- Jul 13, 2012
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Desire to be a vessel of honor unto the Lord Jesus Christ?
Join For His Glory for a discussion on how
https://christianforums.net/threads/a-vessel-of-honor.110278/
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Taking the time to pray? Christ is the answer in times of need
https://christianforums.net/threads/psalm-70-1-save-me-o-god-lord-help-me-now.108509/
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T.U.L.I.P. - Total Depravity
- Thread starter JLB
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- May 18, 2017
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I find myself reading scripture, have one issue, and that's it. Everything is wrong, nothing makes senseI thought I was the only one with this struggle.
JLB
We hate adjusting, and freak out easily. So I cooked and cleaned up yesterday, but often I am told I do nothing. I am hearing the lack of care, but not the realism life is tough.
Seeing Jesus we do the same to Him. It's easier if we are totally flawed, no obligation or responsibility or chance of success or failure. Except crossing a road has the same problems and we can do that.
Learning our emotional language helps.
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Peter, we are not fully pure and holy, so depravity infects us all.
It was Paul who stated:
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it (Rom 7:15-20 NIV).
This harmonises with my regular experience. I want to do the good (control my anger) but find I have times of anger. What is causing this problem with self-control? It is the sin (sinful nature) living in me. Nothing good dwells in my sinful nature. I want to do what is good but I find it extremely difficult to do it. I'm an expert procrastinator. Fortunately the kitchen sink in clear tonight and plates and cutlery are in the dishwasher.
Are there others among us who can admit that we do what we don't want to do, then the sinful nature lives on in us?
That's why I believe in total depravity. Every part of my being is infected, but it is being renewed daily.
Oz
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No doubt we are all infected with sin and battle with sin. We can all agree on this.
I’m trying to understand what the phrase total depravity applies to, and what the Reformers meant by it.
JLB
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Romans 6, 7 & 8 demonstrates our flesh has sin, but not our spirit, our inward man.
This is the lesson Paul is teaching in Romans 7, that we must walk according to the Spirit, rather than the sinful desires of the flesh.
If we should sin, then we confess our sin, and He is faithful to forgive us, and cleanse us of all unrighteousnes.
Thank God.
For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Romans 7:22-8:1
JLB
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I see your logic, but there is another layer to add. We get angry for a reason which in Christ can change.
Some believe they are how there emotions react, but I would add we are what we do as a result.
Someone can make me angry, but I can choose to forgive and love in Jesus, which is my heart's response. That is purity, cleansing and holiness through choice.
I have literally felt my heart shift in Jesus, so I know how this works. Stepping back, seeing sin and blindness at work changes so much.
Can I be angry at a rotten tree crushing my car? But I can choose to limit the risk, be cautious and forgive.
I picked up a hedgehog with gauntlets, which was safe.
Jesus declars as His people we can walk like Him. Paul did, and called us to do likewise.
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JLB,
That is your opinion. You didn't get it from those texts.
23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature [flesh] a slave to the law of sin (Rom 7:23-25 NIV).
Where is the 'mind' located?
Oz
- May 18, 2017
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I like the passage in Romans of Paul struggling without lov and Jesus. But in Christ, in the Spirit it is now possible.
Paul was righteous, but knowing Jesus is everything. Paul's whole debate is being a slave to righteousness because our hearts are changed.
Once you know this things shift. It is a new creation, new birth, something eternal, a precious experience.
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JLB,
The Reformed Arminian perspective is that human beings in the beginning were created in the image of God. Adam & Eve fell from this sinless state through willful disobedience, leaving the whole human race in a state of total depravity.
This means they were sinful, separated from God and sentenced to God's condemnation (Rom 3:23; Eph 2:1-3). Total depravity does not mean that human beings are as bad as bad could be. But it means every part of a human being - body, soul/spirit, heart, mind - has been infected with sin.
That means all human beings have a sinful nature with a natural desire/inclination to sin. So, all human beings are fundamentally corrupt throughout the entire being (Jer 17:9; Gen 6:5; Matt 19:17; Luke 11:13).
All people are spiritually dead in their sins (Eph 2:1-3; Col 2:13) and as a result are slaves to sin (Rom 6:17-20). Could anything be clearer than the Apostle Paul's statement, 'For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature [flesh]. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out' (Rom 7:13 NIV).
Paul further explains the nature of total depravity: "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’” (Rom 3:10-12; cf. Rom 1:18-32; Eph 4:17-22).
So in their natural states, people are hostile to God and they cannot submit to his Law or please him - they are totally depraved (Rom 8:7-8).
In summary: Human beings are wretches before God. 'We can't think, will, nor do anything good in and of themselves. We are unable do anything that merits favor from God and we cannot do anything to save ourselves from the judgment and condemnation of God that we deserve for our sin. We cannot even believe the gospel on our own (John 6:44). If anyone is to be saved, God must take the initiative' (with help from F.A.C.T.S. of Salvation: T).
Oz
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The mind is a part of the inner man, the soul.
Paul is plainly showing that sin dwells in our flesh, that is to say our physical body.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
Romans 6:12-13
Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.
Romans 6:16-19
Paul is showing us that we have dominion over the sin in our physical body, because of the Spirit that dwells within us.
For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Romans 7:22-23
For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:3-4
By the power of the Spirit within us, we ourselves are to put to death the sinful deeds of the flesh.
Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Romans 8:12-13
- but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live
JLB
atpollard
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He can’t help it.
It is his fallen nature, the total inability of his body, mind and soul to do what he knows God calls him to do ... just like a “Totally Depraved” Calvinist or Classic Arminian. ?
atpollard
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“Enslavement to sin characterizes all those who have not yet been transformed by God’s saving grace, and only the Son of God, by the Holy Spirit, can set people free to do what is pleasing to the Lord (see John 8:36). This complete enslavement to sin is what we are really talking about when we speak of total depravity. The consequence of Adam’s fall is not merely that it has become more difficult to do what is truly good or that we have been weakened while still retaining some ability to choose to please God. No, the fall has rendered us unable to respond to our Creator in trust, love, and obedience.
It is important for us to be clear on what we mean when we speak of sinful humanity’s inability to choose the good. We do not mean that sinners cannot make choices. Plainly, we choose from many different options every day. We select one course of action over another. Also, we do not mean that sinners are incapable intellectually of discerning good and evil. Our moral sense has been impaired by the fall, but even the most hardened sinner still has God’s law on his conscience and can recognize the difference between good and evil on at least some level (Rom. 2).
When it comes to total depravity, the inability of which we speak is first and foremost moral inability. In our fallenness, though we have a will and can discern the good, we lack the ability to choose rightly, to exercise our wills in the proper direction of absolute dependence on God and submission to His will. To put it another way, we are dead with respect to the things of God, to that which He finds pleasing. That is what Paul says in today’s passage. Before our Creator makes us alive spiritually, we are dead in our trespasses and sin, and we cannot help but serve the world, the flesh, and the devil. Dead bodies are incapable of doing anything but remaining in the state of death. If they are to come alive again, they must be acted upon by an outside being, even God Himself at the resurrection. Spiritually dead people cannot do anything but remain in the state of spiritual death. They require an outside being—the sovereign Lord—to restore them to spiritual life. This is what God does for His people in making them spiritually alive. We see the greatness of God’s grace and power in that He intervenes and changes us before we are even able to ask Him to do so, granting us the faith by which we are saved (Eph. 2:1–10).” [Total Moral Inability, Ligonier Ministries]
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By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.
Hebrews 11:4
What about Abel?
Was Able totally depraved?
By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. Hebrews 11:7
Noah? Was he totally depraved?
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. Hebrews 11:8
Here Abraham is justified by faith.
I have actually been put in the position of defending myself, by saying...
I am content to ask questions, and observe, however when you claim that I didn’t get it from the texts and then you ask me a question, I will certainly answer.
JLB
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Are you guys saying that the Church, the bride of Christ, whom the Lord cleansed and sanctified, is totally depraved?
Surely this doctrine of total depravity isn’t teaching this, right?
JLB
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- #38
Agreed.
When does Gd to this work of making us spiritually alive?
When we believe the Gospel, or sometime before?
JLB
atpollard
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I was just taking an easy opening to tease you. ?
However, there is a sense in which even the Church is “depraved”. Let me ask you, can any person reach a state of sinless perfection (total sanctification) while still alive? If not, then there is SOMETHING of the old nature that we continue to struggle against ... that pulls us off the mark of Perfection.
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- #40
How about Christians who present the members of their body as a slave to sin?
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness. Romans 6:15-16
Do Christians who are under grace, that present themselves as slaves of sin, return to the bondage they were once freed from?
JLB