Dear Friends,

     A popular radio program on Christian radio entitled “A New Beginning” paints the consistent picture that new birth and a person’s eternal salvation merely means that God gives you a fresh start, a “new beginning.” If you take advantage of the opportunity, you will spend eternity in heaven. If not, eternal judgment is your end. Is this idea the truth of Scripture? Is man’s only problem his failure to make the right decision and to take advantage of opportunities set before him by God? Or is man’s problem deeper and more profound? This week’s chapter deals with the Biblical teaching of man’s real spiritual problem. Given the teaching of Scripture, fallen and unregenerate humans lack both the ability and the motive or desire to regain spiritual and intimate fellowship with God. In fact Scripture rather asserts that fallen humans live in open hostility to God. They may well hide their hostility from other people, but their choices and conduct clearly manifest their true attitude toward God.

     Based on the teaching of Scripture unregenerate man’s character and nature are so hopelessly steeped in sin and hatred toward God that only an act of divine mercy from God—beginning to end—can remedy man’s sinful condition.

God bless,

Joe Holder

Man's Deficiency: Ability and Motive

What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. (Romans 3:9-18)

So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:8)

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)

     What is the real problem with fallen, unregenerate humanity? Is it ability or is it motive? Those who follow more or less the Pelagian/Arminian view of theology will assert that man retains the ability to please God, so they view their primary mission in preaching as motivating fallen man to do the right thing. As we have learned in our study of the impact the fall had on Adam and all of subsequent humanity, man lost the ability and the motive to do good. In the last chapter I focused on Romans 3:9-18. These verses emphasize fallen sinful man's actual conduct, but in so doing they speak both to man's ability and his motive. Perhaps man's motive leads this description of man's fallen sinfulness, for motive drives conduct. To further make the point this week's verses add Roman's 8:8, a verse which concludes a tightly reasoned lesson from Paul in the Roman letter regarding sinful fallen man's lack of spiritual ability. "…they that are in the flesh cannot please God." To these verses I add First Corinthians 2:14, another summary conclusion that follows Paul's consistently reasoned teaching regarding fallen man's nature and sinful disposition. This verse speaks directly to sinful man's lack of ability to "receive the things of the Spirit of God." All of these verses confront the popular notion of unsaved man's ability. If an unregenerate (not born again, not saved from sin) person possesses an inherent ability to do as much of spiritually righteous acts as a regenerate person-thus his only saved-unsaved distinctive is his motivation-these verses mean nothing at all, for they categorically address the unsaved person's lack of ability to perform acceptable spiritual actions, physical or mental. The word translated cannot in Romans 8:8 is a combination of two words in the Greek text of the verse. The first word is a strong negative. The second word has the following meaning:

     Thus the linking of the two words emphasizes fallen man's (Paul's term "they that are in the flesh") lack of ability to please God. Interestingly the same two words appear in First Corinthians 2:14, "…neither can." Both of these verses reject the idea that fallen unsaved humans possess the ability to 1) please God, 2) receive the things of the Spirit of God, or 3) know such things. In combination these three passages describe unsaved humans quite clearly. They actively practice sin, and they lack the desire and the ability to pursue God and godliness-anything spiritual in the sense of things that relate to God from a truly spiritual perspective. Isaiah focuses on the desires, motives, or will of the wicked in terms of spiritual matters.

Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the LORD. (Isaiah 26:10)

     The word "will" speaks to the wicked person's conduct, but it also addresses his/her natural inclination, the will itself. Thus both fallen humanity's will, motives, or desires, and abilities are alien to any action or attitude that can possibly please God. What are the theological implications of this inherent lack of ability and motive? Clearly they are significant. Any view of regeneration that requires any form or degree of participation from the unregenerate person imposes an impossible task upon him. Such a view of the new birth demands that the person think or do what he/she utterly lacks both the ability and desire to do. In effect it demands the impossible, leaving us with the senseless conclusion that in the end no one could possibly gain his/her salvation; the logic of such a view of salvation leaves heaven empty and hell with a population explosion! In a rather futile attempt to avoid the problems of this theological view some folks view the human means that they continue to insist on requiring for a person to be saved as a "means" or "instrument" and not the actual cause of salvation itself. However, this view gives no relief from the implications of these passages. Is fallen man any more capable of exercising "means" or "instrumentality" than of performing actual works to accomplish his/her personal salvation? Paul's view of the unregenerate person's utter lack of ability to do anything spiritually acceptable to God explains his analogy in Ephesians 2:1; prior to God's saving grace and work in the unregenerate sinner, we all were "dead in trespasses and sins." There is a world of difference between a sick person and a dead person. The sick person may suffer various degrees of deficiency, but they inherently possess life and with it certain residual abilities. The dead person has no ability and no cognizance of anything. There are no functional degrees of death. Dead is dead! The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah acknowledged this same inherent lack of desire and ability.

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. (Jeremiah 13:23)

     In the analogy there is nothing inherently wrong with the Ethiopian's skin color any more than there is anything wrong with the leopard's spots. Jeremiah's point deals with ability. What the Ethiopian and the leopard are by nature they cannot change. However, when we go from the analogy to the lesson, both Jeremiah and Paul confront sinful and fallen humanity with the fact that there is something profoundly wrong with depraved humanity, but such a person is as wholly lacking in ability to alter his/her condition as the Ethiopian or the leopard. To tell a person whom we consider to be unregenerate that they must do something to alter their spiritual nature or state would be as futile and senseless as going to the cemetery and telling the dead in their graves that they need to do something to remedy their death-or telling the Ethiopian or the leopard that they need to think, wish, or do something to change their basic nature. It is demanding the impossible of the incapable! There are no degrees of ability in any of these passages. There is no residual or dormant ability that needs merely to be encouraged and energized. There is no hidden talent that merely needs to be developed. The young man who approached Jesus with the preconception that he could do something to save himself-and errantly thought he had already done it all-was no doubt disappointed when Jesus reminded him that, despite all he had claimed to have done, he yet was deficient. (Luke 18:18-30) Fallen, depraved humanity as a consequence of the fall and demonstrated every moment of their lives thus lacks both the desire and the ability to do anything of a spiritual quality or nature that honors God, much less anything that merits divine favor or salvation. The implications are tremendous. Left to their own abilities and/or desires and will, all of fallen humanity cannot-and do not-desire any form of fellowship with God. Based on the array of Old Testament citations that Paul gives us in the passage from the third chapter of Romans, they are rather hostile to God than neutral toward Him. The remedy for man's sin problem does not therefore lie in man but in God-necessarily so.