OceanSide church of Christ

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CALVINISM (5)

Total Hereditary Depravity (3)

Victor M. Eskew

 

            Almost every denomination affirms that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.  They realize that this means that God’s Word is the authority in religious matters.  Thus, they must turn to the Bible in order to prove both their beliefs and practices.  So, when we are studying with people from different religions, they will bring up various verses in an attempt to prove the veracity of their religious teachings.  When this happens, we must be able to provide an answer. 

            Let’s look at some of the proof-texts used by Calvinists to prove the doctrine of Total Hereditary Depravity.  One of them is Genesis 6:5.  “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  It is said that this verse shows the universal depravity of man prior to the flood.  Two phrases are emphasized:  “every imagination of the thoughts” and “his heart was only evil continually.” 

            There are two ways of responding to this verse.  First, the verse is not describing innocent children of Noah’s day.  It is describing the adults of Noah’s day.  The world had turned from God.  The adults were engaging in evil, wickedness, and violence.  When the children grew up, they, too, chose to practice the lusts of the flesh.  It was not that they were born inherently wicked.  Mankind chose to pursue an ungodly path.  This answer is strengthened when we consider the second response to this verse.  The second answer lies in a man named Noah.  Noah stood in stark contrast to the rest of the world.  “These are the generations of Noah:  Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God” (Gen. 6:9).  How could this be?  If all men are born with evil natures, how could one man, Noah, be so righteous?  The truth is that Noah chose to be righteous.  He chose to walk with God.  Dear readers, we are not evil at birth.  We become evil by our choices.  Because Noah stood in opposition to others, God provided His grace unto Noah that would save both him and his family from the flood (Gen. 6:8).  That grace came in the form of a plan that involved faithful obedience on the part of the noble patriarch (Gen. 6:14-16, 22; 7:5; Heb. 11:7).

            Another Old Testament proof-text used to teach Total Depravity is Psalm 51:5.  The King James Version is translated as follows:  “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”  The New International Version takes much liberty in its translation and falsely proclaims the doctrine of Total Hereditary Depravity with this translation:  “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”  These are several ways to answer this verse.  First, do the words “iniquity” and “sin” describe David in the womb?  Or, do they describe his mother who was giving birth to him.  In other words, David was conceived and sharpened inside a person who had committed sin and iniquity.  This truth could be said of every human being (See Rom. 3:23). 

            A second answer to Psalm 51:5 lies in Acts 2:8.  In Acts 2:1-4, the Holy Spirit was poured out onto the apostles and they “began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterances.”  These men were not uttering jibberish  and non-sense.  They were uttering languages that they had never been taught.  This amazed those who had gathered in the city of Jerusalem for the celebration of Pentecost.  In verse 8, we have a question that was asked:  “And how hear we every man in our tongue, wherein we were born?”  Notice, they say that they were born “in” a tongue.  In other words, they were born in a place wherein a certain language was spoken.  In like manner, David was born “in sin.”  He was born into a world where sin was practiced.  Note this as well.  Just as those who were “born into a certain language” did not know the language at birth, so Peter did not have sin when he was “born into sin” at birth.

            A third answer to Psalm 51:5, involves David’s genealogy.  David was a descendant of Judah through Tamar.  Judah’s relationship with Tamar, however, involved fornication.  According to Deuteronomy 23:2, it would take ten generations to pass before a descendant of Judah could enter into the courts of the Lord to worship.  “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord.”  Thus, David was shapen “in iniquity.”  David, however, was the first generation to be able to enter into the courts of the Lord.  Thus, he writes in Psalm 122:1-2:  “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.  Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.” 

            Let’s now turn our attention to two verses in the New Testament that are used to support Total Hereditary Depravity.  One of them is Ephesians 2:3.  In this verse Paul say that in times past the Gentiles “were by nature the children of wrath.”  Emphasis is placed on the word “nature.”  The Calvinist believes this proves man has a sinful nature.  The word “nature,” however, does not describe the spirit or soul of man.  Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon gives this meaning of the word:  “a mode of feeling and acting which by long habit has become nature.”  All Paul is saying is that the Gentiles had been fulfilling the lusts of the flesh and of the mind for a long period of time.  This long time practice was their nature, their habitual way of doing things.  1 Corinthians 11:14 is another example involving this definition of the word “nature.”  “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?”  Over a long period of time, the custom was for men to have short hair.  If he were referring to the ordinary course of nature itself, men would have had long hair.  This was not in Paul’s mind.  Nature, their long standing practice, involved keeping their hair short.

            A final verse we will discuss is Romans 5:19.  Paul writes:  “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners…”  The Calvinist believes that this teaches that all are corrupt, depraved at birth.  All Paul really means is that Adam’s transgression brought sin into the world.  Sadly, from that time, all like Adam, have chosen to transgress the law of God (1 John 3:4).  It is interesting that the last portion of Romans 5:19 is often omitted when making the argument for Total Depravity.  The last half of the verse reads:  “…so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”  In the second part of the verse Paul writes about Jesus’ death on Calvary.  Here is the argument.  If all were made sinners by Adam’s transgression, why aren’t all men made righteous by Jesus’ obedience at Calvary?  Is Jesus’ blood less powerful than Adam’s sin?  Hardly!  Jesus’ blood is more powerful than any sin man can commit.  If there is universal depravity because of Adam’s sin, why isn’t there universal salvation because of Jesus’ death?  The fact is that both statements have to be explained in light of other passages of Scripture regarding sin and salvation.