When we speak of “total depravity” we mean that man’s nature is corrupt, perverse, and sinful throughout.

 

Man’s will is not free but is in bondage to his sinful nature making it impossible for him to do anything of himself to please God.

 

1. MAN, as he came from the hand of God, his creator, was (mutably) upright and perfect (created in his Creator’s moral likeness).

 

The righteous command which God gave him (not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) spoke of life as conditional upon his obedience and threatened death upon his disobedience.

 

Adam's obedience was short-lived. Satan used the subtle serpent to draw Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit and sin against her Creator. Thereupon, she gave some fruit to Adam, and without any compulsion from outside himself, he willfully disobeyed God’s command and ate the fruit.

 

To fulfill His own wise and holy purposes, God permitted the fall of man to happen, (yes, decreed it to happen), for He was directing all things after the counsel of His will for His own glory.

 

The fall, though tragic for the human race, was not an accident, nor did it take God by surprise. It was inevitable without the restraining influence of God and thus fulfilled His eternal purpose.

 

Psalm 33:11 The plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.

 

Proverbs 19:21 Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.

 

Isaiah 14:24, 27 The LORD Almighty has sworn, Surely, as I have decreed, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand…  For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart Him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?

 

Ephesians 1:9-11 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.

 

2. By their sin, our first parents lost their right standing before God, and their happy communion with God was severed. (There wills were no longer free but in bondage to sin).

 

Adam’s sin was imputed to his entire race, and by it, death came to all. 

 

All of Adam’s race came into this world dead in sin, and totally polluted in all parts and faculties of both soul and body.

 

Genesis 8:21 The intention of man’s heart is evil from his childhood.

 

Ecclesiastes 9:3 The hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and there is madness in their hearts while they live.

 

John 3:19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

 

Romans 3:10-18 As it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

 

Romans 5:12,16-17, 19 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned… The judgment following one trespass brought condemnation to all men... If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ… For as by the one man's disobedience (the first Adam) the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience (the last Adam, Jesus Christ) the many will be made righteous.

 

Colossians 2:13  And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

 

3. The human race is rooted in the first human couple. As Adam and Eve represented all of mankind, the guilt of their sin was reckoned by God's appointment to the account of all their offspring, who also from birth derived from them a polluted nature.

 

Conceived in sin and by nature children subject to God's wrath, (the servants of sin and the subjects of death), all men are now given up to unspeakable miseries, spiritual, temporal and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus Christ sets them free.

 

Job 14:4 Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!

 

Psalm 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

 

Psalm 58:3 From birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies.

 

Jeremiah 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.

 

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can understand it.

 

Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

 

Romans 6:20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.

 

Ephesians 2:1-3 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

 

Titus 3:3-5 At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

 

4. The actual sins that men commit are the fruit of the corrupt nature transmitted to them by our first parents. By reason of this corruption, all men become wholly inclined to all evil; sin completely disables them. They are utterly indisposed to, and, indeed, rendered opposite to, all that is good.

 

Isaiah 1:4-6 Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with sin, an offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly…The whole head is sick and the whole heart is corrupt. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is nothing good in it…

 

Isaiah 64:6 We are all infected and impure with sin and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. We all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

 

Romans 8:7-8 The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature (the flesh), cannot please God.

 

1 Corinthians 2:14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

 

Titus 1:15-16 To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They may claim to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.

 

5. During this earthly life, the corrupt nature remains in those who are born of God, that is to say, regenerated. Through Christ it is pardoned and mortified (being put to death), yet both the corruption itself, and all that issues from it, are truly and properly sin.

 

Romans 8:12-13 Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation — but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

 

Galatians 5:16-17  So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other….

 

Colossians 3:5-10 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your sinful nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the moral likeness of its Creator.

 

1 John 1:8-9; 2:1  If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense — Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.

 

Who is going to speak to the Father in your defense on the Day of Judgment? It had better be Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. Only through Him can you be set free from the penalty of your sin. Only through His righteousness alone can you stand faultless before the God’s Judgment Throne.