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Desire to be a vessel of honor unto the Lord Jesus Christ?
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Taking the time to pray? Christ is the answer in times of need
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Depending upon the Holy Spirit for all you do?
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How are famous preachers sometimes effected by sin?
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What is the doctrine of total depravity?
- Thread starter donadams
- Start date
Hey All,
You should Google this.
You will get all of the information you need.
In general, "total depravity" is the condition of man, through our sin nature, in which he currently exists. (This is prior to grace through faith in Jesus, of course.)
Calvin is credited with the term.
But Jeremiah proclaimed it, albeit in a different way.
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Also God in Genesis 6:5-6: (No slight to god meant by placing Him second.)
Genesis 6:5-6 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
This is one of the worst passages in Scripture. I feel so bad when I sin because of these verses.
I don't ever want God to repent that He created me.
Because of total depravity, man cannot understand the grace of God without God's initiating the opening of a person's ears and eyes so they can understand.
Deuteronomy 29:2-4 And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land;
The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:
Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.
Ezekiel said this:
Ezekiel 12:2
Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.
And, of course, Jesus tagged some of His parables with this:
Matthew 11:15
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Only God's grace can allow us to understand and overcome our total depravity.
Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz
Then how was Noah Just?
How were Zacharias and Elisabeth blameless in the eyes of God?
Lk 1:5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.
6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
Hey All,
God wrote His Law on their hearts.
Romans 2:13-15 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)
Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz
God wrote His Law on their hearts.
Romans 2:13-15 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)
Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz
[What is the doctrine of total depravity?]
If as I suspect you are asking in order to debate this, I wonder if a different forum would be better, allowing all to interact with all. However, no one created the doctrine and defined its meaning, so no one can give a definitive A.
The general idea seems to be that even at conception, no human being is not depraved, and all sin-defaced, physically, socially, and spiritually, lacking full wholeness throughout their makeup. Ie depraved extensively—muddy water. Some go further, and say that each core element is as bad as could possibly be— full-depth depravity; all mud. Actually they tend to exclude full-depth at least to physicality. Augustine contra Porphyry had something of that idea; John Calvin nicked it to also try to fuse the ideas of God’s sovereignty and limited atonement. Hence the postulations that God excludes some from a limited access point of ultimate salvation, but is fair to do so because all are as morally depraved as can be so don’t deserve any better than ultimate hell, and the lucky-dip of salvation (irresistible) is more gracious than no dip at all. There is a certain logic in Calvinism, granted certain suppositions.
But “if God’s moral judgement differs from ours so that our ‘black’ may be his ‘white’, we can mean nothing by calling him good; for to say ‘God is good’, while asserting that his goodness is wholly other than ours, is really only to say ‘God is we know not what’. And an utterly unknown quality in God cannot give us moral grounds for loving or obeying him. If he is not (in our sense) ‘good’ we shall obey, if at all, only through fear—and should be equally ready to obey an omnipotent Fiend. The doctrine of Total Depravity—when the consequence is drawn that, since we are totally depraved, our idea of God is worth simply nothing—may thus turn Christianity into a form of devil-worship.” (C S Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, 1947:25)
Such extreme Calvinism is demonic, and postulates that to pre-converted man God is as Satan, and Satan is as God. Admittedly, some issues can be fashionably inverted: eg Hippocrates rejected human abortion so as to do no harm, but today's abortionists reject Hippocrates but still quote his oath of first doing no harm. Such Calvinistic extremism is disproved by converts not doing a 180 degrees moral flip.
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Then how was Noah Just?
How were Zacharias and Elisabeth blameless in the eyes of God?
Lk 1:5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.
6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
And how does Jesus, if He is not God escape this total depravity?
o debate just understanding
Then how was Noah Just?
How were Zacharias and Elisabeth blameless in the eyes of God?
Lk 1:5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.
6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
And how does Jesus, if He is not God escape this total depravity?
[No debate just understanding
Then how was Noah Just?
How were Zacharias and Elisabeth blameless in the eyes of God?
Lk 1:5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.
6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
And how does Jesus, if He is not God escape this total depravity?]
Terms have contextual meanings. Eg a psalmist spoke of blamelessness under Sinai (Ps.119:1); St. Paul ticked that box (Php.3:6,9). To speak of someone as truthful usually assumes a relative truthfulness. Noah and Job (a pagan?) were just, in some context, but fell short of absolute justness. Throw in Lk.1:5 too. And Mary was just, but spoke of her saviour (The Magnificat). Fully in Adam 1's line, we are conceived depraved to some extent; we are not as fully depraved in both width and depth.
Jesus was not God in blunt terms (though the NT has some blunt terms: eg Rm.9:5), and even Jhn.1:1 drew some distinction between the logos (who became Jesus: Jhn.1:14) and God [the father], but with Athanasius we may say that the Logos was deity in substance (ousia). Jesus was as Paul said, the Last Adam (Adam Christology), indicating that God the noncarnate son had begun a sinless human mode not fully from Adam’s fallen line, and as a new creation from a new source (ie of deity, not nature). Not a bottom-up escape from unholiness, but a top-down entrance from holiness. But the fact that he used a human woman (viz the BVM) shows that he was in some substantial way connected to Adam’s genetic line at least as to his body.
Prycejosh1987
Member
Sounds like it means that we must believe we are failures without God. I believe the opposite. That we need God and God needs us. If God didnt need us He wouldnt of made so many compromises and things that break our limitations when it comes to understanding and interacting with Him.
Hey All,
I don't agree with with TULIP completely Mr. Adams. I, personally have a problem with "Irresistible Grace." If God gives a measure of faith to everyone, and some do not accept Jesus, grace cannot be irresistible. Plus Jesus stands at the door and knocks. He does not barge in until He is welcomed.
"Sounds like it means that we must believe we are failures without God. I believe the opposite. That we need God and God needs us." Quote from Prycejosh1987
What you said is not the opposite Prycejosh1987.
The opposite would be we don't need God, and God needs us to exist in an eternal state.
So we are the failures, as you put it, because we cannot save ourselves.
Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz
I don't agree with with TULIP completely Mr. Adams. I, personally have a problem with "Irresistible Grace." If God gives a measure of faith to everyone, and some do not accept Jesus, grace cannot be irresistible. Plus Jesus stands at the door and knocks. He does not barge in until He is welcomed.
"Sounds like it means that we must believe we are failures without God. I believe the opposite. That we need God and God needs us." Quote from Prycejosh1987
What you said is not the opposite Prycejosh1987.
The opposite would be we don't need God, and God needs us to exist in an eternal state.
So we are the failures, as you put it, because we cannot save ourselves.
Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz
Hey All,
God has no need of anything.
Acts 17:24-25 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
We exist for God's pleasure.
Revelation 4:11
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz
God has no need of anything.
Acts 17:24-25 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
We exist for God's pleasure.
Revelation 4:11
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz
Are men totally depraved? Is every faculty of the person corrupted?
Heart/Mind (Deceitful)
- Jeremiah 17:9 - “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
- Titus 1:15-16 - to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.
- Ecclesiastes 9:3 - Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
- Romans 1:28-31 - And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were… foolish
- Ephesians 4:17-18 - you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
- Jeremiah 10:7-8,14 - among all the wise ones of the nations and in all their kingdoms there is none like you. They are both stupid and foolish… Every man is stupid and without knowledge
- Matthew 15:19 - “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” (c.f. Mark 7:21-23)
- Genesis 6:5 & 8:21 - The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually… from his youth.
- Proverbs 10:20 - the heart of the wicked is of little worth.
- Proverbs 28:26 - Whoever trusts in his own [heart] is a fool
Will/Choosing (Enslaved)
- John 8:34 - Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”
- 2 Peter 2:19 - They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
- Titus 3:3 - For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
- Galatians 4:8-9 - Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
- Romans 6:6,16,17,19,20 - We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey…? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed… For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
- Romans 7:14 - For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
- 2 Timothy 2:25-26 - God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
Affections/Desires (Perverted)
- Romans 1:24-27 - Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
- Ephesians 2:3 - 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.
- Proverbs 21:10 - The soul of the wicked desires evil
- John 3:19 - 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.
- John 8:44 - “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.”
et al (Utter Ruin)
- Titus 1:15-16 - to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.
- Romans 7:18 - For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.
- Isaiah 1:5-6 - The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil.
The big picture is, God would build an eternity we call Heaven. Law is like a promise given that if one passes the Judgment of Law, the completely sin-incompatible God would bear with him in eternity no matter what. God need happiness too. Sin will Him very unhappy. Heaven is a place for the three parties, namely God, angels and humans, to live satisfactorily.
By the freewill granted to angels, it is estimated that 2/3 angels would pass the Judgment of Law. By the larger degree of freewill give to humans, it's estimated that 1/3 or less humans would also pass the Jugment of Law. The Eden story however indicates that with the influence from the much more intelligent angels (i.e., the 1/3 fallen angels), no human can actually pass the Judgment of Law. Humans should have been destroyed as whole by Noah's flood as demanded by Law.
God on the other hand chose to do a self-sacrifice through Jesus Christ, such that Law permits humans to be judged by Covenant instead of Law. With Law no human can pass the Judgment, but with Jesus and the covenants men will live. 1/3 or less humans will be saved at the end through the narrow gate.
The essense of total depravity, which may not be phrased correctly, could mean the part how human would fail the Law and why Jesus is a must for human salvation.
Noah is the one who received the first covenant. Covenant is applicable for humans only but not the angels. It is brought us by the blood of Jesus Christ who would make a sacrifice at some point of humanity. Covenant bears another fold of meaning that it's because Law can no longer identify the saved from the unsaved, that a covenant needs to be in place to distinguish the saved from the unsaved, the righteous from the wicked. So with the Covenant of Rainbow in place, Noah can be deemed righteous, though no one can be righteous in front of Law.
Today, Christians can also be deemed righteous due to our faith in Christ, which is in accordance to the New Covenant in place. We can be separated/identified/distinguished from the unsaved. It also indicates that once an older covenant can no longer be used to identify the saved from the unsaved, a new covenant then must be provided.
By the freewill granted to angels, it is estimated that 2/3 angels would pass the Judgment of Law. By the larger degree of freewill give to humans, it's estimated that 1/3 or less humans would also pass the Jugment of Law. The Eden story however indicates that with the influence from the much more intelligent angels (i.e., the 1/3 fallen angels), no human can actually pass the Judgment of Law. Humans should have been destroyed as whole by Noah's flood as demanded by Law.
God on the other hand chose to do a self-sacrifice through Jesus Christ, such that Law permits humans to be judged by Covenant instead of Law. With Law no human can pass the Judgment, but with Jesus and the covenants men will live. 1/3 or less humans will be saved at the end through the narrow gate.
The essense of total depravity, which may not be phrased correctly, could mean the part how human would fail the Law and why Jesus is a must for human salvation.
Noah is the one who received the first covenant. Covenant is applicable for humans only but not the angels. It is brought us by the blood of Jesus Christ who would make a sacrifice at some point of humanity. Covenant bears another fold of meaning that it's because Law can no longer identify the saved from the unsaved, that a covenant needs to be in place to distinguish the saved from the unsaved, the righteous from the wicked. So with the Covenant of Rainbow in place, Noah can be deemed righteous, though no one can be righteous in front of Law.
Today, Christians can also be deemed righteous due to our faith in Christ, which is in accordance to the New Covenant in place. We can be separated/identified/distinguished from the unsaved. It also indicates that once an older covenant can no longer be used to identify the saved from the unsaved, a new covenant then must be provided.