Election - What is the Total Depravity of Man
Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?”
This refers to corrupt, depraved, degenerate acts or practice of man. It runs against societies view and our North American culture that man by nature is a depraved sinner and that man has total freedom and control over everything.
The Bible teaches that we sin because we are sinners by nature and that even the “good” things man does are tainted by sin because they are not done for the glory of God.
Man’s spiritually blind eyes must be open and the bondage of sin that renders him hopelessly enslaved or depraved and must be broken so that he can respond in faith to the Gospel message. God overcomes man’s depravity in such a way that man is able to recognize his spiritual state and his hopeless condition.
Jeremiah 13:23: (NIV): "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil.
Ephesians 2:1-3: "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind."
Let us consider Romans 9:22,23
Rom 9:22,23 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,
God says, I prepare vessels for glory, but vessels are prepared for destruction. The responsibility for such preparation lies right in the very heart of the man.
God says in Rom 9:22 "vessels of wrath fitted to destruction". God did not create anyone for wrath, but that they were “fitted for destruction.” That is, mankind has fitted himself because of sin, for destruction. It is not God who prepared these vessels; but they have prepared themselves for destruction because they would not leave their sin and turn to God.
God says in Rom 9:23 "that vessels of mercy He had prepared to glory". God elects certain people beforehand for His glory; before the foundation of the world God chose certain people to be His children in order that He would be glorified.
From all eternity, before we even existed, God decided to save some members of the human race and to let the rest of the human race perish. God chose some individuals to be saved into everlasting blessedness in heaven and others He chose to pass over, to allow them to follow the consequences of their sins into eternal torment in hell."
How to define the free will of man.
In what does the sinner's freedom consist? God never forces the sinner to sin, it is the evil heart of a sinner has an evil heart that inclines him toward sin; while divine power up-holds man from plunging deeper yet into sin.
Man’s will is bound by sin and by that nature. Like a prisoner is confined to the walls of his cell, sinful man is confined within a cell of corruption and wickedness brought on by sin. The will of sinful man is free that he can choose his sin. He’s not driven by God toward some sin.
Man can choose the form of sin that most appeals to him, but that's the limit of his freedom. He cannot choose salvation, righteousness, holiness, God, or Christ unless God has enabled him. Only God draws man to seek Him, awakens the sinner,and gives spiritual sight to the blind. Man does not have the “free will” to choose God, because his will is restrained by sin. Salvation is all of God once you understand the doctrine of total human depravity.
1 Cor. 2:14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
John 6:44 “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who has sent Me draws him.” So all that the Father gives are drawn. All who are drawn, come. All who come, I receive and I’ll never turn one of them down. Why would the Son turn down a love gift from the Father.
Romans 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined. And He predestined them to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
We were predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.
Eph. 2:1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
Eph. 2:5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
Col. 2:13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
