Apologetics Session 19 - Anthropology

Father, thank you for this time of fellowship where we can come together to study your

Word and study what it means to be human. Father, we pray that as we open your Word and as we look at what the world says about what our nature is and what makes us human, that we rely entirely on you and what you have said, so that we would trust you to see you as you are and us as we are, and that through it all you would be glorified.

We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right, so let's start with the secular anthropology, because there is a difference between Christian anthropology and the social science of anthropology.

So anthropology is really a broad definition. It basically means the study of humanity.

So it's been around since almost the beginning of humanity, because ever since we've been around, people have sought to understand why we are around, and more like anything really related to humans.

So it really started as a philosophical study in ancient Greece, because that's all it did.

And then in the past couple hundred years, it's become more of an empirical data -based study where people do multiple research studies to come to a conclusion.

So the original notion that the ancient Greeks had, and what philosophers through centuries have had, that humans have a human nature, that is gone.

It has been replaced with a more modern interpretation of view, and it's been pretty much shifted entirely to there is no human nature.

Everything is the result of your surroundings. So let's go over the definition again.

Is the science of humanity, or the study of human societies and cultures, and their development using empirical data?

So because it has such a broad definition, there are multiple different fields that come under this umbrella term of anthropology.

So each of these fields focuses on smaller, more specific things, such as the study of the thought processes of people, functionalism, cultural conditioning, cultural relativism, cultural determinism, culture and personality, you're seeing a theme here.

A lot of culture. A lot of culture. And again, because it is this big umbrella term of the study of humanity, human evolution and archaeology also technically fall under this banner.

And we all have heard of those too, we've even gone over those briefly, we're going to in the future as well.

Or you guys will, I won't. You might be backed by that, who knows. But what's being peddled across America probably the most are two other ones.

Cultural relativism and cultural determinism. As a quick aside, in all four years of my high school time,

I went to public school and I took a history class every year. In two of those history classes,

I had a Marxist teacher, and in the other two years, I had sociology and a class called

Contemporary World Issues. And this is all that I heard all year round, even in history, they just bring it all back to these two things.

So cultural relativism is the theory that really dominates anthropology. It was coined by a man named

Franz Boas, and he's considered the father of modern anthropology. So this goes to show how high of a regard scholars hold this man.

And the theory is essentially there is no moral or ethical standard across the world that everything is the result of the culture they come from.

So as an example, there'd be 1741 in Northampton, Massachusetts where Jonathan Edwards was pastor.

That culture was focused entirely on living a godly lifestyle and glorifying

God. And a person that believed in cultural relativism would say that that is the result only because of their belief in the

Bible. Or vice versa, where if we were to look at a Campbellistic tribe somewhere in Polynesia, that is the result of their belief in many gods, or pagan gods.

So everything is determined exclusively by the culture that you're in.

So the relativist would say that neither of those cultures is right nor wrong, and that it is relative to that specific culture.

And something that my teacher had once told me too when we were going over that, is that I only think the way

I do because I'm a Christian. So they're not even really hiding it, it's kind of just down your throat, think this way because this is the way we think.

So the other one that really permeates through anthropology is cultural determinism, which is exploring why cultures are different.

And this gets into more specifics like the day -to -day practices of peoples within a society, the religious beliefs, their political structure, and it's all influenced of course by the cultural systems.

So for us, we are influenced according to determinists. We're influenced by our democratic structure.

We're influenced, us specifically, by this church and our belief in God. And even on a more personal level, we're each influenced because of our family structure.

So all of that comes and accumulates, as this person would say, into what shapes us and what makes us who we are.

So as an example, this is again something I've heard, they would say that the

Israelites could not make sense of why people got sick from eating raw pork, so they explained it away by saying that God had made the pork unclean and that's why they couldn't eat it.

But really, that's just a little weird. So these are the ideas that are all over secular anthropology, but we all know the truth and we want to learn the truth, so we're going to turn to the one place where we can find the truth, which is the

Bible. So Christian anthropology is, again, the study of humanity, but this is where it gets different because it's all about humanity's relation to God.

So where, as a secular anthropologist would focus on the social structures or the culture, we would focus entirely on God and what

God has said about us and what God has done for us. So, we can see this in both natural and divine revelation.

First, we're going to look at what the Bible says, obviously, because that is what we hold so dearly to. So when we look into the

Bible, we can come up with several questions about what it means to be human. The first obvious one jumps out on page one of the

Bible, what does it mean to be made in the image of God? The second would be, what is man's composition?

How many parts does it have, if any? Third would be, what happened to the composition of man as a result of the fall?

Was it changed at all? Fourth, if humanity's nature was altered by the fall, to what extent was it?

Do we still bear God's image? Fifth, what happens to man's composition as a result of regeneration in Christ?

What happens to those who are never regenerated when they die? What happens to those who were regenerated when they die?

Eighth, are humans sinners because of a natural disposition to sin? If so, to what extent are they in that sin?

And finally, if humans are really composed of different parts, what's the difference between those parts?

So we're going to start with the image of God, the imago Dei. I like my

Latin terms, so I wrote it big up there for everybody to see. So, most of us come from a

Christian background, or if you're like me, from a Catholic background where you still read the Bible, but you don't really understand it.

So, from the time we're young we hear that we are made in the image of God, and although we can't really understand fully what it means when we're five years old, we can really see the difference and see that we are separate and special among creation.

And it comes through the study of God's Word that we can see what it truly means beyond merely a physical resemblance.

So, here are a couple of views that some theologians have had through history. Some are as simple as, again, the physical resemblance, and most are a little more complex.

So, here's what Augustine thought. The human mind is trinitarian, comprised of memory, understanding, and will.

Luther said that man has a public and a private image, each relating to the state of the individual in sin.

And John Calvin said that the image of God referred to the soul of man, which he said is what distinguished man from the rest of creation, from animals.

And others have also completely twisted what it means to something like, like God, we have free will, and we have complete sovereignty over our own lives, which we've already gone over, so I'm going to step on toes here.

So, when we look to see what it means to be made in His image, first we're going to go to His Word.

And then, once we've done that, we can look at our secondary source of revelation to add to the already strong foundation that we have in the

Bible. So, let's turn to the beginning, Genesis 1. Would someone like to read

Genesis 1, 26 and 27? Then God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in His own image, and in the image of God He was created, male and female He created them.

Alright, so the first two words that are going to jump out to us when we're looking to understand this, obviously, are image and likeness.

Two different Hebrew words here. The first one is tzelem, and the second one is d'muth.

Tzelem is translated in English as image. D'muth is translated as likeness.

So, tzelem is occurring in 15 different verses in the entire

Old Testament. The first four are referring to the creation itself, we just read two of those.

The other two are Genesis 5 .3 and Genesis 9 .6. Mr. Thompson, could you read

Genesis 5 .3, and Brad, could you read Genesis 9 .6? When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named himself.

Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image.

Again, quite clear about the image referring to the creation. Now, of the other 11 verses that it appears in, 9 render tzelem referring to a graven image or an idol.

An example would be 1 Samuel 6 .11, or 2 Kings 11 .18. Rich, if you want to turn there.

I'm sorry, what? 2 Kings 11 .18. 2 Kings 11 .18, okay.

And Dave, could you turn to Ezekiel 7 .20? 2 Kings 11 .18.

So, they laid hands on her and brought her to the horse's entry of the royal palace, where she was put to death.

Is that right? I don't think so. 2 Kings 11 .18. Yep. Maybe I wrote down the wrong one.

No, no, it wasn't the same one. Okay, I'm sorry. The verse that I had.

You want me to get, you want me to read it? Which one? What? Oh, then yeah. It says, Then all the people of the land went to the house of Baal and tore it down.

His altars and his images, they broke in pieces. And they killed Matan, the priest of Baal, before the altars, and the priest posted watchmen over the house of the

Lord. What verse is that? That was 18. 7 .18? 11.

11. What was the verse I had? Ezekiel 7 .20. 7 .20.

Okay. 7 .20. Okay. His beautiful ornament they used for pride, and they made their abominable images and their detestable things of it.

Therefore I make it an unclean thing to them. So it's clear that these are only two of the nine verses, but it's clear that in these ones it's referring to an image or an idol, mainly in a pagan community around Israel.

Now in the other two verses that Solemnus translated, they're both in the Psalms, and these two are different from the rest because these two are both separate words entirely.

Ivan, if you could turn to Psalm 39 .6, and Bob, if you could turn to Psalm 73 .20.

20? Yes. And Psalm 39 .6 says, Surely a man goes about as a shadow.

Surely for nothing they are in turmoil. Man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather.

So the word translated there is shadow. And then Psalm 73 .20?

They are like a dream when one awakes. When you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.

What translation was that one? ESV. ESV. All right. I don't know which one

I had, but it was phantoms is the one that I had rendered as.

So it's clear that through all of those it's referring strictly to a physical resemblance, a physical image of God.

Now, the word dimuth, or likeness, occurs in 22 verses in the Old Testament. And we're not going to look at all of those because there are quite a bit.

But if we want to look at a few, Isaiah 48 says, To whom then will you liken

God, or what likeness compare him with him? Or Ezekiel 1 .10.

As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle.

Again, referring to likeness. In each of the verses, it renders dimuth as either likeness, the word like, or another synonym of the kind.

So it's clear that from these verses, every single verse that these two words appear in the

Old Testament, it's referring to a physical image, a physical resemblance of God. That's why in the

Septuagint, the Greek translators rendered it all as icon, which is the word that we get, the

English word icon, from I -C -O -N. And in fact, because they are so similar, they're used interchangeably in the

Old Testament as well. So that's one thing that we can learn from Genesis 1.

Now, let's look to natural revelation before we move on, because we can draw the same conclusion from nature as well.

So, I don't know how many of you are really into math, but I am terrible at math and I hate it.

So this was a struggle for me. But I'll see if I can teach it someone.

So, there is a ratio that occurs in nature called the golden ratio.

It is where the ratio of the sum of two quantities is the same as the ratio of the same two quantities.

So that has my head spinning. So I wrote it down for you in algebraic form. And here

I even gave you a chart of a pie graph, where A is two -thirds of the whole and B is one -third of the whole, and together they make that perfect one.

And I did my best to draw a human hand skeleton, but I'm no artist, so excuse me for that.

But these are supposed to be the bones in the human hand. So the bone for two represents, in the graph that I found, it was two centimeters for this bone here, three for the bone below it, five for the bone below that, and eight for the bone below that.

So these top two are a perfect ratio to this middle one. These middle two are a perfect relation to the bottom one.

And the same thing can be seen all over the human body, between your legs, from your toes to your head in fact, and even from your elbow to the tips of your fingers.

From the tip of your fingers to your wrist is one -third the distance approximately from the tip of your fingers to your elbow.

It's clear throughout your entire body too. My uncle has gone into this, he loves math, and he's gone into this for hours, and I'm just sitting there like this.

But I think you're getting the point. All over the human body it's seen that really we have a divine proportion, as some have called it.

And this was first discovered thousands of years ago by the Greeks, and it baffled them. It still baffles mathematicians today.

Really there's only one explanation, and I'm sure we can all see it staring you in the face.

It's an intelligent creator. In fact, the very existence of this ratio,

I think, is more than enough evidence to disprove Darwin's evolution. But that's a different subject.

So from this, again, this just adds to what we've already seen in Scripture, that we bear physical resemblance to God.

So we can clearly see that we stick out among creation, but let's go back to Genesis 1 -26.

It said that we have been created to have dominion over the earth, over all the birds, all the fish, and all the beasts.

Now, this is absolutely not because we're the strongest or the biggest of any animal.

Off the top of my head I can think of scores of animals that can squash me like a bug and not blink an eye.

It's by no means because of our physical strength. What separates us from the rest of creation, though, is that humanity possesses a spirit, the one thing that allows us to commune with the

God of creation. Now, this spirit is what

James Montgomery Boyce wrote about in his book, The Foundations of a Christian Faith. He said the same word, creative, is used at only three points in a creation narrative.

First, when God created matter from nothing, Genesis 1 -1. Second, when

God created conscious life, Genesis 1 -21. And third, when God created mankind,

Genesis 1 -27. And Boyce pointed out that the progression is from the body, or the matter, to the soul, or the personality, or the mind, to the spirit, which can be seen as the

God consciousness in man. Now, Francis Schaeffer used this as well to declare that it is as though God put exclamation points here to indicate that there is something special about the creation of man.

We have dominion over the earth, and yet we're very small in comparison to many of the beasts of the earth.

So it's this spirit that separates us from the rest of creation. So now we're moving into a different realm of debate among theologians.

And this is the debate between the soul and the spirit. It's got some fancy theological names for it.

There is monism, dichotomism, and trichotomism. So let's look at each of those.

Monism is the belief that there is no distinction between the soul and the body, or the immaterial part of man and the material part.

This is not really a theological view that someone would get after reading the Bible. This is more of a philosophical view that people held hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.

And atheists also will hold to this today, just for different reasons. Two of the most famous monists from ancient

Greece were Thales and Anaximenes. From the 7th and 6th centuries

BC, they thought that everything was derived from water, and the other thought that everything was derived from air.

So this goes to show the level of thinking that these gentlemen were at. And the next one would be dichotomism, because we don't need to spend too much time on monism.

It's pretty clear. They think it's just the body. So dichotomism is the most prevalent out of the three views.

So this is the belief that humans are comprised of two parts, the immaterial and the material, the body and the soul.

And at first glance, any Bible -believing Christian would just hear that and say, oh yeah, that's me.

But we're going to take a look at all three before we can truly see. So the debate between the difference of the soul and spirit, or the trichotomism versus the dichotomism, that's not really as intense as either is between the monists, because it's very clear that we have more than one part of us.

It's not just the body. There is something that goes on after death. So the debate isn't really as fierce, but there is the debate nonetheless.

And it starts with the language of the Old Testament. Now, I might be blocking with my head.

I definitely am. So the words in the Old Testament are nefesh and ruach.

And the words in the New Testament are seik, I mispronounced that. And then numa for the spirit.

Spirit, soul. And the dichotomist points out that in some verses in the

Old Testament, these words are used interchangeably. And same in the New Testament. And Millard Erickson, who is one of the more prominent dichotomists out there, he wrote in his book

Christian Theology that if passages such as 1 Thessalonians 5 .23

or 1 Corinthians 2 .9 -16 are always to indicate a distinction between the components of man, then passages such as Luke 10 .27

would imply that there are several parts of man, not just three. So we're going to take a look at each of those verses to see what

Erickson is talking about and to see if he is wrong. So, Phil, if you could turn to 1

Corinthians 2 .9 -16. Mr. Thompson, if you could turn to Luke 10 .27,

and then I'll read 1 Thessalonians 5 .23. Okay. 1 Corinthians 2 .9

-16. Yes. For as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what

God has prepared for those who love him. These things God has revealed to us through the

Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him?

So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the

Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given to us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the

Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the

Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? For we have the mind of Christ. Now we'll go more in depth into that passage in a minute, too, when we get to trichotomism.

But the distinction is quite clear that Paul is made between a soul and a spirit. And also in 1

Thessalonians 5 .23, Paul makes the same distinction. Now may the God of peace sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Mr. Thomas, could you read

Luke 10 .27? And he answered, So, Erikson points to Luke 10 .27

as the reason why he doesn't rely on 1 Thessalonians 5 .23, or that section in 1

Corinthians 2. He says that if we are to take all of them at their word, then

Luke 10 .27 would imply that there are not just three, but several parts of man, with all of your mind, with all of your soul, all of your strength.

That's a whole lot more. So, the fallacy here is that Erikson is taking

Paul's words and really demeaning them. And he turns to Jesus' words where he's speaking in a hyperbole, essentially saying,

Love the Lord with all of your being. That's how much you should love him. And he's taking that as a reason for why we should not follow, or not hold to what

Paul says in that distinction. So, as I'm sure you might have guessed, I hold to the third view, which is trichotomism.

And that is the belief that man has three distinct parts, the body, the soul, and the spirit.

And as we just looked in those two sections of Scripture, it is quite clear that Paul has made that distinction.

But let's look even further into it, in 1 Corinthians 2. So, in verses 10 -12,

Paul distinguishes between the spirit of man perceiving the spirit of truth, and the soul of the natural man who cannot accept that spirit of God.

Rich, can you read those three verses? I'm sorry, where? 1 Corinthians 2. 1

Corinthians 2. Verses 10 -12. Okay, 10 -12.

Alright. Man, I gotta get new glasses.

Okay. For to us God revealed them through the spirit. For the spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

For who among people knows the thoughts of a person except the spirit of the person that is in him?

So also the thoughts of God no one knows except the spirit of God.

Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.

Now, the key verse there is in the middle of verse 11, where Paul says, For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person?

Now, the thoughts, I'm sure as you might have seen, the word soul doesn't appear there, but in the

Bible when they're referring to the soul, they're really referring more to the mind, or the personality, or the person of the individual.

So, the spirit and the soul have this distinction right here. And then we can see also in verses 14 -16,

Mr. Hoke, if you can read those. Sure. The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. Again, the distinction made between the mind and the spirit.

The spirit is the one who accepts the spirit of God, and the mind is the one who understands it.

And the one that does not accept that, it is foolishness to him. And there's also an indication there that the natural man is not born again.

It's the spiritual man who has the Holy Spirit in him, that can only discern if the natural man can't.

Huh? You're stealing this week, sir. Oh, sorry. So, someone such as myself would assert that these two pastures are really so clear that we can build upon this and say that the spirit is what distinguishes us from animals.

Without the spirit, there is no distinction between us and, say, a dog or a cat.

Do dogs and cats have souls? That's a good question. I would say that they have a mind, but we do have a spirit that lives on afterwards.

So when most people would ask, do they have a soul? Because most people only think in a dichotomous sort of way, a body and a soul.

What most people take that as is, do dogs live on after death? Or do cats live on after death?

According to my kids, they do. Yeah, according to my family, they do as well.

I got a lot of heat for saying that my dog won't. Well, I say it tells them.

Animals are in the millennium. Animals are going to be in plenty in the millennium. So, it's not too much to worry about there.

So, this viewpoint can even, you can draw parallels to the Trinity of God. Now, let me make this disclaimer now.

This is not an analogy between our components or our nature and God's nature as he exists in Triune Godhead.

So, he exists in three distinct persons. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are one person.

We just have three different parts. So, really the parallel here, or what can be drawn, is just the three, the number three.

I saw that and it jumped out at me. So, we do not exist as the

Trinity. Let me just, again, say that. But, we do have three components. The Body, the

Soul, and the Spirit. So, now let's look at the impact of the Fall in Genesis 3 on our being, on our components.

So, going back to Dr. Boyce, he said in the same book that when man was created in the garden, in God's image, they were perfect.

And when they sinned against God, that perfect likeness was marred. Because they rebelled against God.

So, that perfect resemblance was marred beyond recognition. And the promise that God made in Genesis 2, verses 16 through 17 did come true.

So, let's turn there. Ivan, if you would like to read those two verses. Genesis 2, 16 and 17?

Yes. And it said, And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,

You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.

For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Now, we all know this very well.

And, as we've gone over in our soteriology class too, this can be seen as a foreshadowing of the grace to come.

Because God has promised, or He did promise, death to Adam and Eve when they would sin.

And then, when they did sin, He did not immediately smite them. So, that is a picture of the grace to come through the

Lord Jesus. But, there is also more that can be seen here. So, when

God promised that they would die when they ate of the tree, He would surely die. That is what He said. They did.

They experienced spiritual death in that moment. So, the effects of the fall start at the spirit of the trichotomy and then move their way down.

Beuys wrote, again, go back to Beuys. Further, the soul, which is the seat of intellect, feelings, and identity began to die.

So, men and women would begin to lose a sense of their own identity, to give vent to bad feelings, and to suffer the decay of their intellect.

Now, we can see this, again, in Scripture, in Romans 1, 21 -23.

Bob, you can read that for us. For although they knew

God, they neither glorified Him as God, nor gave thanks to Him. But their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being, and birds and animals and reptiles.

So, the decay of the soul, the decay of the mind, they did not honor Him, they did not give thanks to Him.

They became futile in their thinking. Those words right there encapsulate the whole thing. Their foolish hearts were darkened.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools. And obviously, what happened to the body as a result of the fall, we all know that we die.

As time goes on, the body decays and withers away. As clearly seen in Genesis 3 -19, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

So, now that we've separated all three parts, the body, the soul, and the spirit, and we've looked at the results of the fall on each of those parts, let's bring it all back together and how it relates.

So, the best illustration I found was by Donald Gray Barnhouse, and he used the picture of a three -story building which was bombed during the war.

So, the top floor is the spirit, the middle floor is the soul, and the bottom floor is the body.

So, the bomb falls, hits the top, and just as the original sin hits, the spirit falls and is completely destroyed.

And the rubble from the spirit, or the top floor, is so much, so severe that the floor, or the ceiling of the second floor, starts to fall in on the second floor onto the soul, and the mind starts to decay.

They become futile in their thinking. And then, because of all that added weight, and the foundations are crumbling, the walls of the bottom floor of the body are cracking and they're crumbling.

And over time, as the spirit has been entirely destroyed, the soul has been ruined, the body is destined to final collapse and ruin.

That's the result of the first sin. And that has been seen through all the generations of man.

So, now we see the results of the fall. What about the results of salvation?

So, when God saves us from the bondage of sin, we know that he makes us a new creation as Paul wrote.

So, first things first, where does he start? With the spirit. He first gives us an entirely new spirit so that we can commune with him once more.

And he fills us with a heart that would desire to follow him, and to please him, and to know him.

Second comes the reconstruction of the soul, or the mind. And this comes through the sanctification process.

As Romans 12 says, by the renewing of your mind, you become more like him, and you grow to know him and to love him.

And then, of course, what happens to the body? Though we die, we live. At the resurrection of the bodies, we get a new, glorified body, as 1

John 3 says. So, to conclude what we've just gone over, yes, we do bear a physical resemblance to God, obviously.

We can see that in Christ. Was Christ already when he came to earth?

Did he come into our image, or were we made in his first? So, we see that physical resemblance, but we also see that we have that spirit, which is what distinguishes us from the rest of creation.

And, of course, we also have a mind and a body like the rest of creation, but that spirit is what separates us.

So, with all three parts, with our body, with our mind, and with our spirit, we are to glorify

God in all things. So, let's move on to our nature.

As we've gone over, the secularists would deny human nature outright.

They would exchange that for some other ridiculous theory about how our parents shaped our nature more than anything.

They exchanged it for a lot. Yeah, nurture. So, what is essential to the

Christian anthropology is the natural disposition of man, or the nature of man.

And, while the secularists would deny that, we can see clearly by reading

Scripture, we do have a nature, and it is to sin. That sinfulness is what separates us from God.

So, now I have a question for each of you that I want you to think about, and then we'll come back to it. Do we sin because we are sinners, or are we sinners because we sin?

We're going to come back to that. Yes. There you go. So, there's a question that most of us, or not all of us, will use when we're trying to evangelize to someone.

Do you think you're good? Are you basically good? It's a very good question to start out with, because then you can go down any road from there.

And, most of the time, when you ask an unbeliever this, you'll get some response along the lines of, oh yeah, sure.

Or, yeah, but sometimes I make mistakes. And, this is the result of centuries of philosophers just destroying what we have thought of, and how we have thought for thousands of years, because the

Bible has told us the reality. So, there is no standard, then, for good or for truth.

And, everything is permissible as long as Phil doesn't kill Dave or steal his wallet.

He's a good guy. And, how could God possibly condemn somebody as long as he doesn't kill someone, right?

That is the general consensus among our society. And, our hope, of course, would be that if anybody claims to be a

Christian, and we ask them that question, their answer would be a unanimous no. We're not good people.

But, unfortunately, that's not the case. Ligonier Ministries does a study annually where they ask a multitude of questions.

One of them is, are we basically good people? And, the last time they did that in 2020, they came back with a 46 % of responding evangelicals think that they are basically good.

That's an appalling number. But, there is hope, because in 2016, when the same study was conducted, it showed 54%.

So, there is some hope. 8 % in four years is actually a lot. So, we have that going for us.

But, really, the 46 % is still far too big of a number.

And, in response to the findings of the study, Dr. Stephen Nichols of Ligonier, he asserted that the issue is that the so -called evangelicals are being too heavily influenced by modernist philosophy.

That philosophy that says that humans, though they're not necessarily perfect now, they can be perfected here and now while they're alive.

And, that comes through the focus of will of the human on self -improvement. Really, again, we know this from our nature, just looking out and seeing the world.

This isn't how it works. This isn't the reality of things. We are not basically good.

And, to add to what makes this so appalling is that the 46 % of evangelicals that say that they're basically good, these are the ones that claim to know the truth.

And, if we turn to 1 John 1 .8, we can see that if they claimed to know the truth, they would claim to know this.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And, the truth is not in us.

They're not basically good. And, the people, ironically, that are saying that they know God and that they are basically good are deceiving themselves.

And, the truth is not in them. That is a sad thing. Again, there is hope. 8 % in four years is a good push in the right direction.

But, it shows us the work that we need to be doing too. So, then this is a stepping stone into original sin.

This is something, again, so clearly taught in Scripture, it's impossible to miss it. So, while we're reading, page 1 of the

Bible pretty much says that man fell and sinned against God. And then, the entire story of the

Bible is the repercussions of that. And then, what God had to do to counteract and to reconcile man's sinfulness back to himself.

So, this is the doctrine that states that because of Adam and Eve's first sin in the

Garden, because of their first rebellion, repercussions were felt through all of humanity throughout history.

These being that we no longer have perfect communion with God. I mean, we can see it right now. We're in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.

We're not in the Garden of Eden. We're not in His presence. That is clear to us with our eyes.

And then, even just getting to know people too, seeing that most people don't know

God. They don't have communion with Him. And then, their minds too, as we've gone over, they're futile in their thinking.

They've replaced the glory of God with idols, with images. And then, we can see this with our bodies too.

We die. It's 10 out of 10 people die. Tim Robinson loves to share that statistic.

And, Augustine famously said that because of our sin, in the

Garden, we were once able not to sin. But, as he said, now we are not able not to sin.

Non passe, non peccata, as he said. So, we need that Redeemer. We need

Him to reconcile us to God because we have no righteousness of our own accord now. So, let's turn to Scripture in a couple of instances.

Just one point before you move on. A few minutes ago, you said we're not in His presence.

Yes. So, we're not physically in the presence of God like as we will be in the

Millennial Kingdom. Though, now we do have a spirit that indwells in us. We're not physically there.

And, we still have sin all around us because in His physical presence, there will be no sin.

Sorry, I shouldn't have made that distinction. That's alright. Well done. So, let's look at a couple of sections.

First is Psalm 51 -5. Pastor Jeff, could you turn there? Dave, could you turn to Psalm 58 -3?

And, Brad, could you turn to Romans 5? 12 -14. So, we all know this

Psalm. This is David's Psalm of Repentance after Bathsheba. And, he says, Not saying that necessarily it's a sin that he was conceived.

But, from the moment he was conceived, he was a sinner. He was in iniquity. Psalm 58 -3 now.

From childhood, they go out speaking lies. Now, I would be remiss if I didn't quote

John Calvin at least once. So, John Calvin said, took this and said that Seems a little extreme.

Have you met a two year old? Good question. R .C. Sproul said in response to that, this is the one point, if anything, that he would have an argument with Calvin when he sees him one day.

And, he would be quick to point out that that's not very fair to the rats. But, it's quite clear from these two verses that from conception, from birth, you go out sinning.

Now, let's look at Romans 5. Verses 12 -14. Through one man, death reigned.

And, we see this. We sing it too on Sundays. Christ the true and better Adam. Our first representative of man,

Adam, failed. He sinned and because of that, all of humanity for all generations has felt the repercussions of that.

And then, through one man, we are all reconciled to God. Through Christ Jesus. But, again, here is that original sin.

Through Adam, all die. Death reigns. And, the perfect word to,

I think, to encapsulate this sinfulness is depravity. But, again, we've already gone over this.

So, I'm not going to touch on this too much. But, let me read from the Westminster Confession of Faith on the sin nature.

And, so became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.

They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed. And, the same death in sin and corrupted nature was conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation.

From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.

Now, there were a lot of words in there. So, let's go back and summarize that. Because of Adam, all sin, and there is no escaping them.

We are indisposed, as they say. It is conveyed to all their posterity, descending from ordinary generation.

Now, of course, the one that reconciles us to God, Jesus, he was not from ordinary generation.

He has a very distinct moment in history where he was born by a virgin.

None of us can say that, because we are from ordinary generation, and we cannot escape that death in sin, that corrupted nature, that the authors of the

Confession of Faith so boldly wrote about. So, as I said,

I love the word depraved. It's almost an odd saying that I love that word, because of the definition of it, but it is the best word to encapsulate our state.

And I have a couple of verses that I'd like us to read on the depravity of man. Starting with Jeremiah 17 .9.

Rich, could you get that one? Jeremiah 17 .9. Ivan, could you get

Romans 7 .18? Devin, could you get

Isaiah 64 .6? Can you get

Ecclesiastes 7 .20? And Jacob, can you get

Titus 1 .15? Jeremiah 17 .9.

Yes. For the heart of man is deceitfully wicked, who can understand it?

Deceitfully wicked. That's pretty clear. Romans 7 .18.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

Nothing good dwells in me. I do not have the ability to carry out what is good. Isaiah 64 .6.

We have all become like one who is unclean. And all our righteousness deeds are like a polluted garment.

We all fade like a leaf, and our inquities, like the wind, take us away.

A polluted garment, or, my favorite translation, filthy rags. Ecclesiastes 7 .20.

For there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not. Not one righteous man.

Universal negative again. And Jacob, you have Titus 1 .15. To the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure.

But both their minds and their consciences are defiled. That word defiled, too.

If I were to rank my favorite words on this subject, that's actually not there. But through these verses, and these are a fraction of all the verses in the

Bible, too. It is very clear. We are depraved, we are dirty, we are wicked, we are defiled, and we go on in evil continually.

We want to do right now that we are regenerated, but we cannot, we don't have the ability.

And then there are two sections which I think really wrap it all up with a nice little bow of depravity.

A bow of depravity. A bow of depravity. A bow of depravity. Could you turn to Romans 3, and Pastor Jeff could you turn to Ephesians 2.

Romans 3. 10 through 12. 10 through 12. As it is written, none is righteous, no not one.

No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless.

No one does good, not even one. There is a lot of no's in there. It starts out with a universal negative.

None is righteous, no not one. He could have just said none is righteous, and then he added again no not one.

He is putting the nail in the coffin pretty much. None of us is righteous. There isn't a single person on the planet.

No one understands, no one seeks God. And then another universal. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless.

Everyone, this isn't a universal negative, this is everyone now. Has become worthless. They have all turned aside from God.

And then it ends again with another universal negative. No one does good, not even one.

So those 46 % of evangelicals need to read this because no one does good.

Not a single person on the earth, they have all together turned aside and become worthless. Now Pastor Jeff, could you read verses 1 to 3.

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.

By nature, children of wrath. Here we can see that we're following the prince of the power of the air, which is

Satan. We're following his lead pretty much in rebellion against God.

We are all dead in our trespasses and sins. That's not a, you're drowning and you need a life raft.

That's, you have drowned and you're at the bottom of the ocean. We all follow the passions of our flesh.

Carrying out the desires of our mind and body. Our defaced minds, he says in Romans.

And by nature, children of wrath. Again, those words couldn't have been said any better.

By nature, you're children of wrath. Like the rest of mankind. Universal again.

All of mankind is by nature, children of wrath. From the onset, the only goal of man is to pursue the desires of the flesh.

The defaced mind. And by doing so, they completely ignore the holy God. And they rebel against him.

Isaiah 1. So this massive change between humanity's nature from beginning in creation to where we're at now.

And to where we are at now. Having been regenerated. So we can take a look if we, we don't have to turn back to Genesis 1.

But in verse 31. After God has created man. He says that he saw and it was very good.

And then we read Paul's words again in Romans 3. Not one of them does good. No, not one.

That's a harsh reality. And if you can read that and not feel pierced to the heart when you read that.

To know that in and of yourself, you are evil. You're as wicked as a rat.

You have no desires other than the sinful passions of your flesh.

And John Gerstner once described this state of man as if we were zombies.

When we think of zombies, we might think of The Walking Dead or some other ridiculous movie or show out there. But what a zombie is in popular media is someone that was dead that is now undead.

But we can ignore that word there. Because that has no meaning to us. But it is someone who is physically dead.

But their body is still moving around. And they have one goal that they blindly pursue. Which is the consumption of flesh.

Of brains. Now, while we don't have the same goal. We are dead in our sins by nature.

And we're just walking around pursuing one singular goal. Which is our own sin. So, like the zombie's flesh is putrefying around them and literally falling apart into cane.

Ours is, with time, slowly rotting and dying. So, we can see that parallel between us and the zombie.

Which isn't really one that anybody wants to ever hear. And finally, let's turn to Romans 5 verse 8.

I saved this verse for last. Because in this one, yes, we see our depravity again.

But we can also see grace. And that is where everything ought to go.

Could you read Romans 5 verse 8 for us? While we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. We were dead in our trespasses. And we were enemies of God, in fact, as he says in verse 10 here.

And we were not able to understand Him. We did not seek for Him. And yet, while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us. He sent His only Son to die a painful death on the cross.

To reconcile us to Him. Before everybody got here, Rich and I were talking about this song that I found a couple weeks ago.

Called, His Robes for Mine. We wear His robes of righteousness now. And because of His death,

His righteousness is imputed to us. Not because of our own nature, as we've just gone over.

We're dead in our sin by nature. We're wicked by nature. And yet, He's the one that is pure, that is good by His own nature.

And He lived that perfect life. And He died that death that we deserve. And that through His grace, we have life in Him.

Amen. I have one question for you and the class.

Do you think, because of the statistic of 46%, do you think, or do we think, that a person could be in Christ and not accept total depravity?

So, I know some people that go to church and they would affirm the core essentials of the faith that deny the totally part.

They would say that we are depraved, but they don't like the word totally. So, I know that's not exactly what you're asking, but I would say that there are people that just hate the sounding of the word total depravity.

They hate that phrase. And they completely ignore it. But something that I've also been reading too lately is that there are a lot of people that don't even use that phrase.

They just say radical depravity. Because it does have a different connotation there. That we are radically depraved.

We've radically fallen into our sinfulness. So, I'd say that you can be of the faith and not like the phrase, but if you don't affirm the original sin, the nature that you are dead in your sins, then you're just, at that point, you're also throwing away the authority of Scripture.

Because Scripture is very clear. Yeah, I would say that I think a prerequisite for salvation is an understanding of your own sinfulness.

If you don't think that you're sinful by nature, then it's difficult for you to understand that you need a

Savior in the first place. So, you know, the terms that they use a lot of times is you've got to get someone lost before you can get them saved.

You've got to make them understand that they are sinful by nature and this is why they have a need for salvation.

That's why religious people are so hard to reach. So, I would say, to your specific point,

I think there are saved Christians that don't have a deep understanding of depravity and don't have a deep understanding of theology or doctrine, but they understand that they're a sinful person and that they need a

Savior. But I think that if someone starts with the basis of, I'm a pretty good person and Jesus is my insurance ticket to heaven,

I don't know that that's genuine salvation. I think that you have to understand that you are a sinful person first.

Yeah, because that 46%, that's a huge number. I think the difficult thing with polls is that it's based on someone's understanding of the question so somebody may say, you may say, are you a good person?

And your mind may start comparing yourselves to other human beings. And when you're comparing yourself horizontally, it's a different metric than if you're comparing yourself vertically.

The question is, compared to what? Compared to what, exactly. And murder one that's in jail, and I'm a good guy.

But when you compare that to a perfect and holy and righteous and just, to go over what

Drew went over, all of the attributes of the creator of the universe, we are like filthy rags.

And our righteousness is like filthy rags. So going back to that question

I asked a couple minutes ago, are we sinners because we sin? Or do we sin because we're sinners?

Because we're sinners. Because we sin because we're sinners. So it's our very nature, and we act on that nature.

Somebody, I forget the guy's name, he said, it was like a weird thing about ice cream, but we're sinners.

So we'll just leave it at that. Does anybody have any prayer requests or any other questions before we end?

Just a promise from the Bible which shows us how great God's love and grace is.

2 Corinthians 5 .17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, this person is a completely new creation.

All things are passed away, including our sin nature. Some people wrestle with that after they're saved.

You know, I still commit this sin. But still, if we confess our sin,

He's faithful just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Amen.

Praise God. Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank You so much for Jack and his preparation.

And God, we just pray that You would continue to pour Your Spirit into him as he goes away to school,

Lord God. We pray that You would lift him up in Your Spirit every day, Lord God.

We pray that You would draw him into Your Word just daily, that he would not go a day without just feeding upon Your Word.

And we pray that You would draw him close to You in prayer, God, that You would just be his every support.

Lord, I am just personally so proud of him for this class that he's taught,

Lord. And Lord, I pray for all the men here, but I just pray that Your abundance of Your Spirit and blessing would fall on him, that he would be a man of God all the days of his life,

Lord God, that You would just use him in awesome ways.

And Lord, we are just so honored to be here to see his humble beginnings,

Lord God. We pray that You would keep him humble, and Lord God, just pour

Your Spirit into him all the days of his life and use him mightily, we pray in Jesus' name.