To see how bad the human race is in its sin, you realize, how could anyone ever come to faith in Christ? If there's none who seeks after God, none at one, how would anyone ever be saved?
It's all dependent upon God to be the initiator, and that is why we need the sovereign election of God. For the good news to be good, there must first be bad news. It's when we see the sinfulness of humanity that the grace of God shines as the amazing grace that we so often sing about. And as we begin two days in Romans, it's the depravity and sinfulness of man that we'll be considering today.
This is the Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind, and I'm so glad that you're joining us today. All week, you have heard messages from Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow Stephen Lawson, examining the writings and ministry of John and Peter to highlight that those truths, often referred to as the doctrines of grace, Tulip, or the five points of Calvinism, are not truths that were invented by man, or truths hidden in Scripture, but are in fact found and taught clearly and loudly in the pages of all of Scripture. And today, Dr. Lawson takes us to Romans to begin a two-day study of Paul's teaching.
Here's Dr. Lawson. In this session, we come to one of the most important parts of this entire series. We come to the teaching of sovereign grace by Saul of Tarsus, who became known as the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul was the poster child of sovereign grace. There was no one who was running any faster away from Christ than was Saul of Tarsus. He was on the Damascus road with letters in hand to apprehend the believers and to drag them back to Jerusalem and probably where they would be stoned to death, as Stephen had been stoned to death.
And Saul was standing right there and observed that entire martyrdom. He had no thought of becoming a Christian. All he wanted to do was to obliterate the name of Jesus Christ from the face of the earth.
He was adamantly opposed to all believers and to all Christians. Until that moment when Jesus Christ appeared to him and knocked him off his high horse and he looked up and said, what would you have me to do, Lord? Who are you, Lord?
He answered his own question in that very moment. Who are you, Lord? And for the rest of his life and for the rest of his ministry, no doubt that entire conversion experience, a time when he was not even seeking Christ, he was seeking to destroy Christ, that whole experience continued to reverberate within his soul. And as he would preach and as he would write, the truths of sovereign grace would just flow like a river from his pen and from his lips.
In this session, I want us to look at his magnum opus. I want us to begin looking at the Magna Carta of the Christian faith. You know I'm referring to the book of Romans.
And we no doubt will spend some time in the book of Romans. As Paul makes his case for the gospel of Jesus Christ, as Paul makes his case for biblical Christianity, as Paul will write what will become the closest that we will ever have to a systematic theology, as he writes to the church in Rome, Paul emphasizes the sovereign grace of God. And he is writing to a church, the believers in Rome, who are under the very shadow of Caesar, who are living in the midst of an immoral cesspool, who have found themselves in the hub of the most powerful city on the earth, Rome.
There where the powerful armies of Rome marched, and there where Caesar presided, and there where these extraordinary buildings such as the Roman Colosseum found itself. The Apostle Paul will take pen in hand and he will write this letter to the Roman believers in that city and to give them steel in their backbone, that they may stand strong in this imperial city. He writes a letter that is saturated with the truths of sovereign grace.
So, I want to begin with the bad news and then we'll proceed to the good news. I want to begin with a message of depravity and then we will work our way to the diadem of sovereign grace. But the more we understand of the radical corruption of the human race, the more we rise up and bless the name of the Lord for His salvation that has been bestowed upon us. Once again, I want to begin at the start of the letter in Romans chapter 1 and draw to your attention the key passages that teach the doctrine of total depravity.
There is a sense in which we could be here for a very long time if I was to address everything, and time will not permit that, so I'm going to have to pick and choose and make some difficult choices as to what I will address myself to and what I'll just have to say for another time. But as we're in chapter 1, beginning in verse 18, Paul now starts his exposition of the gospel and he begins with our need for the gospel. He begins with the entire human race under the wrath of God, the entire human race that is outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. So he begins, for the wrath of God is revealed. Please note that's present tense. It's not one day in hell. It will be revealed. But right now, this very moment, the unbelieving world is under the wrath of God.
This is a long way from smile. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. This is the present vengeance and holy hatred of God towards sin, revealed from heaven. But against all, ungodliness and unrighteousness. Ungodliness refers to the attitude, unrighteousness refers to the actions. Ungodliness refers to irreverence towards God.
Treating God is just a common thing. And unrighteousness refers to the sinful lifestyle that such an attitude produces. And everything begins with the attitude. Everything begins with the heart. Everything begins with the inner person. And it will spread to the outward actions.
And Paul understands that. And Paul begins by saying that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, not just against the action but against the attitude as well. Of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. All who are outside of Christ are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.
The truth about God and to suppress the truth. The picture here really is something of a beach ball that a child would be trying to hold down under water. And if you let go of the beach ball, it pops back up to the surface. And making every effort to submerge it and to keep it under the surface of the water as it were out of sight. This is what unsaved men, unconverted men do. They suppress the truth in their unrighteousness. It says, because that which is known about God is evident within them. They are trying to remove the knowledge of God from their life. And it is their ungodly attitude and it is their unrighteous life that is exposed in this verse.
Later, in fact in the very next verse, in verse 20. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse. The knowledge of God, this is referring to general revelation. It is called general because it is made known to every man and every woman on the face of the earth. It is called general because it gives testimony to the existence of God and something of the attributes of God. But it does not reveal the way to God.
That would require special revelation. But he says that general revelation is sufficient to render the entire human race without excuse. When they stand before God, they were that excuse because they know there is a God and they know something of who this God is, but instead they want to suppress the truth about the existence and the attributes of God. Paul continues, for even though they knew God, and the idea is they knew about God. They didn't have a saving relationship with God in that sense. But they knew about God because God has revealed Himself to them in general revelation. As Francis Schaeffer has said, God is there and He is not silent.
God is a speaking God and God has spoken to every man on planet earth through general revelation. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks. They disrespected God. They disregarded God. They tried to get rid of God and suppress the truth about Him. And in this exchange, they took the knowledge of God and wanted to suppress it.
The result is what filled the vacuum. They became futile, worthless, useless in their speculations. In other words, they now begin to just make up thoughts about God, to create a God in their own mind. Not the result of divine revelation, but the result of human imagination. They became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. This is Paul's diagnosis of the condition of the soul of the entire human race. They became foolish.
It comes from a Greek word that is translated moron into the English, incapable of logical thought. And their foolish heart was darkened as though God blows out the candle inside of them. And what little light had come in through general revelation and through conscience, they are now darkened.
When you reject the light, God will see to it that you will be in darkness. Professing to be wise, they became fools. In exchange, the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling things. You see, those who worship idols are not seeking God, they are running away from God as fast as they can and creating an alternative God.
In their attempt to suppress the truth about God, they come up with their own God according to their own likeness. It's total depravity. And then in verse 24, therefore, God gave them over. That is divine judgment.
God gave them over. In the lusts of their hearts to impurity, and they went from lust to impurity, the evil desires now to the evil deeds so that their bodies would be dishonored. And it speaks here most specifically of sexual sin, sinning against their own body. Why? He says in verse 25, for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.
Can you imagine anything more insane than this? Please understand, sin will make you stupid. Sin will always make you stupid.
Sin will cause you to have your wires short-circuited, and you are no longer capable of proper thinking. Then verse 26, for this reason, for the reason that they've exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped the God that they have now created. For this reason, God gave them over.
It's the second time we read of this phrase. They are now on the slippery slope, and they're going from bad to worse. They are cascading down and descending down yet deeper into the darkness of sin.
They started out at this level, and they are crashing down at a far deeper level of sin. God gave them over to degrading passions. Now they go from lust to degrading passions, and gas is being poured upon the fire of their lusts, for their women exchanged the natural function. The natural function would be for a woman to desire another man and to be married to him and to have a relationship with him and to bear children and to have a family.
That is the natural function according to the design and the genius of God. But they exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. And that which is unnatural, He will allude to it, is that they will desire to have a relationship with another woman.
And then He says it in the same way. Also, men abandoned the natural function of the woman, and the result of giving that up, they now burned in their desire toward one another. This is total depravity in technicolor. This is total depravity being put before our very eyes and burned in their desire toward one another, meaning for other men, men with men, conceiving indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error, and that refers to eternal hell. That one day they will receive in their person the due penalty of their error.
And their error is they have rejected the truth and they have now believed a lie, and on this slippery slope they're going down, down, yet deeper. Does homosexuality lead to the judgment of God? sexuality is the judgment of God, because the greater sin is the rejection of the truth about God, the rejection of the knowledge of God. And so God gives them over.
It's not just that God allows them to go their own way, but that God gives them a push in the direction that they're now already heading, and it is the hand of judgment of God upon the truth rejecter, and God sees to it that they will believe a lie. This is the lens by which we understand the world in which we live. This is the paradigm which gives us the mind of Christ into what we see in the decadence and the decay of the culture and the society in which we live.
It is a parade of depravity that is going on all around us. But then in verse 28, it doesn't end here. It continues to go deeper and deeper into sin. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer. That's the greatest sin, to reject God. They did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer. And when you do not acknowledge God, you have set your life on a course that is plummeting into a life of wickedness and depravity. God gave them over.
It's not just that God observes them go their own way, but again, God expedites the process, and God gives them a push in the direction that they now want to go. God gave them over to a depraved mind, and a depraved mind can no longer think correctly. A depraved mind now begins to make insane conclusions based upon the data that is put in front of them. And a depraved mind now renders legislation and educational decisions that previously would have been thought inconceivable, but it is because they have a depraved mind. To do those things which are not proper, being filled – the idea is being saturated – with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice.
They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving. And if that's not enough, at the very end, verse 32, they not only do it, they give hearty approval to everyone else who does it. You do these things, your ratings will go up. You do these things, you'll sell more records.
You do these things, people will come to see more of your movies. It's total depravity. In chapter 2, verse 5, it says, because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath. Stubbornness, the idea here is you will not submit to God. You will not humble yourself before God. When you are unrepentant, you refuse to turn away from your sin.
Come all the way to Romans chapter 3, verse 11, Paul now makes his concluding argument for total depravity. He says, there is none who seeks for God. You say, well, I see people who are unbelievers who are seeking for God.
No, they're not. They are seeking what God may offer, but they're not seeking God Himself. I mean, they want a nice family, they want happiness, they want peace, they want this and that. They just don't want God. They want only what God can give, but they do not want God Himself. So they're not seeking God. They hate God. They reject God. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together, they have become useless.
There is none who does good, not even one. He says in verse 13, their throat is an open grave. With their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of ass was under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Please note, throat, tongues, lips, mouth. What Paul is giving here is an analysis, a diagnosis of the entire human soul from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. Every inch and every ounce of you is now polluted by sin. That's what total depravity means. It doesn't mean that you're acting as totally depraved as a human being could.
Some are far worse than others. It's just that the totality of your personhood, your mind, your affections, your heart, your hands, your feet, everything about you is now contaminated and corrupted by sin. And so in Romans 3 verse 15, their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their path, and the path of peace they have not known. Verse 18, there is no fear of God before their eyes.
Do you see all this? Feet, eyes, throat, tongues, mouth, lips. Paul is giving a diagnosis of the entire human soul. It's an anatomy of the entire human soul. It's not a pretty picture, but it is the truth. And it is this truth about how bad we were outside of Christ that causes the message of the gospel to shine brighter than 10,000 suns in the sky above.
The darker the night, the brighter the stars. And this is a dark picture that Paul is painting of the human race, and it will cause the grace, the sovereign grace that he will set forth to be amazing grace. And without this that we have just seen, grace is not amazing. Grace is a yawner. Grace is common.
Grace is pedestrian. But to see how bad the human race is in its sin, you realize how could anyone ever come to faith in Christ? If there's none who seeks after God, none at one, how would anyone ever be saved? It's all dependent upon God to be the initiator, and that is why we need the sovereign election of God, and that is why we need the definite atonement and the irresistible call of God.
No one would ever be saved. So Paul has just made his case for the total depravity of the entire human race. That was Stephen Lawson considering the bad news for humanity as taught to us by the great Apostle Paul. Thanks for listening to this Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. Before we go today, I do want to remind you that Stephen Lawson's overview of the New Testament's teaching on the sovereign grace of God is 24 messages, and we'll send it to you on DVD when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, or when you call us at 800-435-4343. Not only will you receive the 24-message New Testament series, we'll also send you the Old Testament volume that is 14 messages, so give your donation today by clicking the link in the podcast show notes or at renewingyourmind.org, and receive this two-volume set and lifetime digital access to all the messages and study guide. This offer does end tomorrow, so be quick as time is running out. Tomorrow Stephen Lawson will consider the good news of the Gospel that's found in Romans, so be sure to join us then here on Renewing Your Mind.
