Session 2: Total Depravity

The Doctrines of Grace and Why Total Depravity Matters

Okay, now it's my privilege to introduce Anthony. Anthony Uvenio is a member of Hope Reform Baptist Church right here in Cora, and he's a participant in the Long Island Spurgeon Fellowship. I should actually tell you a little bit about the Long Island Spurgeon Fellowship.

It's a group of churches that all hold to these doctrines of grace, and it's just a loose fellowship. There's no membership and whatnot, but in fact, on the back of your bulletin are the lists of the churches that participate.

But Anthony is also not only a member of Hope and participating in the Long Island Spurgeon Fellowship, he's one of the directors of New York Apologetics, and that organization seeks to empower and equip New Yorkers to engage the culture with the truth claims of Christianity.

Anthony also hosts the Reformed Rookie website and podcast. He's married with two children, and he was saved 18 years ago having grown up as a Roman Catholic. So Anthony, come and speak to us about total depravity.

Well, good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for coming out. I was so excited when I had the vote to do total depravity. I got all up in myself, and one of the guys came. He put his arm around my shoulder and said, listen, you're the best example of total depravity we have.

My pride quickly turned to humility and here I am. So this presentation on total depravity is probably going to be the most important presentation that we hear during this conference. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm the most important person.

I'm not by any stretch of the imagination. However, this is going to be the key to all of the other doctrines of grace. Steve Lawson, a Reformed Baptist pastor, says, tell me what you mean by total depravity, and I'll tell you what you believe about the rest of the Bible.

That's how important, vitally important, this doctrine is to the rest of our theology and ultimately to our worldview. If we don't understand total depravity and get it right, the rest of the doctrines of grace will not make any sense.

The doctrines of grace are total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible or invincible grace, and perseverance of the saints. Okay, so my task tonight is to speak to you about total depravity and hopefully get you to understand why the rest of the doctrines are necessary.

What Total Depravity Means

So the question for us tonight is this. Is man dead in his sins and transgression, unable to do anything spiritually good and in need of a spiritual resurrection? Or is man just a little sick, slightly alive, able to do spiritually good things and just in need of some medicine?

That's the question. It's my position, and I believe the Bible's position, that man is spiritually dead. He cannot believe and is in need of a resurrection. Humanity's situation is an extremely dire one.

So tonight I wanna explain what total depravity is, what it is, where it is, and why does it matter. So what is total depravity? Let's start off by defining what total depravity is. Total depravity states this.

As a consequence of the fall of man, every person born into this world is morally corrupt, bent towards evil, enslaved to sin, and apart from the saving grace of God, unable to choose that which is spiritually good, to follow God or to choose to turn to Christ in faith for salvation.

It means that our sin is pervasive. It has affected every area of our being, our will, our intellect, our emotions. We are alive physically, alive to the flesh alone, and spiritually dead, dead to the things of the spirit.

The Westminster Confession would say it like this. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. So as a natural man, being altogether averse from good and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto.

One last definition, and then we'll move on, by Lorraine Bettner, and I like his definition of total depravity because he distinguishes it by telling us what it is not. Total depravity or total inability, which declares that men are dead in sin, does not mean that all men are equally bad, nor that man is as bad as he could be, nor that human nature is evil in itself, nor that man's spirit is inactive.

What it does mean is that since the fall, man rests under the curse of sin, that he is actuated, motivated by wrong principles and desires, and that he is wholly unable to love God or do anything meriting salvation.

Since the fall, man is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evil. He possesses a fixed bias of the will against God and instinctively and willingly turns to evil.

The inability under which he labors is not an inability to exercise volition, choice, but an inability to be willing to exercise holy volitions, holy choices. So that lays out my position this evening.

So, man can and will make the choice he wants, but here's the problem. He's not willing to make righteous or holy choices because his choices are motivated by our corrupt will. Again, total depravity states we're alive to the flesh, but spiritually dead towards God.

Our will is bent, inclined towards evil, and affected by sin such that we desire sinful things. We do not desire God because that is contrary to our nature, so much so that we need outside help to be rescued.

We need a spiritual resurrection or a new birth. Now, total depravity is not tough to understand. It's just tough to swallow. So, how many parents do we have here tonight? Lots of parents. How many of you had to teach your kids how to lie?

How many of you had to teach your kids how to be selfish? How many of you had to teach your kids and their siblings how to fight with each other or how to talk back?

Me neither.

And that was just four examples out of my own home this week. You see, every one of your children and ourselves were born with the effects of total depravity ingrained within them. We've all experienced the effects of total depravity, and you didn't even need to be taught how to do it because it comes naturally.

Total Depravity in Scripture

So, now that we know what total depravity is and isn't, where can we find this in scripture? Because really nothing that I say matters unless we find it in the scriptures. If it's not in the scriptures, who cares what I have to say?

So, let's start off with Jesus. He would explain total depravity like this in Mark chapter seven, verse 21. Jesus says, for from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

All these things come from within and they defile a person. He would also say in the Gospel of John that no one can come to me unless they are drawn by the Father. In other words, we will never come to Jesus or believe in Jesus without God the Father pulling us to him.

And finally, Jesus tells us, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. So in these three little verses, Jesus basically tells us that our hearts manufacture unrighteousness and defile us, that we're unable to come to him and we're slaves of sin.

We're defiled, impotent to believe, and need to be set free from our enslavement to our sin nature. Now, when I say the word natural or nature tonight, what I'm referring to is the core or the root of our being, what makes us desire what we desire and think what we think, basically our immaterial self, our soul.

And I can state here with complete confidence that everyone here has had the sinful desires that Jesus described in Matthew 7 .21. And I can state that not because I'm smart, but because the Bible says that the universal condition of all mankind is sinful at its core.

Friends, the tea is true. Total depravity is the reality of the world we live in. If you don't believe me, my homework for you tonight is go home and turn on the news. That's it, you'll see total depravity.

We are all born in a fallen state, inherited from our older brother, Adam, with our hearts inclined toward evil. We have a soul, an immaterial self, but it's only alive to the flesh. That's all it knows.

That's all it desires. That's all it recognizes, sees, and wants, to please the flesh. Genesis 6 .5 tells us something very important. It tells us that God saw that the intentions of man's heart was only evil continually.

Mankind is persistently wicked. Only evil. How long? Continually. Next, listen how the prophet Jeremiah describes the state of our nature. Jeremiah 13 .23 says, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?

Then also you can do good who are accustomed to doing evil. Now, an Ethiopian can't change the color of his skin because that's his nature. The leopard can't exchange its spots for stripes. As much as he wants to be a zebra, he can't.

It's his nature. And you and I cannot inherently do good because of our desire to do evil. It's our nature. This is what Jeremiah says about our ability to do good. We can't.

You can't.

It's your nature. So here's a question I have for you tonight. Do you think that your nature influences your choices? Does your nature impact the choices that you make? Nod yes if you say yes or no.

Okay, good.

We're all in agreement, yes. Look at it this way. A lion desires to eat meat and not salad.

Why?

Because he's a carnivore. Carnivores eat meat. That's their nature. Do you think lions crave Caesar salad? Or maybe just Caesar? The lion's nature governs his desires. The same is true of you and I. So then, listen.

It's not your choices that are the real problem. It's your nature. Your choices are just the byproduct of what's coming out of your heart. If your heart is fallen and sinful, then sinful and evil choices will follow.

Therefore, your heart, the core of your being, needs to be changed first. But that cannot be brought about by your own choice. A leopard can't decide to be a zebra. Now, let's say you're a Christian. Let's say you're my brother and sister in Christ, but maybe you disagree with me here on total depravity.

However, I'm guessing that we both probably stand together against people trying to redefine God's creation of a man and a woman, right? We both would stand together, shoulder to shoulder, and say a man cannot simply become a woman by willing it to be.

And a woman can't simply become a man by making a mere choice. You are, by nature, a man or a woman. No choice you make will change that. In the same way, no amount of choices we make can change our sinful disposition towards sin.

And I love this, because even the Apostle Paul struggled with sin. He gives me hope. He says in Romans 7, 18, for I know that nothing good dwells in me. He knows that his heart is wicked. That is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep doing. He recognizes that there was a governing influence over his heart and his choices. Therefore, the core of our being needs to be changed first in order to bring forth righteousness.

We are sinners by birth and by nature, and we sin because it's our nature. The Bible tells us that flesh gives birth to flesh. We are the descendants of Adam, and the Apostle Paul would tell us, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

If you're in the flesh, you cannot please God, and God must intervene in order for change to take place. We're born into this world separated from God, and we need to be born again from above by the Spirit through the second Adam.

As flesh gives birth to flesh, Spirit gives birth to Spirit. We are all born physically into this world, but we need to be reborn spiritually. That's our condition. Another very important scripture for us to consider tonight is Ephesians 2, where Paul explains that we are dead in our sins, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.

Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

So, Paul tells us that we're not sick, or somewhat dead, or mostly dead, like Fezek in The Prince's Bride, but actually dead. Actually dead means you're not slightly alive, okay? We are so dead in sins and trespasses that by nature we are children of wrath, and God's wrath abides on those who are not spiritually alive.

Remember, it's only the Spirit that gives life. The flesh profits us nothing. We're very much alive to the flesh and its desires, and that gets us nowhere spiritually. Remember, Jesus would say, apart from me, you can do nothing.

Apart, separated from Jesus, we cannot do anything spiritually good.

Is that true? You really believe that?

Why can't we do anything spiritually good? Because every single faculty and ability of man has been affected. Now, rather than me telling you this, I'm gonna let the apostle Paul tell you, as he quotes a number of Old Testament scriptures to compile the resume of mankind.

So, you're gonna get a job description, and here's humanity's resume. As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one, universal unrighteousness. No one understands our minds have been affected. No one seeks for God.

Our desire has been affected. All have turned aside. All our will has been affected and runs from God. Together, they have become worthless. Our moral value is bankrupt. No one does good, not even one.

All of our actions are unrighteous. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. Our speech is deadly. The venom of asps is under their lips. Our tongues are poisonous.

We lie.

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Our mouths curse God out of discontent. Their feet are swift to shed blood. We are quicker to hate than love, to the point of murder. In their paths are ruin and misery.

Our direction is ruin. And the way of peace they have not known. We have no peace with God. We're at enmity with him. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Our conscience doesn't care. That's the resume of all mankind, both you and I, not just Hitler.

Does this sound like we're a little sick? Or does this describe the extent of our spiritual deadness in sin? Now, Paul is repeating what the Old Testament says about our condition in the New Testament.

So the ongoing condition of humanity, both in the Old Testament and New Testament, is depravity. The New Testament tells us we are slaves of sin. Everyone who practices sin is a slave to it. Slaves are not free.

That's why they're called slaves. All of humanity is in bondage to sin in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And this is what Luther says was the hinge on which the entire Reformation swung. But there's hope for us because Jesus says if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

You must be set free by Jesus. Otherwise, you're still in bondage to your sin and unable to please God. Now, again, what Paul is telling us is that sin cripples every part of us to the very core of our being.

The word heart comes from the word cardia, like cardiac arrest. So when I say heart, I'm speaking about the core of our being. Our core, our heart, is our will, intellect, our emotions, the seat of our will.

And all of it has been corrupted, crippled, spoiled by sin to the point where we can't even understand, we can't do good or fear God because we're dead to the things of God. Our condition is such that every faculty we have has been tainted by sin.

There is no part of us that has remained clean or sin-free. But as Brother Jim said before, this does not mean that you're as sinful as you possibly can be. You are depraved extensively, as widely as possible, but not exhaustively, as intensely as possible.

Jim Oreck, who wrote the book Mere Calvinism, which I highly, highly recommend, puts it like this. The total in total depravity refers to a total distribution of sin, not to a total saturation of sin.

So it's not total saturation, but total distribution. Sin has affected every area of our being, rendering all of our deeds, all of our choices, all of our actions sinful. Okay, so so far we heard from Jesus, we heard from Jeremiah, and we heard from Paul about our conditions and the desires of our unregenerate hearts.

And they've told us where these desires come from. So now we know what it is, and we know where it is in scripture, now I wanna talk to you about why this matters. This matters significantly because it determines where the solution to the problem comes from.

Does the solution to the problem come from inside man, its corrupt heart, or does it come from outside of man, from God? Total depravity is also known as total inability, and you've seen why. Man has the natural capacity to be righteous, but not the spiritual capability.

Again, we're physically alive, but spiritually dead. But I also wanna affirm this, because I don't want you to mistake what I'm saying. I want to affirm that we are all living, breathing human beings created in the image of God.

We bear his image. That is an incredible blessing and an incredible responsibility. The problem is, it's that the image of God in us has been disfigured, marred, shattered. We enter this world internally flawed and separated from life in Christ, dead in sin and in need of restoration.

So here's why this matters. Ask yourself, can physically dead people do anything physical? Can physically dead people do jumping jacks? Can physically dead people do sit-ups?

Just wiggle their toes.

I know of a physically alive people who needs to do some sit-ups and jumping jacks. But no, physically dead people cannot do anything physical. So now, what if I'm spiritually dead? What kind of spiritual activity can I do?

None.

Without faith, it's impossible to please God. Now, since trusting in Jesus, faith, is a spiritual act and I'm spiritually dead, I cannot do that on my own. Colossians 2 .13 tells us, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive.

See, if you're dead, you need to be made alive. The only one that scripture says makes anyone alive is God, not you. Jesus affirms this when he says, this is why I told you, no one can come to me unless it's granted to him by the Father.

Now, faith is granted to us. It's a gift because spiritually dead people cannot muster up faith on their own. This is why it matters. And this is going to help us understand what God has to do to us, not with our help or by us.

This will make the rest of the doctrines of grace make sense. Now, if you hold that God saves you by what you do or what you choose, then you hold to the unscriptural position that God helps those who help themselves.

You know that verse, God helps those who help themselves? It's found in, not there, 3 .15. Or is it 1st Manipulations? Again, we're bound by our nature as sinners in the same way Ethiopians and leopards are bound to their nature.

Ethiopians cannot change the color of their skin and leopards cannot change their spots and neither can sinners like us do anything spiritually good. There is only one thing a dead person can do, stink.

King James says, he stinketh. So, it's a pet peeve of mine. I constantly hear people telling me about what God can't do. He can't violate your free will, he's a gentleman, he can't do this, he can't do that.

And then they tell me about how powerful man is, the great, wonderful things that man can do, right? They keep pointing to man's ability and God's inability. But I wanna show you the scriptures that point to man's inability and God's ability.

Again, here's why this matters. And I call these the 10 cannots of scripture. So, the Bible tells us that man cannot bring forth good fruit, Matthew 7, 18 and Luke 43. No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit.

Man by nature cannot hear Christ's words that they may have life. Jeremiah 6, 10. Why do you not understand what I'm saying? It's because you cannot hear my word. Men by nature cannot submit themselves to the law of God.

Romans 8, 7. For the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God, it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Man by nature cannot please God. Romans 8, 8. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Man by nature cannot discern the truths of the Spirit of God. First Corinthians 2, 14. The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit, for they are folly to him. He cannot understand them. Man by nature cannot confess from the heart Jesus is Lord.

First Corinthians 12, 3. Therefore, I want you to understand, you cannot say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. Men by nature cannot control the tongue. James 3, 8. But no human being contain the tongue.

It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. Man by nature cannot come to Christ. John 6, 44 and following. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Man by nature cannot receive the Holy Spirit.

John 14, 17. Even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. Man cannot see or understand the kingdom of God unless they're born again. John 3, 3. Jesus answered him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

So listen, in your fallen condition, you cannot bear fruit, you cannot hear Christ's words, you cannot submit to God's law, you cannot please God, you cannot understand spiritual truths, you cannot confess Jesus is Lord, you cannot control your tongue, you cannot come to Jesus, you cannot receive the Holy Spirit or understand the kingdom of God.

Give yourself a round of applause.

Right?

So much for that Tony Robbins book you just bought. That's the world's solution to the problem, by the way. We're gonna get to that. As you can see, our heart, our inability is the problem, not the solution.

We are unable to change ourselves. The heart of our problem is the problem of our own heart. That is the world's solution to the problem. Self-help. Huge number of books on self-help. Unleash the power within.

Biblically, that will make the world horrific. You don't wanna unleash the power in your own heart. Like Brother Jim says, if God was to release his restraint on our heart, we would be in a much worse place.

Our hearts have a sinful disposition. Only evil continually and our enmity with God. If there is a solution, it must come from outside of ourselves. Again, tough to understand or just tough to swallow.

Finally, if that's not enough, Jesus puts the nail in the coffin, pun intended, and tells us salvation is impossible with man. God has to act to raise a dead sinner to life in order to have salvation.

Now, this particular scene is repeated in all three synoptic Gospels, Matthew 10, 25, Luke 18, 25, and Matthew 19, 24. And Jesus says, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, who then can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said, with man, this is impossible, but with God, all things impossible. All things impossible.

Okay, so salvation with man, impossible. With God, possible. By the way, with God doesn't mean man in cooperation with God, right? Dead men don't cooperate. Interestingly, I looked up the Greek translation of the word for impossible here.

It's a lunatos, a lunatos. And I was blown away at what I found. Do you know what the word a lunatos means? Impossible, not possible, no way possible. Now, the same word a lunatos is used in Hebrews 6, 18, where it says, it is impossible for God to lie.

Is it possible for God to lie? It's not possible for God to lie. Then neither is salvation possible in the hands of man or with man. This means that salvation based on man's effort, choice, or cooperation must be impossible for two very important reasons.

First, the word impossible means impossible. Second, since it's impossible for God to lie, and the scriptures are God's breath, he's the one who said salvation is impossible with man. Therefore, it must be a lunatos, impossible.

If you deny a lunatos, you might be a lunatic. In the sinful heart of man, salvation is an impossibility. He needs help from the outside. Only in the sovereign hands and ability of God is salvation possible.

Remember, Jesus also said to his grumbling followers, the flesh profits us nothing. It's the spirit that gives life. The flesh is of no help at all. So our solution to the problem on nature will hinge on what we believe about total depravity.

This is why this doctrine matters. Now, there are three terms in the New Testament that describe a Christian. One, born again, two, new creation, and three, resurrected. And none of those terms imply action on our part.

They're not self-help actions. We are the passive recipients of the action being done. So I wanna quickly look at those terms and then bring us to a close. First, the term born again. Born again implies coming into existence, into the world, new life.

You didn't exist and now you do. What did any of you in here have to do with your natural birth? Nothing, right, good. You would have had to have existed prior to you being born in order to do that. That's a contradiction.

So similarly, in being born again, what did you have to do with that? Jesus says something very important about mankind when speaking specifically about the new birth. Again, he says, flesh gives birth to flesh, spirit gives birth to spirit.

If you are a man in the flesh, you cannot give birth to spirit. Can a human being in the flesh who's spiritually dead give birth to himself spiritually? No, the agent of the new birth is the Holy Spirit alone without the help of your flesh, which Jesus says is no help at all.

John Samson says it like this. The new birth is not the improvement of the old nature, but the creation of an entirely new one. It is a birth, a new birth, and like the first one we experienced, it did not occur because of our decision to be born.

Our will was not a factor in any way. So your flesh can't give birth to spirit. It profits you nothing. Peter would say it like this. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again.

I can't tell you how many times I showed that verse to people and like, yeah, well, because we chose to. I'm like, well, then you're the cause, not him. Next is the term new creation. Again, creation implies created.

There's a creator and a creation. Creation is the work of the creator. But if you're the new creation, how can you be both the creator and the created at the same time? Again, if you took part in your own creation, you'd have to exist before you existed and be co-creator of yourself.

It's a contradiction, again, self-defeating. And being a new creation harkens back to Genesis where God created the world. Genesis 1 .1 says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now listen, the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep.

And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light. Similar to the void and formless earth, our void and stony hearts are covered by darkness until God sheds his light abroad in our hearts.

The Genesis account of the new creation points us back to our new creation. In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul says, for God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

As the spirit took up residence in creation, he takes up residence in our hearts and fills that void. It's not until God sheds the light of himself into our hearts and transforms our hearts that we have knowledge of his glory and Christ, which begins our new creation.

Okay, next and last is resurrection, which implies you were dead and then you were made alive. Another quick question for you, what do you think Lazarus had to do with his resurrection?

Nothing.

What would any dead person have to do with their resurrection?

Nothing.

Again, if you did take part in your own resurrection, you would have had to have been alive in order to take part in resurrecting yourself, but if you were alive, you wouldn't need resurrection. Living people don't need to be resurrected because they're alive already.

Same is true of spiritual resurrection. Here's another gem from Jim Oreck. He says, what do we know about physical death? To say that someone is dead is the worst thing you could say about a person's physical condition, right?

There's a vast difference between being critically ill and dead. A physician might be able to help you when you're critically ill, but only God can help you when you're dead. In our dead and fallen condition, you do not need medicine to make you better.

You need to be resurrected by God to bring you to life. Again, here's how Paul puts it in Ephesians. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even while we were dead in our trespasses, even while we were dead, when?

While we were dead, he made us alive together with Christ. When, while we were dead, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace you've been saved, through faith. If this is true and it's a spiritual resurrection, then you play no part in it whatsoever.

It's the spirit that quickens you and brings you to life. But the flesh is of no help at all. God is the cause of the new birth. He's your father, he fathered you. God is the cause of our resurrection, he raised you.

And as a new creation, God is our creator. And listen, he's sovereign, he didn't need your help or permission. He can handle it. In fact, in your flesh, you and I were both resisting the things of God.

And if you or I cooperated in our salvation or added anything to it, it would be stained by sin because that was your nature. All of our choices and actions are stained by sin because sin has affected every one of our faculties.

All of our good works are filthy rags before God. These realities cut into the pride of man and undermine any responsibility or credit we may want to take in our own salvation. Again, hard to understand or just hard to swallow.

If you're born again, resurrected, and a new creation, it's because something happened to you, not by you or because of you. If you're born again, resurrected, and a new creation, it's because someone else did something to you that you could not do for yourself.

More so, he did something to you that you didn't seek, didn't deserve, or determine. There's none who seek after God. And therefore, it highlights the amazing power and amazing grace of God. Jonas says, salvation is of the Lord.

The Bible is not a self-help book. Before you were born again, you were at enmity with God. Basically, you hated him. Your desire was for the flesh and was repulsed by the things of the spirit. You were hostile to that.

You had what I call spiritual rabies. Does anybody know what the medical term for rabies is?

I know he does.

Hydrophobia.