Sermon Tone Analysis

*Family Foundations Series, Pt. 10: Total Depravity (Gen 6:5)*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on February 8, 2009/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

As you know, in the evenings we have been continuing our study through the book of Genesis verse-by-verse that we took a break from in the mornings services over a year ago.

I have been calling our more recent series “Family Foundations,” and I really believe it’s one of the more important studies I have ever done and that our church will ever go through.

The early chapters of God’s Word have so much vital fundamental worldview-shaping truths for all of life, as well as for marriage and family in particular.

As I study each week I have never been disappointed seeking relevance and riches of insights and truths that are found in the earliest chapters of Scripture; my only disappointment is that so many of our families and people have /not/ been a part of that study to learn along with us, because not many in our church come back to Sunday evening services as a priority or part of their Lord’s Day.

This evening, I actually won’t be here as I have been asked to speak as an outreach at a retirement center, but we look forward to hearing from Pastor Dale the next couple Sunday evenings.

As I studied the next verse in our study, I really felt compelled to bring the message I would have given this evening to you this morning, because this is a message all of us need to hear and this will be sort of a culmination of our foundations series (if you missed any or all of the series, I would really encourage you to get the former messages in the series to follow the flow, and a few things I said in the series I will repeat this morning as well briefly, which the past messages developed in more detail).

I really feel that every message from God’s Word is something we all need to hear, and today’s message may be the most important truth in this series, the most foundational truth for parents to know about their children, and the most critical truth to know to understand what is going on in our society, why horrible things happen that you see on the news, why salvation has to be all of God, and why sin is so enslaving and life-dominating … total depravity.

5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man /was/ great in the earth, and /that/ every intent of the thoughts of his heart /was/ only evil continually.

Let’s seek to consider the depths of this teaching about the depths of sin, the extent of man’s depravity, the totality of the sinfulness and corruption within fallen humanity.

There are 13 verses in Scripture that use the term “depraved” or “depravity,” depending on which English translation you use:

-         Hosea 5:2, 9:9 (NASB) speaks of sinners deep in depravity

-         2 Peter 2:19 says (NIV) “They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity – for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.”

-         Paul speaks of living in “a crooked and depraved generation” (Phil.

2:15 NIV) and men of “depraved mind” (Rom.

1:28-29, 1 Tim.

6:5, 2 Tim.

3:8) – it’s not that man’s /actions /are corrupt always, but the /attitudes /of their mind~/heart/ /are depraved

Scripture is not saying that every outward deed of man is depraved, but it repeatedly and consistently declares the totality of /inward/ depravity or corruption, using terms like mind or heart or will or thinking (essentially synonymous terms in the Bible).

But perhaps nowhere is it more clearly and concisely stated as Genesis 6:5.

Some of the various English translations render as follows:

HCSB: “every scheme his mind thought of was nothing but evil all the time”

NAB: “no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil”

NIV: “every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”

NLT: “The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.”

There is no more total picture or statement of the extent of total depravity of the total inner nature of the total human race.

This is not language that was made up by Calvin, Luther, or the Reformers, or Augustine, or anyone in church history.

This is the view of God Himself at the earliest chapters of human history after the Fall.

There have been other views of man in history:

 

*Humanism* – mankind is basically good (view of most Americans, most parents about their kids, even many Christian parents).

Some religions will modify that somewhat and say that man may not behave basically good, but deep within is an island of goodness, or a great positive inner-something to be discovered or cultivated.

Ligon Duncan tells of driving to a conference somewhere in San Antonio and seeing a massive banner in front of one of the biggest churches in the biggest State there – the banner read “Discover the /Champion/ Within You!”

So he exclaimed to the guy driving with him something like, “Wow, Eastern religions are taking off here!”

As he explained it, that’s a great motto if you’re a Buddhist, but it’s a lousy motto for those who know and study the Bible.

If you read this book, you actually discover the chump within you!

The old man within you needs to be replaced by Christ in you, the hope of glory.

The Apostle Paul himself said “I know that nothing dwells in me, that is, in my flesh” (Rom.

7:18).

*Pelagianism* – view of Pelagius who lived in 4th and 5th century AD: mankind is neutral, no inherited original sin nature or guilt from Adam, he /becomes a sinner when he sins/ because of influences and environment, etc., (many psychological theorists).

It’s been defined as ‘the belief that original sin did not taint human nature and that [sinful man’s] will is still capable of choosing good … without Divine aid.

Thus, Adam's sin was "to set a bad example" for his progeny, but his actions did not have the other consequences imputed to Original Sin.’[1] Pelagius was refuted by Augustine and considered a heretic even by orthodox Catholicism but it still survives in the minds of many Protestant churchgoers.

*Semi-Pelagianism* – mankind is sinful since Adam, but is still able by his own will to choose the good and choose God to save us from the good potential within man’s own heart.

We must /initiate/ salvation on our own, and God’s grace is necessary to complete it.

This ancient view of Cassian and the Massilians, slightly modifying the view of Pelagius, was also considered heresy then although it affirms original sin and some even speak of depravity.

Roger Olson writes: ‘[This view] believed that people are capable of exercising a good will toward God even apart from any infusion of supernatural grace.

This was condemned by the Second Council of Orange in 529 [officially by the church but unofficially] Semi-Pelagianism became the popular theology of the Roman Catholic church in the centuries leading up to the Protestant Reformation; it was roundly rejected by all the Reformers … Today, semi-Pelagianism is the default theology of most American evangelical Christians [I would add “who believe salvation is initiated by the human /will/ but maintained only by grace, not /works/ infused by grace – RCC version of view”].

This is revealed in the popularity of clichés such as “If you’ll take one step toward God, he’ll come the rest of the way towards you,” and [others with] almost complete neglect of human depravity and helplessness in human matters.’[2]

Olson, himself a careful classic Arminian scholar, argues that the gospel preached and the doctrine of salvation taught today in most American pulpits and lecterns, and believed in most evangelical pews, is not classical Arminianism but semi-Pelagianism, if not outright Pelagianism.

Charles Finney popularized this theology in American in the 19th century and is a man that theologians debate whether to classify him as semi-Pelagian or outright Pelagian.[3]

*Arminianism* – view promoted by some Christians in a 17th century council who rejected the Reformation doctrines of grace and followed the teachings of James Arminius (not a brand-new view, but somewhat modified version of Catholic view of man).

Refuted by Council of Dordt in Holland by Puritan and Reformed Protestants.

Classic Arminians will use the term “total depravity,” but because of God’s /prevenient grace/ in the world (undoing full effects of the fall for all [some tie in with hearing the gospel] without special sovereign grace for some), man’s will is freed to overcome depravity by man’s own choice, and man’s heart can decide to complete what God starts (unlike the former view where God completes what man starts).

I don’t want to over-simplify, but it seems to me that Genesis 6:5 doesn’t fit with any of man’s views that teach a “depravity” that is not total in reality.

Some Arminians may use the term, but it ends up being merely hypothetical – all sinners /would be/ as sinful as Genesis 6:5 states except for God’s prevenient grace that undoes the full effects of the fall.

If that’s the case, why does God see what He sees in this verse, and why does He say what He says?

Why are we spending time reviewing historical views about man’s nature before we look in-depth at the Bible’s view?

Because I’m convinced many if not most Christians have imbibed human thinking from humanism and psychology and man’s thinking and man-centered theology, and this is not mere historical trivia – your theology of man has tremendous practical implications for all of life; raising children, how churches gear their worship ~/ ministry, how you pray for people, how you understand the news when terrible crimes occur, how seriously you take sin in your own heart.

Ultimately, it’s a matter of whether we truly believe this verse or what men say or we like to think (“/many/ inclinations of the thoughts of men’s hearts are /mostly/ evil /much /of the time, but there’s a part in him that is good and can choose the good way of God”).

That’s our natural thinking, but God’s supernatural truth declares here “/every/ inclination of the thoughts of his heart is /only/ evil /all/ the time”).

Man looks at the outward appearance so he doesn’t think his nature is as bad as this verse says, but God always looks at the heart and this is what He sees.

In this verse, when it says “God saw” it should remind us of the first chapter of Genesis, where as God creates His good and perfect world, it says repeatedly “and God saw it was good … very good.”

But now after the fall into sin, perfection has been lost, and God sees something that is not good; great wickedness and evil.

When it says God saw every intention or inclination of the heart, that’s a word that also has roots earlier in Genesis (2:7) where God /fashions ~/ designs/ mankind.

Even the fashioning or imagining of thoughts (whether we act them out or not), every design of our thoughts within have been tainted and permeated by sin through and through.

Sin corrupts God’s good creation and kindness to us.

This word in v. 5 refers to human plans or intentions of our thinking.

/Objection: doesn’t fallen man think and do good things?/

James 4:13 says some men will say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”

14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.

You are /just /a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

15 Instead, /you ought /to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”

16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; *all such boasting is evil*.

Even man’s plans (which include good things on a human level) when they are plans apart from God, God considers them evil.

Romans 14:23 says “whatever is not from faith is sin”

Romans 3:23 defines sin with “falling short of the glory of God”

Hebrews 11:6 says “without faith it is impossible to please God”

 

Acts of human goodness, apart from a changed heart of faith in Christ, and a motivation for the glory of God, do not please God.

The Hebrew word in Genesis 6:5 for man’s “intent” or “imagination” became a significant theological term in the literature of the ancient rabbis for the sin nature or evil inclination.

Ever since Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, man’s nature is no longer good.

His knowledge and thinking is thoroughly sin-soaked just as every drop in the ocean is thoroughly permeated by saltwater, that’s the sea of humanity.

We would be wrong if we think “total depravity” means all act as bad as humanly possible.

/Outward/ manifestations of our sinful hearts are restrained by common grace, conscience, consequences, cops, etc.

This verse speaks of the sin /in the heart/; just because we don’t always act out what’s in here doesn’t change what’s in here.

One theologian said this doctrine is the easiest to prove, because the evidence is all around us (news, etc.) and it’s inside of us.

But “total depravity” is a doctrine rarely preached anymore.

Why don’t we feel we are as sinful as the Scriptures say we are?

For the same reason that a fish doesn’t feel wet—because it is immersed.

One of the evidences of the extent of our sinfulness is that even as we look at Scriptures today, the nature of many of us will be to not want to believe we could ever be as bad as these verses say.

That’s what makes our need so great; we don’t realize our need is so great.

The heart of man’s problem is a problem with man’s heart.

Dr. Albert Einstein (not even a Christian, but someone smart enough to recognize this among other things), said in a 1948 lecture on the nature of man in the world: “The true problem lies in the hearts and thoughts of men.

It is not a physical but an ethical one. . . .

What terrifies us is not the explosive force of the atomic bomb, but the power of the wickedness of the human heart.”[4]

Most of the world would say our biggest problem is on the outside of us, and the solution is found within us.

/The Bible teaches that our biggest problem is inside of us (in our sinful heart), and the solution is found completely outside of us (in the Word of God, in the gospel in particular, in the person and work of Christ)./

In fact, some theologians prefer the term “radical” depravity or corruption, because the root for “radical” speaks of the root or very core of something.

We are sinners to the core, the very fiber of our being.

We are bad to the bone!

A correspondent of the /London Times/ quite a while back, researching and reporting on many of the same problems we now have, ended every article with this statement: “What’s wrong with the world?”