try to “extinguish” the “follies and vices” that Adams (and many others throughout the ages!) referred to, we always come up empty handed.

For it is always God in the hearts of men and women who does the work. He can and He will. See passages like Ezekiel 36:26, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Jeremiah 32:38-40, and Philippians 1:6 to read these promises.

As we look at our political system today (which John Adams’ statement lends us to do), we may have different reactions: (1) if we agree with what’s going on, we may staunchly stick our feet in the proverbial mud because we will not be swayed; (2) we critically assess each matter independently and seek to err on the side of rightness and justice; (3) we loudly protest against the side we oppose; and/or (4) we “speak to the palm” all issues related to politics, hoping others will just say and do the right thing.

Obviously, some of these choices are better than others. Here’s the point: as Christ-followers, we are called to continually pursue righteousness, justice, and peace in a world which leans away from these virtues. But we can’t do it on our own.

As I read Adams’ letter to Mercy Otis Warren, I am convinced that the role of the “great Politician” can only be found in the person of Jesus Christ, crucified, buried, risen, and now reigning forever. Even the greatest of leaders, whether from historical biblical times (i.e. Abraham, King David, the Apostle Peter, etc.) or recent times (i.e., Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., etc.) came up short of the ability to call all peoples to extinguish vices and create virtues.

It is God alone who does this.

As I’ve watched the last year’s political scene unfold (especially from the vantage point of serving as Ed’s editor for this blog), I have wondered why, no matter how often or how loud Christians (and others) yell at the ‘opposing side’, we still don’t see hearts moved. My hunch is that it’s because our voices may have gotten louder, and more frequent, than our prayers. I am certainly guilty of this! How much easier it is to tweet out 140 characters than to spend 30 minutes in silence with God?

So what do we do? If we are helpless to change hearts, what is our role?

First, we reimagine Jesus. At the Billy Graham Center where I work, we have a phrase that we use continually in the different events and resources that we create: reimagining. We re-envision things under the Lordship of Christ. New hearts, new cultures, new relationships, new ways of seeing our world, which is broken, but beautiful.

As we continue to encounter brokenness around us, whether in the one-on-one relationships we have, or in the systemic fractures we see across the cultural spectrum, we fix our eyes on Jesus, who alone changes individual hearts and entire communities. We reimagine Him on the throne.

This may seem easy on the surface but, in reality, there is perhaps nothing more challenging, because as we sit with God and reimagine and rediscover who He is and His ways of being and working, we come to the crushing reality of idolatry.

Second, we dethrone idolatry. In an effort to make the world around us more like us, we have made ourselves into demigods. Sometimes, an honest look in the mirror reveals something tragic and gnarly. We are faced with the fact that we think we are right, or perhaps we have placed our trust where it needn’t be placed. We have bought into the lie that although we profess to know Christ, we believe our thoughts and passions always run exactly parallel to His.

And this just isn’t so. No matter how close to godliness we may appear to be, we are all tainted with sin at the end of the day. This isn’t a bad thing, for it reminds us that there truly IS One “great Politician” who desires for us to see clearly and desires for hearts to be changed. The image of Christ on the throne is perhaps more needed today than ever. His rule requires our bended knee to seek truth in all its forms.

Third, we regroup as Christ-followers. I believe the Church plays a critical role in our political and cultural environment today. No amount of government policy or institutional law can trump the role of God’s Church at work today. Once we have diligently sought to understand God’s work in the world and our submissive role under His leadership, we begin to notice things differently.

Perhaps it’s that those we have placed on proverbial thrones need instead to be seated in chairs at the table. Perhaps it’s understanding that those on the margins really are first in God’s economy. Perhaps it’s that, as my dad likes to say, “We really do have two ears and one mouth for a reason,” and listening to the other side is the best plan of action.

If you are looking around and wondering when those around you will change, maybe it’s time to look elsewhere. Maybe it’s our hearts that need changing as well. If God does not have favorites (Rom. 2:11), then He desires all of us to grow in our understanding of Him. Maybe it’s time we shut down that tweet and instead enter into the Holy of Holies, where God beckons us near. Only then will we rightly face each crisis of the day with integrity, humility, and understanding.

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Laurie Nichols is Director of Communications for the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College.