How Bad Was Adam's Fall — E.A. Johnston

Human Ability and the Gospel of Salvation

Our whole approach to evangelism and our gospel witness will spring from our belief about how we feel about man. If man is able to come to Christ on his own. If man is able to open his own heart to accept Jesus.

If man is not as bad as total depravity claims he is, then we can choose to become Christians without any supernatural help from God. All that has been done was enough. God did his part, now it's up to man to do his part and accept Jesus.

Many denominations are built upon that foundation. Many men are in ministry who believe such things to be true. And this fountain springs back to the Garden of Eden in regard to Adam. We must ask ourselves, how bad was Adam's fall?

Adam's Fall and Humanity's Spiritual Death

Did Adam just slip and skin his knee a little? Or did Adam fall with a resounding thud that still echoes throughout eternity? How dead in sin is man? Is man so blind and corrupt and dead that he cannot make one move toward Christ unless he is enabled?

That's our discussion here today, friends. And already some of you are giving me some resistance. Before we begin, I want to quote two men from different generations. I put a lot of emphasis on what these men had to say for I believe the gospel they preached was the gospel of the Son of God to the glory of God.

Thomas Brooks on the Natural Condition of Man

The first man is the Puritan pastor, Thomas Brooks. You'd be hard-pressed, friends, to find a more solid minister than Brooks in regard to his understanding of the Bible and the gospel. Listen to how he describes a man in a natural condition.

When a man is in a deep lethargy, if you pinch him with pincers or prick him with needles, he feels it not. If you scourge him, he cries not. If you threaten him, he fears not. Or if you speak to him fair, he regards it not.

Now, this is the condition of such that are in a spiritual lethargy. Let the judgments of God be denounced and let the terrors of the law be preached. They tremble not. Let the flames of hellfire flash upon their souls.

They regard it not. For they are sermon-proof and judgment-proof and hell-proof. Those are his words in regard to the depraved nature of man. And this explains why, when we witness to folks, they can hear about hell and damnation and laugh in our face, for it is merely amusing to them.

Total Depravity and the Inability to Respond to God

They don't believe a word of it. They are deaf to the warnings, blind to their own condition, and so corrupt in their nature that they cannot understand spiritual truths. It's all nonsense to them. I submit to you, friends, that man is everlasting dead in sin unless God will put a principle of life into him.

Now, you can either reject that or accept it, but I believe that's biblical. I've heard pastors tell their congregations to open their heart to Jesus. I don't believe man has power on his own to accomplish such an impossible task.

I believe that a spirit of self-love reigns in a man, and because of that his opinion of himself won't be all that bad. A man who doesn't know the badness of his heart will sit deluded upon a rotten foundation and a false hope.

A man has a poison in his blood that's imputed to him from Adam. He has a corrupt nature with a bent toward sin. He is totally depraved, corrupt, blind, and dead to such degree that men cannot be willing to come to Christ until they are able.

Jesus' Teaching on Divine Enablement

I repeat, man is totally and everlasting dead in sin in his natural condition unless God infuses a new principle into him. Jesus said in John chapter 6 and verses 63 through 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. 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.

And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me except that we're given unto him of my Father. From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. I will stop there.

The hard scenes of Jesus have been a stumbling block to many. They are divisive. Jesus' preaching would often divide his congregation. Forbid he would separate the sheep from the goats. Jesus spoke very clearly upon our subject today, friends.

No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. The other minister I wanted to quote for us is Dr. Morton Lloyd-Jones who said, If we hold that we become regenerate because we have already believed, then we have to show why we need to be regenerated at all.

Regeneration and the New Capacity to Receive God's Truth

The purpose and object of regeneration is to enable us to receive this new faculty, this ability to receive God's truth. The doctrine of regeneration has a great deal to say about election and this doctrine of divine choice.

Indeed, I go so far as to say that this doctrine should always be approached in terms of the doctrine of regeneration, which teaches that I need a new nature before I can begin to understand these things.

The God-Centered Gospel of Saving Faith

That's what he said, and I agree with him, friends. I believe Adam, when he fell, experienced a headlong crash that made such a thud we can feel it today. We are born under a curse and come into this world with a sin disposition and an utterly corrupt nature that is blind, deaf, and dead to the things of God and eternity.

God has to place a new principle into us before we can come to Christ and repent and believe. That's the old gospel, which puts God and his glory at the center. If you are safe, friend, it's because God gave you saving faith.

And because of that, God should be the center of our life, and we should preach a God-centered gospel that brings glory to God and honors the Son. Let us pray.