Radical Depravity: Our Desperate Condition

Today on Renewing Your Mind... No one was born in a state of spiritual neutrality and no one was straddling the fence, one foot in the light and one foot in the darkness and teetering back and forth.

Everyone was born physically in a state of hating the light. Every two years, Ligonier Ministries conducts a survey to see what people believe about a wide range of theological topics. We asked them to respond to a number of statements, including this one, Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.

Sixty-five percent agreed with that statement. Even more discouraging was the fact that almost half of the evangelical Christians we surveyed, 47 percent, agreed. The Word of God paints a radically different picture of the human condition, and here to lead us in our study today is Dr. Stephen Lawson. What we want to talk about is the first main heading of the doctrines of grace, which is radical corruption or radical depravity, sometimes called total depravity.

Now, the reason we need to focus here first is because before we talk about what the Lord has done for us by His sovereign grace, we need to understand where we once were, where the Lord found us. The good news is never good news until we first know what the bad news is, and so we're going to talk about the bad news today. But a full understanding of the bad news makes the good news phenomenal news.

It makes it glorious and great news. This will be like the black velvet backdrop upon which the diamond of God's sovereign grace will be placed. When I became engaged to my wife many years ago, I went into the jewelry store to purchase the engagement ring and to buy a diamond that would be set into the stem. And the jeweler pulled out the diamond, and it looked okay, but then he pulled out the black velvet backdrop, and he laid it on the counter. And then with that diamond, he placed it on the black velvet backdrop, and it was like every light in that jewelry store was pulled through the diamond just instantly, and that diamond began to radiate. It was like the diamond was on fire. There was so much beautiful color that was being pulled through that diamond, and it was all because the black velvet backdrop was placed behind the diamond. Well, in a little bit, we're going to pull the diamond itself out, but before we do that, we need to spend this session and the next session putting the black velvet backdrop onto the counter. And the darker we can make it, the brighter will be the glow of the diamond.

Now, we're not going to make the black velvet backdrop any darker than what the Scripture says that it is. We want to hear from the Word of God. What is the state of unconverted man? And what we will discover is that man, because of Adam's sin, is in a dreadful place.

It's called radical depravity, and the word radical really conveys the idea of comprehensive. That from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, the entirety of his person is suffering the plague and the death of sin. When Adam sinned, the whole human race fell into sin. And with each conception subsequently, generation by generation, there has been a transference of the Adamic sin nature to every person. And so we need to understand the pervasiveness of sin.

If you take a drop of cyanide and put it in a glass of water, that drop of cyanide will permeate the whole, such that no matter what part of the glass you might drink from, the cyanide, the poison, has found its way into the whole. That's the picture with Adam's sin. It has permeated not only every person in the human race, but every part of every person. Mind, emotion, and yes, even will, are subject to the pervasive, radical plague of sin.

So what I want to do in this session is for us to walk through the Gospel of John. And we will walk our way, maybe halfway through, and then next session we'll go the other half of the way, regarding this important doctrine of radical depravity. You tell me what you believe about radical depravity. You tell me your understanding of total depravity. And I'll tell you everything else you believe about salvation as it relates to these doctrines of grace.

Once this is set in place, you're begging for sovereign election. You're begging for irresistible grace. Once we understand how far man has fallen into sin. So, I hope you've got your Bibles in your lap and you're ready to walk through the Gospel of John with me. And again, I want us to see this from this fourth Gospel. So, I'm going to give you some headings, alright? Some headings to help us walk through. I have nine major passages I want us to look at.

Not only in this session, so rest at ease. But first, I want you to see in John 1, 9 through 11, spiritual ignorance. That there is a spiritual ignorance of who Christ is and the Gospel that has darkened the minds of every person born into this world. In John 1, verse 9, we read, There was the true light. Now, this is a reference to Jesus Christ.

True meaning real, genuine, authentic and light speaking of the holiness of God and the truth of God and the purity of God. There was the true light which coming into the world enlightens every man. He was in the world and the world was made through him. Now, watch this next phrase at the end of verse 10. And the world did not know him.

How blind can blind be? Jesus Christ, this says, who created the world. And in His incarnation, He came into the very world that He created. And when He stepped into this world in human flesh and stood before people and lived a perfect and sinless life, taught as no man has ever taught, performed miracle after miracle after miracle, lived under the law and kept every point of the law, no man ever lived with such holiness and perfection as did the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet, while in the world in bodily flesh, the world did not even recognize that He is the Son of God.

He is the Creator of heaven and earth. How blind can blind be? How ignorant can ignorant be? In verse 11, He came to His own, referring to the very world that Jesus created, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

That is a blanket statement. If Jesus Christ were to come back today and live among us, people still would not recognize that He is the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Creator of heaven and earth, even though He were to live a sinless and perfect life before us and claim to be the Son of God and perform the miracles again, mankind is not becoming smarter and smarter and smarter. Oh, in a sense, He is, but in a spiritual sense, He is just as plagued with spiritual ignorance as when Jesus first came. That's why in verse 13 of John 1, it says, those who were born, referring born of God, note the threefold negative. We'll look at this verse later in a future session.

Not of blood, meaning not of human lineage, not of the will of the flesh, meaning not by their human efforts and works, nor of the will of man, meaning man's will is even in bondage to sin. This is where the Gospel of John begins. It is a startling statement that Jesus Christ, when He came into this world in flesh and blood, the world did not recognize Him, and I want to submit to you today that the world still does not recognize the Lord Jesus Christ, and the only way that any one of us in this room ever has come to recognize Christ is that the Lord has made it known to us. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, Jesus said to the disciples.

And so it is. We have a veil over our eyes. 2 Corinthians 4, 3 says, our Gospel is veiled.

It is veiled to those who are perishing. 2 Corinthians 4, 4 says, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving. 1 Corinthians 2, 14 says, the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. That word foolishness is the same word from which we derive the English word moron.

It's moronic. They cannot comprehend, and we could not comprehend, who Christ is and the implications of the Gospel and our desperate need to receive Christ until the Lord broke through in our lives. But a blanket statement of the entire human race in every generation and every place, spiritual ignorance. Now, second, it gets worse. We're in an elevator, and it's going down, and you may ask yourself, when do we hit bottom?

Well, it gets worse. Not only spiritual ignorance, but spiritual blindness. John chapter 3 and verse 3, I want you to note this verse, a very important verse. Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. That's spiritual blindness, my friend. You can't even see with understanding the kingdom of heaven until one is born again. Please note the word cannot.

Unless one is born again, he cannot. You understand the difference between may and can? I learned that at the dinner table very early as a young man, the difference between may and can.

I would ask my parents, can I go to the little boy's room or can I go to my bedroom? And I learned very quickly, I was not to say can, I was to say may. May is a word of permission. Can is a word of ability.

May not denies permission. Cannot is a word of inability. Everyone born into this world has permission to believe the gospel, but no one has the ability to believe the gospel because they are in spiritual darkness and in spiritual ignorance and you cannot believe in what you cannot see. And so, there is this spiritual blindness. Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. And this word to see means to know with understanding, to see with discernment. In other words, we cannot grasp the magnitude of what is being offered to us and our desperate need for Christ and who He is and my need to believe upon Him until, as we will discover later, the Holy Spirit breaks through this ignorance in darkness and makes this known to us.

But it gets worse. In chapter 3 and verse 19 and 20, third, there is spiritual hatred, spiritual enmity within the heart of every unconverted person towards the gospel and towards Jesus Christ. They're all, and this is true of us before we came to the Lord.

We were all stiff-arming the Lord. Now, not always an active rebellion, sometimes just passive indifference, but this is true of the state of every unconverted person. John chapter 3 and verse 19 says, This is the judgment, meaning this is the condemnation of the entire human race. This is the judgment that the light has come into the world, and men love the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil. Men love the darkness because they don't want their sins exposed, and they don't want to come to the light for the same reason a thief doesn't want to find a policeman, because his deeds would be exposed. And so it's true of the human nature of every person to love the darkness and hate the light. And what's more absurd, a child afraid of the dark or a grown man afraid of the light?

Men are scared to come to the light. It's intrinsic within their nature. Look at verse 20 in John 3, the next verse. For everyone, that's a universal truth.

There are no exceptions to this. None of us was born in a separate category outside of this statement before we came to Christ. Whether we were born in the church, out of the church, when or wherever. For everyone who does evil hates the light. Well, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. David said, In sin did my mother conceive me.

David said, I came forth from my mother's womb speaking lies. We were all practicing evil as soon as we came out of our mother's womb. Everyone who does evil hates the light. No one was born in a state of spiritual neutrality.

No one was straddling the fence. One foot in the light and one foot in the darkness and teetering back and forth. No one was born in no man's land. Everyone was born physically in a state of hating the light and resisting the light. And even running from the light and avoiding the light.

For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. That is the state of the human race. That's why on Sunday morning when you get in your car and drive to church, there's not a traffic jam. There is on Monday morning.

There is on Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning and Thursday morning and Friday morning. But Sunday morning, you can get to church in ten minutes even if you live three states away. And that's why only few are on the narrow road.

The many are on the broad path headed for destruction. But the reason more are not coming is because the light is in church. And the light of the truth and the light of the Lord Jesus Christ is beaming and radiating from the preaching of the Word of God. And from the singing of the hymns and the fellowship of God's people. And people are reluctant to come because they hate the light.

They are adverse to the light. So, Romans 3 verse 11 says, there's none who seeks after God, no, not one. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless. That's the state of the human race.

When the President gives the State of the Union address, he gives where America is at this time. Well, this is the state of the human race. That all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but there's none who seeks for God, no, not one. We all like sheep have gone astray. Each one of us has turned to his own way.

It's not the sheep who find the shepherd, it's the shepherd who finds the sheep. And that's because of the spiritual ignorance, the spiritual enmity, and the spiritual blindness that is in every human heart. And I think it makes us compassionate towards unbelievers to realize this is where I once lived. This was once my spiritual state.

Which one of us were saved the first time we heard the gospel? The Lord was long suffering until that day he drew us to himself. And how patient we should be with unbelievers because they are spiritually blind, deaf, they cannot see, they cannot hear. There's a fourth spiritual state.

And I want to say again, it gets worse, not better, worse. Spiritual defiance. In John 3 verse 36 at the end of this chapter we see that all here in a state of spiritual unbelief are people who disobey the Son of God. John 3 verse 36. He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.

Do you see that unbelief is disobeying the Son of God? When the gospel goes forward, it doesn't go forward as a suggestion. It doesn't go forward as a hint.

It doesn't go forward as an option for you to consider. When the gospel is made known, it goes forward as a command. It commands all men everywhere to repent and to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why faith, saving faith, is an act of obedience. But, conversely, unbelief is a state of rebellion against God.

Unbelief is a state of defiance against God who commands all men everywhere to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Unbelievers refuse to submit their life to the Lordship of Christ. They want to go their own way. They want to call their own shots. They want to set the agenda for their own life. They're control freaks.

They want to maintain the control of their life. And the longer they go in unbelief, the more the heart is hardened in this defiance against God. They are disobedient to the Son of Man and defiant of His gospel. This is the sad state in which unbelievers find themselves. I want to give you one more, spiritual death. John chapter 5 and verse 25, this is a critically important passage and it's taught elsewhere in Ephesians 2 verse 1 and in Colossians 2, 12, 13 in there, that all who are outside of Christ are in a state of spiritual death.

Now, before I read this passage, let me just tell you, down through church history, this has been a massive debate. Is man, and we have one of three options, is man spiritually well? Is he sick? Or is he dead? Now, an accurate diagnosis is half the cure.

And so, we need to understand what is the diagnosis of the state of the unconverted person. Is he spiritually neutral, he's well? Or is he just a little bad off, he's sick, and the antidote is put on the table next to him and it's up to him to take the antidote and apply it to himself, or worse, is he a corpse?

Is she a corpse? And even if the antidote is next to them, what can a dead man do? I remember when I was in seminary, a professor asking that question, we were studying George Whitefield's sermons, and he asked the rhetorical question, what can a dead man do?

And I remember the voice from the back row saying, stink. That's about all the ability that a dead man possesses, a corpse has, is to stink. I mean, you can put medicine in front of a corpse, it's not going to see it, not going to hear it, not going to respond to it. You can whistle just as I am, you can come alongside, say the buses will wait, I mean, come and take the antidote.

There will be no response. No, the corpse would have to first be made alive, right, in order to then take the antidote. We need to know, where is man when man is found? We'll look at John 5.25, I'm just going to read it, and we'll pick it up in our next session as we'll discuss this. But truly, truly I say to you, this is Jesus talking, whenever he says, truly, truly I say to you, he is saying, you need to really understand this.

Everything Jesus said was true, but some things are more important than others. You cannot miss this, Jesus is saying. Truly, truly I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. This is not referring to a future resurrection, that's later, verses 28 and 29. This is referring to the spiritual condition of every person outside of Christ dead, spiritually dead. Now, in our next session, I want to amplify that, but for right now, understand that man without Christ, without the gospel received, is in a state of spiritual death. What he needs is a resurrection. What he needs is life given to him before he can respond properly to the Lord.

We'll look at that in our next session together. God bless you. That's Dr. Stephen Lawson, one of our teaching fellows here at Ligonier Ministries and a good friend to us here at Renewing Your Mind. His message today is from the teaching series, The Doctrines of Grace in John. You know, it can be a shocking thing to hear this biblical truth for the first time. Many of us, even in the church, have not heard what God says about the sinfulness of mankind.

I know when I first encountered some of these doctrines for the first time, I remember wrestling with them because it was so different from my upbringing. So let me encourage you to contact us today and request this teaching series when you give a donation of any amount. Dr. Lawson carefully explains each of the doctrines of grace in this 12-part 2 DVD set. We'll also add the digital study guide to your online learning library. You can call us to make your request at 800-435-4343, or if you prefer, you can give your gift online at renewingyourmind.org. You may want to consider using this series for a small group.

Each message is less than 30 minutes, so it allows plenty of time for discussion. And when you're finished with your 12-week study, it would be a great help to donate the DVDs to your church library. So again, we invite you to request this series, The Doctrines of Grace in John, by Dr. Stephen Lawson.

Our online address is renewingyourmind.org, and our phone number, 800-435-4343. Renewing Your Mind is a listener-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. When you partner with us financially, you support all of our outreaches around the world by committing to pray for us and by giving a recurring monthly gift of $25 or more. If you are a ministry partner listening today, thank you from all of us here at Ligonier. And if you'd like to become a ministry partner, please mention it while you're on the phone with us, and we will add you to this very special group of people. Tomorrow, Dr. Lawson will have more to say about this doctrine of radical depravity. Everyone who is not of God does not hear the Word of God. It never sinks in. It never is heard with understanding and with a sense of urgency that I must respond. I hope you'll join us again Tuesday as Dr. Lawson continues his series, The Doctrines of Grace in John, here on Renewing Your Mind. Thank you.