What is Total Depravity? | Apologia Radio Highlight w/ Jeff Durbin

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When you think about total inability, Zach, why, okay, first of all, why do you believe it and why do you think it's important to know and defend it at that particular starting point, total depravity, total inability?

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You know, I was thinking about this very thing and asking myself, anytime we do study in the

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Word or we're preparing to teach or instruct, it's really the so what of it all that comes at the end.

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Like what's at stake here? Like getting this right. Why is it so important to get it right? It's actually one of my favorites of the acrostic to discuss because I think if you fail here, then you get everything else wrong.

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That's exactly right. So what's at stake? The grace of God, I would say in the gospel.

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And by extension to that, the fact that, you know, if we get grace right, then we understand that God isn't under any compulsion to give it.

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Yeah, to anybody, right? If he is, if he's compelled to do this, if he must, then it's no longer grace.

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Grace loses its graciousness, I think, when we get the condition of man wrong.

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So when we're talking about total inability, total depravity, radical corruption, really what we're talking about is to what extent has mankind fallen?

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Everyone agrees that the whole human race fell on Adam. The Bible teaches very, very clearly, the doctrine of original sin, that all of us have a representative outside of Christ, and his name is

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Adam. He's our first father. But where the dispute tends to come in this is, well, how serious was the effect of the fall on our human nature?

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Like, how far reaching is sin's corruption, actually? Like, does it touch every part of us, or is there something preserved from sin's corrupting effects upon us?

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We all know that our bodies wear out and get sick and we die. We all know that our thoughts are corrupt and futile outside of Christ.

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But is there something intact that hasn't been touched by sin? You know, our reason, for example, our human reason.

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Are we able to actually come to God? So it's not utter depravity, right?

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That's not what we're saying when we talk about total depravity in that we're humanity in our fallen state is as evil as we possibly could be.

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It's not that. It's that, you know, because God has preserved us in many ways by his grace from going off the deep end and falling into complete sin and self -destruction.

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To that point, God is constantly restraining man from the evil that he wants to do.

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Right. And that's the key right there is desire, motivation, will.

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You know, what we're talking about in this is not that, you know, people don't make choices. You know, a fallen man makes choices.

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It's what's the nature of that choice, and what does man desire in the natural state apart from God?

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And the answer to that is it's not God. Right. He's not looking for God. He's not running towards God.

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When you ask the question, what does the Bible have to say about our condition? We're enemies, we're rebels, we're hostile against God, we're disobedient, children of wrath is the other definition.

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And all those identifiers you just gave, you're literally quoting scripture. Right, right. And so every part of us has been touched by sin.

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It's not that we're as evil as we possibly could be, but there isn't a part of us that hasn't been affected by the fall.

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And we're talking in that sense about the nature of man in the fall. That's the main issue is what is the nature of man in the fall?

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We're held captive to a master, and the Bible defines that master as sin.

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And of course, there is description about us, you know, the bondage of the will, the famous book by Martin Luther.

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Luther versus Erasmus. That's a biblical definition of our fallen estate, is that we're captive to Satan, we're captive to the bondage of sin, and therefore, we cannot originate the love of God within our own hearts.

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We can't affect our own conversion, and we cannot do that which is spiritually pleasing to God. That's what we're talking about here.

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Not can we have moments of virtue in our lives, you know, when we help a neighbor across the street, or we, you know, give to the poor.

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Unbelievers can do those things, too, by common grace. There's atheist charities. Yeah. But there's a...Lorraine

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Bettner referred to this as, even in man's charity, there's a fatal defect in his goodness.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm glad you brought that up, yeah. There's a fatal defect in his goodness, and that is his motivations are all wrong. He's not doing it for the glory of God.

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And he's not doing it in independence upon God's power to carry it out, because he thinks that he is self -originating, self -sustaining, self -existent, apparently, in his idolatrous condition, and his desire to be completely separate from God, which, by the way, is how the

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Bible refers to how we are, you know? We don't want God in our knowledge.

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We don't want the reminders of God in creation all around us, constantly screaming at us that he exists, that he's the creator, and that we're accountable to him.

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You know, we want to do our own thing. So when we're talking about total inability, the Ethiopian, you know, can't change himself, right?

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The Leopard can't change its spots, right? This is how we are by nature, and we cannot change ourselves.

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We can't—the decisive hinge point of salvation does not come from within us. It has to come from outside of us.

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It has to come from a power acting upon us, and, of course, that comes later on in the Tulip with regeneration.

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Yeah, heirs of grace. Yes, the inward renewal of the person. That's what has to take place, because apart from that, we're hopeless.

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Ephesians chapter 2 describes our condition, in which it says that we're separated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, talking about the

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Gentiles, having no hope and without God in the world. That's the condition.

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And I'd love for you to talk about Ephesians chapter 2 as well, in the beginning there, dead in trespasses and sins. But just maybe set up the discussion that way.

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We are unable, we don't have the power to come to God. We can't do that, which is spiritually pleasing to him.

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That's right. And a lot of Christians will hear all the verses, you're literally, you're just speaking scripture right now. You're taking little snippets of verses and pulling it into conversation.

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And there's more. And no, there's more. But a lot of Christians will say, well, I agree with all that, and I'm still not reformed.

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And I would say, okay, it's one thing to acknowledge that that's what the Bible says, that we are by nature children of wrath, that we're dead in our sins and trespasses, we're hostile, all of that, unable to come to God.

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It's another thing to actually allow your theology to actually express it. Now I believe that's true about you, to the degree that now it impacts my evangelism.

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Precisely. It impacts my view of man and the grace of God and salvation. So the real question here with TULIP is just this, how gracious is

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God's grace? That's the key issue. Yeah. Passages like Romans chapter eight, verse seven, the mind that is set on the flesh, which is the unregenerate mind, is hostile to God.

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It does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please

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God. This verse was huge, because we have to ask the question as a follow -up, is having saving faith in Jesus Christ pleasing to God?

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Yes. The Bible says that the person in the flesh can't do that. They don't have the power.

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They can't do what's pleasing to God, like repent. Yeah. They don't have the faculties within themselves, the power, the ability, however you want to say it.

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They are not capable of doing that which pleases God. They can't submit to God's law.

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They're not even able to do so. Because there's the portrait painted there in Romans chapter eight.

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There's the mind that's set on the flesh and the mind that's set on the Spirit. And those who have the Spirit of Christ belong to Christ. And the point is, for those that have their minds set on the flesh, they can't submit to God's law.

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Well, are you submitting to God's law? Has it become your delight? Has it become a source of joy for you as a believer, as a

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Christian, that when there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and yet the

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Spirit is alive within you to actually facilitate and cultivate these desires now, because you see the gospel as something that is excellent and beauty and praiseworthy and lovely and something that's worthy of your whole life, and you actually have a desire to obey

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God now. Well, that's the mind that's set on the Spirit. You can please God, but not the mind set on the flesh, not the natural man and his unregenerate state.

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So, when someone hears the gospel presented to them in an unregenerate, carnal, worldly state, they can even affirm it as historically true.

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They could say, yes, yeah, okay, that happened. But here's the point.

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They cannot create the love of God in their hearts for God and for that message.

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That's something that God has to do. They don't want to, because they're hostile to God. And that actually brings it to...

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So, Ephesians 4 .17, something that you just said, made this verse kind of leap to the forefront there about what does man want to do?

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You know, what's in his heart? What is within his desire to do? Ephesians 4 .17. Now, this

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I say in testifying the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds.

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They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of heart.

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So, why can they not see? Why or from where does the ignorance come from?

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Their hardness of heart. They can't see because they won't see. They refuse to see.

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Yes, that's very important. Jesus comments on the same idea. He says, you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

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Right? You don't want to come. You're not seeing. And once again, on this point of total inability, 1

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Corinthians 2 .14, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him.

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What else does the book of 1 Corinthians tell us about the word of the cross? It's moronic to those who are perishing.

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It's foolishness. It's a foolish message to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it's the gift of life.

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And he's not able, 1 Corinthians 2 .14, to understand these things, right?

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The things of God, because they are spiritually discerned. Now, what does that mean?

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It means that the Spirit has to be the one to come and apply the understanding to the hearts of man and give him, of course, the appropriate thoughts that go along with that.

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But these texts are just a few examples that highlight really what we're talking about, man being unable to come to God, man being unable to do that, which is spiritually pleasing to God, because born in his natural estate, he is not free.

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Very important. I think that's a very critical thing to say. He doesn't possess a free will, which is merely a philosophical concept that I don't think is rooted in scripture, but he does have a self -will.

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He is making choices. He is doing things, but those choices will always be in accordance with what he desires.

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So... So the nature feeds the will. Yes. The activity is dictated by the nature of the person.

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So many places bear this out. One of my favorites, and I think it really gets overlooked, is when

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Jesus is denouncing his contemporaries, and he says, how can you do good when you are evil?

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Can a bad tree bring forth good fruit? Well, the answer is no, because what's at the heart of the tree?

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A bad root, right? The seed of life isn't there to bring about the root, and because there's no root, there's going to be rotten fruit.

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The point is there has to be something done inside. Otherwise, you have passages like John 3, 19, again, presenting just what the scripture says here,

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Jesus, and this is the judgment, the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil.

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What's our natural inclination? To love darkness. To not want our works to come to light, to be exposed.

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Why? Because they're evil. And why are they evil? Because of the problem of sin and its effects on our nature.