Nathan E. Lewis

Sermon #3 = “Common Ground: Total Depravity”
Romans 3:9-20
There is significant common ground between Christians and non-Christians in this world under the common curse. As a whole human race we will all stand in judgment on the last day. It is true that some of us will stand in Christ while others will stand on their own two feet. Nevertheless, we will stand as a fallen race to hear God’s final condemnation upon all sin that has destroyed what he made “very good.” The good news for us who are inseparably united to Jesus Christ by faith is “that there is now no condemnation for those of us who in Christ Jesus.” On the final day, even those of us who are free from condemnation will hear the final words of God concerning the sins of humanity. With more clarity than we can ever hope to receive in this world, we will realize that in Christ alone we are freed from eternal torment.
In my first two sermons in this series titled, “Common Grace,” I have suggested that the common ground of humanity lies in our race being made in the image of God and in our original sin flowing from our Federal Head, Adam. In this third sermon I put forth our common ground as presented in the doctrine of total depravity. To what extent is our original and actual sin within and upon us? The doctrine of total depravity describes the depth and severity of our sin against a holy God. The Bible does not wink at our sin or seek to soften its destruction of all creation, not to mention upon the chief of God’s creation, namely humanity.
A large portion of Christian tradition has attempted to soften the doctrine of total depravity suggesting that we are not as bad off as some might say, including the Reformed tradition. Jacobus Arminius, a Dutch Calvinist in the 17th century, departed from biblical truth by teaching at the University of Leiden, that the will of a human being remained unscathed by our race’s fall into sin. When our first parents sinned by the freedom of their own wills, their bodies began to decay, their minds were darkened, and their emotions needed correction, but the faculty of the human will remained good and pure, able to make autonomous choices toward saving grace. The whole of the Dutch Calvinist church met to correct his teaching. The prevailing view was that every human faculty was impacted negatively by our fall into sin and that we are wholly unable to do anything good toward our salvation.
Imagine a tall glass of pure water in your hand on a hot summer day. Moments before you take you first big gulp, I extend an eye-dropper containing an ever so small amount of liquefied nuclear waste. I drop it into your glass of pure water. Will you drink it now? Will you say, “It is mostly pure; 99% glacial water”?
As the drop of nuclear waste diffuses infiltrating every molecule of pure water, the whole glass of water becomes corrupt, unfit for drinking. Such is the doctrine of total depravity. Though we are good, made in the image of God, our race’s fall into sin has wholly corrupted every bit of our being, every faculty tainted by the corruption of sin.
With this in mind let us go to our morning’s text, Romans 3: 9-20. The Apostle Paul presents the doctrine of total depravity in his discussion about the common condition of all of us regardless of our ethnicity and historically favorable position in the covenant of God. In (9) he points out that both Jew and Greek are equally utterly sinful. The advantage of the Jew is that he has a rich heritage founded upon the Old Covenant scriptures pounding home the doctrine of total depravity. He had the law driving him to seek a justification apart from his attempts to keep the law in his own strength. The Greek, largely ignorant of the Scriptures, developed under the common grace of God a rich philosophical system of human rationality explaining the human condition. From this fertile corpus of human insight all of us have gained gems concerning the grand heights of humanity as well as the futility of our race. But one thing both Jew and Greek hold in common: Both, every single last one of us, are totally depraved. This doctrine of total depravity is our common ground.
The first lesson arising from (10-14) is this: With all of our human moral ability, intellect, pursuits, and rhetorical skills we do not achieve an acceptable standing with God. “None is righteous, no, not one.” The religions of this world commonly construct moral paths resulting in upstanding, self-disciplined individuals and communities. Have you ever thought, “Why can’t we Christians be as morally disciplined as the Buddhists? Why can’t we be as peaceful as the Bah’ai? Why aren’t we as committed as the Imam? The answer is the doctrine of common grace. God is not only leaving moral communities in their delusion for the day of judgment, but he is also restraining evil and promoting good in his world toward his glory.
“No one understands.” The human intellect is amazingly complex and productive. The human mind is indeed fertile and to date untapped in its potential. Yet in the end, without the internal work of the Holy Spirit none of us comes to a knowledge of the true and living God. None of us embrace special grace merely through intellectual pursuit. Human rationality is a tool but one that is insufficient to produce fellowship with God. In the fall our minds have become totally depraved unable to comprehend an infinitely holy God. “No one seeks after God.” God seeks us and finds us. He woos our hearts. He is the seeker and we are his treasure. In the end, left to ourselves we are worthless. Think of the brilliant, stirring rhetoric of statesmen, bards, poets, and thespians. In the end all of their beautiful words remain but the speakers land in the grave. These same individuals who have spoken words of wisdom have also done much harm through gossip, slander, and idle speech. Have you ever known a friend endowed with remarkable intelligence and ingenuity but wastes it all through drug addiction or laziness? Sadly, this is the end of all humanity. This is our common ground.
A second lesson arises from (15-17): While our communities appear to be good and productive, just below the surface our total depravity erupts to betray our true condition. “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths is ruin and misery.” Not only Muslim communities but also Christian communities have rashly turned to the sword. It is not difficult to find members of the Bah’ai as well as members of the Church of Jesus Christ who say, “peace, peace, where there is no peace.” Underneath the rhetoric of peace is often a bitter, betrayed heart, seeking the demise of those who have harmed and disappointed. This is our common ground, our shared total depravity.
In (16) Paul delivers the bottom line: “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Wisdom is the application of God’s truth to our daily living. Why do we stop short of it? What prevents us from doing what we say we ought to do and that which we desire to do? The answer is that we are totally depraved and in desperate need of the Holy Spirit. In (19-20) Paul tells us that God’s law silences all of our speeches about the unlimited potential of humanity and proves us to be unable to justify ourselves before a holy God. Thus we are all accountable to God. Here then is our third lesson: we are all accountable to God. This is our common ground in humanity.
The only remedy for our total depravity is the special grace of God. William Masselink in his book, General Revelation and Common Grace defines total depravity: “1) It does not mean that natural man is as bad as the devil and the lost in hell. In hell there is no restraining grace. There sin comes to maturity. 2) It means that ‘the carnal mind is enmity against God,’ that is, every part of man’s nature is corrupted. 3) All men have by nature the principle of death within them. If God does not interpose by his special grace all will become as bad as they can be.” The Holy Spirit must regenerate us, that is, give to us new life. Abraham Kuyper wrote, “Regeneration, a gift of special grace removes the cancer of sin by taking out its roots. In the place of sin it gives the power of eternal life. But common grace does nothing of the sort. It keeps down but does not quench. It tames, but does not change the nature. It keeps back and holds in leash, but thus, as soon as the restraint is removed, the evil races forth anew of itself. It trims the wild shoots, but does not heal the root. It leaves the inner impulse of the ego of man to its wickedness, but prevents the full fruition of wickedness. It is a limiting, a restraining, a hindering power, which brakes and brings to a standstill.”
Such a presentation of the total depravity of man is overwhelming if not offensive to us. It is the black backdrop for the grace of God. The more we realize our total depravity the greater God’s grace is known to us. God, in his manifold grace does not perform a minor out-patient surgery but a massive open-heart surgery. He does not pull out a hangnail but he resuscitates a corpse. The doctrine of total depravity allows the display of God’s grace in all its offerings to shine to his honor and glory. Cornelius Van Til writes, “Positively, common grace is the necessary correlative to the doctrine of total depravity. Total depravity has two aspects, one of principle and one of degree… The first representative act of humanity was an act that resulted historically in the total depravity of the race…Thus mankind came under the common wrath of God…This common wrath, too, is a stepping-stone to something further. The elect were to choose for God and the reprobate were each for himself to reaffirm their choice of Satan. They reject the common grace of God. In the case of some this includes the gospel call, while in the case of most it does not. In every case, however, there is growth in wickedness on the part of those who have seen more of the common grace of God. So it appears that in every case of the historical process common grace is the correlative to total depravity.”
Did Jacobus Arminius receive special grace or was he one of the many recipients of only common grace? Will he be in heaven in his right mind thinking God’s thoughts concerning the nature of the human will? We do not know nor can we know this end for any person but ourselves. What each of us ought to think is this: Is our present enjoyment of the gifts of God a result of his common grace toward his glory or have we received special grace through Jesus Christ, who has given his life for us? Have we come to rest solely upon the work of Jesus to justify us before a holy God, or are we holding onto a shred of hope that at least one of our faculties, let say, our autonomous wills, can be exercised toward our salvation? The doctrine of common grace forces us to think along these lines. May the Holy Spirit minister to your spirit and give to you a full assurance of faith that in life and death you belong to the Lord. Amen.