Depravity Deliberated
Today’s message concludes Mark 7, a chapter in which Mark carefully crafts a synopsis of Jesus’ teachings and demonstrations of the moral condition of all people. The summation is the 21st through the 23rd verses: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.” Jesus used the familiar term “heart” as the moral repository of all people. In His description was not one word of commendation for the goodness of anyone but rather the identity of a holding place for evil that may at any time erupt into the performance of immoral acts. This is one of many scriptures that signify the sinful potential of every person.
The scripture I chose for our congregational reading is Ephesians 2 which most remember for verses 8-10. These verses tell us our salvation is by grace through faith and not by any good works we may do. Most will eagerly quote these verses without explanation of the reason they must be true. The first part of the chapter paints the dismal prospects of our moral condition. We are dead in trespasses and sins and under the control of the prince and power of the air. This power is Satan who aggravates and stirs up our evil hearts to keep us bound in its corruption. We are without desire or ability to remedy this condition. Additionally, scriptures spoken by Jesus and others say that Satan blinds us to the light of the gospel. He means Satan obscures our spiritual understanding leaving us unable to decipher the cause and the truth of Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins. This results in children who are not destined for eternal happiness but for the eternal destruction of hell.
For the salvation of any person, a power greater than Satan must overcome the sinner’s natural blindness and affect a change of his sinful disposition. This power is not in us nor is there any ability to do better or to see beyond the darkness of the back of our eyelids. God must do this for us which is the reason Paul said grace, faith, and salvation are gifts of God. There is no merit in our work because no good works proceed from a corrupt heart. Thus, Jesus’ teaching of the heart’s terrible condition in Mark 7 concurs with Ephesians 2. With more space to fortify the argument for man’s total depravity and total inability, I could mention Jeremiah’s assessment of the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of the heart, or I could include the scripture in Job: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.” Anywhere we turn in scripture, we vainly search for anything about the good moral nature of anyone without Jesus.
It is the gross misunderstanding of this deplorable condition that leads to a more favorable reinterpretation of the method of regenerating the totally depraved. The famous, or should I say the infamous, Robert Schuler, redefined original sin as the lack of self-esteem. His redefinition affects the meaning of “born again” which he also needed to redefine. He wrote, “To be born again means that we must change from a negative to a positive self-image—from inferiority to self-esteem, from fear to love, from doubt to trust.” As Bereans, search the scriptures carefully. Do you see Jesus speaking to anyone about changing from a negative self-image to a positive one? Jesus supplied the correct definition of our moral condition. To be born again is not to change our self-esteem. It is to esteem Christ as our righteousness and ourselves as our hopelessness. Why are we not a part of the solution? It ensures we do not boast, and God receives all the glory.
Pastor V. Mark Smith