The Depravity of Man | Summer in the Systematics: Anthropology (Part 7)

Transcript

JRS 88
THE DEPRAVITY OF MAN
8/9/2026
SELECTED SCRIPTURES
JESSE RANDOLPH

We are back at it tonight after a few weeks off. Summer is waning and drawing to a close and we are launching tonight Part Seven of our summer in the systematics series, our study this summer of 2026 of Biblical Anthropology, the doctrine of man. Up to this point in the series, it’s been a few weeks since we’ve gone through this study so just a bit of brief review. We’ve covered six other topics and six messages.

First, we’ve looked at The Origin of Man where we saw from Scripture, that man is a created being. He’s not the random process of evolution over millions or billions of years. We saw next The Image of God in Man, which is a massive topic and one which really distinguishes mankind from all other forms of life on this planet and in the celestial realm. Next, we looked at The Constitution of Man where we saw that man is comprised of both body and spirit or, if you’re a trichotomist, body, soul, and spirit. Next, we looked at The Design for, meaning God designed man to be male and female. That’s it, there are only two sexes no matter what controversy the WNBA is embroiled in today. Next, we looked at the Intrinsic Value of Man. Meaning the intrinsic value of man at conception, the intrinsic value of man in life and then the intrinsic value of man in death. Then most recently, just a few weeks ago we looked at the Fall of Man where we considered under that heading, the original temptation of man by a serpent, in an actual Garden, as recorded in Genesis chapter 3. Then we considered the actual events surrounding the Genesis account related to the fall, namely Adam and Eve’s partaking of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. And then we considered some of the consequences associated with the fall of man. Things like guilt and shame and blame and separation and complication and expulsion from the garden and of course, death.

Now tonight in message number seven, we are going to zero in on another aspect of what the fall of man brought about, which is his depravity, his degeneracy, his innate sense of wickedness, his built-in proclivity toward evil. That is our subject for tonight, THE DEPRAVITY OF MAN. Not exactly a topic that’s going to get lots of applause these days. Not exactly a topic that’s going to generate a lot of fanfare these days. Not at all as Pastor Mike mentioned during announcements, something we woke up this morning thinking I want to hear more about the depravity of man. Not something that’s a feel-good topic. It’s not going to get you airtime. And certainly not something that the church growth gurus are telling pastors to teach on more and more these days. But that’s okay. It’s a topic that’s Biblical, Biblically revealed and is essential not only to a full orbed picture of who God is and who we are but even the richness and sweetness of the Gospel which comes at the back end of all of this.

So, if you’re taking notes this evening, I’ve got five points for you tonight. Feel free to fill these in really quickly if you’ve got one of those worksheets. First, we’re going to look at THE SUMMARY OF MAN’S DEPRAVITY. Second, we’ll look at THE SEVERITY OF MAN’S DEPRAVITY. Third we’ll look at THE SPREAD OF MAN’S DEPRAVITY. Fourth will be THE SCOPE OF MAN’S DEPRAVITY. And then fifth and finally will be THE SOLUTION FOR MAN’S DEPRAVITY.

We’ll start here with THE SUMMARY OF MAN’S DEPRAVITY. What do we speak of what do we refer to when we speak of man’s depravity? What do we mean when we say that men and yes also women, are depraved? What do we mean by that? Well, the root word for depravity in English is a word that means perverted or crooked. It’s a word, depravity that is, which has come to mean not standing the test. So, when we speak of mankind being depraved then, we are saying that man fails the test. Man fails the test of pleasing God. He is corrupt in his moral nature. He’s inherently biased toward evil. His affections are misdirected completely away from God. His affections are directed away from the One he was designed to worship, and instead toward the wicked and fleeting things of this world.

Now the fact that man is depraved is testified to by our personal experience. In fact, it’s testified to by our mere existence. When I told the men on staff this week that I’d be teaching on depravity in the evening service tonight, one of them asked how I intended to illustrate the topic and I said, “well I’ll just stand there, as an example of one who is depraved.” That would be boring and awkward so I’m not going to do that. But the point stands. We are, from experience, depraved. We know from experience that we are depraved. All anyone here would need to do to affirm that they are depraved would be to catalogue their thought life over the last few months, or to catalogue their thought life over the last few weeks or catalogue their thought life over the last few hours, since the morning service today. And that catalogue of thoughts would readily confirm that we are depraved.

Now, the fact that man is depraved is testified to not only by our experience, but more importantly and fundamentally it’s testified to in Scripture. See what Scripture tells us is that God has made Himself known to all men. Acts 14:16-17, “In the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways; and yet He did not leave Himself without witness.” He revealed Himself to man. Romans 1:19, “That which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen.” Scripture tells us that God has made Himself and His own presence and existence known to all men. But men we’re told, in Romans 1:18, “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” And why? Why do men suppress the truth in unrighteousness? Well, this centers back to our topic for this evening, as we’ll learn that man is depraved. Man suppresses the truth in unrighteousness because he is depraved. He is corrupt. He’s corrupted in nature. He is not disposed toward the truth. Rather, he’s predisposed toward falsehood. He’s inclined toward evil, not good. He is inclined toward wickedness, not things of the Lord.

In fact, in his natural condition, man can’t trust himself to do anything but evil. By the way, that is why so many different secular models of therapy and psychology are so incredibly dangerous, because they add more oxygen to the fire of the already inflamed sense of self that exists in fallen man. You know an evil person, a wicked person, a depraved person, doesn’t need to be told they are good or that they can be better. That’s a lie. The reality is that they are wicked and they need to be told they are wicked and they need to be told that they need to repent of their wickedness and they’re evil and that the solution of course is the Gospel.

So, man in his depravity is morally corrupt. Further, and connected to his moral corruption, man is utterly spiritually bankrupt. This was part of the Scripture reading this evening. Paul says, Ephesians 2:1, that we were once dead, (this is the state of unregenerate fallen depraved man) “he is dead in his transgressions and sins.” In his natural condition, he walks “according to the course of this world.” Ephesians 2:1. He is in bondage to the ruler of the power of the air. Ephesians 2:2. He is following after the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. He is living according to the lust of the flesh. Ephesians 2:3. He does the desires of the flesh and of the mind. He is by nature, a child of wrath. Martyn Lloyd-Jones summed up the plight of the depraved man, the unsaved man, the one described in Ephesians 2:1-3 this way. He said “The unbeliever, the non-Christian is spiritually dead. He has no contact with the life of God. He’s merely existing. He has no life.”

That’s man’s natural condition; this is the state into which every one of us is born. No matter how learned we are, no matter how comparatively good we think we are, no matter how compliant we are, no matter how obedient we are, no matter how churched we have been growing up, every human being is born into a state of spiritual corruption which affects every part of their nature, their mind, their will, their emotions, and their desires. Every human being is born into a state of depravity, one in which they are governed by their basest impulses and desires and instincts. One in which they’re enslaved to the lusts of their mind. They’re enslaved to sin. They are living in total opposition to God, and all the while, they’re unable to recognize the perilous condition they’re in. So that was our first point, the Summary of Man’s Depravity.

Next, we’re going to look at THE SEVERITY OF MAN’S DEPRAVITY. The Biblical reality that we’ve just considered that man is born depraved, is often referred to as total depravity. And if you’re familiar with what has become known as the five points of Calvinism, you’ve certainly heard of the old TULIP acronym. T would stand for total depravity. U for unconditional election. L for limited atonement. I for irresistible grace. P for preference of the saints. Each of those letters in that acronym, they stand for a point of doctrine that’s held to by certain post-Reformational adherents to Reformed theology. And as I mentioned, the T in TULIP stands for total depravity.

Now, we would here affirm the doctrine of total depravity. Not because of Calvinism. Not because of an acronym. Not because of TULIP. We hold to total depravity, rather because the Scriptures plainly teach total depravity. The Scriptures on their face, teach that sin has corrupted every single one of us and it’s corrupted us entirely leaving us entirely unable spiritually to please God and certainly to save ourselves. Consider some of these passages of Scripture I’m going to throw up here in a rapid-fire sequence which shows just how pervasive sin is in every single one of us. How it impacts our thinking, our reasoning, our desires, our affections and really, our entire person in our former unregenerate condition. Titus 1:15, “To those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.” I Corinthians 2:14, “A natural man does not accept the depths of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them.” Paul refers to the futility of the mind of the unbeliever, of the godless in Ephesians 4:17. Then there’s this. Romans 8:7-8, “The mind set on the flesh is at enmity toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh are not able to please God.”

Those passages that I’ve just read for you are having to do with the mind of man and how corrupted it is in its natural condition. Now when we consider the heart of man, the diagnosis is no better. In fact, as we see over and over in the Scriptures, the heart of man is equally and utterly debased, totally depraved. Genesis 6:5, “Then Yahweh saw that the evil of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Genesis 8:21, “Yahweh said to Himself, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth’.” Psalm 14:2-3, “Yahweh looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there is anyone who has insight, anyone who seeks after God. They have all turned aside, altogether they have become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Romans 3, bells should be going off in your head. Psalm 58:3, “The wicked are estranged from the womb.” Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick.” Mark 7:21-23. The words of Jesus. He says “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.” Ephesians 4:18. It says that the Gentiles are “alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.” Romans 1:21. “Even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

Again, these are not passages if you’re looking to grow a church or start a movement that you’re going to start preaching and quoting right? These aren’t passages which are going to boost our self-esteem and that’s really sort of the point. The reality is, sin has had a devastating effect upon mankind leaving us in this state of total depravity, polluted, corrupted, completely unable to please God, conceived and born into a hopeless state of sin. Man, the moment he’s born into this world, is born into this utterly abysmal state. Men are born slaves of sin, Romans 6:20. John Calvin rightly put it that in our natural, unregenerate condition. “We are so entirely controlled by the power of sin, that the whole mind, the whole heart, and all our actions are under its influence.” So, in his unregenerate condition, in his unsaved condition, depraved man is completely given over to his sin nature.

There are no exceptions to this principle, of course, save one. The One born God man. There are no exceptions to this principle. All sin, all are sinners, all are sinful. I Kings 8:46, “There is no man who does not sin.” Psalm 14:3, “They have all turned aside.” Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All men are born sinners, all women are born sinners, all are born totally depraved. And note this. There is no such thing as moral neutrality among the unregenerate, among those who are in their naturally totally depraved state. There is no middle way ethical position for the unbeliever. No. All unbelievers are active haters first, of one another and also of God. They’re haters of one another, no matter how much they might say that they love one another. They’re haters of one another no matter how much they say they love everyone and love everyone equally. They are haters of one another no matter if they use the common slogan today that love is love. They are haters of one another no matter how much they might congratulate themselves as being loving people.

The reason that is false that they aren’t actually lovers of anyone is the testimony of Scripture. Titus 3:3 says of the unbeliever that they are “hating one another.” They can have as many bumper stickers on their car or their laptop or their canteen about how much they love everybody, but the reality is they hate one another. Not only that they’re active haters of God. Romans 8:7 says, “The mind set on the flesh is at enmity toward God.” The unbeliever has no place for God, no desire for God, no hunger for God, no thirst for God. What they have, it says right here, is hatred toward God. They live according to the illogical atheistic creed which is “I don’t believe in God, but I hate Him.”

We are in our natural state, totally depraved. Yet, that being so, in our unregenerate condition, to the unbeliever, we’re not even fully conscious or aware of how depraved we actually are. One of the realities of living in our naturally fallen, sinful condition as unbelievers, is that we’re not even attuned fully to the extent of our sin and depravity. We know we’re bad, even if we suppress that truth in unrighteousness, Romans 1:18, but in our unregenerate condition we actually don’t even appreciate how bad we are. How wicked we are. And there are a few reasons as to why there’s this limitation on our knowledge of the depths of our own depravity. For starters, the Holy Spirit serves as a Restrainer in this age, the Church Age in which we’re living today. The Holy Spirit is restraining the full force of sin in the era in which we live today in a way that He won’t restrain sin in the coming period of Tribulation. Look how Paul expresses that in II Thessalonians 2:7, “He who now restrains (that’s a reference to the Holy Spirit) will do so until he is taken out of the way.”

But in the future, in the Tribulation, the restraining power of the Spirit will be taken out of the way. But today, as a display of God’s common grace to this planet, the Spirit is holding back forces of evil. He’s restraining evil. He’s restraining the people on this planet from being as evil as they possibly could be and the result is that man, in his unredeemed condition, he actually fails to appreciate the depths of his own depravity.

Second, sin itself will blind the unbeliever to the reality of his sin and his depravity. We see this reality of the blinding effect of sin in the context of understanding the Gospel here in II Corinthians 4:3-4, where Paul says, “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” So, there’s a blinding effect of sin itself so that the unbeliever doesn’t see how depraved they are.

Third is the hardness of the human heart. The hardness of the human heart contributes to mankind’s overall insensitivity to their sin and their depravity. In fact, the harder that one’s heart becomes towards sin, the greater their insensitivity to sin is. More perversion reigns in their flesh and in their members, and in some cases, as Paul mentions in Romans 1:24-26, and 28, God actually gives them over to that sin.

Fourth, because God has not fully judged sin in the way that He has promised to do so in the future, this will lead some who are depraved and unregenerate to deny their sin or to discount its magnitude. Solomon put it this way, in Ecclesiastes 8:11, “Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil.” There’s this sense of while judgment isn’t coming, we can continue to sin as though there will be no consequence.
Peter brought this out in II Peter 3:3-4, “In the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming?’” But then he goes on to remind his readers that those who lived in Noah’s day asked similar questions. II Peter 3:5-6, “For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being deluged with water.” So those who are mocking in Noah’s day ultimately got swallowed up in the flood.

What each of these Biblical examples shows us then is that man, though depraved and evil and wicked, he’s still deceived about the depths of his depravity and the depths of his sin and his wickedness. Specifically, he’s deceived into thinking that perhaps he is better than he is, when in fact, the opposite is true. In the age in which we live, we’re encouraged all the time to affirm ourselves as being good and beautiful and perfect. But the Bible communicates the opposite. Now to be sure, and this goes back to some of the earlier messages in this series, we have seen in our study of anthropology that mankind is inestimably valuable in the eyes of God. We are, after all, made in His image. But the Bible also teaches that because of our connection with Adam, we have been plunged into death, to sin, to evil. We are totally depraved, in our unregenerate condition. We can’t please the Lord. We cannot gain God’s approval. We cannot do any spiritual good. Jesus Himself said that. Matthew 7:18, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.”

Building on that horticultural illustration from our Lord, Charles Ryrie says “Cut flowers well illustrate living human beings who do good things, but who nevertheless are spiritually dead. Is the blossom that has been cut from the plant alive or dead? First, it is beautiful and fragrant, and in combination with other cut flowers, it may grace the finest home, church, or occasion. It looks alive; it is useful; but it is in reality dead, for it has been severed from the life of the plant that produced it.” That doesn’t make us feel too good, does it? To be compared to a lifeless stem or a cut flower. Well, Ryrie sounds like Mister Rogers or Tickle Me Elmo compared to A.W. Pink who says this about man’s depravity and man’s inherent inability to detect his depravity. He says of fallen mankind, and they’re in their depravity, “As a whole they are spoiled and soured like corrupt leaven, or, as some put it, they have become putrid and even stinking. The only reason why we do not more clearly see this foulness is because we are accustomed to it, just as those who work daily among offensive odors at last cease to smell them.” He’s speaking of the trash collector who doesn’t have a sense of the scent of the trash that he picks up all day. He’s unaware of the scents that are all around him and so it is with man. Man in his depravity, is so used to the stench of his sin, that he’s become accustomed to that very stench. Speaking of which, Thomas Watson, a Puritan said, “Some think of sin as an ornament; it is rather an excrement.” The point is sin has affected every aspect of man. It has thoroughly affected him. It has thoroughly infected him. He is utterly wicked, totally without merit before God, desperate, decrepit, born into a state of spiritual death, desperately in need of God’s sovereign grace.

That was the Severity of Man’s Depravity. Third we’re going to look at THE SPREAD OF MAN’S DEPRAVITY. As we get into this topic, we’re actually getting into is a doctrine known as the doctrine of imputation. Now this word imputation comes from a Latin word (imputare) which means to reckon, to count, to charge to one’s account. And what the doctrine of imputation does, or attempts to do, is explain how sin has been charged to every person born in Adam in their natural condition. The fundamental passage on imputation is Romans 5:12, which says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

Now there have been many different interpretations of this passage which have been offered through the years, and the result is that there are many different views of imputation out there. But the heart of the question that’s being asked, when it comes to this matter of imputation, is this. How does the first man’s sin, Adam’s sin, affect all of those who were born after him? That’s the question. What is the effect of Adam’s sin on those who came after him? We know that Adam sinned. The original sin is recorded in Genesis. There’s that first sin committed by Adam. Eve as well of course. But what we also have to grapple with when we’re talking about imputation is that the Scripture does testify to the sinful state of all who have since been born in Adam, following him. The question again today is, how does our sinful state today, our sinful nature today, connect back to Adam? What’s the relationship between his sin and ours? In what ways did his sin result in us becoming sinners? Sinful people who do in fact, sin. Again, it all hinges on this text, Romans 5:12, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

Now note that there are four different truths that are being articulated here by Paul under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Truth number one is that that sin entered the world through one man, Adam of course. It notes here, “Through one man sin entered into the world.” Truth number two is that sin brought forth death. Here’s the second clause. “Death came through sin.” So far so good. Truth number three is that death spread to all people. “And so, death spread to all men.” Now, if we left it here, this would all be relatively straightforward, or at least straightforward enough for us to understand, go home and be satisfied. Sin came into this world through Adam, sin spread to all men and now all men face death on account of the spread of sin.

But then there’s this line, at the end of verse 12 where it says that the reason death spread to all men is “because all sinned.” And it’s that last expression which has been heavily disputed for centuries now. What does Paul mean here when he says because all sinned? Is he referring to the fact that all people commit acts of sin? That’s one interpretation. Or does the expression somehow connect Adam’s sin with the fact that all people are in fact sinners? That’s another interpretation. More light is shed as you keep reading down through the passage in Romans 5. Romans 5:15 gives us some clues. “By the transgression of the one the many died.” Romans 5:18, “Through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men.” Romans 5:19, “Through the one man’s disobedience the many were appointed sinners.” So according to each of these three passages, there is some direct connection between Adam’s sin and the sinfulness of his descendants. But there’s still the open question which is, what is that connection? What is that connection between Adam’s sin and the sins of his descendants. And again, a number of solutions have been offered over 2,000 years of church history. Many more than I can get into tonight, but I will give you a few.

According to one view, I’ll call it the Lame View because it’s a total cop out view. It’s actually not called that. I’m calling it that. There is some sort of connection between the sin of Adam and the sin of the human race which would come after Adam. But that connection is vague and that connection is otherwise (un)explained, and so those who hold to this view, the Lame View, they just kind of shrug their shoulders and say we don’t know. That’s it. I don’t get that. I think that’s a pretty dissatisfying answer. I think that we have clear Scripture. Scripture is illuminated by the Holy Spirit as He illuminates our interpretation of the Scripture. We can, if we humble ourselves before the Word, find answers to even thorny hard questions.

Others have taken the interpretation that what Paul conveys here in Romans 5, is that Adam’s sin left merely a bad example for people. When people sin, they’re following Adam’s bad example. They’re following the negative precedent that he set and that’s it. There’s nothing else to the Romans 5 equation. So according to this camp, man is not actually guilty in any way for Adam’s sin and man also has not inherited any sort of sinful nature from Adam. Rather, man voluntarily chooses to follow Adam’s bad example when man sins.

This view is linked to an old historical figure from church history who many of you I’m sure have heard of named Pelagius. Pelagius was a fourth-century figure, later condemned as a heretic and rightly so. He taught that man did not have a natural tendency to sin and he taught that man did not die because of sin, notwithstanding Scripture’s testimony. Ezekiel 18:20, “The soul who sins will die.” Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death.” Rather under this Pelagian view, people don’t have an inherent sin nature. Rather, they’re created in the very same state that Adam was created when he was created, meaning that even without the intervention of divine grace, man is capable in his unregenerate condition of obeying God. He’s free to obey God. He’s free to disobey God, just as Adam was initially in the garden. This Pelagian bad example view is flawed obviously on a number of levels, not the least of which is that it is entirely and explicitly refuted by Scripture, which does layout the fact that man is sinful. And that man has a sinful nature, as a result of the fall. Ephesians 2:1, “You were dead (Paul says) in your transgressions and sins.” So that’s the Pelagian view that we don’t inherit Adam’s guilt and we also don’t inherit Adam’s sinful nature.

Others have taken the view, this is the third view, we’ll call this the Arminian View, that people do receive a corrupt and sinful nature from Adam. So, they say one thing that the Pelagian view doesn’t, that we actually do inherit a sinful nature. But under this view, they only become responsible people, only become responsible for sin, when they choose to sin. Again, there’s this voluntary component. There’s this initial state of neutrality that people are born into and they only become responsible when they actually do sin. Under this view, this Arminian View, some would call it a Semi-Pelagian view, people do have inherently the power to live righteously. And again, it’s only when they voluntarily and purposefully choose to sin, that God will then impute sin to them, reckon sin to them, and count them guilty. Under this view, the Arminian View, there’s a rejection of total depravity, what we’re studying this evening.
Augustus Strong, who was not an Arminian but he’s commenting on Arminianism here. He writes that according to this view, “God bestows upon each individual from the first dawn of consciousness a special influence of the Holy Spirit, which is sufficient to counteract the effect of the inherited depravity and to make obedience possible, provided the human will cooperates, which it still has the power to do.” This is referring to man and his unregenerate condition. The Arminian would say that they still have the ability to obey. That they have a human will that allows them to cooperate with God’s will, and they still have power, inherent power and grace, to obey God, notwithstanding the testimony of Scripture. So according to this view, humanity is described as suffering in some sense the effect of Adam’s sin but only in effect when they do sin. When the actually the sin and that is when they are held personally and uniquely liable and when sin is imputed to them. This view has been criticized like the Pelagian view on the ground that it refutes a lot of different passages of Scripture. Again, here’s Romans 5:15, “By the transgression of the one the many died.” This indicates here that people have a corrupt nature from Adam and people have guilt, sinners are guilty in Adam. Or Romans 5:18, “Through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men.” That’s speaking of their associated guilt for the many through the one, Adam. Or Romans 5:19, “Through the one man’s disobedience the many were appointed sinners.” Each of these passages teaches that mankind has received more than just a corrupt nature through Adam. Rather, what they teach is that men have been constituted sinners, guilty sinners through Adam.

Another view, a fourth view on how depravity and sin spread throughout mankind is known as the Augustinian view or the Seminal View, which teaches that humanity was physically present in Adam when he committed that first sin. According to this view, as the first man, Adam represented all humanity, collectively, when he sinned. And all of Adam’s descendants, meaning all of humanity, they were present, physically, actually, truly present in seed form when Adam sinned. The way this is sometimes put is that Adam’s descendants were in Adam’s loins when he committed that first sin, participating with him in that sin through this idea of being in his loins. The idea is when he sinned, we sinned. When he sinned in the garden, we sinned in the garden, seminally is the way it’s put. And then so naturally Adam’s guilt and his corrupt nature get passed down to us. The Scripture that will often be cited for this idea of the Augustinian view or the Seminal View, is Hebrews 7:9-10 where Levi is said to have been in the loins of his father Abraham, when Abraham paid his tithes to Melchizedek. In a similar manner, the argument goes, we who are in the loins of Adam when he sinned, we were seminally present in Adam when he sinned. And so, it is as though we actually participated in this sin and then our guilt and our condemnation is justified as a result.

Then there’s another view and this is the view that I would be in favor of, which is called that of Representative Headship. And according to this view the representative Headship View, Adam’s sin is imputed to us, counted to us, reckoned to us, to all who are united to him, that meaning humans, all of humanity. And his guilt is our guilt not because we were seminally present when he sinned, but rather in a representative fashion. All people are condemned according to this view because of our direct relationship to Adam. The action of Adam, our representative, condemns and seals and determines our fate because we are united with him as being of his line, being of the human race.

When Adam sinned, he represented all people in his sin, and therefore his sin is reckoned to his descendants. This view finds support in places like I Corinthians 15:22, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.” It says it succinctly there in the first clause, “For as in Adam all die.” Death is linked with Adam. We are linked through death with Adam. Through Adam’s death is sin. We are united in death with Adam just as the second half of the clause says that we are united in life through Christ. Another passage which supports this representative Headship View is Romans 5:14, which says that “death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the trespass of Adam.” But note that second part; “Even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the trespass of Adam.” This is saying very clearly that Adam’s offspring didn’t commit the same sin as Adam. That sin was committed only once in the Garden of Eden. And so implicit in this statement is the truth that Adam relates to those in his line. He relates to all future members of humanity, exclusively in a representative capacity. The sin of Adam is counted to, reckoned to, imputed to those in his line, even though those in his line didn’t commit the same sin that he committed as it says here in Romans 5:14.

Under this representative headship view, the sin of Adam brought about the sin of all humanity and the death of Adam brought about the death of all humanity. Adam alone sinned in the Garden of Eden, Eve too, of course. But the entire human race has been impacted, representatively, by that sin.

Fourth heading, THE SCOPE OF MAN’S DEPRAVITY. As we’ve already seen the witness of Scripture and we went through a whole litany of these is that man is wholly depraved. He is totally depraved. However, this doctrine of total depravity is often misunderstood and misinterpreted. It’s often taken to mean what it doesn’t mean or to state what it doesn’t state. And so I want to work through a few of the limitations that are out there on this doctrine of depravity. We want to limit this scope of what Scripture says, allow Scripture to limit its own scope of what it says about man’s depravity.

For starters, to say that man is totally depraved does not mean that he never has any disposition to do what is right. That can’t be so Biblically speaking. Because that would eliminate the reality revealed in Scripture that all men have a conscience. In fact, our topic next Sunday night will be The Conscience of Man. And sneak preview, we’re going to look here at Romans 2:14-15 which says, “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law naturally do the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they demonstrate the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.” However, the reality of the functioning of the human conscience, the fact that we do have a human conscience, that that conscience does actually work, that shouldn’t be mistaken for mankind having some sort of inherent and consistent, moral ability to do what is right. Rather, we’re told the opposite in Scripture. That “there is none righteous not even one.” Romans 3:10

Another limitation or clarification on this doctrine of depravity, to say that man is totally depraved does not mean that men are completely lacking in qualities which are pleasing to men. Nor does total depravity mean that man commits, or is prone to, every form of sin or that man is as bitterly opposed to God as he could possibly be. In fact, Jesus recognized the existence of certain positive qualities in individuals. He said here in Mark 10:21, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor.” Note, He didn’t say you lack all things. No. He said the man lacked one thing. Jesus said that the scribes and the Pharisees did some things which God required of them. He said in Matthew 23:23, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier provisions of the Law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.”

Yes, in context the point of this passage is that the scribes and Pharisees were totally misaligned and misdirected and misfocused on what they were doing with their time. But they were actually doing some of the things they were supposed to do under the law. They tithed. God told Abraham that the iniquity of the Amorites would grow worse. Genesis 15:16, “The iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” Meaning, their iniquity was not yet as bad as it could have been. Paul says, in II Timothy 3:13, “evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse.” Man is evil, man is wicked, man is depraved. We’ve spent the first 45 minutes addressing that topic. But evidently man still maintains certain positive, redeemable, even good traits, in shades as an image bearer of God.

Here’s another one. When we say that man is totally depraved, we aren’t saying that the unsaved commit every possible sin that they otherwise could or might commit. Nor does total depravity mean that the unsaved have all made the same progress in the depths of their sin. No, the level of depravity that is outwardly expressed among the unsaved, it varies, it fluctuates. The reality is there are worse sinners than others. And yes, some sins are worse than others. We’ll get into that next summer when we study the doctrine of sin. All sin we know is offensive to a Holy God and all sin is worthy of an eternity spent in hell. But objectively speaking the sin of the child rapist is different than the sin of a jaywalker. I appreciate this from Rolland McCune. He says, “The variation (meaning in sin), is analogous to a cemetery where all inhabitants are equally dead, but not all are equally decomposed.”

See, the sinner can in his natural state, decide to commit the lesser sin over the greater. The sinner can in his fallen condition, resist certain forms of temptation altogether. There’s a whole industry built around New Year’s Eve resolutions that is built on that premise of resisting temptations even as unbelievers. The sinner can in his unregenerate state, perform certain outwardly good deeds, like volunteering at the library or volunteering as a school crossing guard or handing out turkeys to the less privileged at Thanksgiving. But when they do so, and this is a key and important distinction, they do so always with improper and unspiritual motives. They do so without a proper and pure love of the Lord. They cannot as Deuteronomy 6:5 say, “love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” They cannot, Deuteronomy 10:12-13, “Fear Yahweh your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of Yahweh and His statutes.” They cannot, Matthew 22:39, “love your neighbor as yourself.” In their natural state, they’re II Timothy 3:2-4, “lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, without gentleness, without love for good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

The depraved sinner in his natural state of depravity, in his state of unrepentant sin, he is supremely given over to a preference for himself over God. He has a built-in aversion to God. As we’ve already seen, he has enmity toward God. Romans 8:7, his every faculty is disordered and corrupted. His mind and his heart as we see here in Ephesians 4:18. “being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.” Sin has penetrated and affected the whole of his being, including his body. Romans 8:10, “The body is dead because of sin.” His mind. I Corinthians 2:14, “A natural man does not accept the depths of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them.” Also, his heart. Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick.” Then finally his will. He’s enslaved to his sin. He is totally incapable of moving toward God and righteousness. He is who he is, and who is, is a sinner. Jeremiah 13:23, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?”

Putting a finer point on this when we say that man is totally depraved, when we speak of the scope of his depravity, that the expanse of his depravity, even the limitations on his depravity, we’re saying that man, in his natural condition, though he may not always choose to commit the worst type of sin, he most certainly has the capacity to commit the most egregious and heinous sins imaginable. In fact, these next two passages, with which many of you I’m sure are familiar, they contain some of the most vile expressions of man’s depravity imaginable. Romans 1:18-32, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore, God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of 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 over to dishonorable passions; for their females exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the males abandoned the natural function of the female and burned in their desire toward one another, males with males committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to an unfit mind, to do those things which are not proper, having been filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, violent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the righteous requirement of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

The depths and the blackness of the human heart are on full display. The depravity of man is on full display in this passage. So too in Romans 3:10-18, “There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is none who does good, there is not even one. Their throat is an open tomb, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full or cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

What these two passages teach us and remind us of unmistakably is man’s capability, on account of his depravity, to go to these unimaginably degenerative depths in his sin.

To review, when we say that man is totally depraved, we’re not saying that man is as bad as he possibly could be. We’re not saying that man commits every sin of which he is capable. But what we are saying is that the totality of man’s being, in his natural condition, is thoroughly polluted by sin and selfishness entirely. We’ve looked at THE SUMMARY OF MAN’S DEPRAVITY, THE SEVERITY OF MAN’S DEPRAVITY, THE SPREAD OF MAN’S DEPRAVITY, THE SCOPE OF MAN’S DEPRAVITY. We’ll conclude tonight with THE SOLUTION FOR MAN’S DEPRAVITY. Spoiler alert. The solution for man’s depravity is the Gospel. The Gospel of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of man’s depravity, total depravity is linked directly to the Gospel.

The totally depraved man in his unregenerate condition is spiritually dead. We’ve seen that. Ephesians 2:1 and as R.C. Sproul once colorfully put it, “the only thing that a dead man is good at doing is stink.” That’s what dead guys do. They stink. The totally depraved man in his unregenerate state, is completely unresponsive to spiritual things. He is unable to make any right response to the message of the Gospel. Rather, he suppresses the truth that he knows about God and about Christ, as it says in Romans 1:18.

So, the totally depraved man in his unregenerate condition, he continues after his pursuit of idolatry, the things of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, I John 2:16. The totally depraved man in his unregenerate state, he is fully dependent on a divine miracle of grace to awaken him to the reality of his condition. The only solution for man’s depravity, the only solution he has for being cured of this spiritual blindness, the only hope he has for being awakened and enlightened from his spiritual deadness, is to have God intervene, to quicken him and to bring him to life spiritually.

In his flesh and on account of his depraved and sinful condition, man doesn’t naturally seek God. He doesn’t seek after Him. He doesn’t submit to His authority. He doesn’t choose God. He doesn’t even take a half-step toward God. Rather, in his naturally depraved condition, man is in a state of rebellion, abject rebellion against God. And the only way his rebellion will end is if God puts an end to it, by a work of divine grace.

Salvation must be, is, always is, entirely of grace of God alone. Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, so that no one may boast.” Titus 3:4-6 “But when the kindness and affection of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not by works which we did in righteousness, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.” What a way to end. Depravity tonight, next week we’ll do the conscience of man. Let’s pray.