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Doctrines of Grace Part 1 - Total Inability By David Calderwood

For many Christians, and no doubt I fear some here this morning,
the word doctrine is like a swear word, something to be avoided at all costs
because it is bad, boring or irrelevant.
But properly understood, doctrine is always practical.
Doctrine is the key to genuine Christian living
because doctrine is simply the truth of scripture gathered together in themes.
So it's the truth of scripture in compact and ordered form.
And that always has direct practical implications for how we think and act as Christians.
This morning we begin a new series called the doctrines of grace.
And I want to help you engage in that notion of doctrine, doctrines of grace,
by asking three questions for you to think about.
The first one is this.
If someone asked you, what is the Bible about?
What would you say?
What is the Bible about?
I think many Christians would jump in and say, well that's obvious, it's about God.
Is that a right or a wrong answer?
It's about God.
Well, clearly the Bible is totally God-centered.
But I think it would actually be wrong to say the Bible is about God.
The Bible is not just a tour guide of God.
The Bible is about God in relationship with mankind.
How that relationship was formed, why that relationship collapsed and became toxic,
and how God in Jesus acted to address the rebellion,
fix the mess that people caused in that rebellion and restore the relationship.
That's what the Bible is about.
It's never about God in isolation.
It's about God in relationship with his world and his people.
Okay, next question.
So since the Bible is about God in relationship with his people, here's the next question.
What is the most important word or theme in the Bible?
Well, again, most Christians I think would reply quickly, grace.
And that's a good answer because grace really does permeate every single page of the Bible.
And it has to because grace speaks of what is required for God to re-establish
and maintain relationship with sinful people, rebels.
And therefore we see as we read the Bible that so much of God's character is properly described as gracious.
He's a God of grace.
That is, he treats his rebellious people quite contrary to what they deserve.
So the Bible is about God in relationship with his people, his sinful people.
The key characteristic that God displays in re-establishing and maintaining the relationship with his sinful people is grace.
So the third question then zooms in even more.
Who then is the active agent in the salvation of any given individual?
Or make it personal.
Who then is the active agent in your salvation, if you're a Christian here this morning?
If you're a Christian, is your state of being saved, being a Christian, entirely due to God's activity in your life?
Or have you contributed to your salvation at some point along the way to some degree?
They're pretty big questions.
Put it another way.
Did God save you by his sovereign external activity in your life?
Or did God provide assistance to you at certain points, certain key points, necessary points,
so that then you were able to save yourself by determined application of your own resources and utilization of that which he has provided?
Now here's what Christians have divided in history.
All the major reformers, Calvin and Luther, etc., having returned to the serious study of scripture after the medieval period where the scripture was really lost,
having returned to the serious study of scripture, all the major reformers became convinced that every aspect of salvation,
from start to finish, is due to God's sovereign action for us and in us.
In other words, God saves sinners from start to finish.
And they were forced to this conviction in response, as I say, to the teaching of the Bible,
and particularly the teaching that sin, the nature and extent of sin, is such that it leaves any given person unable and unwilling to save themselves.
And that's why in the Reformation they coined the slogan, Grace alone, salvation by grace alone.
But here's the rub.
Not all who call themselves Christians, not all who call themselves reformers, agreed with this teaching about salvation.
Some maintain that, OK, in spite of sin, and yes, sin is really serious, it really impacts on us severely,
but in spite of sin, some believe that a person could still engage in what effectively is a process of salvation,
in which God does His bit, and they, as an individual sinner, do their bit.
Albeit, God might do the largest bit, but they still contribute to their salvation, to a degree, from their own resources.
Now, there's the question formed, and with that in mind, and the questions I've asked in mind,
I want to introduce you now to what's the history of what become known as the doctrines of grace,
and the mnemonic that goes with it, Chilok.
We need to go back in history to the year 1610.
It's almost 100 years since Luther's started a debate, which then became known as the Protestant Reformation.
Almost 100 years later, 1610, a Dutch theologian called Jacobus Arminius,
who claimed to be a Bible-based reformer, actually rejected what Luther and Calvin and the other mainline reformers
had to say and believed about the matter of salvation.
And Arminius produced five alternative propositions.
His propositions were based on the belief that, what I've just said, though a person is severely affected by sin,
they still have the free will or the ability to choose to try and do the right thing by God.
And that for his part, God, when he sees this attempt to do the right thing, to struggle for faith and belief,
then God on his part responds and provides what they can't provide for themselves,
namely the death of Jesus to deal with his sins.
And so it comes down to this, that according to Arminius, God actually makes salvation possible.
God has provided all the bits that we need, we can't provide for ourselves,
in response to his recognition that we're trying to do the right thing.
And so salvation is actually a combination of both.
God doing his bit and an individual doing their bit.
At the Synod of Dort in 1616, each of the Arminius's five points were answered one by one
and these answers became known as the five points of Calvinism.
A terrible name, better known as the doctrines of grace.
Hence the five points of the doctrines of grace.
Now, again, it's really important to understand history.
These points were never intended to say all that Calvin said,
never intended to teach all that the Bible taught about salvation,
never intended to teach all that the Bible had to teach and say about grace.
It was never intended to do that, it was simply answering these five alternatives that were thrown up.
It was five conclusions, five reaffirmations of the doctrines of grace.
These are studies that know the Bible clearly teaches that from start to finish
the work of salvation is entirely God's sovereign, powerful work in the life of individuals.
And so these doctrines of grace are useful because they do outline
the major biblical teaching of salvation by grace alone
and that's why we're going to be looking at them over the next few weeks.
Now, one more point in history and then we'll come back to our own day.
It should be noted that Arminius wasn't teaching anything new.
Arminius was only picking up what had been taught 1200 years earlier by a guy called Pelagius,
taught exactly the same stuff.
And the guy Pelagius, yeah, him, Pelagius,
he was actually so successful in putting forward these doctrines
that they became the dominant view of salvation right through the medieval church,
right through to today in the modern Roman Catholic church,
which is the common linkage through the medieval church.
And in turn, that teaching has once more become very popular.
In fact, I would say that it has now become dominant even among evangelical,
so-called evangelical, Bible-believing Christians.
And we need to hear as we start this series that it's a serious challenge.
This is not just a slight difference of opinion.
It's not whether you put a comma in instead of a full stop.
It's not like that. It's a chalk and cheese type argument.
And the argument is summed up like this.
Either God acts sovereignly and externally to save sinners who otherwise could not save themselves,
or God enables or helps sinners to save themselves.
Now the doctrines of grace teach that people left themselves will not and cannot believe.
Now that's a pretty hopeless plight, but the doctrines of grace fall through very positively and say,
given this hopeless plight, God acts decisively.
God acts in them and for them, doing everything necessary for salvation.
And that process starts long before they're born and continues until they get to the very end
where they're in heaven for eternity with Jesus.
The doctrines of grace say that from there to there, eternity to eternity, God acts sovereignly to save sinful people.
This is otherwise known, you may have heard the terminology, the doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation.
And so it's based on the premise that salvation is not something any given individual would naturally choose.
It is not something we can achieve through our own resources.
It is not a process in which we cooperate with God, each contributing our part.
And finally, it's not a position that we hang on to, having been saved, it's not a position we hang on to by our own efforts.
Alright, that's been a really long introduction.
But it's one of those introductions I think is necessary if we're to understand the key to salvation truth.
And the key to salvation truth is, as we're looking at this morning, to do with the Bible's teaching about sin,
the severity of sin, the extent of sin, the impact of sin on any given individual and humanity as a group.
And that doctrine, among the doctrines of grace, is called the doctrine of total depravity.
It's a catchy title, isn't it?
It's a title that actually makes you sort of automatically want to draw back from it, because of how we understand the word depravity.
I'll say more about that in a minute.
But there's a companion doctrine that goes with it, total depravity or total inability.
And I prefer the modern, the more modern idea, total inability.
They say the same thing, essentially, but you don't have to get over that hurdle of people sucking in their breath when they read the word depravity.
But I don't want to move away from that total depravity either.
And I want to demonstrate this doctrine of total depravity from Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 to 10.
There are literally dozens and dozens of verses and passages I could take you to, but I just have time to go to one section of the Bible this morning.
And I go to this because it is particularly clear what's been said.
Paul makes two very simple points as he writes to the Christians at a place called Ephesus, modern day Turkey.
First point, Paul says to them, at one time you were spiritually dead.
Verse 1, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions in sins.
Now it's not too hard to understand the English of that.
You were dead.
Now it's graphic picture language, isn't it, to make an extreme point.
Paul's saying that at one time every single person was effectively like a corpse in terms of their relationship before and with God.
Now you don't need much explanation with that, do you?
In other words, what he's saying is that every part of what makes a person a person has been effectively deadened by sin.
Their body, their mind, their emotions, their willpower, their affections.
All have been so seriously impacted by sin that it leaves an individual, though he might be a strong, healthy, breathing, energetic individual, spiritually it leaves him like a corpse.
And there's two aspects to that. A corpse is both unaware of its state and also unable to change its state.
And that's the force of which Paul's speaking here. That's what sin does to a person.
It affects them in a way, in terms of their relationship with God, that they don't naturally or automatically or immediately or easily perceive.
And therefore, secondly, it ties in with that but separate. They're unwilling and unable to change.
Now the question is how did such a situation develop? We'll look at verse 2.
In which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit, who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
Paul's point again is very simple. All this hopeless situation has come directly as a consequence of sin.
The way Paul puts it in verse 2, it's rebellion. That is, the expression of rebellion which is following Satan.
Satan's determination was to be totally opposed to God, to reject God and to set up an alternative rule, an alternative dimension of life.
And so Paul said this state of spiritual death is the direct consequence of rebellion or sin against God.
So a person left to their natural inclinations is not morally neutral towards God but is actually, according to verse 2, hostile to God.
People are naturally hardwired to be hostile to God.
That is, the concept of God and God's rule in our lives directing and capturing us is instinctively repulsive. People don't like the notion.
Now it's important to note that this hostility does not always show in an aggressive rejection of God.
We see that around us all the time in our society. People are shaking their fists at God.
But it's not always like that. Look at verse 3. Paul says all of us also lived in the same way.
Now this is Paul the religious Pharisee speaking to pagans.
So the sweep of Paul's statement is that even religious people are rebels in their religion.
Romans chapter 1 details that out.
How does that work? How can people be at the one point appearing to worship God in religious fervor and yet be a rebel?
Well, Romans chapter 1 tells us it's because they reduced God to fit their own picture of what pleases God.
So even as they want to appear to worship God, they're actually making God fit what they think He should be like.
They're offering God what they think should please God.
So hostility and rebellion comes in different forms.
Whatever form it comes, it ends in the same problem. And it's a legal problem.
Verse 3, we're told the legal problem we have as a result of rebellion is that we are condemned in our hostility.
We are under God's wrath, God's righteous judgment.
God's character is very clearly divided in scripture.
Where there's obedience and delight, God showers with blessing.
Where the rebellion and rejection, God condemns in wrath.
God's offended that His creatures should treat them with such disrespect and disregard.
And so He justly is angry and He righteously condemns.
And that's a whole heap of problems. Personal problems, legal problems, attitude problems, willpower problems, affection problems.
And put all that together, so the worst thing of all about this being spiritually dead is that people don't even realize their predicament.
And certainly don't realize that according to scripture, according to God's own word, that people cannot do anything to please God in the sense of winning His favor.
And we see that every time we go to a funeral, don't we? People who've lived a lifetime despising God serve up some platitudes that at the end of the day are enough to get them to heaven.
As if somehow or other, God will be happy with the sort of scraps of our plate.
People are not even aware of their predicament. People are convinced that everything will be well.
Contrary to what the Bible says, people should realize that any attempt to try and win God's favor and make them acceptable to God when they die is doomed to failure.
Now at this point I want to pause and just pose two common questions in this whole area.
The first one is this. Are people really that sinful? That's the concept of total depravity. Are people really that sinful?
Are people really that sinful? Is sin really that bad?
Now, when we use the term total depravity, it is never used in the sense that people think for a moment that any individual person is as bad as he or she could possibly be.
That's not the concept of total depravity. Total is not absolute. Total is comprehensive. That is, every faculty of a person's being has been decimated, destroyed as a result of sin.
So there's no part of our being as individuals, as people, that is not deadened as a result of sin. That's what total depravity means.
So total depravity isn't suggested for a moment that people aren't capable of doing good things. Our world's full of people who are doing marvelous things with respect to our world.
No question about that. It doesn't suggest for a moment that people don't have a conscience of what's right and wrong.
The world's full of people with a very sharp conscience of right and wrong. We spend a lifetime fighting for right and wrong.
The Bible doesn't say anything like that. It never speaks like that. But it does say that in terms of our spiritual state before God, sin has just wreaked havoc at every point in our being.
And it means that when a person is born, you think of a little baby born, they're not born morally neutral.
The reality of the sinful nature is that when a baby is born, cute and lovely as they are, they are already hard-wired to reject and oppose God.
They don't have to be taught that.
Sin has mutilated and disabled every faculty to do with being image-bearers so that a person cannot think, choose or do anything that would be acceptable to God.
The second question is, don't people have a free will whereby they can choose to serve the Lord?
Doesn't a person have a free will? Don't I have a free will?
That's a pretty tough question, a pretty hard question, a very common question.
But the question has buried within a misunderstanding that brings confusion.
And that is, people confuse the possibility of making real choices with the concept of this free will.
Now, an illustration, I've used an illustration before, I'm going to use it again because I think it helps.
So we're going to imagine a vulture circling around.
And on the ground, the vulture has in his eye a rotten, maggoty, stinking sheep's carcass.
It's there. And just over here, a few meters away, there's a beautifully served lamb dinner.
Vegetables, gravy, white table sloths, you know, all that sort of, I'm getting carried away.
You get the difference. Which one will the vulture choose?
The vulture will choose the maggoty carcass. Why?
Because its choice, which is a real choice, is made within the limits of its nature.
Its nature is to feed on carrion, which is rotten stuff.
And so it will always choose within the limits of its nature.
And we've got to separate the two. There's a real choice, but there's not an unlimited free will.
The bird can only act within its nature. In the same way as I have to act within the limits of my nature,
I cannot choose to live under the sea with unassisted breathing.
Because my nature says I have to live where I can get oxygen, where I can get air.
I can choose. I can make a real choice where I live. One of those choices would be rather stupid.
So they're a real choice, but that's not the same as free will.
In the same way, people who are hard-wired to reject God in their hearts and minds and attitudes
will make real choices, but those choices will be limited by their sinful nature.
That is, their choices will always be choices to reject God.
So in practical terms, people are not declared sinners because they choose to sin.
The very opposite is true. People choose to sin because they're sinners, because that's their nature.
They're hard-wired to disobey God.
So with those two questions dealt with, and this statement from Paul,
you are dead in your transgressions and sins. Dead as a doornail.
The question that has to be asked, where to from here?
Doesn't seem to be too many options ahead, does it?
Well, again an illustration, when you seek treatment from a doctor,
the doctor's assessment of your illness determines where you go from that point.
If he thinks you're there because you're a hypochondriac,
because you come in with a headache, he'll say go home and take a Panadol and lie down.
If he thinks you get really serious disease, cancer or something like that,
he'll operate urgently and immediately.
The assessment determines where you go to.
His starting point determines what follows, and that's precisely Paul's point.
See, Paul doesn't just think that people are a bit off-color.
He doesn't just think that people are a bit sick spiritually or a bit weak spiritually,
or that they sort of somehow or other strayed just a little bit out of the main line spiritually.
So that therefore what he offers them is just a little bit of a boost to get them back on track,
to get them back to the point where they can help themselves again.
No, according to Paul, a person's predicament before God is absolutely much more severe than that,
much, much more serious.
Before God they're spiritually dead, spiritually helpless.
In verse 12 of that same chapter he puts it in different words,
without hope and without God in the world.
Now that's a pretty bleak prognosis, isn't it?
So we ask again, where to from here?
And the answer bursts out of scripture in verse 4.
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ,
even when we were dead in transgressions.
Trans, just let that statement sink in for a few moments.
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ,
even when we were dead in our transgressions.
That may be the most significant, profound statement you will ever hear in the whole of your life.
I say maybe, because the other one possibly will be, welcome home, faithful servant.
I couldn't work out in my mind which one would be more profound.
God's love and mercy combine to give new life to the sinner.
Now, having said that, let's look at the rest of these verses,
and look at the tenses, the grammar tenses from verse 4 through to verse 10,
and you'll see that everything is in the passive tense, perfect passive Muslim.
That is, perfect passive describes an action that's been taken by somebody else
in the past, the consequences and benefits of which are ongoing into the future.
It is by grace you have been saved,
and God raised us up with Christ and seated us in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus
in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace,
expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For it is by grace you have been saved through faith,
and this is not from yourself, that's with reference to the faith.
It is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast,
for we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works
which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Brilliant statement, and behind that is this,
God knew it would never be enough just to announce to people that new life was possible through Jesus.
Since people were dead, they needed to be renewed,
they needed even a stronger thing than renewal, they needed to be resurrected.
They didn't have to do to give a dead person life,
and that's the language that Paul uses here.
We were dead, but God made you alive.
That is the work of God in saving a sinner, taking people who are dead and making them alive.
And only God's power can do that.
It's not enough, therefore, God knew it was not enough to bring the gospel to people so they could hear it.
No, God knew that he had to work in people's hearts and bring people to the gospel so they would actually be saved.
It's not that we came alive by our own choice.
Verse 6 and 7 says we've not only been given resurrection privileges,
but we've been given precisely the same resurrection privileges as Christ had received.
Verse 8, even our faith, which is what appears to be our response,
well, it's not what appears to be, it is our response to God's gift in Christ,
through his Spirit. Even that, we're told, is not left to chance. God actually gives that as a gift to us.
God makes us believe.
God actually opens our eyes to our predicament.
He changes our desires and attitudes so that we can reach out and take God's gracious gift of salvation.
And finally, verses 9 and 10, even the changed lifestyle of new obedience and service of Jesus that results from being saved,
even that, we're told, has been planned by God for us, what God has intended for us all along.
Now, my friends, to my ears and eyes, that just seems so blooming obvious.
So they ask the question then, in the light of that, why do people find this teaching so hard to accept?
And I'll be really surprised if there are not a few people here this morning already thinking it's massively overstated.
This can't be right.
Why do people find this truth so hard to accept?
Well, again, I say it's because of the starting point for thinking about God.
I'm thinking about God's standard. I'm thinking about sin and what sin means and what sin is.
Throughout history, the pattern has been the same.
When people move away from God's description of sin and the sinner,
when people move away from God's description of his holiness and his absolute demands and standards for heaven,
then inevitably, and you can see it in history, in the church,
inevitably, people start to believe that the gap between God and man isn't that big.
We can actually bridge the gap through our own efforts.
We can actually bring something to the table with which to bargain with God.
In our own day, the pattern's the same.
There are just so many so-called evangelical Protestant churches
have as their starting point the humanist philosophy of our society around the Bible.
That is the inherent belief that mankind is basically good.
And given the right circumstances, given the right inputs, given the right environment,
we can be masters of our own destiny.
That is our modern philosophical standing point.
Well, it says modern, but it's actually old.
It goes well back before that, way back to Aristotle and people before him even.
But it's portrayed as modern.
So with that belief that man is the sinner and things that were inherently good,
given the right circumstances, we can decide our own spiritual destiny.
Then against that, people have lost a sense of God's holy character
and a sense of the awfulness of sin.
In fact, the word sin has almost disappeared from our society.
God's happy to respond to what we think and decide is right.
When it comes to sin, sin is no longer an offense against God,
but simply a breach of accepted standards in our world
and those accepted standards are open to negotiation.
So if we decide we want to change something,
make something that was originally a sin into now acceptable mainstream stuff,
well, that's fine.
And if Christians don't like that, then they've got to get with the times,
they've got to get modern, they've got to get rid of that Bible
if that's stopping them from doing it.
And that's where we're at today.
And that has come into the church, into evangelical churches.
And so the gospel is all about people and their needs and their desires.
It might be the gospel of self-esteem.
Jesus will help you feel fulfilled and happy and strong.
Or it might be the gospel of good Christian disciplines and commitment.
So if I read my Bible enough, if I'm committed to my local church enough,
if I do this, if I do that, if I do that, I think, then I'll be saved.
It sounds really pious, but it's the gospel of discipline and commitment.
The Bible's totally opposed to any such thinking
because it says that God saves sinners.
God saves sinners who are acting by acting contrary to what we deserve
and doing for us what we could never do for ourselves.
And the problem is, you see, that that statement is such a blow to human arrogance,
the human self-confidence, that we automatically tend just to reject it.
You tell somebody down the street at your workplace or on the sporting field somewhere
that really, you know, they've got a total inability to please God
and they'll either thump you or they'll dismiss you rather quickly.
So last thing, and I'm just about finished, given this, what sort of people are Christians to be?
Well, God is very clear in His Word that the ultimate purpose,
His ultimate purpose in saving sinners is that He would have a great multitude of people.
What He calls the church, who would gladly honor Him and live under His rule
and thereby give Him the glory and honor and respect He so richly deserves.
Friend, we ought to be very much a part of doing that very thing for our God.
If we get any concept of being saved, if we get any concept of what it is to be a sinner,
if we get any concept of the cost of God's grace to us,
the commitment of God's love to us, the extent of God's mercy to us,
the faithfulness of God's persevering with us until we get all the way home to heaven,
if we get any sense of that, we ought to be unstoppable in our prayers of the Lord God.
Unstoppable in our prayers of the Lord God.
And we ought to be absolute fanatics.
We ought to be the number one fans in Jesus' club of fans,
if I can put it in that sort of crass way.
You see, the reality for us so much, so often, is ho-ham.
It's all too familiar.
If you and I really believe that we're dead in sin and under God's wrath,
before God's grace burst into our lives, and I tell you, you should never,
and I include myself in this even though I'm pointing at you because I've thought about this myself,
you should never ever be guilty of turning up your nose at somebody else's sinful predicament.
And yet that's what we're so guilty of as Christians.
We just love to get a bit of juicy gossip, oh, I didn't know they were like that.
Well, my friend, you are like that, I am like that, apart from God's grace in our lives.
We're so out of place, this tap-tapping of Christians.
Now that's not to say we condone sin, that's a completely different thing altogether.
We must address sin in ourselves and in others.
But it's not de-tap-tatted.
And finally, if you and I really believe that sin is so offensive to God
that nothing less than the death of his son could deal with it,
and we've experienced the benefits of that death, that costly death,
then surely, my friends, we will be so cautious and careful about our own sin.
And again, you see, I speak for myself, and I'll leave you to work this one out for yourself.
So often, I'm so careless about sin.
I live with it so easily, and at times, I actually protect it in my own life.
How can that be? That rubs God's glory in the dirt.
Let's pray.
Lord, help us to hear your word this morning.
It's a hard word, and our natural inclination is to reject it.
Lord, help us to see through the surface of our own minds.
Help us to see our condition as it was before you, before we were Christians.
And Lord, if there's people here this morning who are not Christians,
help each one to see that that is their position now before you.
And help us to go from there to say the wonder of what you've done for us in Christ.
Amen.