Man's Radical Fallenness

To say that R.C. Sproul admired Martin Luther would be an understatement. Hello, this is Lee Webb, host of Renewing Your Mind.

R.C. loved Luther's passion for the biblical gospel and his courage to defend it. That's why I think he would thoroughly enjoy a new podcast from Ligonier Ministries coming October 10. It's called Luther in Real Time. Take a listen to this.

I think you'll want to subscribe. A man places a document in the hands of a monk by the name of Martin Luther. The most powerful person in the world has declared Luther to be a heretic. And Luther has 60 days to recant. Take him captive.

Exactly 500 years after the events occurred, join Martin Luther week by week in real time as his fate draws closer and closer. They excommunicate me for the sacrilege of heresy. So I excommunicate them in the name of the sacred truth of God. It cannot be either safe or honest for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand.

I cannot do otherwise. I am a violent physician for violent times. I often wish that God had called another. Luther in Real Time, a new podcast from Ligonier Ministries.

The clock starts ticking on October the 10th. In John chapter 6, Jesus says something rather shocking. No one has the ability to come to me, he says. Now let me ask this question. Does man, in and of himself, according to Jesus, have the ability to come to Jesus?

No. No one has the ability to come to Jesus. How do we square that with Jesus' command to repent and believe? Welcome to Renewing Your Mind. I'm Lee Webb, and R.C. will address that question in just a moment as we continue airing his series, Chosen by God. Right now, I'm joined by Ligonier Ministries' chief academic officer and the president of Reformation Bible College, Dr. Stephen Nichols. Steve, I know you have a funny story related to R.C. 's book, Chosen by God. Would you share that with us?

I do, and I'd be glad to. So I was taking a friend of mine to meet R.C. and introduced him, set it up, they had time together. And so my friend shakes his hand, meets him, and says to R.C., you know, the first time I met you, I read you, and it was chosen by God. And then he says, and the first time I read that book, I got so angry, I threw it against the wall.

Actually, R.C. said, you're not the first one to tell me that. But you know, Lee, that actually points to what especially this lecture is about. And when we talk about man's radical fallenness, we're talking about a doctrine that's been held for centuries, total depravity. But it's also a doctrine that it seems like in every age, it's met with resistance, if not outright rejection. And what this reminds us of is we're not. And we need to see ourselves as fallen, or we will never understand what Christ was doing on the cross, and we'll never cry out for it unless we see our need. Amen. Thank you for that, Steve. And with that, let's join Dr. R.C.

Sproul from his series, Chosen by God. Turn our attention, first of all, to the sixth chapter of John's gospel, where Jesus says in verse 65, And He was saying, For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it is given to him by the Father. Now let's look at that verse. No one can come to Me unless it is given to him by the Father. The first two words in this statement, no one, or some translations read no man, no person, no one. That statement, if we apply the categories of logic to this and the laws of immediate inference and so on, we see that this statement is what we call a universal negative. That is to say, it is all-inclusive.

What Jesus is saying is, without exception, there is no human being who can come to Him unless it is given to him by the Father. So this is an absolute, it's a negative absolute, and we have to understand that. Now the next word is also crucial to our understanding. It is the word can.

No one can. Now the word can, or at least the word that is used here in the Greek text is less ambiguous than the word can is in our language because in our language the word can is often mistaken for what other word? May. That's right.

We've all been corrected. I remember when we were children and going to school and we'd put our hands up and say, Teacher, can I sharpen my pencil? And she would always say, I'm sure you can, and you also may. And she would then take that opportunity to teach us that lesson that seems so difficult for us to learn of the difference between the word may, which suggests permission, and the word can. The word can has to do with ability. So what this verse is saying is to say that no man can is to say that no one has the ability to do something. If I say no one can run thirty miles an hour, that means no one has the ability to run thirty miles an hour. All right, now what is it that no one has the ability to do that Jesus is talking about here? No one has the ability to come to me, he says.

Now let me ask this question. Does man in and of himself, according to Jesus, have the ability to come to Jesus? No. Do some men have the ability to come to Jesus in and of themselves?

No. No man can come to Jesus unless. Now we see a clause that follows that we call an exceptive clause, unless introduces an exception, and unless points to what we call in philosophy a necessary condition. Now what is a necessary condition? A prerequisite, something that has to happen before something else can possibly happen.

That's what a prerequisite is. And so Jesus is saying that there is a necessary condition that must be met before anyone can come to him. Now what does he identify in this verse as the necessary condition for anyone to be able to come to him? Unless the Father gives it to him. Or other translations, unless it is granted by the Father. Another translation reads, unless the Father enables him.

Now those words don't all mean the same thing. To grant means to give permission. To give means to give a gift. And to enable means to empower. So there is a certain ambiguity here about what that necessary condition is. And there's another question that is still hanging out here, and that is, if a necessary condition is provided, now we're not talking about coming to Jesus, in any situation, if a necessary condition is provided in a situation, does a necessary condition guarantee that the result you want will in fact take place? Now that's why we make a distinction between necessary conditions and sufficient conditions. A sufficient condition is a condition that if it is met, guarantees the result.

It suffices. So all of this verse's teaching is that in terms of man's natural ability, none of us has the ability in and of ourselves to come to Christ. Unless God does something. We're still not sure exactly what it is that God does. And we're still not sure that if God does it, it will guarantee that people will come. All we know is that whatever it is that God does is a necessary condition, a prerequisite.

So all of this verse's teaching is that in terms of man's natural ability, none of us has the ability in and of ourselves to come to Christ. Unless God does something. We're still not sure exactly what it is that God does. And we're still not sure that if God does it, it will guarantee that people will come.

All we know is that whatever it is that God does is a necessary condition, a prerequisite. Some have jumped to another verse here in John 6 where Jesus says, All whom the Father give to Me come to Me. And that suggests that everybody who gets this necessary condition then indeed do come. But that's not exactly how those two verses are related to each other.

Let's see if we're sharp enough to see the difference. Jesus says that all whom the Father gives to Me come to Me. No one can come to Me unless the Father gives it to him. Now it almost sounds like that everybody that is given to him to come are those who are included in the ones that the Father gives to the Son. But remember, in the one case, the giving is to us. In the other case, the giving is to Jesus. So we can't equate those two statements, even though I believe they are in fact parallel. But linguistically, we can't prove it. So we're still left with this ambiguity as to what must happen.

What is the nature of this necessary condition? Well, notice that Jesus here said that He had already told them that. That He's indicating that this is a repetition. He says, for this reason I have said to you. So He's now repeating Himself. So let's see if we can find the earlier statement that is either identical or close enough to probably be the statement that Jesus is referring to. Well, if we look earlier in the chapter, we have another universal negative and another statement about necessary conditions and about man's moral ability. We find that in verse 44. No one can come to Me.

Does that sound familiar? No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. Now it's not quite as ambiguous. Here, the necessary condition that Jesus spells out is that the Father draws somebody. So can we say this categorically without any fear of being contradicted that our Lord Jesus Christ taught that it is impossible for a human being to come to the Lord Jesus Christ unless that person is drawn by the Father? Now I might add at this point that both those of an Augustinian persuasion and of a semi-Pelagian persuasion agree that there is some kind of necessary condition that God must supply, God must draw people.

But there's still a debate, and the debate is what does it mean that God draws? Now the classical Arminian approach to this or semi-Pelagian approach to this is that nobody can come to Jesus unless the Father entices him or woos him. Again, that's usually tied into some notion of prevenient grace or the influence of the Holy Spirit to woo and to entice. And the word draw here is interpreted to mean to woo or to attract, just as honey draws bees and lights draw moths.

But the idea is that the drawing that God does is still resistible, and those who respond to the enticement, those who respond to being wooed are then redeemed according to Arminianism, and those who do not respond to being drawn are subsequently lost. The Augustinian interpretation of the verse is that the word to draw means more than simply to entice or to woo. Now let's see how this Greek word is used elsewhere in the New Testament. If we would turn our Bibles here to James chapter 2, verse 6, we will find this same Greek word used in the New Testament. I shall read the verse. I'm going to ask you to guess which word is used in this verse that is exactly the same Greek word that is translated by the word draw in John 6.

Does anybody have a guess? Drag. Now let's supply the semi-Pelagian interpretation. But you have dishonored the poor man.

Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally woo you into court? Okay. Let's look at another one. Let's look at Acts chapter 16, verse 19, which I will read. When her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. Can you guess again which word in this text is the same Greek word? Again, it's the word dragged.

Again, substitute entice or woo. They seized Paul and Silas and wooed them into the marketplace before the authorities. This text clearly indicates an act of force in dragging Paul and Silas into the marketplace. Now it would make you wonder why it is that the translators use the word draw rather than the word drag.

And I can only guess, and I'll try to guess in a moment, but first let me just go further. Whenever we have doubt as to the precise meaning of a word in the Scriptures, the first thing we do is we go to the Greek. But then after we go to the Greek, we're still dependent upon the science of linguistics and lexicography in order to have an understanding of the meaning of that term at the time it was used in the writing of the documents.

I think it's safe to say that in the academic world, the most highly respected linguistic and lexicographical source that the church has ever had for the meaning of Greek words is Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. In Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, the word that is being translated draw here in this text is defined by Kittel as meaning to compel by irresistible superiority. I might add that the framers of the dictionary were anything but Calvinistic, but they recognize that the classical, that is the meaning in the Greek language of this verb is to compel. The force of this verb is the force of divine compulsion. And if that is true, then I would say that verse and that verse alone is sufficient to end the debate forever with respect to man's ability or lack of it to incline himself to choose Jesus Christ.

Because Jesus himself says that no man can do it unless the Father compels him to do it, and that is pure Augustinianism only stated much earlier than Saint Augustine. But if that isn't sufficient with respect to man's ability, let's look earlier in chapter 3 of John's Gospel where John describes the encounter that Jesus has with the Pharisee, the theologian Nicodemus. In which he says in verse 3, Jesus answered and said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless, what does that word indicate?

What's coming? A necessary condition. Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now what has to happen, according to Jesus, before a person can see the kingdom of God? He has to be born again. So regeneration precedes seeing the kingdom of God. Is that a legitimate interpretation of this passage? In fact, nobody can see it at all unless they are first, what, born again, regenerate.

All right. Now he goes on to say, Nicodemus' puzzle, how can a man be born when he is old? He can't enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he? Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. So regeneration is a prerequisite for entering and seeing the kingdom of God. Semi-Pelagians have people choosing Christ before they are regenerate. Semi-Pelagians have people in their human nature cooperating with prevenient grace, responding to this wooing and enticing and attracting of God the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit is not yet in them, having regenerated them. So the bottom line is the Arminian position has people who are not yet born again seeing and choosing the king of the kingdom of God.

It boggles the mind, doesn't it? That's why the axiom of Augustinian theology is this, regeneration precedes faith. Regeneration is seen as a necessary condition for faith, even as Paul elsewhere teaches in Ephesians 2 when he says that while we were dead in sin and trespasses, God has quickened us, that is made us alive in Christ, okay, when we were dead, and then tells us that therefore it is by grace you are saved through faith and that is not of yourselves but is the gift of God. And so we see faith is the gift of God that is the result of the Spirit's work of regeneration within us, that God himself supplies the necessary condition to come to Jesus.

That's why it is sola gratia, by grace alone, that we are saved. Now, Jesus says, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you that you must be born again. Jesus is saying, why should this surprise you? You're a theologian, Nicodemus. Don't you understand the fundamental point of man's fallen nature, that that which is born of the flesh is flesh? And elsewhere he tells us that the flesh profits what? Nothing. But if we believe that God entices us to Christ and all we have to do in the flesh prior to our regeneration is cooperate or assent to that, if we can in fact cooperate and assent to prevenient grace, to the end that we enter into the kingdom of God and are redeemed forever, and we're doing that while we're still in the flesh, then I ask you, what would the flesh profit? Not just something.

Everything. Your eternal salvation. Oh, Paul speaks about this himself in chapter 8, verse 7 of the book of Romans. Let's start at verse 5. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God. For it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do it. Now here the apostle tells us something about man's moral inability in the flesh. He says that man in his fallen state in the flesh is hostile to the law of God, and he does not obey the law of God.

He is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed what can he be. So that fallen man, the apostle is saying here, is he not, cannot obey the law of God. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God. And I'd add to you that if God only wooed us to Christ and left it to us to make the final decision, I can't think of anything that would please God more than that we would respond positively to that enticement and to that wooing. But the apostle here tells us that in the flesh there's nothing that man can do to please God. Now here is the crushing point, verse 9. However, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. How do we know if somebody is in the flesh or in the Spirit?

You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. The next word is crucial. If. What does if indicate? A necessary condition.

That's right. If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now, how many regenerate people have the Spirit of God dwelling in them?

All of them. Okay? So if you are regenerate, then you are no longer in the flesh. If you are in the flesh, you are not regenerate.

Is that clear? So when he speaks about those in the flesh, he is speaking of unregenerate people. And it's unregenerate people who cannot please God, who cannot obey God, who cannot be subject to God, who experience this dreadful situation of moral inability about which we have been speaking. If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you, but if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. He goes on to say, however, if anyone does have the Spirit of Christ, then he does belong to Christ. And so that the crucial prerequisite for salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit that is the necessary condition, the prerequisite for faith to be present. That's why we insist that the first step of our justification, that which quickens us from spiritual death and makes us and enables us to come to Jesus at all, is the gracious work of God the Holy Spirit and is never the fruit of the flesh. R.C. carefully explaining a doctrine that is found in the Bible.

The word predestination is in the Bible, but the concept of God's election permeates Scripture. I'd like to send you this full series, six messages on two DVDs, for your donation of any amount to Ligonier Ministries. You can reach us by phone at 800-435-4343, but you can also give your gift online at renewingyourmind.org. Our number again is 800-435-4343, and our web address is renewingyourmind.org. As always, let me tell you how much we appreciate your financial gifts. Tomorrow R.C. addresses a question that inevitably raises eyebrows when it comes to the doctrine of election. Does God create unbelief? We hope you'll join us Thursday for Renewing Your Mind. .