How Did We Inherit Adam's Sinfulness?

by Phil Johnson

ow did we get in this state? Scripture lays the blame at Adam's feet. Roman's 5:12 says, "Through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned." Sin entered the world through Adam, then passed to all men. Adam's sin brought spiritual death—total depravity—upon the entire race. First Corinthians 15:22 says, "In Adam all die."

Remember, we are sinners before we ever commit one overt act of sin. We are born with the taint of sin. In fact, it is appropriate to say, as David did, that we are sinful from the moment of our conception (Ps. 51:5). Theologians refer to this as "original sin."

So how did Adam's guilt get passed on to you and me? That question gets complex, and there are several different theological opinions that have been proposed to explain it. If you want to delve into the question deeply, I recommend John Murray's book, The Imputation of Adam's Sin or Martyn Lloyd-Jones's sermons or commentary on Romans 5. One of these days, we'll take up the subject of original sin here on the blog.

In this series, however, it's not really necessary to go into great detail on the question of how sin was transmitted to us from Adam. It's enough to affirm the fact that Adam's sin condemned us. Without delving deeply into all the mysteries that surround this question, let's simply declare what God's Word has to say on the matter: "By the transgression of the one the many died" (Rom. 5:15). "The judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation" (v. 16). "By the transgression of the one, death reigned" (v. 17). "Through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men" (v. 18). "Through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners" (v. 19).

Five verses in a row all state in different ways that Adam's sin corrupted the entire race. Adam, as the representative head of the human race, plunged us all into sin. Yet we cannot stand aside and point the finger of blame at him in an attempt to excuse ourselves. We inherit his guilt as well as his sinfulness. We are as blameworthy as Adam. The question of how his guilt was passed on to us is not as important as the reality that it happened. No fact in all of philosophy or religion is attested to with so much empirical evidence. All Adam's offspring—with one significant, divine Exception—all Adam's offspring have been sinners. We are born morally corrupt.

I do want to call your attention to a couple of corollaries to this doctrine. First, it suggests Adam was a historical person. Those who want to treat the early chapters of Genesis as symbolism or myth destroy the doctrine of original sin. If Adam was not a historical individual, none of this makes sense. There's no reasonable explanation for how our race became sinful, unless the account of the fall in Genesis 3 is literally true. So the sinfulness of all humanity bears witness to the truth of Scripture's account of the fall.

Second, those who deny that human nature is sinful are guilty of willful ignorance. The universality of human sinfulness is irrefutable. It is self-evident. Everyone we know is sinful. There's no evidence whatsoever for the myth that people are basically and fundamentally good.
Original sin is not a minor blemish on the human soul. It corrupts every aspect of our character. Listen to these words from Romans 3, where Paul summarized the doctrine of universal depravity. These verses come after two chapters of argument showing that pagans, moral Gentiles, and even religious Jews are all hopeless sinners. In Romans 3:9-18, Paul sums up and makes the point so that no one can miss it:

We have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin [he had been proving that charge for two chapters]; as it is written, [and here he quotes a series of Old Testament verses] "There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one." "Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving," "The poison of asps is under their lips"; "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness"; "Their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace have they not known." "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

That's exactly where we began this series, isn't it? Unbelievers are incapable of loving, fearing, trusting, or obeying God. They may fool themselves into thinking otherwise, but that only proves the wicked deceitfulness of a sin-sick heart.

That leaves us with one more question on his topic, which we'll consider next time.

Radical Depravity

By William D @ http://reformingbaptist.blogspot.com

I am running out of time, and I need to take the other side of the argument this week! In preparation for my ordination, I am going to be engaging in a sparring match with Pastor Tom Pryde as he debates me from both sides of the issue on Thursday evening January 31st at 7:00pm at the church where I am the pastor. So, for the rest of the week, I am going to argue from a Calvinist standpoint, the doctrine of salvation. Let's start with the depravity of man. Just how bad are we?

Assertion #1: Man, under the curse of original sin is so radically infected by sin that it has infected every part of his being: his mind, heart, will, desires, affections, and even his body. This state of total corruption makes it impossible for Him to desire, understand or even respond favorably to spiritual things since that would go against his nature. Hence, man cannot repent or believe in Christ for salvation unless he is assisted by God to do so. The proof for this assertion is found all over scripture. I will start by pointing out that the Bible describes sinners as being spiritually dead:

Ephesians 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
Romans 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. This isn't a suggestion, as the wording can appear to be, it is a matter of fact. We have been raised from the dead to walk in new life.
If the sinner is spiritually dead to the things of God, then he has no ability to respond spiritually to anything and therefore, cannot please God because He is in the flesh. The Bible goes on to explain why:
Romans 8:6-8 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
A person who is carnally minded, or who is in his natural fallen state, is in a state of death, and his mind is at constant defiance against God and the fallen sinner has no ability (that's what is meant by neither indeed can be and neither can he know) to be subject to Gods law nor understand spiritual things. Since the call to salvation is a command (Matt. 7:13, 11:28, Acts 3:19), not merely an offer, the sinner would always be inclined to disobey and therefore, left to himself, would never choose to be saved.
The other analogy that is used by the Bible to describe our radical depravity is that of a slave:

John 8:34-36 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. 35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. 36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
Sinners are so captivated by sin, that all they can do is serve it like a slave. Therefore, the only escape from sin is for the Son to make you free. This leads me to my second assertion....

Assertion #2: The only way that man will repent, believe and come to Christ for salvation, is if the Father grants him the ability to do so. God does not grant all men this ability otherwise, all sinners would choose to be saved.

John 12:37-40 But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him: 38 That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? 39 Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, 40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
John makes it very clear that they did not believe, because they could not believe, and God had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts so that they would not believe and be converted. The blinding and hardening on God's part is passive, since man is already inclined toward that.

The only way anybody will ever believe is if God reveals Himself to them in a personal way so that they can acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Lord:
Matthew 16:17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.


John 6:63-66 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. 64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. 65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. 66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
In this passage Jesus tells them that the Spirit makes alive, but the flesh is worthless, and the reason they didn't believe Him was because they were not of the Spirit. And then He told them straight up, you cannot come to me unless it is given by the Father to do so. The Father must grant repentance and faith for people to come to Christ to be saved.


2 Timothy 2:24-26 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, 25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; 26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
This verse couldn't make it clearer that the Christian must teach with patience waiting for God to give repentance to the sinner so that he can acknowledge the truth. The reason that he can't believe is because he is captured by the devil. They are children of the devil, and they can only will to do what their father wills to do. John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.

In What Sense Is Depravity Total?

by Phil Johnson@http://teampyro.blogspot.com

very member of Adam's race is born utterly depraved—fallen, alienated from God, and in bondage to evil. In Romans 6, Paul calls it slavery to sin. He furthermore says in Romans 6:20 that people who are slaves of sin are utterly devoid of true righteousness. All in such a state of sin and unbelief are God's enemies (Romans 5:8, 10). They are "alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds" (Colossians 1:21).

Totally.

Human depravity is "total" in the same sense death is total. You can't be partly dead. You can be really, really sick or critically injured and on life support, but you're either dead or alive. There are no degrees of death.

In fact, when Scripture describes human depravity, it's usually with the language of spiritual death.

Ephesians 2, for example, says people in their fallen state are dead in trespasses and sins—spiritually dead (v. 1). They walk in worldliness and disobedience (v. 2). They live in the lusts of their flesh, "indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and [are] by nature children of wrath, even as the rest" (v. 3). They are "separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (v. 12).

In Romans 8:6 Paul, says, "To be carnally minded is death." He is talking about the carnal-mindedness of unbelief, describing what it means to be totally depraved. He goes on to say (vv. 7-8), "The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God."

In other words, spiritual death is a total inability to love God, a total inability to obey Him, and a total inability to please Him.

Now, lots of non-Christians will deny that they are hostile toward God. But they are self-deceived. In fact, many who invoke the name of Christ and claim to love God actually do not love the God of the Bible. They love a god who exists only in their imagination—a tolerant, unholy, passive, feeble, weakling god. That is not the God of Scripture. The God of the Bible is too holy for sinners' tastes. He is too wrathful against sin. His standards are too high. His laws are not to their liking. So though they profess to love God, they do not love the one true God who has revealed Himself in Scripture. They are not able to love Him.

The inability to love God as we ought to is the very essence of total depravity. It leaves us impotent to fulfill the First and Great Commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30). So everything the sinner ever does is permeated with sin, because he's living life in constant violation of the most important commandment of all.

On the other hand, "total depravity" does not mean that all sinners are always as bad as they could possibly be. It does not mean that every unbeliever will live out his or her depravity the fullest. It doesn't mean all non-Christians are morally equal to brute beasts or serial killers. It does not mean that unconverted people are incapable of acts of kindness or goodwill to fellow humans. In fact, Jesus Himself stated that unbelievers do good to people in return for good that is done to them (Luke 6:33).

The human race was created in the image of God. Though sin has spoiled that image, even non-Christians are capable of rising to great heights of human goodness, honesty, decency, and excellence. "Total" depravity does not mean that every unredeemed woman must be an angry, slobbering hag, or that every unbelieving man is a twisted, degenerate psychopath. It does mean that unbelievers, those who are in the flesh, cannot please God.

So the word total in "total depravity" refers to the extent of our sinfulness, not the degree to which we manifest it. It means evil has contaminated every aspect of our being—our wills, our intellect, our emotions, our conscience, our personality, and our desires.

In biblical terminology, sin has totally corrupted the human heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?" If the heart is corrupt, the whole person is defiled.

By describing our depravity as heart-corruption, Scripture makes it clear that the real problem with us lies at the core of our being. Our very soul is infected by sin. Nothing about us remains pure. Our tendency to sin is unrelenting and ultimately unconquerable. Sin therefore defines who we are.

Before a perfectly holy and impeccably righteous God we are profane, sinful, thoroughly debased—no matter how good we appear in human terms. Being truly righteous is not merely hard for us; it's impossible.

That is as true of someone like Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa as it was of Adolph Hitler or Jeffrey Dahmer. The relative goodness of the world's best people is never enough to merit God's approval. His only standard is absolute perfection. The best of sinners do not come close.

Let's illustrate: suppose every reader of Pyromaniacs lined up at Point Dume (the closest good swimming beach to my house), and we all tried to swim to Singapore. Most of us would probably drown before anyone reached Catalina—just 26 miles away. One thing is certain; no one would make it to Singapore. We'd all be dead long before the goal was met. If I were a gambler (I'm not) I'd bet everything I have that no one would even get as far as Hawaii, less than halfway.

Question: Would those who died before swimming two miles be any worse off than those who died twenty-three miles offshore? Of course not. All would be equally dead. The goal was just as hopeless for the trained, expert swimmer as it was for the fat guy who did his training by sitting in front of a computer blogging all day.

That is how it is with sin. All sinners stand condemned before God. Even the best of Adam's offspring are thoroughly sinful at heart. No matter how good they might appear through the lens of human judgment, they are in exactly the same hopeless state as the lowest degenerate—maybe even in a worse state, because it is harder for them to acknowledge their sin. So they compound their sin with self-righteousness.

People are prepared to be called sinners in their sin, but they do not want to be labeled sinners in their religion. But this is crucial: Human religion does not contradict depravity; it only proves it. Human religion substitutes other gods in the rightful place of the true God. It is the very essence of God-hating. It is false worship—nothing but an attempt to depose God. It is the very worst expression of depravity.

Remember—it was the Pharisees whom Jesus condemned with the harshest invective He ever uttered. Why? After all, they believed the Scriptures were literally true. They tried to obey the law rigidly. They weren't like the Sadducees, religious liberals who denied the supernatural. They were the theological fundamentalists of their day.

But they refused to recognize the bankruptcy of their own hearts. They trusted in themselves that they were righteous and went about trying to establish their own righteousness, instead of submitting to the righteousness of God (Romans 10:3). Remember what they told the man born blind in John 9:34? "You were born entirely in sins"—as if they weren't.

In other words, they rejected the doctrine of total depravity, and it led to their utter condemnation. Jesus said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 2:17). "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10).

They thought all their good works made them righteous. But religion and good works do not cancel out depravity. Depravity corrupts even the highest forms of religion and good works. George Whitefield said that God could damn us for the very best prayer we ever put up. John Bunyan agreed. He said he thought the best prayer he ever prayed still had enough sin in it to damn the whole world. Isaiah wrote, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away" (Isaiah 64:6).

Unredeemed sinners are therefore incapable of doing anything to please God. They cannot love the God who reveals Himself in Scripture. They cannot obey His law from the heart, with pure motives. They cannot even grasp the essentials of spiritual truth. First Corinthians 2:14 says, "A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." Unbelievers are therefore incapable of faith. And "without faith it is impossible to please [God]" (Hebrews 11:1).

Note: The key word in all of that is inability. Sinners are totally unable to respond to God, apart from His enabling grace.

That's the starting point for a sound, biblical understanding of soteriology.

I'm Fallen, and I Can't Get Up!

by Phil Johnson @http://teampyro.blogspot.com

t seems the doctrines that pertain to human sin are generally some of the hardest doctrines for people to understand and embrace—particularly the doctrines of original sin and universal depravity. Of all the doctrines taught in Scripture about the nature of humanity, the one doctrine that comes under attack more than any other is the Bible's teaching that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, that we inherited a sinful nature from Adam, and that it means we are completely helpless to redeem ourselves from the condemnation of God.

To paraphrase Mrs. Fletcher, we're fallen, and we can't get up.

Those ideas run counter to every other religion man has ever devised. People want to believe they are basically good, that they can be good enough to please God, and that if they just set their hearts and minds to do good, they can redeem themselves from their own sin.

People don't want to believe that Adam's sin put the whole human race in a spiritually hopeless state. They don't want to admit that they are sinful to the very core of their beings. They don't want to admit that their most basic desires, and even the private imaginations of their hearts are utterly and hopelessly sinful, and they are powerless to change themselves. By any standard, these are hard truths.

And yet every bit of evidence we examine confirms all these things. Scripture clearly teaches that there is none that doeth good. There is none that seeketh after God. No, not one. Human experience confirms this. G. K. Chesterton once wrote that the doctrine of original sin is the easiest of all the doctrines of Scripture to prove. Evidence of human depravity is all around us. No one in all our acquaintance is sin-free. Proof that the whole human race is fallen is everywhere, in the daily newspapers, on the evening news, and clearly evident in every life we encounter.

Most of all, if we're honest with ourselves, the most persuasive proof that the human race is hopelessly depraved is inside our own hearts.

And Chesterton said if we don't believe this doctrine, which we have abundant empirical evidence to support, how can we possibly believe the truths of the Bible we're required to accept by faith?

The Bible's teaching on original sin and human depravity is vital to orthodox Christianity. Every movement in Christianity that has rejected these truths has gone badly astray. The fundamental error of the Pelagians lay in Pelagius's rejection of the doctrine of original sin. The liberalism of the Socinians basically hinged the same error. This is a vital doctrine, and those who reject it place themselves in eternal peril and make shipwreck of the faith.

One significant fact that strikes me in Scripture is that the most godly men on the pages of Scripture all had a deep sense of their own sinfulness. David was a man after God's own heart, yet in Psalm 52:5 he confessed that he was sinful from the moment of his conception. Isaiah was perhaps the greatest prophet in all the Old Testament, and yet in Isaiah 6:5, he wrote, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." The apostle Paul, the figure who towers over the early church, representing perhaps the ultimate example of godly scholarship, wrote in Romans 7:18: "In me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing." In verse 24 he wrote, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Again and again in Scripture, we see that the people who are the prime examples of godliness had the keenest perception of their own sinfulness.

The same principle holds true throughout Church history, too. Augustine spent years in frustration, coming to grips with the reality of his own sin. Martin Luther was so obsessed with his own sin that before his conversion he used to spend hours in the confessional booth, confessing long laundry lists of things that made him feel guilty. Charles Spurgeon spent several years of his childhood secretly wrestling with the terrifying realization that sin had so infected his heart that he was worthy of nothing but divine wrath.

Again and again we see that those who have embraced these truths of original sin and human depravity have been used by God in tremendous ways, while those who have resisted or rejected these truths have made shipwreck of the faith.

So this is a very crucial issue. And since I know that so many struggle with it, we'll examine it biblically in a series of posts yet to come. Fasten your seat belts.

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Children: Sinful by nature

by Chapman @ http://www.worldmagblog.com

Researchers are just discovering what Bible-believing parents have known for centuries: Children are sinful from birth. A recent study found that infants learn to deceive from a far younger age than anyone previously suspected--as early as six months. Dr Vasudevi Reddy, of the University of Portsmouth's psychology department, thinks children use early fibs to discover what kinds of lie work in certain situations (for example: using fake crying and pretend laughing to win attention).

Parents: What stories (humorous, preferably) can you share about how your children demonstrate they, too, are sinful from birth?